Bubkes II – RC's "rush hour"

Gavin is going to die a bitter old man. I sent him a note warning him of that (seriously), but he evidently ignored it. I can’t imagine the heap of scorn that is coming his way for the next 5-10 years.

I am confused. It seem like this is an argument in semantics. In this case the semantics argument is ridiculous.
When the meaning of the quoted statement is in doubt, I think it should be interpreted in the context of how the statement was used. The entire paragraph in RC (that RP Sr took issue with) was addressing the Copenhagen Climate Congress report and it reads:
So what does it say? Our regular readers will hardly be surprised by the key findings from physical climate science, most of which we have already discussed here. Some aspects of climate change are progressing faster than was expected a few years ago – such as rising sea levels, the increase of heat stored in the ocean and the shrinking Arctic sea ice. “The updated estimates of the future global mean sea level rise are about double the IPCC projections from 2007″, says the new report. And it points out that any warming caused will be virtually irreversible for at least a thousand years – because of the long residence time of CO2 in the atmosphere.
Since the very next sentence addressed “IPCC projections”, it clear from the context, that changes in climate change projections were being discussed. The RC post was addressing how new studies published since the IPCC report deadline showed how projections of sea level rise and ice extent melt, were outpacing the more conservative original projections of the IPCC.
The alternative interpretation, doesn’t make much sense, because the timeframes are too short, and the uncertainties in the data collection too large, and the influence on the data of the latest La Nina that just ended.
Dr. Pielke’s whole argument falls to pieces, when one looks at how he took the quoted sentence out of context.

I must disagree with the notion of ignoring them.
In Science, success isn’t nearly as useful or informative as failure. Since there is failure on both sides in this “debate” (can we use that word now?) to varying degrees, both sides have potential value.
Do I believe that CO2 will catastrophically warm the planet’s atmosphere and it must be curbed now? No. But I believe the failure of such predictions is/will be ultimately very useful. It’s the politicians who should be ignoring them, and the politicians don’t pay attention to us so our ignoring them doesn’t help there either.

RC claims that Pielke is engaging in an end point fallacy by choosing a statistical starting point to support his position and ignoring previous data. But RC is engaging in the very same tactic by ignoring or totally minimizing the recent 5+ years of data that might raise questions about their position.
Schmidt, Hansen, et. al. claimed that a solid decade of rising ocean heat from 1993-2003 was confirmation of their model predictions (“Earth’s Energy Imbalance:Confirmation and Implications”, Science, 2005) and Pielke acknowledged this. But now that ocean heat content has been flat for about 5 years it is written off as natural variability. One has to wonder what they might say if we have a solid decade of ocean cooling or at least no heating.

paulK 15:52:07
Do you notice how your interpretation just further demolishes the credibility of the IPCC projections? You’ve killed the horse swatting a fly on its ass.
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Re: ‘Truth’ on RC, #51’More Bupkes’:

the phrase ‘rising sea levels progressing faster’ is clearly a statement that sea level rise is accelerating.
[Response: Possibly English is not your first language, but ‘faster’ is a relative term. To understand the sentence you need to know what something was ‘faster’ than. The sentence was actually clear – ‘faster than projections from a few years’ ago. Arguing that it magically meant something else is completely pointless. Misrepresentating (sic) a statement and then giving examples of how that misrepresented statement is wrong might be fun, but it isn’t constructive contribution and simply adds noise. – gavin]

Apart from an amazingly convoluted answer, Gavin also seems to have some trouble with the Queen’s English. Misrepresentating, for sure. . .

The hurry up/we must act quickly bandwagon is what is killing their credibility in the public’s eye. A steady leaking of news that what they predicted is not what is happening.
More precisely, what is happening is what the focus will eventually shift to.
And it should.
But, there is a catch. A catch 22 of the Hale variety.
The Waxman/Markey bill.
That makes ignoring them costly, as the bill before Congress is heading in the direction diametrically opposed to what is happening.

meanwhile: Chicago: coolest July 1 readings on the books in 139 years

And thanks to the wonderful people like Gavin Schmidt of the GISS and the hack-in-chief blogger at RC, Breaking News: Manufacturing & Technology eJournal Poll Shows Clean Energy Act Could Force Nearly 20 Percent of Manufacturers to Close, this may actually happen if the U.S. Senate passes even a semblance of the Cap’N Trade bill.
My friends, we CANNOT allow these things to happen! Get involved!

Leif Svalgaard (14:17:24) :
Jeremy (14:13:50) :
“The data doesn’t support these claims, allow dissenting voices into your realm or face the prospect of being ignored.”
So why are we just not ignoring them?
Excellent question.

I’ve been around a bit; banned at Pharyngula and Climate Progress and Benen’s and Yglesia’s places and others I’ve since forgotten. Edited and deleted by Tamino at his ‘Open Mind’. Trashed for unappreciated prophecy at DotEarth. I believe that Hansen, and many of the alarmists, started out with the best of intentions, and simply failed to watch the road signs carefully enough to note that their destination was no longer Heaven, but rather was Hell. I’ve noticed in between the showers of insults that many of the true believers have great and good hearts, which has allowed me to persevere somewhat in the spirit of a missionary. But it’s all beginning to get beyond kind hearts and good intentions. These alarmist advocates are now thoroughly aware that there is a legitimate and growing skeptical movement and the inability to re-examine assumptions and wonder anew is starting to tell. It’s becoming deliberate misbehaviour, and the coming holocaust of cooling, to which we should be adapting rather than mitigating a chimera, is going to bring chickens home to roost. It is going to be very difficult, though, except in the most egregious cases, to separate the evil ones from the merely duped.
Speaking of egregious, I told Dano last year that he had a chance of becoming a famous fool; all he had to do was stop restraining himself as the CO2=AGW paradigm falls apart.
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Perhaps there is little point in trying debate with the “scientific consensus, but I was heartened by a more down to earth side of these issues. Having a Rickard’s Red and plate of Thursday special hot chicken wings at my local, my server, a young lady with no college aspirations said, ” Gee, this is July already and I’m having to wear a light sweater to serve out here on the patio. I thought global warming was going to be cooking us by now!” These are the folks that make up most of the voters and they go by their own temperature sensors.