I was stunned by Dr. James Hansen’s response in this article in the Virgina Informer
Excerpt:
“For this fall,” the organizer wrote in his e-mail to Mr. Hansen, “we are hoping to host a debate on global climate change and its implications. Patrick Michaels has agreed to come, and my organization would like you to come and debate Dr. Michaels in Williamsburg. The date is very flexible, and we can tailor the day of the debate completely to your schedule. We will be able to pay for your travel expenses and offer you an honorarium for your time. Please let me know if you would be interested.”
Mr. Hansen’s response was, simply, “not interested.”
His reply — devoid of any salutation, punctuation, capitalization or signature — came an hour after Mr. Katz sent his original e-mail.
I suppose for Dr. Hansen, debating and defending your work is “futile“?
In my opinion, demonstrating arrogance in correspondence and ignoring reasonable debate doesn’t do much to bolster confidence in the man’s work.
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Every time I show anyone data which disproves the CO2 driving theory my responses are ” How do you know this isn’t some fake data? “, “This is obviously doctored data.”
Well the truth is I don’t but then surely the same could be said for contrary AGW data?
Like Einstein said: one fact is enough to discredit a hypothesis.
Well to be fair I will use Al Gore’s own data, (the AGW supporter’s own data).
The exact same data I will use, the Vostok Ice Core. Except CO2 and Temperature will be superimposed as to not give any illusion and be split apart like what Gore did.
Superimposed, this “universal” evidence shows
***Fact: Carbon dioxide rise lags temperature rise by 800 to1000 years.***
This fact destroys the FUNDAMENTAL base of the AGW theory.
So Brendan H, there it is. One fact destroys a hypothesis and with it, an empire.
Brendan H. “In this regard, sceptics who demand debate typically claim a desire for the public audience to hear ‘both sides’ but fail to mention the aim of such an exercise.
Since the science is not going to be decided by public debate, the aim must be to demonstrate to onlookers that there are dissenting views and to gain support for those views. In other words, such demands are a political exercise, and not a desire to clarify the science. ”
Well no the science won’t be decided by public debate but instead we might get past the ‘smothering’ , and bias of the media. In general the public simply accept the ‘facts’ as they are told.
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the state can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequencies of the lie.” Goebbels
Perhaps as the horrendous cost of ‘tackling climate change’ becomes apparent to the people, the whole scam will be exposed.
Falling temperatures will help in this respect (though of course be a disaster in other respects.) Nature will win.
“Oh, what fools those mortals be” Puck, Midsummer Nights’ Dream, Shakespear.
randomengineer
“Dr. Hansen knows this and fires back the only possible sane answer, and, may I add, with the respect that it deserved.”
In this age of cut and paste it would have cost nothing to insert a stock reply. ‘Pressure of time, blah, blah, blah. Thanks for your invite, blah, blah. Unable to attend.’
Instead this ‘sane’ man insulted the institution, the host and gave the sceptics something to laugh at. So, not very good at debating or even simple manners. It gives credence to the suggestions that there are other areas where he fails to apply basic common sense or caution.
If anyone wants a laugh, click:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/2274995/Cow-farts-collected-in-plastic-tank-for-global-warming-study.html
Evan Jones (21:33:03) :
Has anyone heard of a guy called Lyndon LaRouche?
Unfortunately. (Let’s just say, “not mainstream”.)
Many thanks. just what I needed to know.
Oldjim:
I like the 3rd order you offer; some pros recommended it for non-linear repetitive phenomena on an earlier thread, Anthony’s July 4 post.
My surmise is the Southern Ocean is the heat sink and NH the radiator fin. The heat capacity of the SO relative to NH is larger, but emissivity smaller.
vincent: “Do we have El Nino developing?”
Last 3 month index, MJJ (-0.5), still a La Nina. Current conditions above that, and need to remain so thru October (5 consecutive indicies) before La Nina officially a Neutral as I am given to understand. Kristen Byrnes said this was a seasonal remix following SO summer and will again cool in NH fall.
Brendan H: “My essential point was that both Galileo and Hansen are offering a case in the affirmative, whereas their opponents are the naysayers”
I think you have that backwards. Galileo was the skeptic in regards to the beliefs of the time and was placed under house arrest for offering a different view from the “known” doctrine. Hansen is part of the current “known” doctrine crowd and doesn’t want to hear from skeptics. Perhaps he would like to see some house arrests for his opponents also.
The readership here slams the idea of consensus science and then embraces debate? The irony is palpable.
(Consensus and debate are the stuff of politics. Not science.)
randomengineer , don’t you find it just a bit too convenient that the “the debate is over, there is an overwhelming consensus” crowd now not only refuses to debate, but tries to squelch it whenever and wherever it occurs, and hypocritically cries “I thought you said that debates and consensus don’t matter in science”, conveniently ignoring the fact that normally, if science is allowed to progress without the injection of politics into it, that would be true. Like it or not, this is now in the public sphere and the stakes are enormous. The normal scientific process has been subverted by those who have a self-interest in AGW. Those interests are many and varied, but boil down to politics and money. Hansen’s entire career is invested in AGW, so do you really think he is interested in the truth? Most people believe the AGW lie because that is all they hear, and indeed it is everywhere – in the news, in the schools, and in politics. Many more believe it because they want to, as it seems to offer them some sort of religious or psychological void.
The fact is, the AGW hypothesis does not hold up to scientific scrutiny. People need to see that, but how? Well, a public debate is one possible way, but Hansen and his cronies don’t want that, of course. No, what they want to do is throw people in jail for even questioning the AGW dogma. Think about it.
Smokey: You seem to have missed Einstein’s basic point that a lot of garbage does not a refutation make. The most popular journal in your list of papers is “Energy and Environment” which is not considered a reputable journal whatsoever, see here: http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-w/2005/aug/policy/pt_skeptics.html
Then, you have a paper published in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons…Get real! And, you include both Gerlich & Tscheuschner (unpublished pseudoscience) and Khilyuk & Chilingar (a complete embarrassment…They don’t even understand what the greenhouse effect is). You also include a paper by James Annan, which is completely legitimate but doesn’t support your point as Annan argues strongly for the IPCC’s central range of climate sensitivity…In fact, Annan’s basic claim is that we know the climate sensitivity with less uncertainty than many seem to think.
One reader here mentioned Michaels isn’t the ideal debater. I agree.
I’d like to see Richard Lindzen, or Phillip Stott.
Or what about Lindzen-Stott against Hansen-Gavin?
Come to think of it, there was a similar event not long ago:
http://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/Event.aspx?Event=12
Listen to it and you’ll know why Hansen is running and hiding. He knows full well he aint got a snowball’s chance in climate hell in a debate.
REPLY: Put all those folkjs together and a hiockey game will break out.
Having gotten burned big time once already, you can be sure the poor bloke Gavin is advsing him against it.
Steven Goddard
Censorship is done because of MISBEHAVIOUR. The big problem at RC is that facts and tough questions are precisely that: misbehaviour. Amazing huh?
The RC folks are into defending fantasy, and not advancing science.
It’s Lucy-In-The-Sky science and nothing else. They’re on climate-crack or something. To me it seems mentally ill.
Smokey,
Andy Revkin is actually quite good about posting all points of view, but the spam filters at Dot Earth eat a lot of posts.
Oops, I meant “offers a way to fill” some sort of religious or psychological void. That’ll teach me (I hope) to always proofread before hitting the submit button.
To Smokey and Steven Goddard
You guys are right on.
That is why a free press and open debate is so important. Let the readers decide what is truth and what is fiction.
How do you think the Nazi’s, during WWII, got away with committing mass murder? Suppressing information, controlling the media, propaganda.
That is exactly what the AGW Alarmist are doing. You make a good observation then you are deleted and banned from posting.
Hansen and his crowd is in this mind set. They know that temperatures are not increasing. They know that temperatures might not increase over the next 10 years. They are messing in their diapers and need to circle the wagons.
There will be no attempt to discuss GW and whether CO2 is doing it or just the sun, the wobble, the orbit by these chuckleheads. They have said too much for too long to back down now.
They are “all in” so to speak. And as long as the current media has their back then they will push their agenda.
Serenity now………..
For a report from the 6/26 Meteorologist’s Meet at the Marriott Marquis, featuring Harry van Loon, milder short term, cooling next year and long term, see this url:
http://www.houstonenergyanalyst.com/Global_Warming.html
H/t Bill in Az.
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Steve, your message is Registering. Hansen flounders in a net of contradictions.
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I am a non-scientist but read this site almost daily.
Reading any article the attitude of the writer is often clear from the choice of words and use of language. Hansen’s intemperate language toward oil executives speaks volumes and for me cancels out any accreditation from the “peer review” system he parades as evidence.
I would imagine that “Peer review” is an important but crude tool to sweep out chaff that is probably not worth reading, it is unlikely to tell me if the conclusions of the article is right. That can only be done through open and wider scrutiny and further investigation, which is how I imagine science to work.
But to the public at large Peer Review has a different meaning. The public see Peer Review as meaning the conclusions have been checked and verified by the scientific community and have been established as factually true.
Isn’t it ironic that Public Relations and Peer Review share the same initials: PR
The reason I invited Michaels is, simply put, most students are unfamiliar with work of his sort. I invited Hansen in order for students to have a high profile response to Michaels assertions.
I would go ahead and have Dr. Michaels give a talk anyway, since he has already agreed to come, and since the goal was primarily to hear a side of the debate they never hear. They would already be well aware of the claims of Hansens’.
The topic of debate has occured several times in this thread.
I suggest that there is no doubt that between scientists informal debate (discussion) is both common and useful. However I agree that on scientific matters public debate is probably irrelevant.
Two thoughts:-
1) Those advocating debate – the sceptics- see it as a means of exposing to the public what they see as the false science being pushed by the AGWers.
2) In science a theory can be falsified (Karl Popper) or a paradigm overturned (Thomas Kuhn). However the whole matter of ‘climate change’ has entered the political arena and so the science becomes only the background with the result that falsification and paradigm shift are no longer relevant. The sceptics want to see the science moved back into the foreground and see debate as a way of achieving this. (By debate I would really hope for open discussion in the media).
I am a ‘sceptic’ and for the above reasons support debate.
The academic peer review system has some severe flaws. The first is that no one wants to offend because they will need the favor returned later, and the second is that they all feed from the same funding trough.
This is in sharp contrast to industry where companies absoulutely have to get it right. In industry the process is called “product verification” and most companies have engineers whose sole purpose is to find flaws in the design. Their pay and stature is enhanced by finding errors, and they go about it enthusiastically.
If it were up to Government researchers to design your car or computer, it would probably never work and would cost 10 times as much. Many government researchers spend their life struggling to find a way out and get a real job in industry. Many government researchers are not good enough to get a job in industry.
Seems like you are being quoted around in a number of places.
Rev: I have a friend in high-level marketing and I was talking with him just yesterday. He said, “You know that Anthony Watts guy I hear you mention? Do you realize his blog is one of the top blogs in the entire world?”
John: “Don’t know. Sometimes busy colleagues use very short communications like this. His answer was to the point – he is not interested. He could have chosen to ignore the email, without giving any response.”
And it would have killed him to take 30 seconds to write a friendlier response? Even a canned response would have been better. He certainly seems to have time to decry deniers every 5 minutes. Anyway, a college student is not a colleague of his. Ignoring the email would have been better, IMHO.
Of course we can discuss this till we’re blue in the face, and no one will change their positions…
Water vapor is about 10X as common as CO2 and absorbs a wider spectrum of IR.
You can go further than that. Water vapor varies between 1 – 5% of atmosphere, while CO2 is c. 1/25 of 1%. Yes, CO2 does have more bang for the buck, but many, many fewer bucks.
UK Met Office: “…temperature change over the latest decade (1998-2007) alone shows a continued warming of 0.1 °C per decade.”
No doubt. And 1998 – 2008 shows a “continued cooling”. It would seem that UK Met prefers include the recent (post 2002) triple-El Ninos IN and the recent La Nina OUT.
That can only be done through open and wider scrutiny and further investigation, which is how I imagine science to work.
“Independent Review”. Without that, it’s not science, it’s alchemy.