You have to wonder- what were these guys thinking? The only media visual they could have chosen that would send a worse message of forecast certainty was a dart board…or maybe something else?
MIT’s “wheel of climate” – image courtesy Donna Coveney/MIT
The Greenhouse Gamble: Ronald Prinn, director of MIT’s Center for Global Change Science, and his group have revised their model that shows how much hotter the Earth’s climate will get in this century without substantial policy change. Standing with the group’s “roulette wheel” are, from left to right, Mort Webster, professor in the Engineering Systems Division; Adam Schlosser, principal research scientist at the Center for Global Change Science; Prinn, the TEPCO Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry; and Sergey Paltsev, principal research scientist, MIT Energy Initiative.
Popular Science writes:
It’s time to call your bookie, because the line on global warming is in. A new paper from MIT breaks down the odds of different outcomes from global warming, based on whether governments take action now or later. And if you’re taking that action, bet on “government getting involved” to beat the spread, as last week an important climate change bill made it out committee in the House of Representatives.
The bill, named the American Clean Energy and Security Act, would institute a cap-and-trade program, and reduce carbon emissions by 17 percent over fifteen years. The plan also calls for increased research into alternative energy, and provides $750 billion in subsidies to consumers to help offset the increase in energy cost the bill would cause.
See the compete article here
With that kind of cash payout, and since an MIT odds calculating machine is involved in making the modeling forecasts over 400 model runs, maybe this would be a more appropriate prop for the MIT photo op:
400 model runs? Is that to resolve the possible outcomes as a result of natural variability and the various possible economic scenarios?
I guess it would be difficult to resolve of all those possibilities with 1 single model run, right?
When it comes to congress digging into my dwindling pocket book for more expensive energy, taxes, price of consumer goods, etc, calling my bookie for odds on weather pattern variation will not endear me to said congresspersons doing the pocket picking. Bad advertising campaign.
MIT’s Climate Bandit? Very clever. Very clever.
Watt’s. I have never met you, seen you, spoken to you. Only read you. If the AGW people get the feeling I do about how sharp you really are, they have got to have a case of the heartburn coming on. You have really done it here. You’re making fun of the Massechusetts INSTITUTE of Technology. These guys are supposed to be some of the leading intelectuals in the US. After a post like this, they all look like a buch of stooges.
This blog just keeps getting better and better!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Where can one bet on the No Pass Line ?
This post shows what in the post “MIT: Global Warming of 7°C ‘Could Kill Billions This Century’” was missing. Actual photo in MIT´s Roulette Magazine.
I don´t know if you say it like this, but I would translate it as:
“One picture worths a million words”
This is “Global Warming” (“Global Gambling”?)
WTH is “Global Change Science”?
This reminds me of that folded 4-part paper game that purports to predict, for example, who you will kiss next. I hated that game. When I was in the 5th grade I didn’t know how to kiss (which excludes there being a “next” in the game when I played it) so when someone enticed me to play the game, I always ended up hitting someone.
The Roulette original:
You can get here the PDF:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/roulette-0519.html
Massive Intellectual Turnabout. The question is, would you trust these guys to run a pre-kindergarten science class? Perhaps that’s a little harsh. Third grade?
Images as well as many other things can be manipulated…………
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/the-mit-greenhouse-gamble-small31.jpg
I don’t understand this “…and provides $750 billion in subsidies to consumers to help offset the increase in energy cost the bill would cause”.
What’s the point of raising the cost of energy, and then subsidising the consumers for the rising cost of energy?
Even though these “scientists” are playing roulette with their reputation, the economy, which is having enough trouble as it is, will suffer the most when it is shoved over the edge by their wild claims.
Pamela Gray (19:27:41) :
This reminds me of that folded 4-part paper game that purports to predict, for example, who you will kiss next
I remember that game: You opened it two ways: One Red the other Blue, one the Devil the other Heaven….
The plan also calls for increased research into alternative energy, and provides $750 billion in subsidies to consumers to help offset the increase in energy cost the bill would cause.
So what will the US Govt do to get the $750B.
(a) Borrow the funds and have the american taxpayer pay it back with interest.
(b) Raise taxes and have the american taxpayer pay for it now.
(c) Print more money and devalue the US Dollar.
(d) all of the above.
What terrible body language. Whoever composed this photograph did a poor job; from the stilted poses, jacket tail flopping on the table and unfriendly faces (I’d wager two are giving us but conceiling their middle fingers).
In any case, I doubt that they would bet their own money.
Greg Cavanagh (19:43:58) :
I don’t understand this “…and provides $750 billion in subsidies to consumers to help offset the increase in energy cost the bill would cause”.
What’s the point of raising the cost of energy, and then subsidising the consumers for the rising cost of energy?
Your assuming that the proponents of these schemes are rational actors – it’s either
(a) a false assumption that they are rational, or
(b) They are rational – however their actual goals are not what they say they are.
This is win-win for them. With the near absolute assurance of substantial policy changes their warning scenarios are thus averted.
The cock crows and takes credit for the sunrise,
MC: You’re making fun of the Massechusetts INSTITUTE of Technology
I think WUWT did not do anything but presenting facts, as always.
Really the MIT people did it to themselves
Which IPCC GCM gave them the +7degF number as a statistical possibility?
Beyond the millions that taxpayers are being asked to pay for this junk research, I am truly amazed at the press releases these people put out. Almost puts the Catlin expedition to shame. How many articles does this now make for this particular research project? Jeez – Enough already!
At last they have developed a physical model for projecting climate change that is capable of capturing the chaotic unpredictable nature of the earths climate. All they need to do is add some more options… ice age, cooling of various degrees maybe and they would have it nailed. Now all they need to do it spin it 400 times and then take the mean of the results as their projection and assign it >90% confidence.
Heres to more accurate projections in the future!
Oh the Earth will warm alright, providing the sun+the oceans even let it warm that much. Everyone thought the minimum was over when the solar flux started climbing, but now it crashed down to being below 70 again, it will be interesting to see how these new solar developments affects SST’s and thus temps.
“Greg Cavanagh (19:43:58) :
I don’t understand this “…and provides $750 billion in subsidies to consumers to help offset the increase in energy cost the bill would cause”.
What’s the point of raising the cost of energy, and then subsidising the consumers for the rising cost of energy?”
Greg,
I have not actually heard this on the NEWS, but I would bet that this is another scheme to redistribute the wealth. Those that pay the tax will not likely get any return, but the “poor” will receive a big check. There will be a sliding scale so that those with higher incomes will get less or nothing back.
It’s like the stimulus where those earning over a certain amount will get nothing.
The $750 B in subsidies is to get you a free pass the 1st year. After that, you pay, and pay, and pay……
Notice the “help” offset. Meaning it’s going to cost you a lot more than the subsidy will pay out the 1st and only year of subsidy.
It’s like a 3 card molly game. They let you win the 1st time, then they take your money….all of it.
Given the track record of modelling complex systems perhaps it is time to give “wheel of fortune” more consideration.
“Is this housing boom going to continue forever and make my bank very rich?”
“What number should I assign to the box marked climate sensitivity?”
“Where is all that projected heat hiding?”
If you take the Subsidy money to “help offset”, you in effect have signed the contract.
Don’t do it. It reads like an ARM mortgage.
Why … It’s the Big Spin!
how would one respond to this:
http://ams.allenpress.com/archive/1520-0477/87/8/pdf/i1520-0477-87-8-1073.pdf
the implication by the one who sent it to me was that the new report about weather stations is old news and not an issue.
Greg
“What’s the point of raising the cost of energy, and then subsidising the consumers for the rising cost of energy?”
How else do they get there cut???
Only the poor are going to suffer. All based on a false premise. I know a few business execs and they are wringing their hands in anticipation of the green revolution. A false economy built on a fraudulent idea. None of that money will ever get to who needs it. It will only go to those who are already wealthy, and even more pollution will be created, for they will have been forgiven their indulgences. Painful to watch as we do this to ourselves.
My immediate thought here was: “What! Only one guy in a suit!”
The other three are not obviously worried about loosing their jobs…
What they won’t show us that right after the picture was taken, they played rock, paper, scissors.
Winner gets to put on a blind-fold, take the magic “Climate Change” dart out of it’s glass case and blindly throw it at the spinning Wheel ‘O Climate.
At that point they will publish their “findings”.
I find the very use of “without policy” in this paper offensive. The message sent is that we are screwed unless the government steps in to save us. Not likely. There is nothing the government does as well as the private sector-except crew up and oppress people.
At the very least this is advocacy. But none of the results even make sense! WTF?!?
Ahhhh!!! The four stooges!
They used the wrong kind of Roullette… they need to play the Russian variant.
I think they may have convinced more people if they had Vanna turning the letters.
Wheel of Misfortune
Vanna White probably has more sense in her left big toe than all the MIT team put together.
They certainly haven’t mastered Gore’s grim cheerfulness while pretending to know something.
What is the tiny blue strip between greater than 7 degrees and 3-4 degrees of heating? Is it the fudge factor ‘no change or even cooling’ probability so they can later say “we never said it was a 100% certainty” 🙂
Regards
Michael
BTW the photographer needs to clean off some of that carbon pollution on her camera sensor
“he only media visual they could have chosen that would send a worse message of forecast certainty was a dart board”
Wheel, dart board, whats the difference?
But notice that the minimum change in there is 3-4 degrees. The most arrogant thing about it is the implication that without US policy, the Earth will warm 6 to 7 degrees, which is just plain idiotic. US emissions have been practically flat for a long time. There isn’t anything we can do with our policy decisions that will reduce increases in global emissions short of a massive nuclear power program. Even that would probably have no measurable impact. The rate of increase in emissions from other countries will swamp any reductions we make.
I think that we should take our choice of one of the characters above and suggest a “speech balloon” or a “thought balloon”.
Might be fun.
David Ball (20:22:32) :
I lovingly call it (Cap & Trade) Tax & Spill.
If you have noticed who was calling for the US to shut down all of it’s coal-fired plants, that should give you an idea of the source of the lobbying effort. It’s not US interests who are doing this, but it’s the US who will get set back 10 yrs in the ensuing economic melee.
Read between the lines on the MIT message.
I think I get what they are really saying in that photo op.
Re: the $750,000,000 from cap and trade. That figure [or close] has been in Obama’s budget since first proposed. It is wealth redistribution. Those that are productive get fleeced – approximately 46% of the American “taxpayers” pay no federal income tax now. Those folks will get the lion’s share of the $750m.
Guy#1… OK… this is just stupid.
Guy#2… Imagine that my fingers here on the table are some guy that’s about to be incinerated!!
Guy#3… (thought balloon) I’m failing all three of these guys…
Guy#4… Hehehe, it’s almost break time…
AH HA! … but that is the whole idea. Subsidize to get you to buy into this garbage, then decrease the subsidies until they are eliminated. Once they get the “go ahead” and implement, do you really believe the subsidies will stay in place? Where would the money come from? My friend, you will never see the subsidy! Its a complete smoke screen.
hi, i was wondering if there was an existing or planned ‘coalition of the intelligent’…
the ‘Dr Jekyll’ to the IPCC’s ‘Mr Hyde’……..how far are we from some sort of focused
effort against the ‘crusade of the ridiculous’ ‘CO2 as pollutant’ charade that is the IPCC?
Fools.
If the AGW people get the feeling I do about how sharp you really are, they have got to have a case of the heartburn coming on.
He is. They have. They do.
(Wait for it.)
You can tell by the lack of ad arguendum.
hereticfringe (20:39:45) :
Ahhhh!!! The four stooges!
They used the wrong kind of Roullette… they need to play the Russian variant.
With four of the six chambers loaded, and then each has to play 400 times. If they did not decorate the wall behind them then you might suggest that they are on to something with their models.
at least photo shop in some minorities so we don’t look environmentally racist
Mike Bryant (20:59:14) :
I think that we should take our choice of one of the characters above and suggest a “speech balloon” or a “thought balloon”.
Might be fun.
“Step right Up Folks, only $1 to play, only $1… Spin the wheel and win $750B… Step right Up Folks…”
Meanwhile, as MIT rolls out its lastest most sophisticated cimate forecasting device, Prof. Pielke Sr. and Meteorologist Mike Smith are actually engaged in some meaningful dialogue:
http://climatesci.org/2009/05/26/comments-by-mike-smith-of-my-weblog-debate-question-for-professor-steve-schneider-and-colleagues/
This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen.
You can tell they get paid no matter what;
as long as they tow the line. It’s too bad
we can’t peek into the future to see the
shame their progeny will have to endure.
As clever and convincing (cough) as MITs cardboard climate wheel is, I wonder if the AGW industry has ever offered even ONE piece of empirical evidence that proves that recent climate change cannot be natural?
markinaustin:
You can start by telling him/her that a study showing that homogenization alters the trend at three “poorly sited” sites to match the trend at two “well sited” sites is hardly definitive evidence that the trends reported for each of the locations is unbiased. A larger sample has the potential to produce more robust estimates of the bias, if any, introduced by poor siting (both before and after homogenization).
Second, you can tell him/her that the most common siting issues (e.g. the MMTS near buildings issue; the waste water treatment plant issue) imply that more recent observed temperatures will be spuriously warmer than those at the beginning of the record (in, say, 1880, when not a single station was tied to a nearby building via electronic tether, and there were no air conditioning units or waste water treatment plants at all).
Moving existing sites into such locations introduces a step change at a given point in time. If the amount of waste processed at a treatment site increases over time, or the extent to which air conditioning exhaust impacts an MMTS site increases, a warming trend may be introduced – and one that has nothing to do with climate changes. What’s more, the surfacestation.org survey of the network gives us every reason to believe that such influences are common.
But there’s the rub. The fact that homogenization increases, rather than reduces, an observed (raw data) warming trend that we have strong reason to believe is exaggerated by siting issues is prima facie evidence that it does not eliminate site bias as well as the authors of his/her cited paper would like to believe.
Before surfacestations.org, the generally poor condition of the network was not generally appreciated, and the systemic nature of biasing influences could only have been guessed at. Now we know, and we know that attempting to homogenize away these problems is a shaky proposition at best.
Adolfo Giurfa (19:57:17) :
MC: You’re making fun of the Massechusetts INSTITUTE of Technology
I think WUWT did not do anything but presenting facts, as always.
Really the MIT people did it to themselves
I agree. I stand corrected sir.
Greg Cavanagh (19:43:58) :
I don’t understand this “…and provides $750 billion in subsidies to consumers to help offset the increase in energy cost the bill would cause”.
What’s the point of raising the cost of energy, and then subsidising the consumers for the rising cost of energy?
————————-
Never heard of brokerage fees ??
A lot of people who can’t get real jobs can get paid (by you and me) for subsidizing some fictitious stuff and then reverse subsidizing it all over again.
Or is it the other way round ?? Whatever, my brain hurts ….
ok…. so, Richard Lindzen works at MIT—is there a typo here somewhere?
C’mon, its just a buck a spin. And you could win a stuffed manbearpig for your sweetie!
I think this is the VIT, the Vegas Institute or Technology. Yes, this is the typo here.
From climate models to lotto! We truly are in the Golden Age of science!
Should these guys take a Probability at Stats 101 class? No wait, a 100 class–that would be sufficient.
They say the Michigan Tech (MTU, yaa Houghton) is ranked just lower than MIT. But why now??
Moms, dads, rethink where your engineering inclined children should go to school!
http://www.mtu.edu/
But wait, maybe the Body Snatchers have got to MTU too!
“”Greg Cavanagh (19:43:58) : What’s the point of raising the cost of energy, and then subsidising the consumers for the rising cost of energy?””
Because apparently money actually has started growing on trees!
The gr$$n economy. Got printing presses, will subsidize.
Keith Minto (19:42:09) :
Good one!!
“”Robert Coté (19:53:44) : This is win-win for them.””
When you have the peer-reviewers, the politicians, and the tv on your side you’d have to be an idiot not to win. Judging by the poll numbers though it looks like something lower than idiots is running the thing—I’ll [snip myself] before I mention any names…… James Hansen…. opps
Meanwhile the North Pole is still frozen solid and external temperatures at the buoy were around -11C.
Quick! …spin the wheel. You could win a Smartmeter.
I want a Smartmeter, not a Dumbmeter. Dumbmeters
are for dummies.
Thank you MIT, I hope you get everything you deserve.
Do you think people even know what’s coming?
Oh Gawd… trying desperately to spin and get their 15 minutes of fame. Or should that be infamy.
Greg Cavanagh (19:43:58) :
What’s the point of raising the cost of energy, and then subsidising the consumers for the rising cost of energy?
Inflation will lower the value of the housing stock, so the whole game can begin again.
Greg Cavanagh (19:43:58) :
I don’t understand this “…and provides $750 billion in subsidies to consumers to help offset the increase in energy cost the bill would cause”.
What’s the point of raising the cost of energy, and then subsidising the consumers for the rising cost of energy?
The notion is that you redirect behavior in specific things while being neutral in the aggregate. The reality is usually that the gullible masses are happy with “free money”, the government loses 20% in the processing, and the taxpayers get fleeced and grouse about it.
So, for example, you get a $10,000 guzzler tax on a Ford F350 4×4 based on EPA gas consumption.
That is supposed to get you to make a ‘better choice’ and buy a new Chrysler/Fiat 500 cc hybrid 1 person econobox or ride the bus, that will now be subsidized.
That $10,000 is then used, for example, to put a $6,000 rebate on, oh, bus tickets. (What, you expected the whole $10k to show up in a rebate? Politicians, remember?). This $6k is supposed to offset the $10k and get you or someone else to take the bus and be neutral on the aggregate economy. Nice, no?
More bus riders, fewer gas guzzlers, and only $4k went into the reelection fund / bribe account called “oversight”.
The reality?
The reality is that you don’t buy the new $10k+$30k truck or the ecoskate, you keep fixing up your old one because you need a truck to do your job and don’t have the $10k bump. Can’t haul cattle feed in an ecoskate.
The govt spends the $6k anyway (about $4k of which actually helps the bus system) and raises taxes on something else, like gas, or just prints money to make up for the non-sale of the truck.
More people need to take the bus, since they are no longer employed making trucks and can’t afford gas, to look for work at the bus subsidy audit bureau, where an added $5,000 is spent, tracking the $6k that was spent, to discover that $2k went to preparing their response to the audit… which found that $2k was used to print and administer the bus ticket coupons and $1k was used for management bonuses, leaving $1k to buy down the cost of bus tickets, that just went up by $2k due to fuel cost increases under the new taxes to pay for the $5,000 audit bureau …
Got it?
The sad thing is that I can accurately describe how it is supposed to work and how it actually behaves and could even do it in the proper bureaucratic justification language used in budget processes… But I don’t think I could do it with a straight face any more. At one time I could.
So Greg, I understand it and trust me: you are better off not understanding it…
We have these fantasies that the economy can be fine tuned and the scales can be rebalanced with nudges here and behaviour modifications there neatly shifting consumers in a nuanced way. And the reality is that folks just trudge on trying to get by in ever more difficult conditions while the system grinds to a halt due to unintended consequences and ham handed bureaucracies.
Meanwhile the politicians and PACs all congratulate each other on the nightly news and tell you how happy you are now; never noticing that what was supposed to happen never happened. Their consultants remind them never to dwell on the negative and people love a winner, so Be Positive!
Have I mentioned lately that Economics is called The Dismal Science for a reason? Especially Political Economics…
“” rbateman (20:13:30) : Don’t do it. It reads like an ARM mortgage.””
You’re right, it does :
“A global warming title that places limits on emissions of heat-trapping pollutants. This legislation would cut global warming pollution by 17% compared to 2005 levels in 2020, by 42% in 2030, and by 83% in 2050.”
http://energycommerce.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1630:energy-and-commerce-committee-passes-comprehensive-clean-energy-legislation&catid=122:media-advisories&Itemid=55
Robert Coté (19:53:44) : This is win-win for them. With the near absolute assurance of substantial policy changes their warning scenarios are thus averted.
The cock crows and takes credit for the sunrise,
I’m cheerfully watching the advancing cold and dreaming of Coq au Vin when the SHTF happens… Be careful what you take credit for…
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/05/23/south-hemisphere-record-early-snow/
When it is “way cold” I intend to march around with a sign demanding that they get the weather right. We gave them control as they required and now they need to stop climate change as they promised…
Only one caption required: “Jeez! If those simpletons fall for this, they’ll fall for ANYTHING!”
Un farce pathétique. The value of an MIT degree just took a nosedive.
crosspatch (20:50:28) :
“The only media visual they could have chosen that would send a worse message of forecast certainty was a dart board”
Wheel, dart board, what’s the difference?
Try chucking a dart at the roulette table in your local casino!
More seriously, I keep reading of these multiple model runs with slight changes in input data being averaged. Is that valid? My limited understanding of chaos theory indicates that a chaotic system is inherently unpredictable since it depends on exact knowledge of the inputs and therefore any trends detected are most likely to be reflections of the underlying assumptions of the model. Multiple readings will only average out random error, not systematic. Would someone more expert than I (i.e. almost anyone or his dog) care to comment?
Each of the outer tick marks represents an 8 degree portion of their dart board. That means the blue slice indicates only a 4% chance of temperature rise being less than 3C.
I see the study is from MIT. Would that be the Monte-carlo Institute of Theology?
Caption should read:
I spent $50 billion on climate research and all I got was this cute roulette wheel!
What goes up must come down
Spinning wheel got to go round
Talking about your troubles it’s a crying sin
Ride a painted pony
Let the spinning wheel spin
You got no money, and you, you got no home
Spinning wheel all alone
Talking about your troubles and you, you never learn
Ride a painted pony
let the spinning wheel turn
Did you find a directing sign
on the straight and narrow highway?
Would you mind a reflecting sign
Just let it shine within your mind
And show you the colours that are real
Spinning Wheel
Blood, Sweat & Tears
Randall (19:52:41) :
What terrible body language. Whoever composed this photograph did a poor job;
That’s not the original photo. This is –
http://i44.tinypic.com/2071es5.jpg
MC (19:16:04) :
Well, MIT is home of the Hack. Maybe they think this is just another one.
http://hacks.mit.edu/
They should be forced to watch Feynman talk about organic farmers:
F. Ross (20:43:47)
I think “wheel of Misfortune” hits the mark. As the planet continues to cool, the folks in this photo will soon regret their political advocacy. I feel their institute will also regret the MIT Wheel of Misfortune.
Michael (20:49:10)
I also notice the very thin strip of blue. Perhaps the segments for stable climate, Dalton minimum and Maunder minimum got “smeared” by RegEM ?
OT. BBC now running a piece on gloom and doom for Chile’s wine industry http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8058080.stm due to climate change (all based on computer models of course). I have pointed out to the author, James Painter, the lack of warming in the Southern Hemisphere and Chile in general, and await his reply. Another week, another BBC warmer-story.
oops. Late night math error.
The blue slice indicates less than 2% chance of temperature rise being less than 3C.
Perhaps they should be relocated to Vegas? They could do with some female tough, just look at their outfit!
Apart from that, I object to the colour scheme; more chocolat brown and turqoise, please.
Is that it? Is that their “model”! Looks more like a tacky low-budget game show prop than something a professional would produce! A real Wheel of Misfortune! Where’s the golden telephone? BTW the guy on the left looks so serious compared to the rest, why? He should be beaming, but perhaps he wasn’t allowed to have any crayons! I used to love colouring in at junior school. I really do hope that no “public” money was used in this effort for if I was an American I would be furious!
It’s nice to finally get to see a picture of the modelers with their model. I am a bit confused, though. I thought the models were computerized. It appears they run the model each time by hand ;o)
The quote was:
—————-
“… and provides $750 billion in subsidies to consumers to help offset the increase in energy cost the bill would cause.”
—————-
Well, let’s see: From precisely ~where~ will that money arrive?
.
If we divide 750×10^9 (the subsidy) by 300 x 10^6 (the population of the US) we arrive at U$2,500 apiece.
.
Well, it that’s what most people pay in their income taxes (Illegally so, I might add) then WHAT that amounts to is: NO BODY PAYS ANY TAXES!!!!
.
Of course, when that program kicks in, there won’t be anybody working …
.
Oh wait: Now I understand: The FED will print up MORE worthless money!
.
YEAH! THAT’S IT!!!!
.
The truth at last – that IS the ‘computer model’ they use!
So nice to know that the science is settled… 🙂
“Vegas Institute or Technology”
LOL!
OT this is a good article by Dr Willem de Lange explaining why he is a ‘Climate Realist’. (Unlike the MIT government grant wheel guys)
http://www.nzcpr.com/guest147.htm
Speech Bubble: We’re going to strap Anthony Watts to the wheel, spin it, blindfold ourselves and throw knives at it and see if we can hit the 3.4 degrees!
Speech Bubble: “Come to think of it, we won’t need the blinfolds – we’re already blinfolded.”
The more there is of this sort of thing, the more people will see through the warming agenda and go back to asking proper questions rather than following the ‘consensus’. This is what scientists should do. The recent contrast between the way warmers treated Ian Plimer in Australia, at his phenomenally successful book launch, and the way ordinary people treated him in the pub where he spoke about it afterwards, is telling….
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/janetalbrechtsen/index.php/theaustralian/comments/a_tale_of_two_worlds/
It is incredible just how 13th-century lyrics, set to music by Carl Orff, have resonance with the Wheel of Misfortune displayed by the wonks at MIT.
O Fortuna O Fortune,
velut luna like the moon
statu variabilis, you are changeable,
semper crescis ever waxing
aut decrescis; and waning;
vita detestabilis hateful life
nunc obdurat first oppresses
et tunc curat and then soothes
ludo mentis aciem, as fancy takes it;
egestatem, poverty
potestatem and power
dissolvit ut glaciem. it melts them like ice.
Sors immanis Fate – monstrous
et inanis, and empty,
rota tu volubilis, you whirling wheel,
status malus, you are malevolent,
vana salus well-being is vain
semper dissolubilis, and always fades to nothing,
obumbrata shadowed
et velata and veiled
michi quoque niteris; you plague me too;
nunc per ludum now through the game
dorsum nudum I bring my bare back
fero tui sceleris. to your villainy.
Sors salutis Fate is against me
et virtutis in health
michi nunc contraria, and virtue,
est affectus driven on
et defectus and weighted down,
semper in angaria. always enslaved.
Hac in hora So at this hour
sine mora without delay
corde pulsum tangite; pluck the vibrating strings;
quod per sortem since Fate
sternit fortem, strikes down the strong man,
mecum omnes plangite! everyone weep with me!
All the best,
The Goliards.
Mass “INSTITUTE of TECHNOLOGY”. These guys are the rock stars now in an era of IGNORANCE and AWE of science. I can imagine what an insufferable snob the guy in the suit is at a party. They drop a few diffy Q’s in the conversation and everyone nods their head approvingly. Take Congressman Waxman for example and his “I’m relying on the scientist … the IPCC” comment to explain why he hasn’t read his own 946 page Climate Bill. UTube link here =>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRcq0Lxffwc <=
If I sound resentful it is because I am. I started college at Drexel Institue of Technology and geaduated from Drexel University. Science was NOT cool then and guys with the pocket protectors and slide rules dangling from their belts (me) were about as far from cool as you could get.
I predict we will see a lot of college name changes including the word "Technology and science" in the years to come.
“You have to wonder- what were these guys thinking? The only media visual they could have chosen that would send a worse message of forecast certainty was a dart board”
Looks like you spectacularly missed the point.
Their message is “if you don’t believe us, you are playing roulette with the future of the planet”.
Experts inform the political debate. But the conclusions experts give should be incontrovertible, beyond debate, and if not, then all the caveats should be communicated as well. These are not experts. They are political hacks masquerading as scientists.
They are scum.
The Goracle and two lemons – love it!
Perhaps we should start calling him the Climate Bandit…
I’m sorry, but the gambling analogies keep popping up.
I wonder if this is the last chance saloon for the warmists? If the collective intellect of 3000 scientists (allegedly) and staggering amounts of computer power culminates in a prediction based on a wheel of fortune, then perhaps it’s time to admit defeat…
“The plan also… provides $750 billion in subsidies to consumers to help offset the increase in energy cost the bill would cause.”
Oh dear Lord, we’re doomed. Is “Western European” the first culture in history to commit suicide?
pout .. you stole my one arm bandit idea:P
Forget the SWAG (Scientific Wild-A$$ Guess) – we’ve now moved on to the realm of the WAG.
I can just see Dr. Robert Stadler of the State Science Institute nodding approvingly at Dr. Floyd Ferris and his crew of third-raters (characters from Atlas Shrugged – with their modern day figures playing their roles in real life).
400 model runs – this sounds like what is commonly called a “Monte Carlo simulation” – no joke. Thus, the slot machine graphic is more appropriate than you think.
On another note, did anyone notice, that their “best case scenario” on the wheel was still warming 3-4 deg C. Talk about not knowing how to pitch your deal – so we sacrifice pretty much everything & we still get most of the warming – all pain, no gain (assuming the models are actually correct, which is a huge assumption, but thats a whole other topic). Of course this is obvious in the numbers coming out of any analysis of a cap &trade proposal, but usually lawmakers bury this fact so that “their people” dont realize that even if they have the theory right, all the policy really does is enrich the government coffers withe little to no perceptible effect on climate. Clearly these scientists in the photo didn’t think about how the real world functions & how this photo would be perceived before putting that graphic together – although they sure look proud of it in that picture.
This photograph is exactly correct: No mater how you spin it, the house always wins.
And ‘the house’ is the AGW promotion industry.
Greg Cavanagh (19:43:58) :
I don’t understand this “…and provides $750 billion in subsidies to consumers to help offset the increase in energy cost the bill would cause”.
At one time the US income tax was just a tax on the super wealthy.
Now anybody who has an income pays the tax, therefore if you have a job (by original definition) you must be wealthy.
No – wait – it’s not WAG. It’s MIT’s verson of Wheel of Fortune!
Personally, I don’t think the word ‘scum’ is appropriate for this forum. More in-keeping with r*alclimate perhaps, but not here.
“Looks like you spectacularly missed the point.”
Which is..?
Indeed, they certainly have
Michigan Scientist, Ethicist Urge Scientists to Speak Out on Environmental Policy
Excerpt:
No wonder there is such a problem. I can’t believe this is what science has become.
E.M, Smith:
Good comment about the why of raising prices then providing subsidies for those who pay them. I agree that we are better off not knowing the details of how the scam works. Philosopher Ayn Rand once said IIRC, “Dont bother to examine a folly. Ask what is it designed to acomplish?” The answer is of course, a public behavior deemed desireable by those in power regardless of the rights and desires of the individuals that make up the public. Dictatorial control over you and me.
To add a little of shame (if they are still capable of that feeling), the words of Russian astronomer Khabibulo Abdusamatov on “climate change”: “It´s Hollywood Science”
http://www.giurfa.com/abdusamatov2.pdf
I’ve always said that the Weather Channel’s methods of predicting the weather seemed like they just sat in a room, and threw darts at a dart board while taking turns passing a joint…Now we know the truth…Guess they decided to hide the joint from the camera…But, take a close look at the look on the guys’ faces…definitely STONED!
Thought balloons (left to right):
Guy #1 – Step right up (suckers). Ya can’t win if ya don’t play!
Guy #2 – Ooh, ooh! Can I spin it now?!
Guy #3 – I’m the senior scientist. See how distinguished I look. I carry the water for these other guys. They used to be my graduate students, you know.
Guy #4 – Where’s Vanna? … What, wrong show? Doesn’t matter; we’ve moved on.
What’s the point, indeed.
It’s the same old racket that’s been going on for years. The government takes money from people, takes a cut, and then gives it to other people. Only when the government does it, nobody calls it theft.
This is highly embarrassing for MIT. This is not science. This is simply BS. This will not go down well with engineering professionals around the world. Unfortunately, what little reputation MIT has left is being ruined. A few ywars ago I cancelled subscription to their Technology Magazine once I realized what nonsense it was. Quite sad to see such an institution self destruct. It will also not help MIT grads get jobs – nobody wants this kind of hyperbole and attention seeking extremism in their firm’s engineering department.
They ought to re-label their climate wheel so that it reads:
Us four pictured here at MIT are…
1) dimwits
2) alarmists
3) tree-hugging kooks
4) enrolled via an administrative mistake.
5) escaped from a mental institution
this is pretty funny….no mention of human destruction of habitats or deforestation, etc., only climate change. i guess a species is considered “invasive” only if its introduction is accidental!
Scientists plan to relocate species
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/42601/178/
As climate change destroys habitats, scientists have been considering relocating species into more suitable environments but have been put off by fears of damaging the new ecosystem. Now, a group of researchers has come up with a tool to evalauate the potential success of such managed relocation.
Managed relocation has been condemned by some scientists for fear that relocated species would overpopulate their new habitats, cause extinctions of local species, or clog water pipes as invasive zebra mussels have done in the Great Lakes. Nevertheless, some conservationists and groups have already used managed relocation or are currently considering doing so.
“The Greenhouse Gamble: Ronald Prinn, director of MIT’s Center for Global Change Science, and his group have revised their model that shows how much hotter the Earth’s climate will get in this century without substantial policy change. Standing with the group’s “roulette wheel” are, from left to right, Mort Webster, professor in the Engineering Systems Division; Adam Schlosser, principal research scientist at the Center for Global Change Science; Prinn, the TEPCO Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry; and Sergey Paltsev, principal research scientist, MIT Energy Initiative.”
Those guys are really from MIT?
I thought it was a photoshopped stunt on your part.But golly they did it all by themselves!
gargle……….
It is interesting that this follows on the heels of the House of Reps. failing to get Waxman – Markey rushed through last week . Apparently they didn’t have enough votes to pass it and so sent it back to committee(s) . Indeed , the Speaker went to China to ask them to make some sort of concessions in their expanding coal fired power generation . It looks like cap and trade might be in a little trouble this year . BTW , floods of calls and emils to our Rep. prevented him from commiting to it .
RW (03:34:09) :
“Looks like you spectacularly missed the point.”
I think this shows exactly how group think has affected these guys. They are so invested in “AGW is real” that they think everyone else will look at this the same way they do. They totally missed that they could be made to look like fools.
I think that says more than a little about their entire project.
In the AGWers battle between honesty and effectiveness it is increasingly more likely (say, 90%?) that effectiveness wins out over honesty.
I’m sure they will have some version of the 2 wheels (the other supposedly illustrating the range and likelihood of climate change that will happen even with aggressive policy change, ranging from +1 to +4C, and the most likely being +2 to +2.5C) in Copenhagen.
What buffoons these so-called “climate scientists” are.
May these “climate wheels of misfortune”, and their perpetrators live in infamy, along with Mann and his Hokey Schtick graph.
“”George Antunes (06:11:57) : look at the look on the guys’ faces…definitely STONED!”
No, that’s the Body Snatchers look. When they pass Richard Lindzen in the hall they raise their arm, point at him, open their mouth, and make that eerie sound. I wonder if Richard Lindzen feels like Donald Sutherland :
I sort of thought that we as thinking “seemingly intelligent” human beings were working our way to eliminating, or at least weaning ourselves away from irrational behavior as a group. I was wrong. These fools are either totally deluded and moronic – or -well – totally deluded and moronic.
The picture does say something important. It is “people”, “individuals”, who are running the climate models. The models are based on human-written code.
Sometimes, human-written code does a good job simulating a complex process, but mainly when there are well-known rules and empirically proven formulae to rely on.
In the case of the climate models, the temperature impact from CO2 has a big range of potential values to use:
Temp C change = [ X * ln(CO2 Future/CO2 280)] * [ Y/per Watt/metre^2]
… and CO2 Future ranges between 600 ppm and 900 ppm
… X ranges between 1.0 to 5.0
… Y ranges between 0.1C to 1.0C
The individuals get to decide what values to put into the human-written code and we still don’t have any empirically proven values to rely on.
We just have some guesses/assumptions from the IPCC. The MIT model looks to have chosen some high-impact “values” for these assumptions.
More fun: Increasing albedo:
http://green.yahoo.com/news/afp/20090526/sc_afp/climatewarmingusbritainchu.html
Correct me if I’m wrong but doesn’t the guy in the suit look a bit smug?
This report well illustrates how desperate the AGW scientists are to get any publicity to their obviously flawed and failing science . To sell the proven scientific approach to a roulette wheel is a major disgrace to all scientists and goes against their entire insistence on peer review approach. Who did their peer review -Las Vegas gambling Casinos?
Doesn’t the fact that the blue wedge for “no change” get’s less than one whole space in their clicky wheel and the chance of cooling non-existant, prove some bias???
RW (03:34:09) :
Looks like you spectacularly missed the point.
no he got the point you have missed the point, that they are in the business of getting more money for M.I.T. and with our current greenie in chief they are going to get millions or more.
Please tell me this is actually the Milwaukee Institute of Technology.
These guys or physicist Niels Bohr, you decide.
Niels Bohr on “greenhouse effect”:
http://www.giurfa.com/gh_experiments.pdf
From: http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2009/05/paul-driessen-climate-change-morality.html
‘Some are getting $400-$850 an hour for their skill in promoting mandates, subsidies, legal measures to hobble competitors, and cap-tax-and-trade versions of the mortgage derivatives market. Al Gore alone boasts of having received $300 million (from unnamed sources) to trumpet alarmism and draconian legislation.
Colleges, scientists, activists, unions and companies receive billions in taxpayer money, to hype climate chaos claims, intimidate skeptics and lobby Congress. African bureaucrats get millions from the UN (and thus US taxpayers) to hype climate disaster claims that keep millions of Africans impoverished and deprived of the life-enhancing benefits of reliable, affordable electricity.
President Obama says the Bush Administration “made decisions based upon fear, rather than foresight, and all too often trimmed facts and evidence to fit ideological predispositions.” He and his Democrat allies in Congress should take that critique to heart on global warming.
As it stands, this Congress is rapidly shaping up to be the most unethical, immoral and dictatorial in history. When the people finally rebel, it won’t be a pretty sight’.
Publications like the one above bring a rebellion ever closer, ever faster.
Thanks for a job well done Anthony, you can’t do any better.
They were asking for it and you served them with a 5 star treatment.
One can imagine this “Global Change Center” was not created without funding from? in order to marginalize the scientific work and department of Lindzen at MIT. Here is for rewarding integrity. This perversion of the the highest scientific institutions would be condemned severely if they were studiying races for instance… yet, here it is perfectly acceptable. One always will find a human being ready to go lower to bottom feed…
Geothermal not so clean after all.
The MIT group is very scientific… (sarcasm off)
Interdisciplinary amalgamations of social science, policy and bits of real science have literally become the norm at many of the nation’s top universities…Berkley’s Energy and Resource Group, Columbia’s Earth Institute, MIT’s Center for Global Change Science, Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Potsdam’s Institute for Climate Impact Research, etc.
Most of these universities have solid Earth and Atmospheric Science programs; yet they create these hybrid schools that teach socio-economic agendas cloaked in pseudo-science.
Side Show Bob would be proud of ’em…
Dr Spencer in his last blog on the MIT report writes:
“Since that average rate of warming (about 0.5 deg. C per decade) is at least 2 times the observed rate of global-average surface temperature rise over the last 30 years, this would require our current spate of no warming to change into very dramatic and sustained warming in the near future. “http://www.drroyspencer.com/2009/05/the-mit-global-warming-gamble/
I have checked the least squares trend slope for the last 30 years [1979-2009] and find
GISS 0.0161C/YEAR
RSS 0.0156 C/YEAR
UAH 0.0126 C/YEAR
HADCRUT3VGL 0.0159C/YEAR
I agree with most of what Dr Spencer writes and would just comment further
The MIT predicted average rate of warming of 5.2 C is, according to my calculation ,3.2 to 4 times ,depending on whose data you use, the observed rate of global average surface temperature anomaly rise over the last 30 years and not 2 times. The worst case scenario of 7.4 C would be 10 times the observed rate of global temperature anomaly rise for the period 1900-2009.[ 0.72C] These high projections seem absurd but coming from a roulette wheel, anything is possible as this is not a scientific approach .
Has anyone else looked into the MIT figures?
I Googled the four guys in the photo…Surprisingly none of them are Earth Scientists…
Mort Webster is a professor of “decision-making”…
Adam Schlosser is a student…
Ronald Prinn is a chemistry professor…
Sergey Paltsev is an economist…
Ron de Haan (08:12:43) :
As it stands, this Congress is rapidly shaping up to be the most unethical, immoral and dictatorial in history. When the people finally rebel, it won’t be a pretty sight’.
Ron,
This troubles me too.
The outcome is always the same.
Dave
OT: Obama plan: Paint roofs white to save world
Suggests light colors would reduce global warming
WorldNetDaily
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=99290
Steven Chu, who directed the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and was professor of physics and molecular and cell biology at the University of California before being appointed by President Obama to be the U.S. Energy Secretary, says white paint is what’s needed to fix global warming.
Chu, who according to the federal agency’s website, successfully applied the techniques he developed in atomic physics to molecular biology and recently led the lab in pursuit of new alternative and renewable energies, has told the London Times that by making paved surfaces and roofs lighter in color, the world would reduce carbon emissions by as much as parking all the cars in the world for 11 years.
The DOE says Chu’s areas of expertise are in atomic physics, quantum electronics, polymer and biophysics. According to the Times, he was speaking at the St. James’ Palace Nobel Laureate Symposium, in which the Times partners for media events, when he described his simple and “completely benign” … “geo-engineering” plan.
He said building codes should require that flat roofed-buildings have their tops painted white. Visible sloped roofs could be painted “cool” colors. And roads could be made a lighter color.
Chu, a co-winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1997, was sworn in as energy secretary Jan. 21.
Obama said when he appointed Chu, “The future of our economy and national security is inextricably linked to one challenge: energy… Steven has blazed new trails as a scientist, teacher, and administrator.”
“I think with flat-type roofs you can’t even see, yes, I think you should regulate quite frankly,” Chu said in the Times report.
And asked if governments should promote white paint as the global warming “solution,” he said, “Yes, absolutely … White roofs everywhere, yes.”
Light surfaces reflect more of the sunlight that falls on them, hardly a surprise in warmer parts of the world where walls and roofs have been whitewashed for generations.
Chu told the Times his dogma on the issue was prompted by Art Rosenfeld of the California Energy Commission, who prompted a change in that state that now requires all flat roofs on commercial buildings to be painted white.
The Times report said a year ago, Rosenfeld and several colleagues estimated changing the color of roofs in 100 of the largest cities around the world would save 44 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions.
“Now, you smile, but [Rosenfeld has] done a calculation, made a paper on this, and if you take all the buildings and make their roofs white and if you make the pavement more of a concrete type of color rather than a black type of color, and you do this uniformly… it’s the equivalent of reducing the carbon emissions due to all the cars on the road for 11 years, you just take them off the road for 11 years,” Chu told the Times.
“Get a bucket of paint and a brush and save the planet!” wrote a participant in the news page’s forums page.
—————-
How will this stop the greenhouse effect? Isn’t the UHI effect minimal? Is white paint a carbon sink?
OMG. These guys have finally stumbled into the truth! I have to say though that this is a pretty elaborate prop to say a pretty simple thing. Wouldn’t it be easier to just say, “We don’t know what the hell we’re talking about; in fact we’re really just guessing”
I did a little digging on Mr. Prinn trying to figure out what in the heck they were thinking. His page at MIT leads you to these admissions:
Prinn admits to big uncertainties in the IGSM: clouds, which play a large role, are difficult to model. There are also uncertainties about emissions, and ocean-mixing, the churning of cooler and warmer waters, which can bring carbon buried on the ocean floor to the surface. Prinn’s caveat is “never seriously believe any single forecast of the climate going into the future.”
That about says it all. They have proved that there is nothing but uncertainty in this business and the best icon for the whole mess is a half assed carnival wheel of chance.
This story here suggests there was big global warming 1000 years ago
http://cdapress.com/articles/2009/05/23/columns/columns06.txt
The Blackfeet tribe in Montana suggest that the glaciers in Glacier National Park almost disappeared 1000 years ago and retreated/advanced dozens of times during the 2000 or so years they were living there according to their historian.
Let’s see about that, and they were observing the climate way before modern meteorology was even invented.
Anthony,
Dave Middleton’s search should be added as an update to the article: it corroborates how MIT is trying to marginalize Lindzen’s work…
Lets see, nine and 1/2 years of this century gone and we have a slight downward “global temperature” [if there is such a thing] trend. If the cooling continues, this means the remaining years temperatures must rise at ever increasing rates in order to make the AGW/IPCC goals.
In 2018, this MIT model will be revised upward to, say, 7°C/82years.
If we [well not me, but everyone alive] reach 2098 with no net warming, that last year is gonna’ be a killer!
Great adlibs all.
Love the picture Mike McMillan! The White House should have called on you to do the photo for the NYC flyover.
But what troubles me is, here are three scientists and an engineer (they obviously needed him to design that very complicated and sophisticated Analog Global Temperature Increase Prognosticative Unit – AGTIPU, sitting on the table) that are supposedly well-educated and serious individuals, presenting the results of a project on a very serious subject, that consumed some good portion of their time (as well as others, one would presume) and money (including “taxpayer”, one would presume) in such a way as to make the average person question 1. – If it’s a joke or 2. – If they have clumsily made a joke of it? It also begs the question – Are we laughing at them or, unbeknownst to us, are we laughing WITH THEM? Or maybe it should be, are THEY laughing at us?
Whatever, the point is this is just the latest example of what pretends to be a “scientist” now days.
I mean give me a break! As a summary of their work (and money from whatever source) they produce a spinning wheel called – “The Greenhouse Gamble”? If THE REPORTS predictive acumen is the same as THE WHEEL’S (and why create it, if it’s not) it’s not just silly, it’s a mockery! A mockery of GOOD science and another “black-eye” for true scientist!
I can see the White House meeting now:
Science advisor, “Yes, Mr. President. That prestigious group over at MIT called, the Center for Global Change Science, has finished a study and produce a report that clearly and mistakably, I mean UN-mistakably shows that there will be an increase in global temperatures of any where from zero to greater than 7 degrees over some period of time, depending completely on whether we have some sort of policy – or not, relating to – or not, the composition of the atmosphere – – I think….”
The President, “Well, obviously if it’s from MIT, it must be right – – uh, correct! What’s this report called?”
Science advisor, “The Greenhouse Gamble Report, Sir.”
The President, “Oh, I like gambling. Didn’t know MIT was into that kind of thing.”
Science advisor, “Yes Sir, and here is the wheel they made just for you.” Go ahead and give it a whirl Mr. President!”
The President, “I’m all in! Here goes. Hope I don’t land on “No policy”!”
LOL
And just for Mike Bryant:
All in thought clouds-
Mort- “W·m−2·Hz−1 / W·sr−1 + erg·cm−2·s−1 ….. This is nuts! Those numbers are way low!”
Adam- “I’m Adam – – I think. This is a wheel – – I think. Adam’s going to spin the wheel – – now?”
Ronald- “A $20 million grant, all summed up in this stupid wheel. You gota love it! Give me more.”
Sergey- “The simple minded MSM are going to eat this up. I see a bestseller in my future.”
MKE Bob
Disputin (00:08:34) :
…
More seriously, I keep reading of these multiple model runs with slight changes in input data being averaged. Is that valid?
If you run a constructive simulation repeatedly with the same script but different inputs, it’s called “sensitivity analysis” and it is an extremely useful technique in system analysis and system engineering. However, and this is extremely important, the script you run in the constructive simulation has to come from a virtual simulation, or, ideally, from real world observation.
If you are interested in studying climate variation, you might want to use it to study the sensitivity of the climate to increased CO2 – but ONLY after you have developed a model that has been independently validated and verified.
To my knowledge, there are no IV&Ved climate models. There are also no models that can “backcast,” i.e. be run in revere to generate the historic climate record.
I’ve reviewed R&D programs in the past, and found cases of overlooking things, math errors, etc., so I’m pretty careful in throwing around the term “fraud.” In this case, after reading http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/roulette-0519.html, the fraud is pretty obvious.
BTW, any manager in engineering who works at a company that actually has to produce something will tell you to recruit engineers at Cal Tech, VA Tech, Michigan Tech, or any of dozens of top notch engineering schools. But stay away from MIT. To be blunt, it doesn’t deserve its reputation.
RE: Adolfo Giurfa (07:59:06) :
“US wants to paint the world white to save energy”
Another article about this:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/5389278/Obamas-green-guru-calls-for-white-roofs.html
“President Obama’s energy adviser has suggested all the world’s roofs should be painted white as part of efforts to slow global warming. ”
– Mr. Watts, Should we use whitewash or latex? 😉
And, Way Off Topic, but too good to miss:
Article about the World Business Summit climate conference in Copenhagen.
http://politiken.dk/newsinenglish/article719339.ece
” “We’ve been extremely busy. Politicians also need to relax after a long day,” says ‘Miss Dina’, herself a prostitute.”
Love the wording and its implication.
It becomes more clear everday…Climate and AGW has nothing to do with anything. It’s about moving money around to where’s it’s deemed to fit the desired outcome. There is now talk of a national sales tax on top of national income tax.
CO2 Cap and Tax
National Sales Tax
Company provided insurance to be taxed as income
Higher Income Tax is coming
I still like this site because I like true science, but it’s clear to me at this point that your not going to make a difference short term with the truth. Maybe in 25 years people can dig this info up and it will be listed as reference.
Dig in, it’s just starting……..
Steve
Prof Prinn is a reasonable person, who teaches limits on global warming models as well.
He is even in violation of several of Chris Colose’s ‘quantifying skeptic arguments’ rules.
http://chriscolose.wordpress.com/2008/11/03/quantifying-skeptical-arguments/
Yes but science plays an important new part in the Chu Chu scheme, right after they paint the earth white.
Anybody see the similarities to the 1970s put carbon black all over the ice caps to melt them and stop the next ice age nonsense?
Come to think of it, what’s so bad about a dart board, at least you are right 50-50.
Are Scientists the new “priests” in our modern world with their “Wheel of Fortune” (Carmina Burana comes to mind)? Through ‘fear’ they try to control us like sheep. In all aspects of our lives they teach us what is good and what is bad. Their “Wheel of Fortune” is blazoned with catastrophes and is regularly spun to remind us of how we are sinful and will surely be punished. Of course, we must pay more tithes to finance their growing Monastery and avoid the hellfire. Clearly, more research is needed and we must build more Temples to the Holy Sciences.
Now I know what is really behind, or on top, of the AGW thing:
http://politiken.dk/newsinenglish/article719339.ece
Is this a Climate Science study or a Political Science study? I didn’t know scientists were supposed to advocate for public policy in their technical papers.
Bruce already beat me to it…
Yes.
Scientists aren’t supposed to do that sort of thing.
Hence, the profusion of “hybrid” schools…Berkley’s Energy and Resource Group, Columbia’s Earth Institute, MIT’s Center for Global Change Science, Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Potsdam’s Institute for Climate Impact Research, etc.
Hence, the profusion of “hybrid” schools…Berkley’s Energy and Resource Group, Columbia’s Earth Institute, MIT’s Center for Global Change Science, Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Potsdam’s Institute for Climate Impact Research, etc.
Indeed the construction of the Monasteries is progressing quite well – thank you for your contributions folks. Cromwell and Henry would probably smile knowingly if they could witness all this happening all over again…
Thise roulette wheel featured in an article by the Guardian’s Environment editor John Vidal back in March, and another by Monbiot last week. It was attributed to the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, who are sponsored by Exxon, Shell, BP and Total among others. Careful how you mock, there’s Big Oil money bet on this.
One thing I have noticed over the years is how the “warmists” react to their conclusions being challenged. Rather than defend their data or methods of analysis, they tend to attack the challenger. Rather than attack the challenger’s analysis, they get personal. That is generally a very good indication that there is no “there” there.
The tactics used to defend their conclusions are most often obfuscation and intimidation with a bit of name calling tossed in for good measure. If one asks to see the actual data and methods used to arrive at their conclusion, the first answer is generally “no”, followed by a circular chase to locate it, often followed by a final “we lost it”. Now I can see the dog eating the homework once. The problem is these people seem to have very hungry dogs and they are very keen on not allowing anyone to see the work behind the conclusions.
Should one dare to disagree or even ask to see the data, then they are a “denier” or an energy company shill, or whatever it takes to shift the focus from their work and place that focus on the person asking to see it. There is also a good deal of professional intimidation where paying homage to the “global warming” dogma is required for publication. If a paper or press release or study results in a conclusion that something happened due to natural rather than human causes, it must carry the “but this does not negate the impact of AGW” disclaimer before the end of the text. If Arctic ice was lost due to wind patterns, you must insert the obligatory AGW note in there someplace or risk your funding being cut off and disinvitation to the better cocktail parties.
Generally when one attacks the messenger rather than focusing on the message, it means they really have no defense. It is a way of changing the subject. It makes the challenger into the challenged and puts them on the defensive.
The “warmists” are the “deniers”. They offer no proof of their conclusions. Their conclusions would get tossed out of a high school science class as they refuse to “show their work”.
The “warmists” have also made a mockery of the peer review process. They create a circle of like-minded individuals who review each others papers and shut out any reviewer who raises uncomfortable questions. In return they make considerable sums in consulting and speaking fees. They become quite popular and appear on the front pages of major newspapers. Their cocktail party card is full, and yet they still can’t seem to find the money to properly feed that dog.
Maybe they should buy a vowel.
well, it only stands to reason since coral reefs first appeared when CO2 concentrations and atmospheric temperatures were much higher than today…
Heat-resistant Corals Ignore Climate Change Threats
http://theresilientearth.com/?q=content/heat-resistant-corals-ignore-climate-change-threats
This means that corals survived the worst ever mass extinction event in the history of Earth—the Permian-Triassic Extinction, 251 million years ago—and lived through the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous. During this span of nearly 200 million years, CO2 levels were 5-10 times higher than they are now with temperatures as much as 10ºC higher than today.. After surviving the event that killed off the dinosaurs, corals have remained the ocean’s primary reef builders during the Cenozoic era, roughly the past 63 million years. Scientists should have known that any creatures who can live through all that are tough enough to put up with slight fluctuations in water temperature.
Photo Caption “Smile boys, you should be all proud of what we have done here. We invented the wheel. Nice job. Damn Mort, you’re not smiling. Try harder.”
Addition to Photo Caption: “Mort, are you with us or with the enemy? Smile!”
Professor of “decision making” illustrating his work with a roullette wheel: priceless.
Anthony, do you have any idea how many thousands of people–besides me–stole that photo? It’s priceless. The AGW Scientific Method.
Bruce Foutch (10:03:07) :
Another article about this:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/5389278/Obamas-green-guru-calls-for-white-roofs.html
White=TiO2 (titanium dioxide). Is somebody interested in selling billions of tons of this pigment among the green crowd?.
Pearland Aggie (11:23:46) : You will become old arguing. It is NOT an issue of rational discussion, it is just a fanatic agenda, which will end provoking what all fanatic agendas have provoked in the past…I hope you will never see those hansen’s trains.
http://www.spunk.org/texts/places/germany/sp001630/peter.html
John Galt (09:35:52) :
“OT: Obama plan: Paint roofs white to save world
Suggests light colors would reduce global warming”
The Times report said a year ago, Rosenfeld and several colleagues estimated changing the color of roofs in 100 of the largest cities around the world would save 44 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions.
“Now, you smile, but [Rosenfeld has] done a calculation, made a paper on this, and if you take all the buildings and make their roofs white and if you make the pavement more of a concrete type of color rather than a black type of color, and you do this uniformly… it’s the equivalent of reducing the carbon emissions due to all the cars on the road for 11 years, you just take them off the road for 11 years,” Chu told the Times.”
Wow, as an engineer, I would like to see the calculations and assumptions behind this claim. Remember Chu is the guy who can’t convert correctly between Centigrade and Degrees F. Sure, I believe that in the summer, a white roof is better if you have no shade trees, but not all of us live in warm sunny climates all year long. Doesn’t that dark roof help in the winter when it is cold outside? Is this benefit so large when you have a vented attic 10 inches of insulation between the attic and the and in
The gentleman trying to roll that Nostradamus thing has a face I would like to punch.
John Galt (10:24:54) :
Is this a Climate Science study or a Political Science study? I didn’t know scientists were supposed to advocate for public policy in their technical papers.
Heh! Haven’t you read Science, Nature, New Scientist, etc.?
“Is somebody interested in selling billions of tons of this pigment among the green crowd?.”
They better be careful with that stuff. A hundred thousand acres of white roof is equivalent to a hundred thousand acres of permanent glacial ice and could have an “interesting” albedo impact. It’s probably better to use a color that reflects about the same amount of light as the natural surrounding landscape outside the urban area.
Adolfo Giurfa (11:37:43) :
Bruce Foutch (10:03:07) :
Another article about this:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/5389278/Obamas-green-guru-calls-for-white-roofs.html
White=TiO2 (titanium dioxide). Is somebody interested in selling billions of tons of this pigment among the green crowd?.
Hah! Excellent idea! But I need a government subside from cap&trade to start my business. 😉
I find it funny that the wheel features sections entirely devoted to temperature increases only, unless that little blue sliver at the top is uncertainty or possibility of cooling. It’s as if there’s absolutely NO WAY they could be wrong about future warming. Too funny!
Adolfo Giurfa (11:37:43) :
From the article,
“More pale surfaces could also slow global warming by reflecting heat into space rather than allowing it to be absorbed by dark surfaces where it is trapped by greenhouse gases and increases temperatures.”
That shows how little that guy understands about the greenhouse effect. That the photons are reflected or delayed (i.e. absorbed and reemitted) does not change anything.
My house and inside walls are all covered with TiO2 pigments, as it is the standard white pigment in paint. I understand that it is also good to purify the air, so they should be paying us now.
People need to read the paper itself. It’s 50 pages. At one point, they talk about precipitation systems, but they don’t have observations for the precipitation, so they rely on model runs to provide them the parameters for the precipitation system. Supposedly, you tune the model to the observation so as to make a better model. They tune their model to other models, thus incorporating the errors of the other models. What are the actual observations that they are relying upon for tuning the rest of their model, I didn’t really see explained at all. How they go from the logrithmic CO2 forcing to gain a feedback 900% more, they don’t really explain — at least not in a language I can understand. If there are posters here who have read it, if they might point to explanations within the paper itself that clarify how they arrived at their conclusions — or can translate what they’ve written into human form — I would greatly appreciate it. I would gather that the reporters just took their word for it — or the words from the press release.
@ crosspatch (10:56:11) :
The ‘warmists’ / ‘alarmists’ typically have 2 arguments:
1. CO2 is a greenhouse gas so it must be causing warming
2. If you don’t agree you are worse than Hitler
(From “Captain Carpenter”, by John Crowe Ransome,
with apologies for minor alterations)
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=179130
Since 2001, Prinn has been walking around the casino with a $2,600,000.00 grant from the National Science Foundation in his pocket. He’s lost his original stake, and he needs to get the house to raise his limit.
His study came out the same week as the Cap ‘n Trade bill came out of the House committee. Smart politician.
John Galt (09:35:52) :
“OT: Obama plan: Paint roofs white to save world
Suggests light colors would reduce global warming”
The Times report said a year ago, Rosenfeld and several colleagues estimated changing the color of roofs in 100 of the largest cities around the world would save 44 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions.
“Now, you smile, but [Rosenfeld has] done a calculation, made a paper on this, and if you take all the buildings and make their roofs white and if you make the pavement more of a concrete type of color rather than a black type of color, and you do this uniformly… it’s the equivalent of reducing the carbon emissions due to all the cars on the road for 11 years, you just take them off the road for 11 years,” Chu told the Times.”
Wow, as an engineer, I would like to review the calculations and assumptions behind this claim. Remember Chu is the guy who can’t convert correctly between Centigrade and Degrees F. so why would I trust his claims. Sure, I believe that in the summer, a white roof is better if you have no shade trees, but not all of us live in warm sunny climates all year long. Doesn’t that dark roof help in the winter when it is cold outside and the sun is shinning ? Is this benefit so large when you have a vented attic plus 10 inches of insulation between the attic and the and living space. I see the energy savings from reduced AC for the roof, but not sure about the benefit of light colored pavement. Would the reflection from roads really make a significant difference in the earth temperature
I would gladly let them paint my roof if they would only back off on mpg standards and let me drive my comfortable, safe car that getsonly gets 24 mpg. Of course a white roof would not make a difference in energy usage anyway since my roof sees no sun in the summer due to shade trees. Of course I could cut down the trees and convert the wood to renewable, green fuel to make them happy with a white roof and a tax credit.
BTW Chu has worked on alternative fuels for a while now. Can anyone cite his accomplishments in this field or has he just wasted taxpayers money?
@ Don Shaw (11:50:00) :
I lived in southern Nevada for a few years, on the edge of the Mojave desert. It’s very sunny there.
I noticed that all the school buses had white roofs and most people drove light-colored cars (‘desert-friendly paint’). Strangely, the local builders never caught on by using light roofing materials.
When I posted that article, I was most interested in the irony. The official line is the Urban Heat Island effect is negligible, but here we are being urged to combat AGW by reducing UHI.
Otherwise, it’s sound advice if you live someplace that’s sunny most of the year. A light or white roof will help with summer cooling if you live in a sunny climate but will make your furnace work harder in the winter if you don’t.
What Chu needs to do is to fund an intensive R&D program to create roofing materials that lighten when exposed to light and heat and darken in their absence. This can be paid for through Cap’N Trade funds.
There is also a natural model to follow. Shade trees help keep the sun off you house in the summer. The trees lose their leaves in the fall and let more sunlight fall on your home. We need a government program to create an artificial, affordable shade tree that can be manufactured using ‘green’ production methods. Again, Cap’N Trade can pay for it.
In the meantime, we should all go up on the roofs and wrap our homes in aluminum foil before summer starts.
PS: Be sure to put the ‘shiny side’ out!
crosspatch,
You pegged it. AGW is a social movement. It is not about climate per se at all.
It is about how to order life so as to achieve a balance. Religions have been doing this better for far longer.
AGW as science is a scam. There is no pending human caused apocalypse. There is no record of great climate changes to justify the sturm and drang of the AGW promotion industry. There are no predictions that AGW promoters have made about climate change that have come true.
The credibility and power the AGW community has in the public square is not due to predictions of anything that has actually happened. The credibility is due to excellent marketing.
New Administration Announces Global Warming Initiative
The administration has announced that besides Cap and Crunch, they will take a proactive stance against Climate Change by requiring the following:
1) All structures in the United States and her Territories must be painted white.
2) All road and parking lots must be white.
3) All automobiles and any other vehicles must be white.
4) All clothing must be white, especially hats.
5) All man-made objects must be white.
6) All pets must be white.
7) All exterior grade paint must be white.
8) Anything that is outside must be white.
9) Anything that is outside that is NOT white, MUST be reported to the authorities.
10) Interior colors will be governed by a different proclamation.
“A light or white roof will help with summer cooling if you live in a sunny climate but will make your furnace work harder in the winter”
Not true. Your black roof radiates energy into space much more efficiently at night than a white roof does. In winter, night is much longer than day. Also sun angle is so low in winter, you don’t get much if any warming from it anyway. And any warming you do get from winter sun will dissipate if there is the slightest breeze and the roof goes back to being a net radiator.
A white roof coating with insulating ceramic will save you money in any climate AND make your roof last decades longer than it otherwise would.
Ray (12:10:29) : That shows how little that guy understands about the greenhouse effect. That the photons are reflected or delayed (i.e. absorbed and reemitted) does not change anything
Please read what Niels Bohr said about that inexisting “Greenhouse effect”:
http://www.giurfa.com/gh_experiments.pdf
John W. (10:02:42) :
We have this in finance, ‘valuing’ assets on the basis of discounted cash flow out to ‘infinity’, inputting ‘perpetual growth’ rates.
Nothing has to be changed if you get your estimates wrong for year or two or even more, coz the model is ‘normalised’ further out.
Think typewriter manufactures circa 1979 (wonder what happened to Olivetti http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivetti)
But we can agree that if anybody doesn’t agree then they sir, are worse than Hitler.
darwin (12:18:06) :
How they go from the logrithmic CO2 forcing to gain a feedback 900% more, they don’t really explain — at least not in a language I can understand.
I’ve read some related articles and the authors call it “loop”, which would work similarly as a quantum tunnel. I consider those positive feedbacks are a species of “convenient” creators of energy from void. Our work never ends and from any scientific assessment, there is not any “loop” creator of energy from nothing. If the energy is distributed among all the store of energy systems, how is it possible the amplification of the stored energy to densities which didn’t exist previously? Is it a “convenient” rewriting of thermodynamics laws? I will show you an example taken from nature, specifically from today’s registers, at 15:00 UT:
Ti air = 301.05 K
Tf air (one hour later) = 301.25 K
m of water vapor (RH = 85%) = 0.0255 Kg
Energy stored by water vapor:
q = 11.6586 J
m of carbon dioxide = 0.00069 Kg (Conc. = 387 ppmV)
Energy stored by carbon dioxide:
q = 0.116 J
Energy stored by Nitrogen:
q = 329.51 J
Energy stored by Oxygen:
q = 240.52 J
How possible it is that people think the CO2 is warming the Earth? Considering that the CO2 emissivity was 0.25, which is an exaggeration, the amount of energy radiated by the CO2 would be 0.087 J. The latter amount of radiated energy would cause an increase of the surface temperature, which is also questionable, of 0.05 °C from the total increase of 0.2 K in one hour.
The Price of Going Green: The Biggest Tax Increase In World History
Published by Frosty the Know Man at 2:15 pm under The Economic Debate
A reminder of the stakes for the Waxman-Markey global warming / cap-and-trade bill from CEI’s Myron Ebell:
If enacted, H. R. 2454 would be the biggest government takeover of the economy since the Second World War, which is the last time energy, food, and other basic commodities were rationed. It would also be the biggest tax increase in the history of the world and would cause a colossal transfer of wealth from consumers to big businesses.
From: http://thechillingeffect.org/2009/05/27/the-price-of-going-green-the-biggest-tax-increase-in-world-history/
This is facism, nothing more, nothing less.
Here is all you need to know about roofing materials, color, absorption properties, etc: http://www.fsec.ucf.edu/en/publications/html/FSEC-CR-670-00/
Conclusions
FSEC has sponsored testing on over 60 samples of common roofing materials. The testing provided data on the spectral reflectance characteristics of the samples. Data was also provided on the reflectance properties as integrated over the ultraviolet (UV), visible (VIS) and near infrared (NIR) portions of the solar spectrum. Tests were also performed on the far-infrared reflectance of the samples allowing calculation of their emittance. The results suggest the following conclusions:
All colors of asphalt shingles evidence poor solar reflectance (3 – 26%)
An improved white asphalt shingle using the conventional process showed only modest improvement (31% reflectance)
White elastomeric coatings showed high solar reflectance (65-78%)
Other white roofing systems showed high solar reflectance:
– White concrete tile: 73%
– White metal roof: 67%
– White cement shingle: 77%
– White EPDM and Hypalon products: 69 – 81%
We identified the need for a consistent sample surface substrate for the comparative evaluation of paints and coatings.
The potential success of spectrally selective roofing materials, with their reflectivity concentrated in the near infrared region, is compromised by the higher spectral energy content in the visible wavelengths of solar radiation.
Their odds wheel is in fact a very good analogy for their global climate model and I’m sure just as accurate in its predictions. The 400 runs of the GCM will produce the average of the values they put into the model, just like the odds wheel.
And on roof surfaces. Here in Australia, practical experience tells us grey reflective metallic roofs are the best. Very high albedo when the sun shines. Relatively low outgoing heat radiation when it doesn’t. Also very low insulation. So probably a bad idea in cooler climates.
Because of the remarks about the Climate Policies of the Obama Government this publication is NOT off topic:
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
How NOT to Defend America
By Alan Caruba
Does anyone believe that we don’t live in an increasingly dangerous world; one in which nuclear weapons are proliferating and worldwide Islamic terrorism threatens our nation and others?
The first months of the Obama administration bode ill for the safety of the United States. Calling on the United Nations to rebuke North Korea for what North Korea has always done, fire off missiles and test atomic bombs, is as useless a response as could be imagined. Consider this approach in light of the administration’s cuts to a much-needed missile defense system for the homeland.
Organizing a serious inspection system of every ship entering or leaving North Korean waters would go much further to reducing its ability to ship its weapons to others with bad intentions. Is it an act of war? Is routinely using U.S. national holidays to demonstrate its belligerence a signal of their intentions? They have already said they do not intend to abide by the 1953 armistice agreement.
What has been Iran’s response to President Obama’s extended hand of friendship? They have sent their warships into international waters, although it can be argued they want to protect the oil tankers on which their economy depends. They have tested new longer range missiles, making it clear they can now target Israel and others in the region. They continue to work on developing nuclear weapons.
In a recent commentary, Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., president of the Center for Security Policy, warns that the Obama administration has dispatched a diplomat to Russia to negotiate a new bilateral treaty to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) with the possibility of reducing by as much as a third of what is left of our arsenal of nuclear weapons. You can bet the Kremlin is delighted with this prospect.
In another move, Gaffney warned that the Obama administration wants to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty that was rejected by a majority of the Senate a decade ago. The treaty would permanently prohibit the U.S. from underground nuclear testing. Good news for North Korea, Iran and every other nation that wants to threaten us.
At the same time, while babbling endlessly about “energy independence”, we live in a nation that sits atop vast reserves of coal and oil. Since the 1970s, however, successive administrations have taken steps to ensure that we can neither mine, nor drill for any of it.
Not a single new oil refinery has been built in the U.S. since those years when the oil industry had windfall profits taxes imposed and other measures that deterred the prospect of domestic exploration and development.
We have a President who is on record opposing the building of any new coal-fired plants to provide for our growing need for more electricity and has rescinded any exploration for oil or natural gas reserves along our vast continental shelf.
Thanks to the environmental organizations the United States has allowed ideology to trump common sense regarding our energy needs and the arms agreements the Obama administration is pursuing would leave us unable to fulfill our obligations to the many nations that depend upon our nuclear umbrella to protect them.
The Obama administration has a Transportation Secretary who wants the government to “coerce” everyone to abandon automobiles in favor of mass transit and bicycles.
We have an Energy Secretary who says the answer to a non-existent global warming is to paint the roofs of all buildings white to reflect the Sun’s radiation.
The administration has a science advisor who wants to shoot soot or something else into the atmosphere for the same purpose.
We have an Environmental Protection Agency Director and an environmental advisor to the President who believe that carbon dioxide is a “pollutant” instead of a gas that is vital to all life on Earth.
We have a Congress that is contemplating a ludicrous Cap-and-Trade bill that would impose a tax on the emission of carbon dioxide on all energy producers and users for the purpose of deterring global warming at a time when the Earth is now ten years into a cooling cycle. It would destroy an already fragile economy.
As General Motors and Chrysler ready themselves for bankruptcy and huge downsizing measures, the Obama administration has imposed a new standard for gasoline use in automobiles that will require that they be smaller and more dangerous. Nor is there any indication that Americans want to purchase or drive such models.
A recent Rasmussen telephone survey revealed that 75% said that finding new sources of energy to reduce our dependence on imported sources of energy should be the goal of our government.
And, finally, we have a President who has rather casually said that the nation has run out of money.
Does any of this suggest that Congress and the White House have abandoned anything that resembles common sense? Has the unconstitutional looting of the national treasury done anything other than to debase and devalue the dollar? Are we less safe now that we no longer have the robust national security policy of the past eight years?
The Obama administration, in concert with Congress, is seeking to disarm the nation at the very time we need to expand our military capabilities. The same administration is seeking to impose “global warming” mandates and restrictions that threaten our economy.
Ideology, whether it is about the environment or about national security, endangers our nation at every turn.
From: http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/
It is my personal opinion the current Government is purpetrating TREASON,
to the US Constitution and the American People.
Adolfo Giurfa (13:12:25) :
Thanks for the article. This is why every time I take an infrared spectrum of any molecule or mixture, they don’t heat and start boiling. Once the energy is absorbed, it does not absorb more energy… this is why we can measure spectra, else I would see my absorption band go to the “roof”.
A chemical to stop melanin production in skin tissues (in order to comply with recommended whiteness): Anthraquinone.
It affects the liver a little but taking it will increase your skin’s albedo 🙂
Molon Labe (00:46:55) :
They should be forced to watch Feynman talk about organic farmers:
I often find it tantalizing to imagine how different the world would be, if educators and students had over the last several decades drawn inspiration from the incredible Feynman and his wonderful relationship to his equally incredible father instead of falling under the sway of leftist brainwashers like Bill Ayers, Saul Alinsky, Chomsky, et al. Mr. Feynman discusses how and what his father taught him and the nearly perfect understanding of what it means to be a scientist that he developed as a result, in the other segments of the interview you linked and I would recommend that anyone here, who still has children in your home, watch the whole thing. You will be hard pressed to find a better model of how to raise a child to be the finest human being they are capable of being. If all the “scientists” our colleges and universities have produced in my lifetime were instilled with Feynman’s understanding of what that label really means and any portion of his sense of personal integrity, “scientist” would not have fallen to its’ present state, where it is now nearly synonymous with whore. We certainly would not be inundated by daily press releases declaiming how they have definitively shown this, that, or the other thing, when the evidence they have gathered is usually not enough to justify even a weak suspicion that they are correct. In this alternate universe, we would have very few declarations of proven knowledge, but I’m fairly confident that what humanity was able to really understand about the world and universe we inhabit would be many orders of magnitude beyond our current pathetic state.
@ Adolfo Giurfa (13:12:25) :
Do you have more recent experiments to confirm this? There must be some simple experiments that can be performed to verify or falsify Bohr’s conclusions.
BTW: Like others, I’m frustrated with the lack of curiosity over this. Science is never settled. I’m tired of hearing ‘CO2 is a grenhouse gas so it must be causing climate change.’
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6350237.ece
I’m usually up-to-date on what’s been posted. If this has been posted before, please “snip” it, but this is so ridiculous, it’s funny:
Burping of the lambs blows roast off menu
From The Sunday TimesMay 24, 2009
Burping of the lambs blows roast off menu
Jonathan Leake, Environment Editor
GIVE up lamb roasts and save the planet. Government advisers are developing menus to combat climate change by cutting out “high carbon” food such as meat from sheep, whose burping poses a serious threat to the environment.
Out will go kebabs, greenhouse tomatoes and alcohol. Instead, diners will be encouraged to consume more potatoes and seasonal vegetables, as well as pork and chicken, which generate fewer carbon emissions.
“Changing our lifestyles, including our diets, is going to be one of the crucial elements in cutting carbon emissions,” said David Kennedy, chief executive of the Committee on Climate Change.
I simply don’t know what to say.
OT:
Sarkozy in climate row over reshuffle
By Ben Hall in Paris
Published: May 27 2009 03:00 | Last updated: May 27 2009 03:00
President Nicolas Sarkozy’s desire to appoint an outspoken climate-change sceptic to a new French super-ministry of industry and innovation has drawn strong protests from party colleagues and environmentalists.
Claude Allègre argues that global warming is not necessarily caused by human activity. Putting him in charge of scientific research would be tantamount to “giving the finger to scientists”, said Nicolas Hulot, France’s best-known environmental activist.
I do believe that’s the longest link I’ve seen:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/a2b172ba-4a54-11de-8e7e-00144feabdc0,Authorised=false.html?_i_location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2Fa2b172ba-4a54-11de-8e7e-00144feabdc0.html%3Fnclick_check%3D1&_i_referer=&nclick_check=1
“Bring me my bow of burning gold:
Bring me my arrows of desire:
Bring me my spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire.”
No, not to build Jerusalem in England’s green and pleasant land but to smite those who who would destroy us all.
I have never read or heard of such unmitigated rubbish trying to pass as something emanating from Academia as this absolute tripe from the once-respected MIT.
Keep in mind that MIT developed the A123 LiFEPO4 technology….that’s what I do, put battery packs together. A good run of Hybrid and Plug in electrics would be good for MIT, assuming that get a cut for the technology. A123 is now asking the Obama admin for $1.2B to build a manufacturing site in MI.
No, I am not building automobile packs and no I would not profit from the green movment. No, I don’t believe the earth is heating up and yes I think CO2 is a gas that plants need to live on.
Messages from all over the world must count for something?
Canada Has a Frigid May after a Cold Winter
By Joseph D’Aleo
May has been frigid slowing the planting and emergence of the summer crops in Canada. Late freezes and even snows are still occurring regularly and can be expected the rest of the month.
See full PDF at: http://www.icecap.us
And: Extreme cold weather events kill children in Peru
http://www.peruviantimes.com/extreme-cold-temperatures-cause-death-of-133-children-under-the-age-of-five/
And: Record low temperatures measured in 21 US States, some breaking 100 year old records: http://www.iceagenow.com/Record_Lows_2009.htm
And: Glaciers growing in the Himalayas: http://www.iceagenow.com/Glaciers_Growing_in_Western_Himalayas.htm
And: Record cold and early snow in Australia and New Zealand
Coldest May morning on record in Australia – 22 May 09 – Two far north Queensland towns have experienced their coldest May morning on record.
Cooktown, north of Cairns, dropped to 10 degrees Celsius – two degrees below its previous record low, while Coen on Cape York Peninsula recorded just 10.4 degrees.
At Ravenshoe, temperatures as low as 3C were reported, while at Mareeba, the temperature dropped to 9.4C.
http://www.cairns.com.au/article/2009/05/22/43515_local-news.html
http://www.weatherzone.com.au/news/far-nth-qld-wakes-to-coldest-may-morning/11932
New Zealand misses autumn – goes straight to winter – 21 May 09 – NZ Herald – Rotorua awoke to the rare sight of snow this morning with the eastern suburbs and hills behind the airport coated.
Weather analyst Philip Duncan says winter has “well and truly arrived early”. “It’s like we haven’t had an autumn. We had a warm April but there’s been no in between,” he said yesterday. “We are two months away from the coldest part of the year, so to see temperatures this low is certainly eyebrow-raising.”
Yes, I know, it’s only weather, not climate!
But when 100 year old cold records are broken it’s a mighty strong indicator that we are cooling down, don’t you think?
“Why did you lend it out to those jerks in the local school? They must have loaded it to stick in that mean sceptic blue sector every time.”
John Galt (14:19:43) :For that to be true atmosphere should have the capacity of “holding” heat as water, however its volumetric heat capacity it is 3227 less than that of water. Check the volumetric heat capacities of both.
Any heated gas in the atmosphere transfers its heat by convection. The world it is not flat and covered with a bowl shaped glass sky, it is open. Thanks to the seas and ground for the mild temperatures we have, which keep the warm our sun gives us.
Dave Wendt (13:58:36) : Excellent comments. I watched hours of Feynman videos last night. Wish he were around today to dispense with this AGW nonsense.
That’s not a dart board, it’s a “wheel of fortune”-type random number generator.
Walter Cronanty (14:24:42) :
…Burping of the lambs blows roast off menu
From The Sunday TimesMay 24, 2009…
…I simply don’t know what to say.
This makes me remembering the last year (2008) when the State Environmental Secretary requested the Monterrey citizens to don’t roast meats on charcoal grills because we were contributing to prolong droughts. That was laid on the table because some black bears from the mountains were coming down to urbanized areas.
Adolfo Giurfa (14:55:56) :
John Galt (14:19:43) :For that to be true atmosphere should have the capacity of “holding” heat as water, however its volumetric heat capacity it is 3227 less than that of water. Check the volumetric heat capacities of both.
Any heated gas in the atmosphere transfers its heat by convection. The world it is not flat and covered with a bowl shaped glass sky, it is open. Thanks to the seas and ground for the mild temperatures we have, which keep the warm our sun gives us.
Exactly… ρC for oceanic liquid water is 4190000 J/m^3 °C, 1780000 J/m^3 K (in average) for ground (dry clay) and subsurface materials of ground, and 0.58 J/m^3 °C for atmospheric CO2.
Tom in Texas (14:25:03) : “…Putting [Claude Allègre] in charge of scientific research would be tantamount to “giving the finger to scientists”, said Nicolas Hulot, France’s best-known environmental activist.”
Zut alors! Zose French scientists NEED to get ze finger!
Roger Knights (15:23:45) :
That’s not a dart board, it’s a “wheel of fortune”-type random number generator.
Those people are making use of any kind of ridiculous propaganda for expanding AGW gospel.
Another caption: “Okay, guys. Stop laughing. Look serious, now. He’s going to take the picture.”
Have you read this? http://www.grforum.org/pages_new.php/Activity-report-/648/1/236/
Perry Debell (03:12:03) :
It is incredible just how 13th-century lyrics, set to music by Carl Orff, have resonance with the Wheel of Misfortune displayed by the wonks at MIT.
One of my favorite sing-alongs.
But then I sing along with Beethoven/Schiller’s 9th, too.
.
Bruce Foutch (10:03:07) :
“President Obama’s energy adviser has suggested all the world’s roofs should be painted white as part of efforts to slow global warming. ”
– Mr. Watts, Should we use whitewash or latex? 😉
Whitewash, without a doubt –
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/paint-test-082707-tmaxzoom.png
Plus, whitewash absorbs CO2 from the air. (We’ll just ignore the fact that it generates CO2 during manufacture.)
Off topic, but has anyone seen this article Greenland ice could fuel severe U.S. sea level rise on reuters?
Is Greenland Ice really melting faster? where can I find more info on this?
Ron de Haan (14:45:47) :
And: Extreme cold weather events kill children in Peru
http://www.peruviantimes.com/extreme-cold-temperatures-cause-death-of-133-children-under-the-age-of-five/
It is true, Puno is above 3500 meters high and it is a plateu at that altitude, and temperatures reach sometimes in WINTER, not in may, minus 22°C.
That would be a good place for this MIT team to study REAL CLIMATE, but of course on the field not from an hotel room.
From my previous post [“Burping of the lambs blows roast off menu”] to the incredibly intrusive, and expensive, cap and trade, the Western governments are truly using AGW to control every facet of our lives [Nasif – No barbecue for you!]. As long as institutions such as MIT put out tripe like it just did, the government elites will have more pretense to take over our lives for “our own good.” It’s amazing what people will give up for the [false] promise of “saving our planet.” I’m beginning to blame the general populace more than the elites. In the US, at least, you get the government you deserve. Too bad the rest of us have to put up with it.
=== BREAKING NEWS === BREAKING NEWS ===
Climate Cadets rescued by … Big Oil
“Climate Cadets Raoul Surcouf, 40, a gardener from Jersey, and Richard Spink, 32, a physiotherapist from Bristol had hoped to make a zero-carbon trip to the North Pole. Instead their yacht capsized and their mayday call was answered by a Big Oil Tanker…”
OT/Maybe Not
Just an observation about pedigree. In the UK the Guardian newspaper, Gawd bless ’em, although 100+x % warmist does allow dissent to an an extent that is commendable. Not, however when it comes to ‘Charlie is my darling’, the current POW.
His current spiel to 20’ish Nobellists – http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/may/27/prince-charles-nobel
is no different. No comment is invited, unlike his fellow guardanista fellow-traveller- Moonbat Mann. They may share similar pinnagraphic outlines but when it comes to that punch-bag moment it’s up to Mr Genetically Modified, rather than Mr Genetically Inbred, to handle the punches!
Can it be , that that bastion of liberality, the Graundian is now batting for the Saxe-Coburg second X1?
OT
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,25550073-5017996,00.html
China is the country cashing in on the green craze,and the UN wants the developed world to give the Chinese government money as well.
LloydH (16:46:08) :
Off topic, but has anyone seen this article Greenland ice could fuel severe U.S. sea level rise on reuters?
Is Greenland Ice really melting faster? where can I find more info on this?
Cast serious doubts on wherever you read the word “could“, which also includes my posts. When one says “it could lead to…” or “it could be”, one is showing a bit or a ton of ignorance about a problem… Heh! 🙂
How a picture can replace a thousand words…
Cheap, amateurish and plastic (the media like all those nice shiny colors after all), and backed up by nothing more than a piece of flimsy cardboard and an elastic band
That really is a pretty good description of the entire AGW movement.
I would never have associated such a picture and pre-K level “science” with an organization like MIT. Astounding.
LloydH (16:46:08) :
Off topic, but has anyone seen this article Greenland ice could fuel severe U.S. sea level rise on reuters?
Is Greenland Ice really melting faster? where can I find more info on this?
Lloyd, Got to admit that I haven’t seen this but yet reckon that I’m qualified to answer! First, I admit I know precisely nothing. Secondly, I second that but thirdly after three years of watching this and similar spaces I may just be over-qualified.
Let us re-iterate your quote.
“Greenland ice could fuel severe U.S. sea level rise on reuters?”
It’s a three quoter- (A)(B)(C) with a forth part chucked in – OK maybe it’s a four-parter quote!
(1) Greenland Ice
(2) could fuel#
(3) severe U.S. sea level rise
(4’ish) on reuters
(A1).. If it melts – OK – it has happened before and so will happen again- maybe not soon given the reduction in temperatures of the last decade or so
(A2).. Love that word could- it is so mathematical and inspirational that I use it regularly when I do the lottery
(A3).. severe… is that a subjective word? .. and is that the same sea-level rise that hasn’t happened yet in the Maldives or Tuvalu in the last hundred years?
(A4).. Reuters- See points A1 to A3 above and despair. Sometimes, the messenger needs shooting!
“Is Greenland Ice really melting faster? where can I find more info on this?”
Dunno, mate- But on this site there’s awfie clever people who will give you advice
MIT is noted for two things, science and pranks. This doesn’t look like the usual MIT student hack, but it surely isn’t science!
And if you think that’s funny, get a load of Chu’s latest!!! (Drudge links to it)
Best,
Frank
Adam from Kansas (20:09:31) :
We tend to look at things in the short term and use words like “crashed” when perhaps subsided would be appropriate.
We ar off topic so I will keep it short. Stereo behind shows no new activity but stereo ahead shows the original cause of the elevated S/F is alive and healthy.
If it survives long enough to make it into the stereo behind frames then I think it will be the true harbinger of solar cycle 24.
Stereo behind.
http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/beacon/latest/behind_euvi_195_latest.jpg
Stereo Ahead. Look high latitude far right.
http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/browse/2009/05/28/ahead/euvi/195/512/20090528_011530_n7euA_195.jpg
Stereo Ahead core blanked.
http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/browse/2009/05/28/ahead/cor1/1024/20090528_010518_s7c1A.jpg
John Galt (14:19:43) :
@ Adolfo Giurfa (13:12:25) :
Do you have more recent experiments to confirm this? There must be some simple experiments that can be performed to verify or falsify Bohr’s conclusions.
BTW: Like others, I’m frustrated with the lack of curiosity over this. Science is never settled. I’m tired of hearing ‘CO2 is a greenhouse gas so it must be causing climate change.’
John, Adolfo,
At the following link you will find several publications in regard to CO2:
http://www.ilovemycarbondioxide.com/carbondioxide.html
RoyFOMR (18:17:11) :
LloydH (16:46:08) :
Off topic, but has anyone seen this article Greenland ice could fuel severe U.S. sea level rise on reuters?
Is Greenland Ice really melting faster? where can I find more info on this?
Lloyd, Got to admit that I haven’t seen this but yet reckon that I’m qualified to answer! First, I admit I know precisely nothing. Secondly, I second that but thirdly after three years of watching this and similar spaces I may just be over-qualified.
Let us re-iterate your quote.
“Greenland ice could fuel severe U.S. sea level rise on reuters?”
It’s a three quoter- (A)(B)(C) with a forth part chucked in – OK maybe it’s a four-parter quote!
(1) Greenland Ice
(2) could fuel#
(3) severe U.S. sea level rise
(4′ish) on reuters
(A1).. If it melts – OK – it has happened before and so will happen again- maybe not soon given the reduction in temperatures of the last decade or so
(A2).. Love that word could- it is so mathematical and inspirational that I use it regularly when I do the lottery
(A3).. severe… is that a subjective word? .. and is that the same sea-level rise that hasn’t happened yet in the Maldives or Tuvalu in the last hundred years?
(A4).. Reuters- See points A1 to A3 above and despair. Sometimes, the messenger needs shooting!
“Is Greenland Ice really melting faster? where can I find more info on this?”
Dunno, mate- But on this site there’s awfie clever people who will give you advice.
Hans Schreuder last year made a visit to Greenland and made some great pictures.
As all the icecaps in the world, the Greenland Icecap is growing.
http://www.ilovemycarbondioxide.com/Greenland_ice_cap.html
Weekly reports about Greenland Ice extend:
http://www.dmi.dk/dmi/en/index/gronland/iskort.htm
here we have probabilites for the 400 test runs of the computer model climate to fall within several temperature ranges.
what is missing, is a probability of the connection between the computer model climate and planet earth.
it is missing because nobody knows.
the mit guys may claim to be quite confident, however it is simply impossible to say how exact the model is, what difference simplifications make and the influence of everything else they do not yet model, understand or even know of.
we do know however, that the results of the last run a few years ago was wrong by 100%, if we would assume the new runs are o.k.
a few years ago the so called scientists were just as confident as they are now, but are now said to have been wrong by 100%.
same story for mr. hansen in 1988, whose scientific knowledge at that time must appear stone age from todays perspective, what didn’t prevent him from bring hystery over the whole planet.
so it is likely that in just a few years, “better” models will prove these computer climate runs again wrong and temperatures may very likely fall outside the 400 computer model runs.
Someone suggested a word balloon parody for the pic,
Here’s a link to motivational parody generator site, sorry no balloon.
http://diy.despair.com/motivator.php
And here’s mine!
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b238/XY-SATAN/Climategamble.jpg
(If I knew the code to hyper link a pic, I could post it, could someone post it please 🙂 )
This seems like a great place for this quote:
Regarding how much radiation an astronaut is exposed to:
From: http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/27may_phantomtorso.htm
“Scientists can estimate this radiation dose using computer models, but a computer model and real-life can be two wildly different things. Until now, researchers weren’t sure whether their models accurately predicted the radiation dose astronauts experience in space. “
The real question is, why only US sea level rise?
That’s not a roulette wheel.
That is the computer model.
They just put weights on the back and spun it 400 hundred times!
Adam from Kansas (09:41:31) :
Adam,
thank you for the link. I will be a regular there now.
Came across this one while helping my son with a report on Mark Twain, and immediately thought of AGW!
There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.
Mark Twain (1835 – 1910)
Adolfo Giurfa (13:47:06) :
A chemical to stop melanin production in skin tissues (in order to comply with recommended whiteness): Anthraquinone.
It affects the liver a little but taking it will increase your skin’s albedo.
______________
isn’t that which Michael jackson did to become white? Maybe Cho and Gore will start saying that every “dark skin” people should get depigmentation therapy and soon they will tell people not to get a tan during the summer. Where will all that junk science stop?
jeff,
I saw that today also. I may be a paranoid one but that, coupled with the MIT press release and another one I saw where the U of Florida released another methane gas exploding from the tundra ( there’s some irony ) press release has me convinced that these guys are working hand in hand trying to manipulate the public. These things happen too often for it not to be a coincidence.
Bruce Foutch
Politicians also need to relax after a long day,” says ‘Miss Dina’
Clearly they’re getting in practice to shaft the rest of us…
Molon Labe (00:46:55) :
Thank you so much for putting that youtube link to Richard Feynmans videos. I’ve had Revelations from just watching this series.
His dad was freakin marvelous and I’m one of the same thinking. Sometimes I just don’t understand the silly over complicated mathematical thinking when it comes to simple understanding. We humans are hardwired to over complicate things to the extreme, and like Mr. Feynmans(Senior) was trying to show.
Laws of natural and known science theory should be able to be explained in simple terms.
To me, mathematics was a rigid why of looking at things. Trying to understand KOS with mathematical equations is not truly understanding something.
Kind of like someone who wants to play an instrument. Say a guitar, because they really want to play and learn.
Some well sit for hours and years in classes to understand theory, chord pasterns, riff/progression worked out of sheet music or tabs.
Another person will pick it up and almost naturally play, some not ever having any musical theory. An ear for music, a divine or phonetic understanding that may seem like their using little effort.
Now a computer is almost 100% needed strictly or statistically to ascertain modern warmer science these days.
Any scientist who is a warmer doomsdayer, concocting proxies and ignoring real data should have been fired for incompetence.
You’re right, it will never happen! 🙂
Thanks again
Lance from Victoria BC Canada
John Galt (12:40:52) : (or was it Don Shaw (11:50:00))
If we were interested in putting words in other people’s mouths, a story about this should have the headline “Nobel Laureate and Energy Secretary Chu calls on Americans to reverse the Urban Heat Island effect.”
At the very least, the new stories make a good reply to anyone saying that UHI is negligible. Even the IPCC can’t refute it without criticizing gov’t bureaucrats and Nobel Prize winners.
BTW, there’s more white in the world than TiO2. There’s lotsa of CaCO3 that could be used as part of carbon sequestration. Of course, we’d have to make jokes about the whitewashing the UHI effect and the cyclomaniacs here would have to refer to the start of this blog – comparing different white coatings on Stevenson Screens. Anthony was ahead of our times!
White roof’s? This UK car ad could be the future 😉
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/video/2008/may/21/ford.kuga
MartinGAtkins,
Thanks for the links to the stereo images. Could you return and explain their significance?
Thanks.
last summer, climate researcher Andreas Sterl of the Dutch KNMI, published his findings in the Geophysical Research Letters about the maximum temperatures in the Netherlands around the years 2090/2100 … his PC forecasted some 8°C warmer maximums than those that occur now, and the Netherlands, and Belgium, would experience summer maximums of around 40° C, making them part of the Sahara of the North …
clearly, predicting less is a no go … one does not even make page 37 anymore with a prediction of a rather robust 6°C increase in temperature in a century … therefore my prediction is that the next prediction will be more than 10°+ increase by 2100 if we don’t give ourselves up to the Goracle and his allies … and I have to admit, I cannot wait to read them …
because, just as Wall Street analysts came crashing down when they were forecasting higher and higher stock prices, also the Alarmists will be overtaken by their own words … the (silent) majority of the world’s population has other things to do than to believe their idiotic ramblings, and because of that, their ramblings will become ever and ever more idiotic, thereby digging their own grave … unfortunately, because of their goals being the same as those of the everyday politician, namely get people’s money and thoughts, this might take a few years … but the end result is set already …
When I was doing my PhD at the U.of Waterloo, ON, we had regular mathematiciens at our residence, some in Applied and some in Pure. They were convinced that the Universe could be represented by a single equation. Seeing how models have become more important that the real physical observations, I tend to think that regardless of what the Universal equation returns, the Universe, of course, will be wrong, but never the equation.
all universities have socialist-activists. a lot prolly go into poli sci, philosophy, and enviro sciences.
“”” Ray (09:10:27) :
When I was doing my PhD at the U.of Waterloo, ON, we had regular mathematiciens at our residence, some in Applied and some in Pure. “””
Well that’s interesting; when I was doing my Bachelors, in Physics and Mathematics; I had to do both Pure and Applied as majors, to get credited with a degree in Mathematics. Somehow I ended up with three Physics majors on top of that, for the dual credit in Physics and Mathematics. I guess times have changed; unless schools have.
Well I hope those “mathematiciens” understood that their mathematics is all pure fiction; we made it all up in our heads; and nothing we talk about in mathematics, actually exists anywhere in the real universe.
That doesn’t stop mathematiciens from believing that somehow mathematics is universal truth. So how do they explain that a circle is just a special case of an ellipse in Euclidean Geometry; but is a special case of a hyperbola in porjective geometry.
George
And in Projective geometry too !
George E. Smith (13:44:21) :
This was a graduate degree residence and often we had invited professors living with us for a while. We had some great conversations, but I remember those pure Math profs trying to figure out how to make the toaster work… priceless.
MIT “scientists” advising Lawyers in congress with this marketing prop? Scarey. The marketing guy in the suit is smiling because he knows that will be an easy sell.
Here is what the MIT report leads to:
Reuters: Climate change causes 315,000 deaths a year-report
Thu, 28 May 2009 22:22:42 GMT
quote——–“The study, commissioned by the Geneva-based Global Humanitarian Forum (GHF), estimates that climate change seriously affects 325 million people every year, a number that will more than double in 20 years to 10 percent of the world’s population (now about 6.7 billion).”
“Climate change is the greatest emerging humanitarian challenge of our time, causing suffering to hundreds of millions of people worldwide,” Kofi Annan, former U.N. secretary-general and GHF president, said in a statement.
“The first hit and worst affected are the world’s poorest groups, and yet they have done least to cause the problem.” Annan urged governments due to meet at U.N. talks in Copenhagen in December to agree on an effective, fair and binding global pact to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, the world’s main mechanism for tackling global warming. ———-end quote
Its guess its a good thing we were so proactive in burning food for fuel with the bio-fuels alternative energy program. Its been almost as good for poor countries as saving them from the horrors of DDT. Just what do these people think is going to happen to help the worlds poorest countries when the economies of the western world are wrecked? MIT-now working to reduce the worlds population. (In ways that the worlds population will not like.)
@george and Ray…
My first teacher of statistics, Professor Garza, used to say: “Mathematics is a tool, not a means to discern truth.” If I’m not wrong, it was Pascal’s thought.
George,
You are already off on the wrong foot in my book.
There are no real circles in the universe. Anywhere. All we have are n sided approximations where n is very very large (in most cases). And that would be if you could make something that was “perfectly” round. Which you can’t. There are always deviations – and then you get to the greatest deviation of all – the atomic level. Things get bumpy down there.
James P (00:46:16) :
Bruce Foutch
Politicians also need to relax after a long day,” says ‘Miss Dina’
Clearly they’re getting in practice to shaft the rest of us…
The girls in Copenhagen aren’t cheap either!
I have coined a term for what the warmists are up to politically:
The Great Leap Backwards