It has been hard for me to keep up blogging, or even abreast of current news during my tour. With travel each day, and many days both a lunch and dinner meeting, it becomes an 18 hour grind. Mega kudos to Mr. David Archibald for his tireless navigation and good cheer. Without him I’d be lost here.
That said some disturbing things have happened. I’ve just learned of one this morning.
While on one hand we have an ugly climate science blacklist, on the other we have Tamino’s blog who has been the target of some legal complaint which prompted the removal of a post, ironically, one defending my rights. While I don’t agree much with Tamino, it is his “place”. He can say what he wants, it is his right.
Overall there’s too much pointless bluster and sniping in climate science. I wish there was a volume control.
Kids, can we just all “get along”?
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David Ball says:
June 22, 2010 at 3:22 pm
Keep trying! Eventually the CAGW folks will settle down to just AGW folks and will be able to discuss instead of shout down.
I hope my fantasy of true scientific discourse gradually replacing the current acrimonious debate (debate? I’m being generous) can come to pass.
“Overall there’s too much pointless bluster and sniping in climate science. I wish there was a volume control. Kids, can we just all “get along”
Not till hell (or the Northern Hemisphere) freezes over!
If the CAGW hypothesis were a genuine scientific debate, then there would be a chance of some sensible discourse. However, this is about ego, politics and money and the true believers in CAGW don’t want to see the truth about the cargo cult science which has promulgated this myth. They need to observe and wonder about the complexity and power of nature, rather than letting their ego’s seduce them into thinking they can do single thing to change our climate.
“Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall”
@ur momisugly Anu says:
June 22, 2010 at 9:42 pm
Thanks for input.
RockyRoad says:
June 22, 2010 at 9:07 pm
“Science (and hence “discussion”) left the debate even before Gore proclaimed it settled and the majority of climate scientists have acted like children for decades. They will take their attitudes and improvisations to the grave; hopefully a new generation of realistic scientists will fill the void but I’m not optimistic.”
That is why indoctrination in the schools is such a worry. Otherwise we could rely on Max Planck’s observation:
“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”
Excerpted from: Anu on June 22, 2010 at 9:42 pm
Insert Bill Clinton reference.
Which is the problem. Scientists should be just doing science all the time. Instead we have certain scientists doing science sometimes, politics sometimes, and advocacy sometimes. This wouldn’t be so big an issue if proper boundaries were recognized. On the job you do science and report the results, after work you can do politics. If you have been hired by a group to give presentations that advocate a position, let it be known when you are speaking as a paid advocate and not as a scientist. Let’s have disclosure, let’s have it be known when they are acting as an unbiased observer, a scientist, and when they are not.
But what do we currently have? Wonders like James “Death Trains” Hansen, dispensing open advocacy and providing political opinions while thinking he is acting as a scientist, as if “political and environmental advocation” were included in his NASA job description. He is relatively open about his stances, has been show to act on them while on the clock using the resources provided by his employer. Yet he should be allowed to put on his “scientist” mantle and we are to assume therefore he is a mere unbiased dispenser of truth doing just science?
Sometimes scientists are just doing science. Sometimes there are those doing things other than science who insist they are scientists therefore their non-science things are all based in scientific truths that must be accepted and acted upon as they are truths which of course they are since they, a scientist, said so. And if you deny that their non-science things are scientific truth, you are obviously a science denier.
And that’s a problem.
When I caught a whiff of the fuss re Tamino, I took a look at his site today for the first time . I was stunned at the invective and name-calling there, particular the number of obvious Tamino supporters accusing Anthony Watts of being a liar and other calumnies. The ill-tempered, strident and nasty rants there made me tiptoe away. It tone of the site reminded me of some of the rabid sycophants who follow George Monbiot and lay down the science and the logic (as they see it) on the London Guardian newspaper’s CIF Green blogs. Rather than making futile attempts to politely engage such bad mannered and bad tempered people, I prefer to not engage with them at all.
As much as we may dislike it, as bad as it may make us feel to acknowledge the reality of the current state of affairs, it does us no good to hide from the truth of our situation.
This is NOT a simple disagreement, this is NOT a polite dinner table argument.
This is a war, with the future of our way of life at stake. The other side knows this and is fighting us on this level. Unless we acknowledge the true nature of this contest, we will lose. They will throw *everything* they have at us, they will have no limits, they will show no standards, they will display no decency. We do not have to descend to these depths, but we DO need to be prepared to fight them, since that is what is going to be aimed at all of us who are skeptics.
And also, because this is War, this is not going to end with some kind of gentlemen’s agreement, or scientific resolution – this is going to end with either one side or the other being completely crushed. We must make sure that it is the warmists who are crushed, and that all of the institutions that they have infested are not only discredited but destroyed.
Sadly, most of the existing scientific establishment now needs to be torn down to the ground. It will be easier to build new institutions than to revitalize those that have decayed.
DesertYote says:
June 22, 2010 at 4:43 pm
Alan Simpson
June 22, 2010 at 3:33 pm
Looks like I offended an anti-theist.
BTW, Its called allegory, If you can not understand it, maybe you should not post. You obviously do not have enough imagination to contribute to any discussion.
Would you like to move the goalposts again?
Let’s do this in simple language.
A computer maintenance man has had, “It’s a miracle!”, a paper published which is little more than a black list of reputable scientists ho disagree with the the computer maintenance man’s world view.
Do you think this is wrong or OK?
My religious beliefs or otherwise are nothing to do with your specious and diversionary BS.
So is OK or not?
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
June 23, 2010 at 6:09 am
Sometimes there are those doing things other than science who insist they are scientists therefore their non-science things are all based in scientific truths that must be accepted and acted upon as they are truths which of course they are since they, a scientist, said so. And if you deny that their non-science things are scientific truth, you are obviously a science denier.
Just use the Internet to find out who is paying these people, and what their affiliations are:
http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=17
Dr. Lindzen, charged oil and gas interests $2,500/day for “consulting” services, including testifying before Congress. Wrote speeches for OPEC, openly associated with “pro-business, pro-fossil-fuel” Think Tanks like Cato Institute, George C. Marshall Institute, Heartland Institute.
http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=19
Dr. Spencer also works for the George C. Marshall Institute, Heartland Institute, and because of his two-front war against accepted science (he’s an advocate for Intelligent Design as well, although he has no background in biology), the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance.
etc… it’s not rocket science.
And don’t forget the advocate books which helpfully inform the reader that the author is an expert scientist:
http://www.amazon.com/Climate-Confusion-Pandering-Politicians-Misguided/dp/1594032106
In Climate Confusion, distinguished climatologist Dr. Roy Spencer observes that our obsession with global warming has only clouded the issue. Forsaking blindingly technical statistics and doomsday scenarios, Dr. Spencer explains in simple terms how the climate system really works, why man’s role in global warming is more myth than science, and how the global warming hype has corrupted Washington and the scientific community.
Finally, a “distinguished climatologist” who explains how the climate system “really works”. Unlike Dr. Hansen:
http://www.amazon.com/Storms-My-Grandchildren-Catastrophe-Humanity/dp/1608192008
Climatologist Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and an internationally renowned global-warming expert, became even more famous when he was censored by the Bush administration. After decades of studying the role fossil fuels play in global warming and witnessing the federal government’s failure to take action to lower carbon emissions, he felt compelled to write his first book out of concern about the potentially catastrophic future facing his grandchildren. Hansen condemns governmental “greenwashing” and the undue influence of more than 2,300 energy lobbyists, and attempts to close the gap “between public perception and scientific reality” by lucidly explaining the dynamics of global warming, its acceleration, and how a slight rise in temperature can lead to disastrous consequences.
Clearly trying to use his scientific “credentials” to convince the reader he knows what he is talking about – shameful advocacy.
Q: What do you get when you mix psychological projection with ad hominem polemics?
A: See Anu’s post above.
“Can’t we all just get along?”
Well no, actually. The alarmists liken me to Holocaust deniers and want me imprisoned for thinking they are wrong. They have actively worked to raise my taxes and destroy my childrens ability to get jobs based on junk science. They are involved in creating a totalitarian government and destroying my freedoms.
So no, we can’t get along until they are destroyed or in prison.
WoodNfish’s post perfectly underlines the difficulty in having a reasoned debate on the issue. Lacking the tools to understand the science, many of us turn to rigid ideological assertions and imagined victimization at the hands of “others.”
“So no, we can’t get along until they are destroyed or in prison.”
Then we can have our “lebensraum”, right WoodNfish? It’s strange you are willing to adopt authoritarian measures in order to avert totalitarianism.
woodNfish says:
June 23, 2010 at 12:16 pm
…destroying my freedoms.
You’re still free to buy and drive a Hummer.
But not a new one – the Market took away that freedom. I don’t see people organizing websites complaining about when the Market quadruples their oil prices.
As for your children’s ability to get jobs – you might want to look at the practitioners of “junk finance” a little more closely.
But in the meantime, keep complaining that you don’t like the results of climate science – that sounds productive. Yeah, the Climate Scientists are trying to ruin your children’s future. Try not to think of all the taxes that went into bailing out Wall St., or the auto industry that bet the farm on gas guzzling SUV’s, or the Military trying to secure the Middle East’s oil and gas fields with endless occupations.
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain – look, over there:
the Climate Scientists are trying to ruin your life.
The problem is that, thanks to scientists latching onto a political agenda, the improbable hypothesis of CO2-driven ‘global warming’ has become an established fact for much of the public, and practically all of the media and politicians.
A radio station hereabouts (WRKO, Boston) is running a series of PSAs (public-service announcements, in radio talk) asking, “What is the one thing you could do for the environment today?” (paraphrase). Today’s ‘one thing’ answer was to drive your car less, because it emits lots of pollutants, including “tons of CO2.” The assumption, of course, which the EPA cheerfully agrees with, is that CO2 is a ‘pollutant’, something bad for the environment.
Even those who joke about the cold (“Sure could use some global warming around here”) implicitly accept the ‘conventional wisdom’ that mankind is causing global warming by burning fossil fuels.
Despite Climategate and the IPCC scandals, the warmists have already succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. They have managed to demonize oil and coal, and to push the western polities toward a program of voluntary self-agnegation, renouncing economic growth and the continued progress of civilization.
The economic recession has forced many governments to slow these efforts, and the growing ‘skeptical’ movement has turned a few heads, but we are faced with a cultural tide that cannot easily be stopped. “Green is good,” “carbon is bad,” are the accepted mantras; if you disagree, you are some kind of iconoclast, a weirdo.
When I add the signature slogan to my emails, “CO2 is good for plants, good for the Earth, and good for you,” I have people exclaiming in horror, “How can you say such a thing? We are destroying the Earth, and you are making light of it!”
I politely refer them to WUWT and Icecap and JoNova, and others, and say, “Do some reading.” But that’s a drop in the bucket. We are dealing with a mythos that is held with a kind of religious fervor. It’s going to take a Martin Luther to nail a proclamation for Climate Realism and Human Progress to the Capital door to turn this around.
/Mr Lynn
Mr. Lynn, there is an old and true saying of chemists, that the dose makes the poison.
Excerpt from: Anu on June 23, 2010 at 10:30 am
Good idea.
WHOIS info for exxonsecrets.org, your source of “dirt” against Lindzen and Spencer:
So exxonsecrets.org is actually Greenpeace, which is heavily invested in seeing CO2 regulated, resorts regularly (if not absolutely always) to alarmism for fundraising purposes and to extract political concessions, and does yeoman’s work for their part in the ongoing smearing of “climate deniers” as being bought and paid for by Big Oil and any other elements of Big Business it can.
And surprise, exxonsecrets.org has some stuff considered suitable by alarmists for smearing Lindzen and Spencer! Amazing!
I think the answer is “Yes”.
Some helpful ways:
(1) Clearly demarcate the science from public policy. Cap-and-trade or libertarianism or conservatism has little or nothing to do with the science. Nature does not care if you are a Socialist or a Christian – nor can the science be decided by a show of hands. Cap-and-trade can be democratically approved or not, the science not so.
So a discussion on cap-and-trade should be preceded by a conditional “Assuming the science behind global warming is correct ….” . Perhaps a tag at the top of a thread defining which it is.
(2) It is well known that Albert Einstein dissented from the 1930s theory behind Quantum Mechanics. As a great scientist, his approach was to devise tests for the theory. His opponents admitted the tests to be both appropriate and tough – but the theory passed them to the satisfaction of the supporters. Einstein was not that happy, but that is not the point.
Why should not skeptics devise a series of strict tests for AGW – taking in paleoclimatology, radiation physics, sea ice extent/ volume, sea level rising and/ or ocean acidification. It means that people (on both sides) have to be willing change their minds if the data says such a thing. Surely, one of the energy companies would gladly fund the gathering of the requisite data, and the work of selected scientists to oversee the collection and analysis?
From: Anu on June 23, 2010 at 4:36 pm
Please, Wikipedia is more accurate about that than you. GM ran into trouble due to its overwhelming debt, which included substantial obligations to its unions that many other automakers didn’t have. The US government, as in the Obama administration, basically took them over and forced the bankruptcy. As Wikipedia notes, there were offers before the bankruptcy to buy Hummer that GM had declined. During the restructuring, a Chinese company was to buy Hummer, until the Chinese government killed the deal. Since then there was/is interest in buying Hummer, but GM is still going ahead with getting rid of Hummer.
So between two governments and GM, Hummer is getting killed off. There’s still a market there for new Hummers, the market would let Hummer live. But for many eco-socialists the Hummer is the prime example of (American) excessive consumption and planet-destroying CO2 emissions, thus Hummer’s greater value lies in the elimination of the brand to remove any public association with it to make the greenies happy.
Thus it is obvious you weren’t aware of or knew much about the internet back during $4/gal gasoline and the soaring heating prices around the end of Bush’s second term, when it was said crude oil could top $200 a barrel. After all, you completely missed those sites, therefore…
Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, and other liberal co-conspirators, the fiscal geniuses who brought about the sub-prime mortgage mess by insisting on relaxed lending rules? Yeah, we’re keeping a closer watch on them.
Said bailout engineered by Timothy Geitner, then head of the NY Fed, involving taxes yet to be paid as that was deficit spending.
Ford saw what had happened to the other two and turned around quickly without accepting government bailout money, despite having sold SUV’s. GM could have turned themselves around, if they would have been allowed to have a real bankruptcy and get out of their onerous union obligations that were way above industry standards. Chrysler, on the other hand, pushed minivans and Dodge trucks, and after the failed merger with (actually a take-over by) Mercedes-Benz it was rather weakened. They also pulled some major non-SUV bonehead moves, like offering discounts and rebates on the PT Cruisers from the first day they went on sale, even though they were so exceedingly popular Chrysler could easily have garnered full profits from Day One, even jacked the price up.
True, it’s not like the US really even uses the oil from around there. Just a few drops, easily replaced more locally. Middle East crude gets sold around that side of the world. Better to just pull the troops out, let the area settle out as it will… And avoid being downwind of the Middle East so one doesn’t get bothered by the radioactive fallout.
BTW, I take it you are not aware that neither Iraq nor Afghanistan is an occupation, our troops will leave if their individual governments want them to leave.
‘Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain – look, over there:
the Climate
ScientistsDenialists are trying to ruin your life.’I think the alarmists might want to try a different line, it’s just not working that well.
Well, if you’re talking about CO2, the Navy allows something like 10,000 ppm in submarines with no ill effects on crewmen. And if you’re talking about the hypothesis that atmospheric CO2 drives planetary temperature to any significant degree, where’s the evidence? In real greenhouses (as opposed to the planetary kind conjured up by alarmists) CO2 is driven up to 1,000 ppm, because the plants love it. Geologists have shown that Earth’s CO2 levels were many times higher than today, even during ice ages.
In point of fact, the old Arrhenius hypothesis was resurrected by the alarmists for ulterior motives, to justify an attack on capitalism and Western civilization. The modest rise in atmospheric CO2 happened to coincide with a cyclical warming spell in the ’80s and ’90s, which lent credence to the utterly contrived but fearful Hockey Stick. No matter that the hypothesis flew in the face of prehistory and planetary physics; it had the right emotional appeal (“Saving the Planet”) and the right appeal to leftist academics and politicians (“Cap and Trade,” “Global Governance,” etc.).
Now the realists among us, and those who esteem the values of freedom and progress (the real solution to the ills of the Third World, not more ‘governance’) are faced with turning around this neo-Luddite behemoth, which has gotten so ensconced in popular culture that the meaningless “carbon footprint” has become part of the language.
CO2 is not a poison to either individuals or the planet at any dose we are capable of creating. But a little more would clearly be a boon to agriculture, and to forests, and thus to all of us. It would be a welcome by-product of burning more coal and oil, and that of course will provide the world with more cheap energy, the key to a better life for everyone.
/Mr Lynn
Even more important, let’s start a movement to get reporters and media people and politicians (especially Senators and Representatives engaged in making laws that promise to hamstring us with taxes and regulations owing to ‘climate change’)—let’s insist that all of them preface any news story or press release or legislative hearing with that caveat: “Assuming that the science behind global warming is correct. . .” Because it isn’t, and once enough people are reminded that it’s in question, they will look more closely, and then the scales will fall from their eyes.
/Mr Lynn
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
June 23, 2010 at 10:56 pm
…their part in the ongoing smearing of “climate deniers” as being bought and paid for by Big Oil and any other elements of Big Business it can.
So, you think that taking money from fossil fuel companies is a bad thing ? Where’s your sense of entrepreneurship ? Why is it a “smear” to report facts ? Feeling guilty as to motivations, are you ?
And if you think my quick citation of exxonsecrets.org is not authoritative enough as to Dr. Lindzen’s background, how about PBS ? Do you trust any sites that have articles such as “The Doubters of Global Warming” ?
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/hotpolitics/reports/skeptics.html
How about SourceWatch ? Do you have a long, long list of websites which are nothing but lies and smears that you won’t “believe” because you don’t like their facts ?
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_S._Lindzen
http://www.logicalscience.com/skeptics/Lindzen.htm
The guy likes to give speeches, and he has expenses – what’s so hard to believe about accepting speaking and consulting fees ?
And do you deny that the Cato Institute, George C. Marshall Institute, and Heartland Institute are “pro-business” ? Do you deny that the Marshall Institute is involved in trying to influence climate change policy ?
http://www.marshall.org/category.php?id=12
Do you deny Dr. Spencer is on the Board of Directors of the Marshall Institute ?
http://www.marshall.org/board.php
“Proving” that ExxonSecrets is a Greenpeace project doesn’t help your argument one bit: and BTW, you didn’t need to Whois the domain name:
http://exxonsecrets.org is redirected to:
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/campaigns/global-warming-and-energy/exxon-secrets
They are pretty clear about who built the site – but you’re free to get the same facts somewhere else more to your taste.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
June 24, 2010 at 1:39 am
… But for many eco-socialists the Hummer is the prime example of (American) excessive consumption and planet-destroying CO2 emissions, thus Hummer’s greater value lies in the elimination of the brand to remove any public association with it to make the greenies happy.
I see.
And what’s your hand-waving theory explaining Ford killing the Excursion ? Did that have nothing to do with losing money, also ?
Thus it is obvious you weren’t aware of or knew much about the internet back during $4/gal gasoline and the soaring heating prices around the end of Bush’s second term, when it was said crude oil could top $200 a barrel. After all, you completely missed those sites, therefore…
There are plenty of sites giving prices, e.g.:
http://money.cnn.com/data/commodities/
Show me the sites, like WUWT, where hundreds of people were blogging about how the Free Market was taking away our freedoms and ruining our children’s future.
Chris Dodd …
I guess nobody on your TV told you about the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act of 1999, also known as “the Financial Services Modernization Act” – getting rid of those nasty regulations which were put into place after the last financial meltdown caused by Wall St. geniuses. Look into it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramm-Leach-Bliley_Act
You might also want to look into the Bush gutting of the SEC, the Goldman Sachs criminal investigation, and how Enron got to choose the head of FERC while Bush was President.
Said bailout …
Forgetting the $700 billion bailout of October 3, 2008, are we ?
Ford …
Ford was very lucky to have crashed in 2006, two years before Wall St. excesses brought the American economy to its knees:
http://www.autoblog.com/2007/01/25/ford-burns-12-7-billion-in-2006/
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124056802228652509.html
They got rid of Bill Ford as CEO, brought in an aerospace executive, and mortgaged the farm to raise $23.5 billion of private debt for a massive restructuring.
True, it’s not like the US really even uses the oil from around there…
Oil is fungible – the US imports 12 million barrels a day, and the price is set in a global market.
BTW, I take it you are not aware that neither Iraq nor Afghanistan is an occupation, our troops will leave if their individual governments want them to leave.
Suuuuruue, and Okinawa still welcomes American GI’s 65 years after WWII, protecting them from Communism…
http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2010/05/22/japan_leader_apologizes_over_us_base_on_okinawa/
Anu says:
“So, you think that taking money from fossil fuel companies is a bad thing? ”
Absolutely — as any honest person would answer. Couching theft in language that attempts to excuse it does not make the theft legitimate, because the company’s owners — its shareholders — have been deprived of their property based on rabble-rousers telling others it’s OK because the company is evil, and therefore deserves to be targeted for official theft. Socialism and communism are predicated on theft — without theft they could not exist.
Fair taxation is assessing the same percentage tax on all companies across the board. But fossil fuel companies are demonized for producing what society wants and must have. Demonizing them makes it easy to justify theft in the minds of apologists for official expropriation. From there it is only one more step to Hugo Chavez’ policies.
If I were Anu’s neighbor I would make certain to lock my garage door at night.
The damage fund taken from BP (or rather strongly suggested to donate) and given to those harmed by their alleged mismanagement is a worthwhile debate. If it turns out that serious mismanagement led to the disaster, (IE it wasn’t an accident, it was civilly and/or criminally negligent actions – think lack of “due diligence”) than they should pay for the damage. If that means that stock holders will be deprived of cash, so be it. The stock market is a risky venture.
Re: the donated money. It is possible that BP engaged in some preventative damage control by donating the money. I wonder what they are trying to prevent down the road.
On the other hand, taking money from a company (which apparently is not the case here) before they have been found guilty of negligence would be a serious sign of tyranny.
Smokey says:
June 24, 2010 at 10:11 am
Anu says:
“So, you think that taking money from fossil fuel companies is a bad thing? ”
We were talking about Dr. Lindzen taking $2,500/day from oil and gas interests for consulting and testimony – but thanks for your rant predicated on a misunderstanding:
See Anu says: June 23, 2010 at 10:30 am
I’m sure this never happens in your careful reading of climate-related Comments…
Socialism and communism are predicated on theft — without theft they could not exist.
So, stealing the United States from the Native Americans, and stealing Africans to grow cotton on the stolen land – is that “socialism”, or “communism” ?