The 4th International Conference on Climate Change – Chicago, Il., USA
Consensus? What consensus?
by Roger Helmer MEP
I’m writing this in the Marriott Hotel in Chicago, where I’m attending the Heartland Institute Climate Conference (and I’ve just done an interview with BBC Environment Correspondent Roger Harrabin).
Ahead of the interview, I thought I’d just check out the Conference Speaker’s list. There are 80 scheduled speakers, including distinguished scientists (like Richard Lindzen of MIT), policy wonks (like my good friend Chris Horner of CEI), enthusiasts and campaigners (like Anthony Watts of the wattsupwiththat.com web-site), and journalists (including our own inimitable James Delingpole).
Of the 80 speakers, I noticed that fully forty-five were qualified scientists from relevant disciplines, and from respected universities around the world — from the USA, Canada, Mexico, Russia, Sweden, Norway, UK, Australia and New Zealand.
All of them have reservations about climate alarmism, ranging from concerns that we are making vastly expensive public policy decisions based on science that is, to say the least, open to question, through to outright rejection of the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) model.
Several of these scientists are members or former members of the IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
But how do 45 sceptical scientists stack up, you may well ask, against the 2500 on the official IPCC panels? But of course there aren’t 2500 relevant scientists on the IPCC panel. Many of them are not strictly scientists at all. Some are merely civil servants or environmental zealots. Some are economists — important to the debate but not experts on the science. Others are scientists in unrelated disciplines. The Chairman of the IPCC Dr. Ravendra Pachuari, is a Railway Engineer.
And of the remaining minority who are indeed scientists in relevant subjects, some (like my good friend Prof Fred Singer) have explicitly rejected the IPCC’s AGW theory. Whittle it down, and you end up with fifty or so true believers, most of whom are part of the “Hockey Team” behind the infamous Hockey Stick graph, perhaps the most discredited artefact in the history of science. This is a small and incestuous group of scientists (including those at the CRU at the University of East Anglia). They work closely together, jealously protecting their source data, and they peer-review each other’s work. This is the “consensus” on which climate hysteria is based.
And there are scarcely more of them than are sceptical scientists at this Heartland Conference in Chicago, where I am blogging today. Never mind the dozens of other scientists here in Chicago, or the thousands who have signed petitions and written to governments opposing climate hysteria. Science is not decided by numbers, but if it were, there is the case to be made that the consensus is now on the sceptical side.
Roger Helmer MEP Follow me on Twitter: rogerhelmerMEP
You wonder about the supposed “hatred” you claim is seen in the skeptic community. But it the AGW alarmists who are rioting, wanting to kill conservatives, and wanting them fired and thrown in jail. It was Matthews (an AGW extermist like all in the biased ABCNNBCBS) who wanted BP executives shot – on camera, on TV, only yesterday. You claim you “fear” skeptics – while the AGW extremists control the governments, the police, the publicity, the mass media, the science journals, the courts, the international fund, the national funding, the rioters and the “protesters” ….. Now, why would a sceptic be worried about his or her future?
Why would a skeptic be worried about a mere AGW-caused 1.3 trillion in (unneeded without the hype!) government control? Are YOU going to protest that waste of time and money?
The AGW-alarmist community (from the UN’s Inter governmental Panel through president Obama through his hand-picked heads of the EPA, NASA, GISS, NOAA, NWS, DOE, and the other funding agencies through the socialist/liberal folowers on the Supreme Court through the democrat leaders of the House and Senate through the whitewash panels “reviewing” Mann’s lies and fraudulent papers through the editors of Science, Nature, National Geographic, and Scientific America …..
Name ONE AGW proponent who has apologized for the fraudulent words, extremism and hatred (that you claim to fear from the skeptic community) that IS ACTUALLY present FROM and sponsored BY the AGW extremists.
These alarmists are the people who are using AGW to destroy the world’s economies for political, funding, and social gains. These are the ones ACTUALLY rioting and destroying people’s lives and properties and ACTUALLY causing famine, disease, and floods and deaths by their policies. These (your AGW fellows) are the ones who actually threatening millions with early, and promising nothing but continued poverty, ignorance and disease to billions.
All in the name of AGW, AGW fears, and (deliberate) AGW (mindlessly extrapolated) hyperpola by assuming a twenty year trend continues for centuries.
Yet you admit you have never heard ANY of your “peers” even QUESTION the exaggerated assumptions of 5 and 10 degree C warming caused by CO2? YOU have never protested or corrected their exaggerations – in person? In writing? In public? In the classroom or laboratory? In the lunchroom?
Name any single harm coming from two degrees warming worldwide. Name ANY harm coming from an increase of CO2 to 700 ppm.
You cannot = There is none.
Now, name the proven harm, death, and misery coming from regulating CO2 to the absurd levels demanded by the AGW extremists.
Oh – And show that limiting CO2 will actually stop the actual “natural increase” in climate – which is around 1 degree C !! – that we have seen since 1650.
—
Barefootgirl, I don’t know about anybody else here but I am in fact a scientist and understand the funding game quite well. For instance, I know that when there is a “flavor of the month” concept in favor, a grant proposal based on that concept has an improved chance of funding. I also know that, once an investigator has obtained a multiyear grant based on a particular concept, that concept is not readily abandoned no matter how much evidence accumulates against it.
You undermine your credibility when you adopt the “you peasants just don’t know as much about this as I do” tone, rather than addressing perfectly clear questions in a substantive way. I work in a field where the approaches frequently used in climate science would at best result in bankruptcy, and at worst in criminal prosecution.
Phil Clarke,
I liked your second list! It made me laugh out loud. [The first one is 13 years old, so we can’t really give that one full credit, can we?]
The Grantham Research Institute? [do a search for “Grantham foundation”] The Environment Agency? The London School of Economics?? Not exactly rocket scientists.
I’m surprised they didn’t get the Caitlin Arctic Bedwetters to sign. Big opportunity missed there.
It looks like most of the signers are busy sucking at the public teat, so of course they’re going to claim CAGW — their jobs depend on it, don’t they? And over two hundred [200+] signers from the Met Office! That’s about as hard as getting the Boy Scouts to sign the Pledge of Allegiance.
One thing you could have left out was the blatant race-baiting and groveling for the female vote: “out of 70-plus speakers I count just three women, and not a single non-white.” And what, pray tell, does that have to do with science? [However, I will say that Pamela Gorman in your Heartland link should count for extra points☺]
My sincere advice: Stop digging, Phil. You haven’t come up with even 20% of the OISM petition numbers with all your links put together. And the OISM Petition is just one. There are others I haven’t counted [and FYI, the OISM Petition accepts M.D.’s and veterinarians — provided that they possess a degree in one of the physical sciences. So sociologists are out, even if they have a medical degree].
Now you can see where the true scientific consensus is.
Robert, that’s unfortunate that your experience with funding is as you describe. Must have been hard to stay funded doing biological work if you didn’t grab onto the flavor of the month. But the reality is, scientists who do good work will continue to get funded, while those that don’t, don’t. Sure, it’s a bit of an old-boys club so it’s hard for a new scientist with a good idea to get in, but once they show their merit, they too get funded. I don’t know who you have worked with, I’m sure I can do a search of papers you’ve published and see your collaborators but if they don’t do good work, probably best to stop working with them. The climate scientists I personally know are not even close to as you describe. And they are also humble. The old-boys club that you’ve undoubtably dealt with given your age is coming to an end.
Smokey,
If it makes you feel better then do feel free to ridicule a signatory, Oceanographer Professor Ralph Ryman simply because he lists his current affiliation as the LSE
http://www.oceanologyinternational.com/page.cfm/link=49
This will not change the facts, which can be summarised:
– The percentage of scientists, whether measured by petition, survey, professional position statement or literature review who endorse the broad findings of the IPCC is in the high nineties.
– The Oregon Petition is propaganda, no more or less: http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/08-11-12/#feature
– The brightest and best that the Heartland Institute can muster is a rump of predominantly retired, emeritus and elderley ex-scientists and a smattering of overzealous libertarian free-market idealogues. Oh, and Monckton.
I have seen the future, and in it Marc Morano is a footnote.
davidmhoffer –
Your errors in a nutshell:
(1) You can’t get a good constraint on the climate sensitivity from the 20th century temperature trend. For one thing, the uncertainty in the aerosol forcing is large. There are also uncertainties in the temp trend, mainly due to natural variability. And, finally, what you measure is a transient climate response, not an equilibrium climate sensitivity. That is why better empirical constraints on climate sensitivity are derived from paleoclimate data (especially the last glacial maximum), the Mt. Pinatubo eruption, and other things all combined together.
(2) I can’t follow your mathematical step in claiming that if the rise from 280ppm to 380ppm resulted in 0.6 C temperature rise, then 380 to 780ppm will only give another 0.5 C. That is slightly more than a doubling, so by your (incorrect) logic in concluding that the climate sensitivity for doubling is 1.2 C, you ought to get somewhere around that or slightly more for the additional rise from 380 to 780ppm.
(3) Your assumption that business-as-usual would be to keep emitting CO2 from fossil fuel burning at the current rate is not realistic. With a 1% per year rise, the amount emitted will double in 70 years. With a 2% rise, it will double in 35 years.
(4) Your claim that “Incidentaly, if you model from TOA at 255 K (as I did on your suggestion) then you are assuming that absorption of upward LW below TOA is 100%.” is not correct. The 255 K value is not the temperature at the TOA. It is the effective radiating temperature of the earth, so it already takes into account that some emission from the surface is escaping through the atmospheric window.
Phil Clarke,
I see that cognitive dissonance [Orwell’s Doublethink] afflicts you. My condolences. When it strikes, it is almost incurable:
So black is white, down is up, evil is good, and over 90% of scientists believe in CO2=CAGW?
You’ve got it bad, Phil. Better take an aspirin and lie down.
Phil Clarke:
Half is way way way too low. As I told you, people with my educational background (PhD in physics in similar field) are amongst the most qualified signers on there, but they make up only a small fraction of the total even by the petition organizers own claims. And, as I have noted, I don’t see where such an educational background alone particularly qualifies someone to evaluate the science.
REPLY: Great! I’ll remind you of this the next time a natural sciences paper on AGW comes up, and point out that we should ignore it simply because they don’t have a PHD in physics. As always Joel, your perceived self importance and arrogance is astounding. -Anthony
davidmhoffer says:
May 19, 2010 at 2:26 pm
Joel Shore says:
Since, I can’t read your mind, I am not yet sure where your confusion is.>>
That’s the tinfoil hat in action, great stuff. Keeps the aliens out too.
Joel Shore says:
However, my guess is that you are just rediscovering the fact that in the absence of feedbacks (other than that implied by Steffan-Boltzmann relation), the climate sensitivity is around 1.1 C for a doubling of CO2. [Actually, your numbers won’t quite bear that out because you are mistakenly using the temperature at the surface rather than the effective temperature at which the earth system is emitting back out into space [which corresponds to a temperature higher up in the troposphere], but they would if you correctly used the ~255 K value.]>>
Given your credentials, I accept that I should have used 255 K. Had I done so, I would have arrived at 3.84, 3.88 and 3.93 watts/m2 respectively. Let’s recap my previous comment with those values incorporated:
“normal” CO2 = 280 ppm
280 + 100 = 380 (+1.7 w/m2)
380 + 100 = 480 (+1.2 w/m2)
480 + 100 = 580 (+1.0 w/m2)
580 + 100 = 680 (+.85 w/m2)
680 + 100 = 780 (+.63 w/m2)
Earth Radiance from 255 K:
255K = normal
255 + 1 = 256 (+3.84 w/m2)
256 + 1 = 257 (+3.88 w/m2)
257+1 = 258 (+3.93 w/m2)
Analysis: Given that we are currently at just slightly over 380 ppm, and IPCC AR4 quotes the last few decades as exhibiting a 1.9 ppm/year increase in CO2, it will take about 200 years to arrive at 780 ppm. If we further total the forcing to be expected from 780 ppm we get an additional forcing of 3.68 watts/m2. While calculating sensitivity from 280 to double arrives at a 1.1 degree direct temperature increase, the combination of CO2 being logarithmic and earth radiance increasing exponentially, the sensitivity FROM WHERE WE ARE NOW is only 1 degree.
Further, both 1.1 degree (for CO2 doubling from 280) and 1.0 degrees (for CO2 doubling from 380) are theoretical values, as are the proposed feedbacks from water vapour claimed by IPCC AR4 to arrive at a positive feedback 2 to 4 times direct forcing from CO2. Observation however, suggests that the current CO2 concentration (just over 380 ppm) increased from 280 ppm during a time period when earth surface temperature increased by only 0.6 degrees. Given that the logarithmic function of CO2 should have resulted in 38% increase (380/280) which in turn yields 48% of the forcing arrived at by doubling from 280, we see that the combined sensitivity of CO2 AND water vapour, provided that we attribute 100% of the observed increase to CO2 plus feedbacks, is just over 1.2 degrees. Given that the earth warmed about the same amount in the previous century, 1.2 degrees seems very high as most of it is likely natural, but for now let’s accept that there was zero additional natural warming, and the entire 0.6 degree increase was driven by CO2 rising from 280 to 380.
If we apply Stefan Boltzman and the logarithmic nature of CO2, not to where we came from (280) but where we are now (380) and adjust for the observed sensitivity, we arrive at about 0.5 degrees, feedbacks included, for the next 200 YEARS of CO2 production at current rates.
Question: Where is the catastrophe?
Wren, hope you are still following along.
Barefootgirl, hope you are paying attention. Joel Shore responded to my questions by stating his assumptions about my math, and identifying the error that I made. When you bring that sort of approach to the discussion based on the knowledge that you claim, you will start getting respect around here rather than hostility.
Joel, looking forward to your rebuttal. Keep in mind that if I erred by a factor of THREE, that still results in only 1.5 degrees over the next 200 years, so to convince me that there is some catastrophe on the horizon from CO2 emissions, you are going to have to show me that I erred by a factor of 6 or more. Incidentaly, if you model from TOA at 255 K (as I did on your suggestion) then you are assuming that absorption of upward LW below TOA is 100%. Since we know that this is incorrect, that upward LW from earth surface does in fact escape through the atmospheric window in some proportion, I would think that the TOA number at 255 K is low.
——
I’m not going to fact check all of your work, but one thing caught my eye.
” Observation however, suggests that the current CO2 concentration (just over 380 ppm) increased from 280 ppm during a time period when earth surface temperature increased by only 0.6 degrees.”
What I found is average global surface temperature rose by 0.7 C or 1.3 F from 1980 to 2009 while CO2 concentrations rose from about 340 ppm to 380ppm. I calculated the absolute increases in temperatures from the anomalies in the linked source.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts.txt
Smokey says:
May 19, 2010 at 12:56 pm
I see that Wren and Joel have their talking points in order: out of millions of people qualified to sign the OISM Petition, “only” 31,000 have signed.
So let’s deconstruct that silly argument: the alarmist contingent has repeatedly tried to get the *same* group of people to sign their petitions supporting CAGW — and they have come up with only about one-tenth the number of signatures.
===============
Well they haven’t been at it for years and years like the Oregon group. These things take time. I don’t think the Oregon group has revealed how many petition forms they sent out that weren’t returned, which of course would be an indication of how many people rejected the petition or just didn’t think the petition was worth signing.
As you may recall from my earlier post, the 31,000 petition signers only amount to 1 out of 610 when you take into account there are 18,927, 000 scientist and engineers employed in the United States. To put this in perspective, suppose in a town of 6,100 a petition was signed by a total of 10 people. I doubt you would think the petition had a significant amount of support.
Anthony says:
I am sorry that you have so painfully misinterpreted what I have written to say EXACTLY the opposite of what I have actually been saying. (Maybe you missed some of my previous posts and misinterpreted some of what I said in this latest one as a result?) As I said in an above post ( http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/18/consensus-what-consensus/#comment-393128 ):
My whole point is that a petition where a PhD in physics alone would put one amongst the most qualified signers just shows how pathetic the level of involvement in the field of almost all of the signers actually is.
REPLY: And my point is that if you start disqualifying people who signed the Oregon Petition because they “aren’t qualified to judge the merits of the data and arguments” then we’ll have to disqualify a bunch of people in that IPCC AR4 that you’ve come to love. Just looking at “qualified researchers” in it (and lack of hard science people, hell, they cited travel brochures) just shows how pathetic the level of involvement in the IPCC of almost all of the researchers actually is. Of course such disqualifications never happen, because the mantra is “skeptics are the unqualified ones”. You won’t see IPCC disqualify somebody that toes the line, no matter how weak the science is. Your argument is based on your personal bias and nothing else. -A
Wren;
What I found is average global surface temperature rose by 0.7 C or 1.3 F from 1980 to 2009 while CO2 concentrations rose from about 340 ppm to 380ppm. I calculated the absolute increases in temperatures from the anomalies in the linked source>>
Well why not go from 1917 to 1937 instead and only in the NH? That way you get an even bigger temp rise against an even smaller amount of CO2. You just aren’t very good at warmist strategy, are you Wren?
Wren,
Quit digging, you’ll hurt yourself:
“Well they haven’t been at it for years and years like the Oregon group.”
Phil Clarke’s link shows that alarmist petitions have been circulating for at least 13 years — much longer than the OISM Petition.
Jeff Brown- Actually, I work in private industry but have dealt extensively with academics so I know whereof I speak. I’m not sure what leads you to make assumptions about my age but I’m in my prime years. If you think the best work always gets the funding, you’re kidding yourself. Personally, my work has been quite successful so it’s not necessary to patronize me.
Phil, thanks for pointing this out:
– The brightest and best that the Heartland Institute can muster is a rump of predominantly retired, emeritus and elderley ex-scientists and a smattering of overzealous libertarian free-market idealogues. Oh, and Monckton.
The old-boys club is dying.
Then Robert, please share who you work for, and exactly what your credentials are if you are not Professor Emeritus at FSU. And if you work for private industry then how do you know how the government funding for universities works?
Joel Shore;
(1) You can’t get a good constraint on the climate sensitivity from the 20th century temperature trend.>>
Well said. So if I can’t get a good constraint on climate sensitivity from 100 years of temperature data, why is it that you quote the IPCC sensitivity number based on precisely the same data? Do they have different formulas to calculate standard deviation that only work for them?
Joel Shore;
so by your (incorrect) logic in concluding that the climate sensitivity for doubling is 1.2 C, you ought to get somewhere around that or slightly more for the additional rise from 380 to 780ppm.>>
380 to 780 = 3.85 watts, almost exactly 1 degree. So yes, I should have calculated for doubling which would be 380 to 760 = 3.63. So for doubling from 380 should be just UNDER 1 degree. I screwed up and gave CO2 more than it deserved.
Joel Shore;
3) Your assumption that business-as-usual would be to keep emitting CO2 from fossil fuel burning at the current rate is not realistic. With a 1% per year rise, the amount emitted will double in 70 years. With a 2% rise, it will double in 35 years>>
Let’s see, we’re at 380, so to double in 70 years we would need to go from current (1.9 ppm) to 5.43 over the 70 year period. You are proposing almost TRIPLE the current fossil fuel consumption, starting TOMORROW and going for the next 70 years. Guess what? Have you noticed the price of oil over the last couple of decades? Remember when the oil companies were all gaga because it might hit $20/barrel? What happened to that? We’re at $70 bucks or so now and demand is WAY down due to the recession, why is it $70? Because A) its getting harder to find and B) what we do find is more expensive to extract. a 10% rise in demand pops the price up over $120 in nothing flat. Even if we were capable of producing triple (which we’re not) the price spike would clobber demand. No way are we getting to triple, double, or even +50% from where we are now.
Joel Shore;
The 255 K value is not the temperature at the TOA. It is the effective radiating temperature of the earth, so it already takes into account that some emission from the surface is escaping through the atmospheric window.>>
Thanks. Always wondered where that came from. How did they get to this? Is the number based on the 20th century data you said wasn’t sufficient for calculating sensitivity? Was it adjusted for the aerosols and clouds and other things we don’t understand? Or was it calculated against the energy balance from measurement instruments that Trenberth admits he can’t get to add up properly and he doesn’t know where the heat is hiding?
Joel, I learned something from your responses, and I want to be clear I appreciate that. But I said you need to debunk my numbers by a factor of 6 before they become scary, and I don’t think you are anywhere near that. Your other argument was that I was applying a transient temperature change as an equilibrium measurement. Fair enough. But there has been no statisticaly significant warming for 15 years, the time period in which CO2 has been highest. If I accept that CO2 triggers no negative feedbacks that are unaccounted for (which seems less than plausible) and that water vapour triples the effects of CO2 (which seems even less plausible) then I must also conclude that there are natural cooling mechanisms that we don’t understand that are over whelming the effects of CO2 and water vapour combined.
What’s the word for the time period we’re in right now geologicaly? Interglacial?
If its in fact a transient response, then consider that even the polar bears are thriving. the last 4 centuries of warming have produced more arable land, more production per acre and less violent storm activity. Can we get more of that? Sadly no. It will take 200 years of burning as much oil as we can to get as much additional warming into the pipe as we have so far, so we’ll have to work real hard at it if we want to accomplish something positive and heat this planet up another smidge or two.
Take a look at the list of factors that the warmists are proposing to the Govt of the United States to reduce consumption. Ask yourself what they are talking about when they say they want to “influence” these things:
Population
Household Size
Income
Does having a government authorized to “influence” (read REDUCE) those things not sound a bit scary to you? Debunk my numbers by a factor of 6 and I might consider it. Otherwise I would WAY prefer to take my chances with mother nature.
jeff brown says:
May 19, 2010 at 8:14 pm
Then Robert, please share who you work for, and exactly what your credentials are if you are not Professor Emeritus at FSU. And if you work for private industry then how do you know how the government funding for universities works?>>
I work in private industry. Half my business is with universities. I usually know more about the processes than the researchers do because I deal with far more of them than a single researcher does. Sometimes I even help out with wording of a grant proposal, I do write business cases for a living and researchers don’t.
jeff brown says:
May 19, 2010 at 5:59 pm
Robert, that’s unfortunate that your experience with funding is as you describe. Must have been hard to stay funded doing biological work if you didn’t grab onto the flavor of the month. But the reality is, scientists who do good work will continue to get funded, while those that don’t, don’t.
———
Not so. In any biology/ecology related work now, if you attach climate change to your proposal your chances of getting funding rises exponentially. Let’s say you want to study newts. So you write up your proposal to study the impacts of climate change on newts, and bingo, you’re more likely to be a happy researcher. Even better, you need to monitor those newts for a long period to assess those climate impacts. And if you can actually find some impacts, you will get more funding. Thus we get all these absurd papers and news stories related to the impacts of climate change on x or y. Great one here lately on lizard extinction! LOL.
It only gets worse when we’re dealing with the new pseudoscience called Conservation Biology, the twisted sister of IPCC style climate science, and the ‘science’ of the EPA. Imagine a missionary with a white coat. In that field you not only get junk science but, as you describe it, those who do “good work will continue to get funded” – and here the emphasis is on “good work” in the missionary sense, not good science.
And if you do this “good work” you get environmental groups promoting you and your “good work” which also, conveniently, supports their “good work” and agendas.
The whole ‘endangered species’ business is built on this kind of ‘science.’ Yes, there are some genuinely threatened and endangered species but this thing has gone completely over the top and become absurd, and profitable, with a larger agenda. Now they invent species, or subspecies, or unique geographic populations – and they even fudge DNA work now for this – to ‘save’ and once listed, they become a franchise for researchers and a tool for land grabs, etc.
Save the Sacramento Valley Red Fox! They just invented that one.
Forgot I had this…
Sacramento Valley fox now found to be native – Sacramento News – Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee
Source: sacbee.com
Published: Saturday, Jan. 2, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 1B
“There isn’t much mystery left in the natural environment of the Sacramento Valley, a place completely reshaped by a century of intensive farming, urbanization and levee building. At least, that’s the usual assumption.
In fact, it’s a faulty one.
Genetically speaking, it turns out the red foxes of the Sacramento Valley are very different from the nonnatives elsewhere in California. They’re also different from gray foxes that are native across most of California.
Ben Sacks, an assistant professor of biology at both the University of California, Davis, and California State University, Sacramento, is calling this new subspecies the Sacramento Valley red fox. He has revealed through genetic testing that it is unique to lowland areas north of the American River and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
The subspecies is most closely related to the Sierra Nevada red fox, Sacks said, a native species thought to be at risk of extinction in its final stronghold within Lassen Volcanic National Park.
His research has been accepted by the peer-reviewed science journal Conservation Genetics, due for publication early this year.
“We can now say that the foxes of the Sacramento Valley are native to California,” said Sacks.
Genetically speaking, it turns out the red foxes of the Sacramento Valley are very different from the nonnatives elsewhere in California. They’re also different from gray foxes that are native across most of California.
Ben Sacks, an assistant professor of biology at both the University of California, Davis, and California State University, Sacramento, is calling this new subspecies the Sacramento Valley red fox. He has revealed through genetic testing that it is unique to lowland areas north of the American River and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
The subspecies is most closely related to the Sierra Nevada red fox, Sacks said, a native species thought to be at risk of extinction in its final stronghold within Lassen Volcanic National Park.
His research has been accepted by the peer-reviewed science journal Conservation Genetics, due for publication early this year.
“We can now say that the foxes of the Sacramento Valley are native to California,” said Sacks…
For some reason they’ve kept to themselves in the same area where nonnative Eastern red foxes were first introduced to California, probably soon after the opening of the transcontinental railroad in 1869.
“The fact that the evidence is pointing toward it as a native species – and a native species that we didn’t know about – is kind of an amazing development,” said Armand Gonzales, a wildlife program manager at the California Department of Fish and Game. “That doesn’t happen very often.”
Gonzales helped Sacks with fieldwork. Fish and Game contributed about $168,000 toward Sacks’ research.”
———–
Yes, a truly “amazing development”! If this seems implausible if not absurd to you, you are right. This journal is an instrument of the wonderful world of Conservation Biology. Now this ‘unique native species’ must be saved! The story continues…
“A major question – and a sensitive one – is whether this new subspecies merits special protection, like the mountain red fox or San Joaquin kit fox.
Sacks and Gonzales said there isn’t enough information yet to know. More studies are planned to figure that out.
If it ends up protected by endangered species laws, the Sacramento Valley red fox could become another headache for farmers and developers.”
So…. do what we say or this unique species will die!!!
This inconvenient comment appeared below this story:
“I hate to interrupt a great theory but my Dad and his fox hunting buddies, they wouldn’t kill the fox just run their dogs.and that was the sport. The grey fox the run was real short. So in 1957 My Dad and friends ordered 7 pairs of Red foxes from Mo.I think Springfield. and turned them loose above Rancho cordova.”
P.S. All these red fox ‘species” and ‘subspecies’ are bogus inventions/franchises/tools.
Smokey: “You haven’t come up with even 20% of the OISM petition numbers with all your links put together.”
Climate science is about quality, not quantity, Smokey. The 90+% of climate scientists who endorse AGW are the cream of a small but brilliant crop.
It also pays to remember that climate scientists are fiercely independent individuals, critical thinkers who resist the easy groupthink represented by your 31,000 veterinarians.
Michael Mann has a degree in geology. James Hansen has a degree in physics. Malcolm Hughes has a degree in ecology. Lonnie Thompson has a degree in geology. Raymond Pierrehumbert has a degree in aeronautics. Rasmus Benestad is a physicist. Eric Steig is a geochemist. David Archer is a chemist. Gavin Schmidt’s degree is in math. Stefan Rahmstorf is a physicist. William Connolley is a numerical analyst. Caspar Amman is a geoscientist. Who am I missing?
Then we have this:
And Robert Fri, not just a member but the Chair of one of the panels of the National Academy of Sciences, what qualifications does he have? A PhD in climatology? A professorship in atmospheric chemistry?
No … he has … well … an MBA.
So please, spare me the sanctimonious pontificating about various lists of sceptical scientists, that they are not climate scientists because they are just geologists or mathematicians or physicists or numerical analysts … quite unlike the lists of AGW supporting scientists …
Brendan H,
My ‘31,000 veterinarians’? Really?
First off, consensus means nothing in science. But the alarmist crowd has made it a central talking point for years. However, the claim that they have the ‘consensus’ of scientists is clearly false.
The consensus issue has appeared again within the first dozen comments in this thread. I came to the party late, but no one has been able to refute the fact that the OISM Petition swamps the impotent efforts of the alarmist contingent to try and show they have the consensus on the AGW issue. They do not.
You say that ‘climate science is about quality, not quantity.’ But the CAGW crowd has neither. Your claim that ‘90% of climate scientists who endorse AGW are the cream of the crop’ is ridiculous puffery. They are for the most part rent-seeking fiction writers with both front feet in the public trough, who run and hide out from public debates; they have gamed the climate peer review system for the easy money, and for the endless expense-paid trips around the world, and for seeing their names in lights [until Climategate exposed their fabrication of the climate record; inventing entire data sets as they went along]. Now they still get the money and the trips, but they are on the defensive, and like Al Gore, they closely stage manage any public appearances.
Your characterization of this clique of self-serving scam artists as independent critical thinkers is contradicted by the fact that they live in a self-imposed echo chamber, sealed off from the real world because there is only so much loot to go around, and they are intent on keeping it for themselves.
The fact is that the enormous funding of what should really be a scientific backwater is starving other much more deserving areas of science of their share of public funding. It is the reason that scientists and science professionals in other fields, who are not a part of that small climate clique, resent their own lack of funding — and that is where much of the consensus against AGW comes from.
People are not stupid. They see the climate scare game being played, and that they are not part of it. Tens of thousands of them willingly signed the OISM Petition, each for his/her own reasons. Spin it any way you like, but the fact is that the consensus, for what it’s worth, is not on the side of these CAGW Elmer Gantrys, who are gaming the system for their own personal financial benefit and carreer advancement: they have simply sold out their professional ethics to the highest bidder.
Jeff Brown: I don’t need to provide details of my career to you, because the discussion thread is not about my credentials. If you think people who work in industry don’t know anything about science or about how academia works, then you’re just ignorant.
My original comment was in response to barefootgirl’s patronizing assumption that nobody who disagreed with her could be a scientist. You perpetuated that attitude by assuming that I knew nothing about how the funding process works, etc. Neither of you has responded to the actual question I posed. Typical.
By the way, do you academic types understand that the money you receive from government grants is ultimately generated by the activities of the private sector?
If the “CO2 drives the Climate” hypotheses were true, we would have home climate systems based CO2, but we don’t. Space Blankets would kept campers warm, but they don’t. Swamp cooler would be swamp heaters but they are not.