From Dr. Roy Spencer’s blog (with WUWT apologies to Roy and Wayne and Garth)
My Top 10 Annoyances in the Climate Change Debate
by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
Well, maybe not my top 10…but the first ten that I thought of.
1. The term “climate change” itself. Thirty years ago, the term “climate change” would have meant natural climate change, which is what climate scientists mostly studied before that time. Today, it has come to mean human-caused climate change. The public, and especially the media, now think that “climate change” implies WE are responsible for it. Mother Nature, not Al Gore, invented real climate change.
2. “Climate change denier”. A first cousin to the first annoyance. Again, thirty years ago, “climate change denier” would have meant someone who denied that the Medieval Warm Period ever happened. Or that the Little Ice Age ever happened. What a kook fringe thing to believe that would have been! And now, those of us who still believe in natural climate change are called “climate change deniers”?? ARGHH.
3. The appeal to peer-reviewed and published research. I could go on about this for pages. Yes, it is important to have scientific research peer-reviewed and published. But as the Climategate e-mails have now exposed (and what many scientists already knew), we skeptics of human-caused climate change have “peers” out there who have taken it upon themselves to block our research from being published whenever possible. We know there are editors of scientific journals who assist in this by sending our papers to these gatekeepers for the purpose of killing the paper. We try not to complain too much when it happens because it is difficult to prove motivation. I believe the day is approaching when it will be time to make public the evidence of biased peer review.
4. Appeal to authority. This is the last refuge of IPCC scientists. Even when we skeptics get research published, it is claimed that our research is contradicted by other research the IPCC has encouraged, helped to get funded, and cherry-picked to support its case. This is dangerous for the progress of science. If the majority opinion of scientists was always assumed to be correct, then most major scientific advances would not have occurred. The appeal to authority is also a standard propaganda technique.
5. Unwillingness to debate. I have lectured to many groups where the organizers could not find anyone from the IPCC side who would present the IPCC’s side of the story. I would be happy to debate any of the IPCC experts on the central issues of human-caused versus natural climate change, and feedbacks in the climate system. They know where to find me. (For the most common tactic used by the IPCC in a debate, see annoyance #4.)
6. A lack of common sense. Common sense can be misleading, of course. But when there is considerable uncertainty, sometimes it is helpful to go ahead and use a little anyway. Example: It is well known that the net effect of clouds is to cool the Earth in response to radiant heating by the sun. But when it comes to global warming, all climate models do just the opposite…change clouds in ways that amplify radiative warming. While this is theoretically possible, it is critical to future projections of global warming that the reasons why models do this be thoroughly understood. Don’t believe it just because group think within the climate modeling community has decided it should be so.
7. Use of climate models as truth. Because there are not sufficient high-quality, globally-distributed, and long term observations of climate fluctuations to study and better understand the climate system with, computerized climate models are now regarded as truth. The modelers’ belief that climate models represent truth is evident from the language they use: climate models are not “tested” with real data, but instead “validated”. The implication is clear: if the data do not agree with the models, it must be the data’s fault.
8. Claims that climate models have been tested. A hallmark of a good theory is that it should predict something which, upon further investigation, turns out to be correct. To my knowledge, climate models have not yet forecasted anything of significance. And even if they did, models are ultimately being relied upon to forecast global warming (aka ‘climate change’). As far as I can tell, there is no good way to test them in this regard. And please don’t tell me they can now replicate the seasons quite well. Even the public could predict the seasons before there were climate models. Predicting future warming (or cooling) is slightly more difficult, but not by much: a flip a coin will be correct 50% of the time.
9. The claim that the IPCC is unbiased. The IPCC was formed for the explicit purpose of building the case for global warming being our fault, not for investigating the possibility that it is just part of a natural cycle in the climate system. Their accomplices in government have bought off the scientific community for the purpose of achieving specific policy goals.
10. The claim that reducing CO2 emissions is the right thing to do anyway. Oh, really? What if life on Earth (which requires CO2 for its existence) is actually benefiting from more CO2? Nature is always changing anyway…why must we always assume that every single change that humans cause is necessarily a bad thing? Even though virtually all Earth scientists believe this, too, it is not science, but religion. I’m all for religion…but not when it masquerades as science.
vjones (11:32:16) : I can’t believe you left off “The science is settled” and “consensus”. Still I suppose were so many to choose from. Arghh!
Yep. “Consensus” and “The science is settled, the debate is over” are the ones I was looking for on the top 10.
NR (12:28:01) :
For what it is worth, Gavin at RC has instituted a “Data Sources” page.
Please see here
A mini-step in the right direction but it remains to be seen if Hansen will henceforth let everyone in on his data and how it is massaged?
Quote from RC:
Message to NR (12:28:01)
I am going to assume that you are earnestly seeking answers, and are not some AGW shill looking to start some kind of debate. If so, my recommendation (to go along with some of the other recommendations posted here) is a wonderful, short paperback, which you can likely find, either at your local library, or (and I praise the Good Lord for this almost every day!!) see if your local library is affiliated with Interlibrary Loan (ILL for short). This way, you can read the book, and decide if you would like to buy it.
This can be read in one sitting, and is chock full of non-technical information:
Hayden, Howard C. (2008) A Primer on CO2 and Climate
and specify in your ILL request that you would like to read the SECOND edition, which added a great deal of new information.
See if that helps, and in the mean time, I can try to answer specific questions for you, if you would like to contact me at my e-mail address.
NOTE TO MODERATOR: I am supplying this address to the individual who posted on this thread, voluntarily. Please allow the address to show:
maxheadache@yahoo.com
Feel free to contact me at any time. I cannot promise a timely response, just that there will be one.
May Blessings be upon you and yours, as you search for answers.
Mark Hladik
DeNihilistism #1 –
“Weather is NOT climate, but climate IS weather”
in denial said
#11 Green jobs ( or green anything, green backgrounds in various corporate ads, green economy, green energy etc).
This stuff makes me want to go out and burn a huge pile of discarded tires in protest…
Think of what could have actually been done with the countless BILLIONS of dollars spent by our government on promoting AGW hysteria toward real environmental concerns. You know, the non-headline grabbing stuff like clean air, clean water and clean energy (nuclear).
I found at least a billion/year? earmarked for climate research in the USA at http://www.drda.umich.edu/news/research_reporter/2009/01jan/washupdate.html
In 1981 the cost to build a nuclear power plant escalated from $400 million to $4 billion, simply because of the schedule stretch-out and high interest rates thanks to nuclear protesters. (the Boston Globe had want ads $10/hr for protesters) So if we could build the plants without interference we could have paid for one a year with the funds earmarked for climate research. However the US is no longer capable of fabricating nuclear power plants. http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles/spring01/nuclear_power.html
Can we sue all those protest organizations like Greenpeace for the destruction of the environment caused by needlessly burning coal for energy instead of using nice clean Nuclear???
And yes I am also getting very very tired of the word “green” especially since I have several acres of standing firewood but I do not want to waste money putting in a wood furnace until I find out what the heck is going to happen with CO2 laws.
If the Global Takeover succeeds, Mann, Jones, Hansen, et.al. will become unwanted witnesses. To find out what happens to unwanted witnesses, try Simon Sebag Montefiore’s ‘The Court of the Red Czar’. It has lines like: ‘The emissaries were shot.”
How about the delusional that compare AWG skeptics to holocaust deniers…
#11 “The leftist agenda”
I’ve changed my home page from Google.com search home page to Bing.com search as my home page.
Thanks for the info WUWT.
2. “It’ll create millions of green jobs”
The official Party Line is it’ll create millions of *high-paying* green jobs.
After all, Windmill Installation Technicians make almost $19 per hour.
When they’re actually installing windmills, anyway…
Yes I have gone for Bing.com too.
Cleaner, neater…….
The # 1 annoyance for me is ‘CO2 is a poison and pollutant’
The trees in my wood shake with laughter when I tell them that………
They may be wooden headed but they know the truth…..
Mike (13:46:01) :
You’re of course right, apologies to all the real scientists I might have tarnished. My statement did the whole of Science a disservice.
I’ll rephrase:
Climate pseudo-scientists could learn a thing or two.
or, to be even more correct:
Climate quacks could learn a thing or two.
“What about our children and grandchildren”
This has to be my favourite.
Another example of bending the data to fit the desired target.
The UK Met Office has released its Winter forecast – 50% chance of being milder that usual.
Within that is an explanation.
What do we mean by drier, near average and wetter
The UK average for December to February for the period 1971–2000 is 332 mm. A wetter winter in the UK is defined by precipitation totals greater than 336 mm, near average by precipitation totals between 294 mm and 336 mm and drier by precipitation totals below 294 mm.
If the UK average is 332mm, how can the average band be 294 to 336mm?
If the average is 332mm, then their average band should be 311 to 353mm. Suggesting that their prediction is that the winter is 50% likely to be of average wetness. ie their 30/35/35% bry/average/wet predictions would become 25/50/25% ish
This was obviously not a politically cvorrect prediction to make just before Copenhagen!!
“10. The claim that reducing CO2 emissions is the right thing to do anyway.
Oh, really? What if life on Earth (which requires CO2 for its existence) is actually benefiting from more CO2? ”
Roy, shouldn’t this be “What life on Earth ….is actually benefiting from LESS CO2?”
Regards
Roy. Excellent
11. The atmosphere is thickening with c02 blanket (Ed Milliband).
If the fraction of Anthroc02 is constant (and mathematical constants are still constant, no matter how they are thrashed to make them appear inconstant) then it must be natural c02 which is thickening the atmosphere. However, the atmosphere’s mass is 15 quintillion kg, and all c02 is 700GT, even all c02 can’t justify that claim, unless it were increased by 100,000% upwards – not merely a doubling, with a factor of 3.67 equivalent
Another annoyance: Those whom we dare not name.
“the popular Real Climate blog […] Shortly afterwards, the documents appeared at a site frequented by climate skeptics”
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/11/uk-hack-puts-climate-scientists-personal-e-mails-on-display.ars
Honestly, when people make themselves subservient to authority, and when authorities continue to have a holier-than-thou attitude, they should remember what usually happens to authorities in the end: we discover they are flawed and not deserving of unquestioned trust. Church priests abusing children, spiritual gurus abusing women, police with institutionalised racism, governments going to war based on secret intelligence, manufacturers who hide harmful ingredients—basically anyone in a position of power has the potential to exploit that power.
I am sure there are many who believe that science is the only route to true knowledge. And generally speaking, as a method, as a recipe, that is true. But there seems to be a confusion of the method of science, with the image of scientists. Just like people confused spiritual service as a method, with an image of purity of the guru. People believe in spirituality so they fall into believing the priest or the guru.
There have been airline crashes because the crew didn’t feel it was their place to question the Captain. Well it only takes a few accidents and then the culture of subservience has to change. I hear that on military submarines, the culture is that anyone can check and question the Captain’s orders—it is a complex dangerous environment and people have to check everything at every level.
So this relatively young science of climatology, is facing a transition from a hierarchical culture to a more open and non-hierarchical system, where trust is not implicit, but where we trust that which we can check and monitor.
In the broader picture, this doesn’t harm the greater project of cleaning up the environment. Climate change is global, but so is mercury poisoning, and any other chemical that we dump into the environment. For certain, we need global systems to deal with these problems that transcend national borders. But these will be based on openness and flexibility, and not on a new level of secret authoritarian power.
“Phil A, you missed the verification bit. As I learnt testing, it’s one thing to know you’ve built the right thing, but something completely different to know whether you built it right. Subtle but important difference.” – bil
Yes, Verification is whether the program successfully executes its design. Validation is whether the design actually works.
If the design spec says you add two numbers by multiplying them and 3 + 3 gives 6 then it has passed verification but will fail validation. If 3 + 3 gives 9 then it passes validation but fails verification.
Having seen Harry’s comments, I rather suspect their models would fail both!
Doh! *smacks head on desk*
After all that I got it the wrong way around!
If 3 + 3 gives 6 then that’s passing validation and failing verification (for the case where the spec says you add by multiplying)
And vice versa for 3 + 3 giving 9.
Doh!
Phil A (05:50:11) :
here’s the workaround initial assumption
2+2=4
2×2=4
The medical profession has discovered that a poison contained in a United Nations variant of fudge was the cause of a debilitating brain disease among scientists.
The disease is known to have steadily spread among the scientific community for over two decades and taken a terrible grip over the reasoning powers of many. Victims can readily be identified by a green complexion. Other side effects include an irrational hatred of mankind and a Tourette syndrome-like verbal abuse of anyone who uses fossil fuels. Threats of violence may occur. But as leaked over the Internet on November 20th 2009, a break through treatment to the affliction has been found at the UK’s Climate Research Unit (CRU). A vast community of Internet surfers soon sought to memorialise this profound happening by naming it, ‘Climategate.’
From leaked documents we understand that the catalyst for this epoch change in scientific understanding occurred when a climatologist and self-taught computer programmer known as ‘Harry’ was sat at his laboratory computer chewing on some fudge. It was then, after three years mulling over the problem and in a Fleming-like eureka moment, it dawned on him. In Harry’s hands was the cause of brain fog mystery.
“F**k! It’s the fudge! It’s serial!” he cried.
Inadvertently, Harry has become the hero the public associate with the solving one of the great mysteries of modern science. Since those findings have appeared on the Internet the world has quickly accepted that it was foul fudge that caused scientists to suffer that dreadful disease.
Pyschologists have been quick to identify the hallucinagenic properties of the offending fudge and unravel this whole mystery. The fudge has been found to contain a psychotropic substance that acts primarily upon the central nervous system where it alters brain function, resulting in changes in perception, mood, consciousness and behavior leading patients to feel delusions of grandeur and a sense of spiritual purpose in their lives.
It appears lone-wolf Harry, after a debilitating three years wasted in the CRU laboratory had inadvertently and subliminally faced the truth and by a process of ‘cognitive dissonance,’ shocked himself out of the effects of the psychotropic intoxicant that in some causes the hallucinogenic appearance of a mythical beast known as, ‘Man-Bear-Pig’. Apparently, most recovering ‘addicts’(for the fudge-eating was clearly an addiction) soon notice a change in the physical appearance of their eyes which begin to lose their tainted green colouration once they come off the fudge.
Climate scientists, who have been identified as the worst fudge sufferers are reporting the same side effects as Harry. Patients routinely exhibit anxiety, guilt, shame, anger, embarrassment, stress, and other negative emotional states until the disease clears the system. The recovery process, say psychologists, is always accompanied by a thought pattern change they term, ‘cognitive dissonance.’ A new name has been coined to describe the fudge-induced malady and “Climate War Syndrome” is fast following “Climategate” into common usage as the world gets a new handle on what was one of the great mysteries of our time.
Of course, like any serious disease, there will always be cases that won’t respond well to treatment. Those worst cases permeated with the deepest shade of green are alleged to be James Hansen, Michael Mann and Phil Jones whom may all need to be quarantined in isolation for several years.
EnviroMENTALism is not logical. You cannot use logic and facts to change the minds of some one whose beliefs are not based on logic and facts.
I have watched the unfolding Climategate saga for the last week hoping that the release of how despicable some of the most influential climate scientist have behaved and thinking that this was the key to revealing the truth, but given the now apparent [almost] total lack of interest by the MSM it would seem that we have been debating from the wrong perspective. This thing is not about science. It’s never been about science. It is about environmentalism and politics. Science was merely a means to an end, the tool to convey the message and out there there are millions of willing believers. As I see it the victory I thought we had is a pyrrhic one. As long as the temperature goes up, regardless of why, they are in the driving seat and a new mediaevalism is all that is in prospect.
this just in from the drained swamp queen, Nancy Pelosi…Pelosi, ” I’m trying to save the planet”
Mark Hladik (20:11:06):
Got your email. I’ll try to search for the book with my local library. I think it would be a little difficult since I live in Panama, but I’ll try or buy it through amazon.
I’m not a shill. I just one those who is tired of people lying so they can take advantage of others, and AWG is an example of that. The IPCC crew were in my country a couple of weeks ago, to “show” the local government and environmental experts how the things are going with AWG. I gonna find out if my taxes paid for their trip.
Thanks.