There’s an eye-opening interview on Grist of Richard A. Muller about the current state of science understanding by presidential candidates, global warming, and alternate energy tech.
Some of the answers are very enlightening. Coming from an avowed environmentalist such as Muller it cements much of what I and many others have been saying for months about Gore’s outright distortion of facts and Hansens selective cherry picking in choosing “his” way to publish the widely cited GISTEMP data set.
Here are a couple of excerpts from the Muller interview:
Hansen I’ve known for many years. He’s a very good climate scientist, but he’s decided to do the politics. I feel that he’s doing some cherry-picking of his own [when it comes to the science]. At that point, he’s not really being a scientist. At that point, you’re being a lawyer. He’s being an effective advocate for his side, but in the process of doing that he’s no longer a neutral party and he’s no longer giving both sides of the issues.
I know you drive a Prius. What else are you doing to reduce your carbon emissions?
My house is lit by compact fluorescent light bulbs. Let me just tell you, though: Suppose I drove an SUV and lit my house with the worst kind of light — I could still be an environmentalist. Al Gore flies around in a jet plane — absolutely fine with me. The important thing is not getting Al Gore out of his jet plane; the important thing is solving the world’s problem. What we really need are policies around the world that address the problem, not feel-good measures.
If [Al Gore] reaches more people and convinces the world that global warming is real, even if he does it through exaggeration and distortion — which he does, but he’s very effective at it — then let him fly any plane he wants.
Truth be damned, but hey, it’s OK, Hansen and Gore are saving the planet right? But don’t take my word for it, read it for yourself on the environmemtal blog, Grist. Here is the link.
Author Glass
CO2 emmissions by country, and worldwide. Sorry I couldn’t find one in English
http://www.iwr.de/klima/ausstoss_welt.html
Weltweit = worldwide
Ausstoss = emissions
China emissions alone are growing more than 600 million tonnes per year. What Europe wants to cut back is peanuts in comparison. (Note: Europeans use a comma as a decimal point, and a point to denote thousands).
Paul Crutzen’s claim that CO2 emissions may slow down are premature.
Emissions are going up.
I see a poster at CA asked what the net effect of the retrospective changes was on the global mean and did not get an answer. What kind of auditor finds ‘suspicious’ transactions but omits from their report the effect on the bottom line?
And it looks like Lucia has simply confused the 250Km smoothed series with the 1200km ….
John Phillip–the net effect is the recent divergence between GISTEMP and satellite temps :
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/02/a_tale_of_two_thermometers/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/05/goddard_nasa_thermometer/print.html
Global Warming Rescued by Global Economy !!
With at least a slowdown and possibly a full-blown global economic recession, the cooler climate this year and next can now be used to “PROVE” global warming !
Demand for oil and gas is now significantly reduced by economic conditions – China, for example has stopped importing refined gasoline due to lack of demand.
Reblended wholesale gasoline on the NY markets just fell below $2 a gallon.
SO, when the global temperatures remain cool, we’ll know why – lower CO2 emissions due to the economic slowdown. Global warming now proven beyond doubt !
I guess this also proves that a healthy economy is bad for the planet, and recession is “Green.” (Depression must be REALLY “Green”).
(Unfortunately that pesky Mauna Loa CO2 will actually keep rising, but that is a mere technicality, to be dealt with in a future hockey stick paper).
Pete (17:29:04) :
Fine. We’ll simply raise costs to our customers to increase profits and pay for the increased taxes from our now greater profits.
If you increase the carbon taxes to where there are no profits, there will be no companies left to tax.
What’s your thing about companies having profits?
What’s the matter with profits?
You sound as if you are too young to remember the Carter years when prices were frozen on gasoline and so forth. We soon had no gasoline. I do remember the gas lines and do not want to see those days again.
‘The Register’ is now a reliable source of climate science?
Perhaps you or Steve Goddard could answer the points raised by John Philip in the comments (Monday 5th May 2008 09:06 GMT)
You wrote “The UK Meteorological Office’s Hadley Center for Climate Studies Had-Crut data shows worldwide temperatures declining since 1998. According to Hadley’s data, the earth is not much warmer now than it was than it was in 1878 or 1941. By contrast, NASA data shows worldwide temperatures increasing at a record pace – and nearly a full degree warmer than 1880.”
1. Why did you choose different dates for the two data series? The NASA data starts in 1880 but you chose to go back to 1878 for Hadley, is it because 1878 happened to be >0.2C warmer?
2. Historically you use whole year means. Fair enough, except for Hadley ‘present day’ you seem to be using the 2008 YEAR TO DATE anomaly of 0.232, which is distorted by the unusually cool (La Nina) Feb 08. Is this legitimate?
3. Why did you use NASA’s own plot, but ‘roll your own’ for Hadley (on a different scale). There’s a perfectly good Hadley graph here: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/gtc2007.gif
4. If the NASA figures show ‘record pace warming’ since 1998, why does their website say …”2007 tied 1998, which had leapt a remarkable 0.2°C above the prior record with the help of the “El Niño of the century”? http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2007/
5. Here are the numbers from the relevant years …
Hadley : NASA
1878 -0.018
1880 -0.249 : -0.25
1941 0.062 : 0.11
1998 0.526 : 0.57
2007 0.396 : 0.57
2008 0.232 :
Point-to-point comparisons really are not that legitimate, but using the Hadley full year figure for 2007 as ‘present day’ it is clear that
– NASA does not show temperatures ‘increasing at record pace since 1998’, the delta is zero.
– NASA 1880 to 2007 +0.82C, Hadley +0.64
– NASA 1941 to 2007 +0.46C. Hadley +0.33
Do you really see anything too troublesome there?
6. Would it not be closer to the truth to say that since the (anomalously warm) 1998, a linear fit for both datasets show a modest warming, with the small difference entirely explicable by the difference in methodology? Something like this http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/t1998.jpg ?
Minor points: global mean temperatures are quoted with an uncertainty of around 0.1C, not 0.01C, The IPCC does not issue projections on a scale as short as a single decade (nor should they). US temperatures are a tiny fraction of the global mean.
cheers
JP
Deja vu.
‘The Register’ is now a reliable source of climate science?
Perhaps you or Steve Goddard could answer the points raised by John Philip in the comments (Monday 5th May 2008 09:06 GMT)
You wrote “The UK Meteorological Office’s Hadley Center for Climate Studies Had-Crut data shows worldwide temperatures declining since 1998. According to Hadley’s data, the earth is not much warmer now than it was than it was in 1878 or 1941. By contrast, NASA data shows worldwide temperatures increasing at a record pace – and nearly a full degree warmer than 1880.”
1. Why did you choose different dates for the two data series? The NASA data starts in 1880 but you chose to go back to 1878 for Hadley, is it because 1878 happened to be >0.2C warmer?
2. Historically you use whole year means. Fair enough, except for Hadley ‘present day’ you seem to be using the 2008 YEAR TO DATE anomaly of 0.232, which is distorted by the unusually cool (La Nina) Feb 08. Is this legitimate?
3. Why did you use NASA’s own plot, but ‘roll your own’ for Hadley (on a different scale). There’s a perfectly good Hadley graph here: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/gtc2007.gif
4. If the NASA figures show ‘record pace warming’ since 1998, why does their website say …”2007 tied 1998, which had leapt a remarkable 0.2°C above the prior record with the help of the “El Niño of the century”? http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2007/
5. Here are the numbers from the relevant years …
Hadley : NASA
1878 -0.018
1880 -0.249 : -0.25
1941 0.062 : 0.11
1998 0.526 : 0.57
2007 0.396 : 0.57
2008 0.232 :
Point-to-point comparisons really are not that legitimate, but using the Hadley full year figure for 2007 as ‘present day’ it is clear that
– NASA does not show temperatures ‘increasing at record pace since 1998’, the delta is zero.
– NASA 1880 to 2007 +0.82C, Hadley +0.64
– NASA 1941 to 2007 +0.46C. Hadley +0.33
Do you really see anything too troublesome there?
6. Would it not be closer to the truth to say that since the (anomalously warm) 1998, a linear fit for both datasets show a modest warming, with the small difference entirely explicable by the difference in methodology? Something like this http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/t1998.jpg ?
Minor points: global mean temperatures are quoted with an uncertainty of around 0.1C, not 0.01C, The IPCC does not issue projections on a scale as short as a single decade (nor should they). US temperatures are a tiny fraction of the global mean.
cheers
JP
Deja vu.
Nothing good will come from allowing anyone license to slander, obfuscate and/or, deceive. I can list a bunch of bad — mainly, confusing and repelling new visitors.
Anthony routinely makes It clear that AGW proponents are welcome. It would be good if we could find more willing to engage in true debate.
Re: Censorship
This is your site. Undeniably, it is up to you to say who can post on it.
However, the very raison d’etre of this site, it seems to me, is to be an open forum. It cannot be open if points of view are censored.
Some people posting on this site consider Mr Gore to be hypocritical and have said so either directly or by implication. Surely it is part and parcel of robust debate to allow someone else posting on the site to propose the converse, i.e. that the Gore critic her/himself is hypocritical.
To allow the one and not the other is inconsistent with full open debate.
Voltaire is (probably incorrectly) attributed with the words “I do not agree with what you say, but I defend to the death your right to say it.” I take exactly that view of the matter, and would be very disappointed in the event that this censorship of one person’s opinion be continued.
I disagree with the opinion expressed, but I defend strongly the right to voice that opinion.
Take the tax out of the profits?
Where do you think taxes come from now?
“…try not to exhale CO2, or on the other end, not expel any CH4.”
Nobody could question your green credentials, then, I’ll bet.
To suggest, as Counters did, that us skeptics are trying to politicize the issue, is clearly disingenuous when one considers that the whole AGW farrago was overtly political right from the outset.
Consider the almost indecently short period of time from the ‘discovery’ of AGW to the setting up of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (my bold), the Hadley Centre etc etc, together with the earmarking of billions in taxpayer’s money to fund research into AGW.
If it wasn’t for this politicization then there would probably be a lot fewer skeptics around.
JP—Nasa shows a 5:1 slope compared to satellite measurements over the last 10yrs. Only Nasa shows 2007 warmer or tied to 1998. One just needs to look at the station coverage as shown in the link provided for March 2008 to see why surface station data is crap.
OT but here’s news of a recent study of alternate energy costs:
http://www.physorg.com/news142605173.html
KitP
“Does JamesG happen to have some information to indicate that these technologies actual work and do not have huge environmental impact?”
If they had that much of an environmental impact then you wouldn’t expect Greenpeace to be recommending them. You can download their energy plan from their site. It’s really very well done and fairly realistic, except perhaps for the non-nuclear option. That has all the information you want though. Most, if not all of the supposed environmental impacts are straightforward disinformatiion and I know a lot of that comes from the nuclear industry because I worked there and I remember it well. They actively destroyed all other alternative energies in the UK and France by costing them wrongly (they were bizarrely given control over all alternative energies) and spreading barefaced lies. The big problems for wind, wave, solar are space required, intermittency and distribution. Spain though seems to get about 25% of it’s energy from wind. The key thing though is that the energy demand will keep on increasing, which will stretch fossil fuels mightily anyway, so we need to consider everything. I suspect we could be using solar and geothermal for our houses, wind, waves for remote locations, large geothermal for those who are lucky enough to have it – like Iceland and California. Fossil fuels and nuclear will of course still be required but I hope we focus on Thorium reactors since Uranium isn’t that plentiful. The French are doing most work on Thorium reactors currently.
As the site becomes more popular then the “counters” will increase no doubt.
At least an example has been set.
It may well be called on more in the near future, as decreasing temperatures, will no doubt lead to increased levels of defence of AGW.
At least one other forum I visit has recently been improved immensely for those that want to discuss and move on by the removal of
one (serial) “contributor” who expressed intent was to stifle debate.
Expressed or not that “intent” is reason enough,
I feel Anthony here got it right,
at the right time.
It will pay dividends.
Derek said – “At least an example has been set.”
Indeed.
If you say something which someone does not like (albeit that similar things have been said or implied in relation to those on the other side of the debate) you will be prevented from expressing any further opinion.
And when Derek says – “It may well be called on more in the near future, as decreasing temperatures, will no doubt lead to increased levels of defence of AGW. – one can see why selective censorship is anathema to proper debate and the flow of ideas. Apparently you consider that an increase in defence of AGW is something to be repressed, and that would be a good thing!
There is no distinction in principle between this kind of silencing of contrary opinion and the methods universally employed by all dictators and communist states to stifle any and all opposition.
Kohl, there is a massive difference. Silencing someone’s increasingly bad tempered comments and ad-hom asides can hardly be compared with dictators and communists suppressing dissent.
Personally, I WELCOME the rantings and ravings of most troll posters, they do their own point of view a great disservice. I LOVE when the politicians that I disagree with start mouthing off, they look so absolutely cartoonishly ridiculous that it can’t possibly help their cause.
However, there is a line of decorum that should not be crossed by an adversarial poster, and I agree that line was crossed. Actually, it was crossed some time ago, but I’ll mix my metaphors and say this line crossing was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Either way, my own posts are usually summarily removed from sites that disagree with me. To me this remains one of the reasons my eyes were opened to what is happening with the entire AGW thing. If someone posts the slightest dissent on an AGW-endorsing site they are either immediately gone, mocked and banned, or the post is simply deleted. If someone posts the AGW line on virtually every “skeptical” site I’ve encountered they are almost always answered, politely, informatively. It is their response to the responses that determines whether they are misguided or a troll.
Derek is correct: as the situation changes the supporters of AGW will abandon all attempts to appear reasonable and switch to the tactic of overwhelming and suppressing the facts. That will be the end result, and being prepared for the eventual onslaught can’t be bad.
Kohl,
Anthony has only banned a handful of people from this site. I think he probably knows what he is doing. I do agree that it should be kept to an absolute minimum, and I think that is what our host is doing. I like to think of this place more like it is Mr. Watts home. If you insult him, I don’t think it is wrong for him to keep the door closed to you. However, as I said, it is exceedingly rare.
Mike Bryant
PS I think he has had good reason to ban me once or three times and he hasn’t.
Reply to: Kohl Piersen
“Counters” aka Dan Rothenberg, has his own blog, which he puts a link to in every post he makes (see the links in the header of his posts, click his name). He is certainly welcome to say anything he wants there. I view this blog as my home on the Internet. I have invited guests and we have a lively debate daily, some have behaved badly, have insulted me and my other guests, and thus are not welcome in my home anymore. That’s not about free speech or censorship, since Mr, Rothenberg can post anything he wants anytime anywhere else on his own blog, in the free speech area of Princeton, or anywhere else. He’s certainly not censored.
To use an analogy, say you had a modest dinner party consisting of salad and casserole, and one of the invited guests said that the meal served was “dishonestly presented”. This was because his neighbor (whom he admires) had a dinner party but was catered on thousands of dollars from donations, had shrimp, lobster, Filet Mignon, Dom Perignon champagne, limousine service, and free gift bags. He then proceeds to tell the host AND the guests that they should recognize that the modest dinner party they are at now is “dishonest” because the host doesn’t recognize these things as essential to having a proper dinner party.
Would you invite him again?
I should mention that he emailed me privately, and his first words were “I’m not much interested in an apology” and then proceeded to list several paragraphs of reasons why I’m wrong on many things. He had his chance to make amends.
I suggest let’s all chip in and buy him the Dale Carnegie book How To Win Friends and Influence People
As I noted in my first post: the site host has the undeniable right to have whomsoever he wishes on or off the site.
But a blog site is not really a home. It is a place for (presumably) robust exchange. As I understand it, invective or bad-mouthed language etc etc which is unacceptable is simply ‘snipped’ (?) Surely, conditions in relation to ad hominem attacks could be placed upon a perpetrator without an outright and comprehensive banning of comment.
CodeTech, you misunderstand the point of my comparison (and that may be my fault for not making it clear).
It is just because there IS a difference between this banning and the repressive behaviour of dictators et al. that I invoked the comparison. My point is that there is no difference IN PRINCIPLE between one set of banning and another. Whilst the two cases are a world apart in factual terms, there is no distinction between the two in logical terms. A distinction made for the best of motives is, in the end, arbitrary.
That is why I abhor any censorship of opinions. Not because all opinions are inherently worth listening to; clearly they are not. But because once having introduced the guillotine, all opinions are liable to be cut off irrespective of their merits.
However, I’ve banged on about this sufficiently. I’ve stated my opinion and I’ll leave it at that.
Wattsupwiththat,
Sorry, I posted before I saw your latest.
I take all of your points but remain uncomfortable with the idea of banning opinion. All the same, there is reason enough where someone is simply disruptive – that infringes on everybody else’s right to be heard.
Anyway, as I said above, I’ll leave it at that and we can get back to the main point of the exercise, which on this thread is to consider Mr Gore and Dr Hanson and the merits or otherwise of their various statements and opinions.
Jack Simmons (09:21:04) :
My comment was mostly theoretical. In theory, the costs themselves would be audited, so a company couldn’t (in theory) raise costs to cover the taxes that should have been taken out of profits, without the auditors seeing it.
But, I certainly agree that most companies are not theoretical and would in fact, “simply raise costs to our customers to increase profits and pay for the increased taxes from our now greater profits.”
BTW, I believe that in Government contracts subject to Federal Acquisition Regulations, overhead rates are audited, as well as, to a lesser degree direct costs, and public companies are subject to audits, so my comment is not completely theoretical, if in fact a law or regulation was written that specified that taxes had to be taken from profits, but I have a suspicion that such a law could not (unconstitutional??) or would not ever be written.
Also, on taxes, I don’t mind them as long as they align with spending. It’s the spending that is invariably expensive and that’s what I don’t like.
Your post is an attempt at “emotional” manipulation.
Order is enforced in structured fora — be it courtroom, classroom, or, a video conference of naked open source programmers.
There is more to persuasion than stringing nice PC phases.
Try again, not.