That headline is NOT a typo, that’s what they say:
If there was even any doubt about Hansen changing from scientist to advocate, that doubt is now shattered.
Meanwhile, amazingly, James Hansen has agreed to a debate. Hansen is going to debate with Don Blankenship of Massey coal company.
This just in, from NASA climate scientist James Hansen, in response to Massey Energy President Don Blankenship’s challenge to debate global warming, the coal industry and the West Virginia economy. I received this note from Dr. Hansen, who asked that I forward the information on to Blankenship.
This is going to become ground zero for the issue. Word has it the people of WV are becoming quite energized.
Hansen has a new commentary on Yale’s Environment 360 blog called “A Plea to President Obama: End Mountaintop Removal.”
Stay tuned. This is going to escalate most likely.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Perhaps Anthony would like to address the more important question about his work: why does he accept the surface temperature data when it shows cooling, but deny it when it shows otherwise?
http://is.gd/19sD7
REPLY: That’s revealing of you. Why not simply just label me “denier” and be done with it? Why even presume to ask a question when you load the question with what you already believe to be the answer? i.e. “deny” .
The real answer is because you really aren’t interested. You just want to play “label, label”. Its what you do. Label first, ask questions later.
But I’ll indulge your labeling, because if I don’t then it will be followed by the inevitable “a-ha!” and the glee that comes with it, because again you see, you really aren’t interested in asking the question, you really aren’t interested in the answer, you just want to play a game.
So #1, and lets be clear, I’m not a “denier” to fit your childish labeling. Yes the temperature has gone up in the past 100 years. The causes and contributions are the items in question. CO2 has a component, so does natural variation, solar variance, aersols, ENSO, and yes, station siting. Which one is the dominant one? That remains to be proven.
I suppose Mr. Appel, you assume that knowledge is static, and that I’ve learned nothing of GISS since then. You also fail to note that in the entry you cite, during that Feb 08 period I cited all four global temperature metrics, not just GISS, see here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/02/19/january-2008-4-sources-say-globally-cooler-in-the-past-12-months/
and some detailed looks on the other datasets:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/02/04/rss-satellite-data-for-jan08-2nd-coldest-january-for-the-planet-in-15-years/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/02/06/uah-satellite-data-for-jan08-in-agreement-with-rss-data/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/02/19/another-global-temp-index-dives-in-jan08-this-time-hadcrut/
Just a few days later, I started to get a bit wary of what GISS was doing when I discovered they adjusted a rural station to look warmer, as in Cedarville, CA. There’s no justifiable reason for it.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/02/17/cedarville-and-giss-adjustments/
And on the same day, I discovered a station in Miami, AZ where GISS makes a warming trend brought on by horribly bad siting even worse by adjusting the past cooler. Again, not justifiable. If GISS was in the stock trading business, the SEC would toss their butts in jail.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/02/17/how-not-to-measure-temperature-part-52-another-ufa-sighted-in-arizona/
A few months later, we get a handle on some of the bizarre data torturing that GISS did to Cedarville. The outcome wasn’t pretty:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/07/18/cedarville-sausage/
And then we have this mistake discovered in November 2008, where GISS can’t even properly track temperatures from month to month and bloggers have to point it out to them:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/11/10/giss-releases-october-2008-data/
So yes, I no longer cite GISS. As I said, knowledge is not static. I don’t trust GISS anymore, I think the quality control is terrible, and as of today, the dataset has an activist curator with an arrest record, so I don’t trust the gatekeeper to be impartial. But at one time, yes I thought that GISS was a scientifically derived dataset. No longer do I think so.
So label me all you want, I’ll stick with the hard earned knowledge of GISS problems as reason not to take the dataset as being credible anymore. – Anthony
Joel Shore, you seem to know a great deal more about the media manipulation than you first indicated. Hmmmmm. The Calgary Herald printed a retraction to Mr. Johnson’s letter. The source of Johnson’s letter is a questionable character from the University that my father taught at. There was a defamation suit filed and guess who Johnson’s lawyer was paid by? An even more questionable character who funded DesmogBlog and the Suzuki Foundation. Hmmmm. My father’s lawyer wanted $50,000.00 to start the litigation, but my family does not have that kind of money to throw around. The lawyer suggested my father use some of his “oil money”. What a joke that is. There is NO oil money. Great lawyer. Johnson has claimed on DesmogBlog that he “won” the lawsuit, but it never even went to court. Just so you know, there was a Climatology department on the 7th floor of the university, because it was such a new discipline at the time. Where else were they going to put him? The people mentioned as “climatologist” before my father were only doing climate studies at that time, through other disciplines. You have to admit it is an impressive hatchet job on someone just because you disagree with his findings or ideas. What an amazing PR “spin job”. And just so you know, I do not find your arguments to be that compelling either.
Joel Shore, no response to the importance of the Hudson’s Bay records? Read about an amazing man from that time named Samuel Hearne. Any history buffs out there will enjoy reading about this guy. Very cool stuff.
Dr Hansen is not on this crusade this for science or humanity. It is for his grand-daughter. He wishes that she will remember and admire him when he is dead. He said so in front of a royal audience recently in Oslo which was webcast.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/23/archibald-the-ap-index-says-there-will-be-no-sunspots/
The guy in the very beginning of the video is King Harald.
Dr Hansen is not on this crusade for science or humanity. It is for his grand-daughter. He wishes that she will remember and admire him when he is dead. He said so in front of a royal audience recently in Oslo which was webcast.
http://media01.smartcom.no/Microsite/dss_01.aspx?eventid=4090
The guy in the very beginning of the video is King Harald.
Flanagan (22:46:34) :
That sounds very alarming. Good thing none of it is true.
With his quote above, Flanagan has officially gone off the deep end. He’s lost it, folks. Next thing you know, he’ll be saying: “…and down is up, white is black, evil is good, and global warming causes global cooling.”
…Oh, wait. He’s already said that last part.
David Ball,
This really seems like a hijack at this point…but I will just note that
(1) I couldn’t find the retraction you speak of. I’d be curious to see it. Could you tell me where I can get a look at it?
(2) You seem very interested in who is paying for DesmogBlog and the Suzuki Foundation. But, have you ever wondered who the funders of “Friends of Science” are? It seems difficult to find out for sure, as discussed here: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Friends_of_Science
(3) According to this website http://www.science.ca/scientists/scientistprofile.php?pID=168 , Kenneth Hare “joined McGill University as a geography professor, meanwhile earning his PhD as an arctic climatologist.” (This was somewhere between 1945 and 1959.)
(4) I had no idea what Hudson Bay records had to do with what we were talking about, which is why I ignored your references to it. I now see from a web search that it was the subject of your father’s thesis, which doesn’t seem to be at all in contradiction with Dan Johnson’s statement that “Ball received a PhD in Geography in the UK in 1982, on a topic in historical climatology. “
Smokey: things would be MUCH easier if you actually read the link I gave to the conference proceedings. Things are pretty clear: we’re above IPCC projections for sea levels that’s it. And there’s no real importance if it pleases you or not…
Unfortunately we don’t have the ability to measure this nebulous thing you call “sea levels” with anything close to millimeter precision. It’s a total fantasy.
Joel Shore, once again, you seem to know a lot more about this than your initial statement. The end of your post (16:43:19) you stated “we:” instead of “I”, speaking volumes of the deceptive nature of your claims. All just attempts at marginalizing my father and his work. You now mention only one fellow who could very easily be a “geography doctorate” as you claim my fathers is. Who is the we you speak of. When you speak of Friends of Science funding, you are alluding to a “big oil” connection. This is a very weak argument which I would counter with: where does the Suzuki Foundation get it’s funding? Answer: from some of the biggest polluters out there. Your going to have to do better than these hackneyed old attempts to distract from the central issue. Which is the marginalization of someone whose findings raise the giant specter of doubt on AGW or CC or whatever it is called now. Nobody believes you guys anymore and your deceptions are being found out. Co2 does NOT drive climate change and all your little attempts at misdirection will not change the fact that the wheels are falling off your bus.
The Hudson’s Bay stuff is ignored by AGW proponents along with a great deal of the “paleo” stuff. It is just another example of the blinders you guys wear if the information does not fit the theory. How many guys on the Suzuki foundation are paid to watch what Tim Ball is doing? Keep your friends close and your enemies even closer, right?