Dr. Heidi Cullen of Weather Channel fame but now CEO of Climate Central outfit is publishing a new book on August 3, so far #138,256 on Amazon’s bestsellers but sure to rocket up the listings when the book publicity tour begins.
From the Entertainment section of ABCnews.com: Climatologist Sees Disastrous Weather in Future … Cullen predictably delves into the global warming alarmism and whips up several very “Day After Tomorrow” scenarios:
The itinerary includes imaginary “weather reports” for a series of future years. The one for New York dated “August 2050” is the most optimistic, though it envisions the Atlantic as warming to “bathtub” temperature. It concludes:
“In 2050, when Hurricane Xavier — a category 4 monster, which sprang up from the bathtub that the Atlantic had become finally arrived — people sat back and watched it like the World Series. We knew we had a home team advantage, just like the Yankees.”
FLASHBACK: “The Weather Channel’s most prominent climatologist is advocating that broadcast meteorologists be stripped of their scientific certification if they express skepticism about predictions of manmade catastrophic global warming. This latest call to silence skeptics follows a year (2006) in which skeptics were compared to “Holocaust Deniers” and Nuremberg-style war crimes trials were advocated by several climate alarmists….
Chicken Little Science at it’s worst!
Future history? It’s been done. Isaac Asimov.
2050? Tell you what — when the bright young kid comes to interview me after I turn 100, I’ll give him my unvarnished opinion of climate science when we’ll be seeing that the weather is pretty much the same as it’s always been.
I always thought she was an attractive, personable woman and she seemed like a good scientist.
Now I know…the AGENDA behind the woman…leaves little in regards to the attractiveness department.
Nothing like a little foul festering pseudoscience…to make even the prettiest woman….seem rather dull and ordinary.
Keep a watch on this one. See if it reaches the 100th (or 1000th) position on Amazon.
But they can’t even predict that next summer or winter, I guess if they keep saying it’ll be hot they’ll get it right 50% of the time?
There doesn’t seem to be one iota of real science there. Pure MMGW tripe, based on the article.
This type of silly nonsense has been done before. These idiots keep forgetting that it is not heat that causes weather, it is the differential in temperatures. There is absolutely no reason to believe a hotter earth would have any more cyclonic storms than the norm. Historically, they seem to be more prevalent when the sub-polar regions are cold and the tropics warm. That is called, global cooling.
Wasn’t that made into a movie already?
Girl is obviously pimping the book to parachute out of the weather business with a movie deal and a speaking tour.
Seriously? The Yankees? What on Earth does that have to do with a hurricane other than I would like both to go away? Sounds like an awful book judged on that one quote alone. One I am not likely to forgive. See, my favorite baseball player is Tim Wakefield, who recently met with a pitcher for the Chico Outlaws (only in Chico!) to show the lady how to properly throw a knuckleball. I was born and raised on the Red Sox, so I would hope that by 2050, that Yankees home advantage she is blathering about turns into the 2004 ALCS…
This is the kind of writing we grow out of and away from as we mature and leave our idealistic naivete behind. That is to say, we turn 14 and see the world as an adult. Watts happened here? This is more like Blazing Saddles meets a bad hair day in the middle of the perfect storm while on a three hour tour; A three hour tour… Sing along!
If it weren’t July and we weren’t still using the electric blanket, this story might have had a chance.
She’s young enough to live to regret this book. Steve should tell her quick that the arctic has gone into a “Life Spiral”. Some Polar Bears have been spotted wearing “Depends” and playing Bridge.
I wonder if she mentions the heavy ice storms along the gulf coast in the springs of the future? Maybe the snow shields they will put up around the NYC subway entrances to keep them from drifting shut? The escape hatches they cut into the capitol dome to get the people out?Tunneling through the snow in the rose garden?
There is only so much energy that can be rung out of the ion shifts of the atmosphere as the summer changes into fall, in the form of tropical storms that discharge the buildup of pole to equator ion potentials due to homopolar currents in the geomagnetic fields, when passing outer planets.
Unless the size or proximity of the outer planets is going to change drastically, I do not see how hurricanes can get any worse than they have been already. Ocean Heat content is not going to be a problem as she states it will be. The heating cycle is past peak now and falling fast, watch this winter for more east coast great white fun.
Folks, these are interesting times…..we are actually witnessing the death-throes of a major religion!
The world did not end when the Artic ice mass remained intact this season, Climategate blew a hole through their bow, and the public is fast losing faith and interest in AGW, especially when they realize who is going to foot the bill.
As a result, we are seeing various death-throes including ever-more-desperate attempts to link rising temperatures with something/anything!! Dying/declining phytoplankton is the new boogie-man as we’ve been reading.
Garbage like this is pitiful, right up with Gore’s “Earth in the Balance” and Hansen’s “Storms of my Grandchildren.” The Population Bomb didn’t happen, Love Canal didn’t kill us all, and AGW will be a similar bust.
Am I the only one to notice / mention that (back on the 27th) the (Cryosphere Today Arctic Sea) graph has expanded the color scheme to add a deep blue and emerald green area from about 30% to about 82% sea ice concentration, and compressed the old 40% to 90% sea ice content, color scheme into the 90% to 100% concentration area?
I would guess it might be to better match the scale of the new satellite to measure ice volume. Then again I have an open mind and am more critical of data / presentation, than personal motives of the site maintenance people.
The cover art of this book appeared unapologetically alarmist. I would have felt that an image of the Thames frozen over would have been more appropriate, given it would be based on actual human experience of living in a “climate changed world”. Rather than judge the author’s work by the cover, I clicked over to Climate Central to see the outfit she was involved in. Sadly I noted that Climate Central appeared to be a more polished form of the Journolist for climate. However my concerns were somewhat allayed as I noted from Climate Central’s legal page that as propagandists they are not taking themselves too seriously –
CLIMATE CENTRAL DOES NOT MAKE ANY WARRANTIES OR REPRESENTATIONS REGARDING THE USE OF THE MATERIALS ON THIS SITE IN TERMS OF THEIR COMPLETENESS, CORRECTNESS, ACCURACY, ADEQUACY, USEFULNESS, TIMELINESS, RELIABILITY OR OTHERWISE
Heidi may not be covering real science, but she’s really covering her…
But then she would be wise to do so. One no longer needs to be a climate scientist to predict that the weather of the future for AGW propagandists will involve HEAVY STORMS – DERISIVE AT TIMES.
The bathtub Atlantic, the Yankees, a hurricane…hm. She is going to make hundreds of dollars!
How did she get to be a Climatologist?
[quote]
Future history? It’s been done. Isaac Asimov.
[/quote]
I believe you’re referring to Robert Heinlein’s famous set of stories. That said, Dr. Asimov would likely destroy the warmists with an essay where he brought the reader from first principles to the conclusion via easy to follow steps.
Wonder how all the people that went on the Swine Flu bandwagon are going now? She’s too young to destroy her career
I’m no expert but the quoted paragraph seems gramatically incoherent and reads very badly.
reality time
I’ve written several books, and was actually thinking about writing a Science Fiction story about how climate will affect us in the future. Fortunately I realized that such a book would be insufferably boring, and wasting time writing it would not be wise.
Then again, I could write one that is so absolutely absurd, so over the top, that nobody could possibly take it seriously. Then “The Day After Tomorrow” came out, and now Heidi is releasing this one, so I’ve been beaten to it.
Oh well… I’ll stick with unlikely but slightly plausible plots based on made-up quirks of physics…
Why did she bother?? That was soooo 2006. This film will only provide more ammunition for those pesky “deniers”.
Can’t wait to see the likes of Monckton tear the film to bits using peer reviewed science.
It’s easy to predict the future: 211 – Business as usual, with a handful of cranks on the street corner predicting in imminent end of the world. Same as all our pasts.
2110 that is.
Matthew says:
Future History was Heinlein’s timeline, but Asimov had Psychohistory.
Unfortunately, just before his death Asimov was active in the anti-Carbon movement, writing at least one book detailing the horrors that humanity was causing with our industrial emissions called “Our Angry Earth”.
However, my respect for Dr. Asimov is great, and I believe he would have seen through what is going on with “climate science” by now.
So, worst case warming of maybe 10F by 2050 would change the bleeding freezing mid-atlantic to a “bathtub” temperature?
She must like her bath pretty damn chilly!
Whither Al Gore? (WAG) Report. (Formerly AGW).
H/T Grope & Fail Experts + Espana.
“We lost. It’s over. Forget it,”.
“Reframe the issue.”
…-
“Expert: Win climate change debate by easing off science
Panelist says issue must be reframed before time runs out
The battle to get Americans to accept the science behind climate change has been “lost,” an expert at the Aspen Environment Forum declared Wednesday, but there’s still a way to win the war to reduce carbon emissions.
Jonathan Foley, director of the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota, said leaders on climate change need to concentrate on changing behavior in ways that appeal to people — and also happen to reduce carbon emissions.
“Climate scientists — stop talking about climate science. We lost. It’s over. Forget it,” Foley told a surprised audience during a featured panel discussion on the last day of the three-day forum.
He said he likes nothing more than addressing conservatives and trying to win them over. “I like to walk into rooms like that and say, ‘Forget about climate change. Do you love America?’
“And they’ll go, ‘Yeah.’ I’ll say, ‘Doesn’t it kind of tick you off that we borrow money from China, send it to Saudi Arabia to prop up this energy industry … You’re pushing a lot of buttons. They agree on that,” Foley said.
Environmentalists and climate deniers should stop fighting and take action they agree on, even if they approach the issue from different sides, he said.
“The skepticism around climate change has created a trap for us,” Foley said. “Stop digging yourself into the hole. Get out of it. Talk about it a different way. Reframe the issue.”
The Environment Forum was presented by The Aspen Institute and National Geographic Magazine.”
http://www.postindependent.com/article/20100729/VALLEYNEWS/100729865/1083&ParentProfile=1074
…-
“Madrid cuts subsidies for solar power plants
Spain will cut the subsidised electricity prices paid to new photovoltaic solar power plants by up to 45 per cent, the industry ministry has announced, in a move designed to increase efficiency and cut government spending at a time of austerity.
With the help of generous state subsidies and electricity prices as much as 10 times the rate paid for conventionally generated power, Spain has become one of Europe’s leading producers and consumers of alternative energy, but the policy has contributed to an €18bn ($23bn, £15bn) accumulated deficit that hangs over the electricity sector.
The alternative power comes mainly from wind turbines but also from costly panels of photovoltaic cells, which convert sunlight directly into electricity, and from the newer thermosolar plants, which use mirrors to focus the sun’s rays, turn water into steam through heat and so drive a turbine.
The ministry said guaranteed prices for large, ground-based new photovoltaic plants would be cut by 45 per cent, while those for large roof installations would drop 25 per cent and for small ones by 5 per cent. ”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2563018/posts
“In 2050, when Hurricane Xavier — a category 4 monster, which sprang up from the bathtub that the Atlantic had become finally arrived — people sat back and watched it like the World Series. We knew we had a home team advantage, just like the Yankees.”
A direct quote? Is it bad editing or just bad grammar? Without the words between the dashes the sentence should still be coherent. Try the sentence with the words in between the dashes removed.
Oh, well. Maybe Dr. Heidi Cullen will get a right royal welcome from Prince Charles.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/7919104/Start-HRH-The-Prince-of-Wales-on-practical-sustainable-living.html
http://www.icecap.us/ website today includes a story about one Judith Curry, who according to Wikipedia:
>Judith A. Curry is an American climatologist and chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her research interests include hurricanes, remote sensing, atmospheric modeling, polar climates, air-sea interactions, and the use of unmanned aerial vehicles for atmospheric research. She is a member of the National Research Council’s Climate Research Committee.[1]
Curry is the co-author of Thermodynamics of Atmospheres and Oceans (1999), and co-editor of Encyclopedia of Atmospheric Sciences (2002), as well as over 140 scientific papers. Among her awards is the Henry G. Houghton Research Award from the American Meteorological Society in 1992.<
Curry had recommended that warmist scientists should read what the skeptics are writing, particularly the book The Hockey Stick Illusion by Andrew Montford.
For this, Curry is being lambasted and treated as a traitor, a denialist etc etc. Of course she will be stonewalled and processed like a anti-communist would be processed in North Korea.
On the other hand, Heidi Cullen, will, for sure, be elevated to godess status for her beautiful fairy tale.
A great deal of SF is based on apocalyptic scenarios because they appeal to an ancient hunger in people to see the slate wiped cleanm the wicked punished and a new order started.
The plot device was first recorded in the Noah myths of worldwide floods.
Why a person would use such ancient schtick to pretend to be a scientist is beyond me.
The batting average for global apocalyptic predictions is precisely 0.
Is this the woman who called for the credentials of AGW skeptics to be canceled, and their careers ended?
I would suggest that anyone who writes a book that is positioned as a serious non-fiction book and uses flooded cities as a prop is the one whose credentials need to be canceled.
CodeTech,
Try re-reading Asimov. I know this is heresy, but a great deal of his psycohhistory writing is nearly unreadable, filled with cliche, naive shallow characters and assumptions of a level of state control that would make Stalinist USSR look to be a free state. One of his most annoying fallacies is the one that people already make today- the infallibility of scientists.
@Richard111
And Prince Charles’ standard of living of course is sustained at considerable expense to the British taxpayer.
Not sure if this the right thread for a comment but this from the BBC /UK met off is a great example of IPCC think. Create a headline that is sensational and bury the truth in the text. Note Chance of hot weather.!!
<=""Chance of hot weather marking the end of August
The second half of the month will see further spells of rain across northern Britain and also at times in western areas. Wet weather in the west will be transitory with a good deal of dry weather here. More may be expected in the south and east.
Temperatures will be at or above the seasonal norm with a low chance that a spell of hot, sunny weather may affect wales and southern England.
Rain fall will be average or below, especially in southeast England
I’m not a scientist. I’m a farmer and have been since 1965 when I decided I didn’t really want to be an engineer. I am by necessity an observer of nature and the weather. Where I lived we had winter mornings often below zero C and summer days in the high 40s ( 47 C at 1100 hrs one Nov morn in 1982). The average temp at Jerrys Plains the year I was born, 1945, was 26 C. The average temp there in 2009 was 25.9 C. The warmest year was in 1940 at 27.8 C.
The BoM tell us that 2010 is shaping to be the hottest year EVER in Australia but not in Jerrys Plains. Methinks the boffins in the BoM should get out more and possibly stay out. Maybe they should take Heidi with them. It looks like the lady could do with a dose of realism and get away from her computer projections.
I first heard “Hidey” Cullen when she was pushing Globull Warming on the Weather Channel. I emailed her about her bunk she was spreading. She went underground. I never saw her on there again. Now I see why. She is using a different venue to spread her bunk.
The temptation to publish and make a bundle off the AGW Hype is just too much for even nice looking little PhDs on TV. It’s insane to just sit by and let all that money and fame go to the guy idiots at Penn State and East Anglia and a couple other stupid places. Right? You bet! Integrity is for guys like Bill Gates who can afford it. When the poker’s hot, ya gotta use it or it will cool off and go for naught. Hay! Girls! Life’s a beach and the surf is up! Money! Money! Money!
It’s a shame sweet little Heidi couldn’t get all you haterhaters the first time she tried…
“The Weather Channel’s most prominent climatologist is advocating that broadcast meteorologists be stripped of their scientific certification if they express skepticism about predictions of manmade catastrophic global warming. This latest call to silence skeptics follows a year (2006) in which skeptics were compared to “Holocaust Deniers” and Nuremberg-style war crimes trials were advocated by several climate alarmists.
The Weather Channel’s (TWC) Heidi Cullen, who hosts the weekly global warming program “The Climate Code,” is advocating that the American Meteorological Society (AMS) revoke their “Seal of Approval” for any television weatherman who expresses skepticism that human activity is creating a climate catastrophe.
“If a meteorologist can’t speak to the fundamental science of climate change, then maybe the AMS shouldn’t give them a Seal of Approval. Clearly, the AMS doesn’t agree that global warming can be blamed on cyclical weather patterns,” Cullen wrote in her December 21 weblog on the Weather Channel Website.”
I bet butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.
Asimov wrote a series of books about (life on) the planets. It was based on the science of the day, and intended to educate the reader. As far as I know, most of the facts about the planets were later proved to be wrong.
But a genius, no doubt.
“From the Entertainment section of ABCnews.com…”
Pretty much all you need to know about this “news” item…
It’s on par with the IPCC and Al Gore winning the Nobel prize for … peace (and NOT physics). I still think it’s hilarious that Al got an equal share of the Nobel prize
chakramoney for his “work” on global warming.jpfife says:
August 2, 2010 at 2:55 am
“In 2050, when Hurricane Xavier — a category 4 monster, which sprang up from the bathtub that the Atlantic had become finally arrived — people sat back and watched it like the World Series. We knew we had a home team advantage, just like the Yankees.”
“A direct quote? Is it bad editing or just bad grammar? Without the words between the dashes the sentence should still be coherent. Try the sentence with the words in between the dashes removed.”
Even if the sentence were grammatically correct, it would still be incoherent. “People sat back and watched it like the World Series.”??? What does that mean? I think it reflects the “Weather Channel” mindset of treating weather like entertainment or an infomercial. This is one of the reasons I will NEVER again trust the Weather Channel to get my weather information…
I think Heidi should have a wrestlng match with Joe Bastardi to see who really knows what they’e talking about w.r.t. climate. My money’s on Joe!
L Ron Hubbard could not beat this shit
Who was the person on the Weather Channel that wanted to revoke AMS certification for anyone who didn’t believe in AGW? I think, but I’m not sure, it was Heidi Cullen. I do know it was a woman, but I don’t remember who. Anyone, after she (whoever she is) said it, an Alabama meteorologists, James Spann, said:
Here is the link: http://www.jamesspann.com/blog.htm
I hate the Weather Channel. One reason is a monkey is a suit could make more accurate predictions. Another reason is they play up every single tropical storm like it is the Apocalypse. Little wonder why the founder of TWC disowns them now.
new book on August 3, so far #138,256 on Amazon’s bestsellers but sure to rocket up the listings when the book publicity tour begins……“Day After Tomorrow” scenarios
#138,256, America is yawning at the idea of the sky falling.
tree hugging sister says:
August 2, 2010 at 5:28 am
It’s a shame sweet little Heidi couldn’t get all you haterhaters the first time she tried…
“The Weather Channel’s most prominent climatologist is advocating that broadcast meteorologists be stripped of their scientific certification if they express skepticism about predictions of manmade catastrophic global warming. This latest call to silence skeptics follows a year (2006) in which skeptics were compared to “Holocaust Deniers” and Nuremberg-style war crimes trials were advocated by several climate alarmists….
_______________________________________________________________________
As the world turns cold for the next thirty years, may dear sweet little Heidi reap what she has sown. At least Dr Judith Curry had the sense to try and straddle the fence.
If a meteorologist can’t speak to the fundamental science of climate change,
What fundamental science of climate change?
This lady likes catastrophic, and won’t settle for less.
Great. When the Earth tips on it’s axis (due to some unforseen cosmic encounter), then we can have climate change you crawl under a rock over.
In the meantime, we are most likely due to receive a cyclical reminder of just how much Earth’s climate can vary over the course of a millenia.
In reply to Matthew and CodeTech:
I think of the CAGW issue as liberal/conservative. Isaac Asimov, being a stereotypical liberal, would have embraced the CAGW ideology. Of course, as CodeTech pointed out, Asimov was pretty sharp, and might well have been “excommunicated”, and was Judy Curry, for pointing out simplistic flaws in the CAGWers reasoning.
As to Science Fiction dealing with climate catastrophe from a conservative point of view, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle did that in 1991 with “Fallen Angels”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallen_Angels_%28science_fiction_novel%29
A stem-winding sci-fi thriller? Brutal!
Alexej Buergin says:
August 2, 2010 at 5:40 am
Asimov was good, but like Cullen, constrained to the scant data, which ultimately limited the thinking of the day.
In her case, she limit’s both herself and her potential audience. She’s no Isaac Asimov.
She has that “deer in the headlights” look…
Since this thread has veered off on Asimov, I must admit that I find most of his novels tedious. However, he wrote several volumes of short stories, and he was an absolute master of that form! (along with Arthur C. Clarke) “Nightfall” is the most famous, but almost all of those stand up as well today as when they were written.
As far as predicting Future History, I’d have to say that Obama comes eerily close to Nehemiah Scudder. Hopefully he won’t succeed, but it won’t be for lack of trying.
“Cullen is likely to attract readers with an insistent style and quotes from people who claim to have been already damaged by global warming. That goes especially for those who remember something of what they learned in Chemistry or Physics 101 classes.”
Ah, so because she “insists” on her imaginary catastrophic scenarios, and she (gasp) quotes from actual people claiming to be harmed by global warming, she will necessarily attract readers with a basic chemistry or physics background. They’re delusional if they think belief in CAGW/CC has anything to do with educational background, or indeed whether it proves anything at all about its scientific validity. Makes for good spin, though.
I suppose there is still a pretty good (though ever-shrinking) market for her brand of pseudo-science and doomsterism. By 2050, the Great Warming Hysteria of approximately 1975 – 2015 will be but a dim memory, and read and marveled at in history books. History will not treat the likes of Cullen, Gore, Mann, and Hansen kindly, as mankind struggles through a period similar to the LIA.
At least Dr. Heide is not longer spewing her nonsense on The Weather Channel. Her advocating that AMS remove ‘Seal of Approval” for those not ‘preaching’ he sermon smacks of that which we have seen in USSR, some African nations, etc. WOW. What a piece of work.
I looked for this in the fiction department, but couldn’t find it. Maybe I should try over in fantasy…
I’ll ask Astro to take the jet-car down and pick up a copy.
She’s another Calamitologist, and she wants all the Forecasters to be Calamitologists. Did she ever do any actual forecasting?
So she is depressed.
Here is the scale to test for depression
http://healthnet.umassmed.edu/mhealth/HAMD.pdf
Feelings of guilt, anxiety, sadness hopeless, helpless, worthless.
Looks like she says bad things are on the way. We have no hope.
re Cullen: Ambition and a casual regard for the truth……
re Asimov: I grew up in the 60’s loving Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, etc. On rereading them now, only Heinlein satisfies. Asimov was brilliant, but suffered from a kind of misanthropic, elitist, smirkiness….along the lines of “I love Humanity…..if only people weren’t so foolish and disagreeable…maybe we scientist types can save them from themselves” Kind of like the AGW crowd.
Of the classic SF writers, I enjoy Frank Herbert the most, although I admit he was at least as much Fantasy as Sci Fi. Re this blog, Dune lovers may recall his use of weather control satellites as a regular prop.
Sci-fi? That’s appropriate…she can team with Ehrlich on her next thriller. Since his original book has been shown to be a bust wrt predictions he gone to making dateless predictions in later works. Might as well be fiction, so I see a real opportunity for a fruitful partnership between these two…maybe they can also channel Rachel Carson for some extra input?
All students that failed thermodynamics gravitated into Meteorology, the only thing they could pass. Where are the numerous hurricanes you forecasted Heidi?
Great-another bulk buy for Science and Sociology departments nation wide. School districts, too…
Lawrie Ayres says:
August 2, 2010 at 4:34 am
“I’m not a …………….”
Very good comment.
Is that big red rock in the central part of Australia yours? 😉
In my 7/31 American Thinker article, “The Left and Its Talking Points” ( http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/07/the_left_and_its_talking_point.html ), I noted about the collection of AGW-centered discussion pieces on the PBS NewsHour going back to 1996, “of 212 global warming-centered program segments, including some online background info pages, only three on-air segments had discussion of basic skeptic science”. Space didn’t permit me to elaborate, but I could have added that our friend Heidi Cullen allowed Roger Pielke Sr two whole sentences of skepticism…. sort of… in an ‘outsourced’ NewsHour segment that aired October 31, 2008. Jim Lehrer introduced Cullen this way: “Our story is produced by Climate Central, a nonpartisan scientific research group. The reporter is Heidi Cullen, a climatologist and correspondent for The Weather Channel.” ( http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/environment/july-dec08/troutdrought_10-31.html )
I think I’ve just been run over by an fnord.
Gnomish says:
August 2, 2010 at 8:25 am (Edit)
I think I’ve just been run over by an fnord.
Quick, say three ‘hail Eris’s’ and wrap this flax round your leg.
So much publicity for so little… The doldrums of summer!
Mark says:
August 2, 2010 at 6:06 am
I think Heidi should have a wrestlng match with Joe Bastardi to see who really knows what they’e talking about w.r.t. climate. My money’s on Joe!
That would be unfair since Heidi is rather pettite, a 5km race sounds more appropriate where my money would be on Heidi.
I disliked her opinions on the Weather Channel, I dislike them now. She clearly has an agenda and lacks objectivity. How does someone get as far in her field and then jumps off the cliff and is OK with that. Anyone who considers her as an authority really needs more weed or a refresher course on climatology.
RE: Alan McIntire says: (August 2, 2010 at 6:45 am) “As to Science Fiction dealing with climate catastrophe from a conservative point of view, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle did that in 1991 with “Fallen Angels”.”
I believe the full text of this particular book is available for reading free online at the Baen Books website:
http://www.baen.com/library/067172052X/067172052X.htm
Just curious, does anyone know what happened to the web site that showed the Daily Artic Sea Ice Maps. I have been unable to connect to the site for weeks.
Al Gore’s Holy Hologram says:
August 2, 2010 at 6:09 am
L Ron Hubbard could not beat this shit
____________________________________
The ultimate insult! Now I have to clean my screen again.
For those who do not know L. Ron Hubbard is the Founder of Scientology, Dianetics, and Church of Scientology. Some people who knew L. Ron think he did it as a joke.
CodeTech says:
August 2, 2010 at 2:28 am
Matthew says:
k winterkorn says:
August 2, 2010 at 7:56 am
You gents mentioned my favorite writers. Thanks.
Asimov in “Fact and Fantasy” wrote (I am paraphasing due to memory) “Due to the random nature of the movement of water molecules in a glass it is possible that all the molecules could go up at the same time and the water leap out of the glass. However, the chance of this happening exceed the life of the universe.”
After reading that I started really questioning anyone who says that there is a chance/possiblity that X can happen.
“A man should be able to pilot a starship, feed himself and change a diaper.”
k winterkorn says:
August 2, 2010 at 7:56 am
re Cullen: Ambition and a casual regard for the truth……
re Asimov: I grew up in the 60′s loving Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, etc. On rereading them now, only Heinlein satisfies….
Of the classic SF writers, I enjoy Frank Herbert the most…
__________________________________________________________________
I agree. Do not forget Frederik Pohl, Poul Anderson, Hal Clement, Spidy Robinson, and especially John W. Cambell who shepherded these writers to fame.
Like you Asimov was not really to my taste.
Heidi is one of many reasons I no longer watch the Weather Channel.
It’s really hard to push something that flys in the face of common sense.
Disaster sells in the media.
No one would watch the news, pick up a paper or magazine, that was titled “nothing going on”
A very appropriate image for all of this climate disaster nonsense: a hurricane in a bathtub.
Even if the sentence were grammatically correct, it would still be incoherent.
Aside from the misplaced dashes, the word “which” needs to be removed.
Why worry. All the phytoplankton will be gone soon anyway.
EPA says CO2 mostly threatens minorities.
I’m one of those “white” people, so I’m safe.
Wait by 2050 I will be in the minority, perhaps.
I’m so confused.
Seriously though,I’ll be 90 in 2050.
I’ll remember all this bull and I’ll relish it being rubbed in there little “warm” faces..
Phil. says:
“That would be unfair since Heidi is rather pettite [sic], a 5km race sounds more appropriate where my money would be on Heidi.”
No tenured academic can be forced to take a remedial spelling class, which is one more reason to get rid of the dysfunctional tenure system. Coasting through life on the backs of honest working people brings to mind this situation:
Or maybe Phil, whose spelling skillz are on a par with his science, is learning from the Governator:
Dateline Sacramento– The California governor has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official state language rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, the Terminator’s Administration has conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5-year phase-in plan that would become known as “Austrionics.”
In the first year, “s” will replace the soft “c”, and “j” will be replaced with “y”. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants yump with yoy. The hard “c” will be dropped in favour of the “k”. This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.
There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome “ph” will be replaced with the “f”. This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter. In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Along with ridding the state of the #1 scourge of humanity — plastic grocery bags — the Governator’s plan will enkourage the removal of the #2 scourge of double letters, such as in pettite, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.
Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent “e” and “o” in the languag is disgrasful and it neds to go away. By the 4th yer pepl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing “th” with “z” and “w” with “v”. During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary “o” kan be dropd from vords kontaining “ou,” and after ze fifz yer, ve vil hav a rel sensibl riting styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis, and even profesors vil find it ezy to understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united stats of urop vil finaly kum tru in ur brav new Obama vorld!☺
There is a new movie out (Hollywood calls it a “documentary”) called “The Age of Stupid”. Haven’t seen it (don’t plan to) but her book sounds like more of the same.
Evidently people forget what they’ve learned in college. College ed. helped land me a job. Then I really began to learn my trade.
Same holds for climate scientists. In college they learned the “Scientific Method”and the pitfalls of loving an unproven hypothesis, that theory begets testing and that computer models prove nothing.
Then they go to work for organizations that believe computer models explain it all. No observation of reality necessary. They act as if data comes from these models.
Boeing builds jetliners using computer models but they still flight test an actual airplane in the real world. This is where there flight data comes from.
The models used are tools whose output is irrelevant to everyone but those who will proceed to real world testing.
Same should hold true for these climate scientists who have forgotten science.
The advantage of science/speculative fiction in an issue like this is that there is no need to be factually correct because it *is* fiction. One could just as easily write a fiction in which Roxor, the mad super-scientist from ‘Chandu the Magician,’ (1948 radio series) and a cabal of climate scientists plot to take over the world to reduce what they perceive to be an excessive human population. However, these days it might be hard to find a publisher or anyone interested in the movie rights for that kind of story.
As much as I would love to see New York City and criminal Wall Street permanently under water, there ain’t a snow balls chance in hell of that happenning.
Hey Heidi!: Would you quit and apologize, and then go where your abilities as a forecaster can not harm anybody, if it does not happen what you so charmingly say?
“The Weather Channel’s most prominent climatologist is advocating that broadcast meteorologists be stripped of their scientific certification if they express skepticism about predictions of man made catastrophic global warming.
Nolo Contendere says:
August 2, 2010 at 9:12 am
All those pseudo-science, rather post normal, channels keep on insisting in their disinformation endeavor.
BTW, in E.M.Smith’s blog, to my surprise (i am not American) I found the following:
….And that’s why we have a 2nd amendment. It’s not about hunting Bambi…
Ref – Michael says:
August 2, 2010 at 10:25 am
_____________________
Oh Ye of little faith!!!
Wait 90,000 years. It will. Wanna bet?
We’ll meet on the Moon at Tranquility Base in 90,000 Earth Years and check. If you win I’ll polish your Halo, if I win You polish my whatever (not sure what I’m gonna get when I get off this berg;-)
Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle are my favourites.
And from them, this one;
http://www.amazon.com/Mote-Gods-Eye-Larry-Niven/dp/0671741926/ref=sr_1_20?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1280772038&sr=8-20
“The Weather Channel’s most prominent climatologist is advocating that broadcast meteorologists be stripped of their scientific certification if they express skepticism about predictions of manmade catastrophic global warming. ”
So she is a playground bully?
Heidi fired from program during the middle of NBC’s “Green Week”,
She not only is out of the Weather Channel, they ran her off.
Must have spent to much time chanelling the future.
Enneagram says:
August 2, 2010 at 10:38 am
BTW, in E.M.Smith’s blog, to my surprise (i am not American) I found the following:
….And that’s why we have a 2nd amendment. It’s not about hunting Bambi…
______________________________________________________________________
The 2nd Amendment was put in place to help keep the politicians relatively honest and to serve as a warning…. that is why the politicians have been trying to get rid of it ever since. Known we have that right seems to make ordinary Americans more laid back too.
[snip – policy]
…interesting how this thread morphed into a discussion about authors of classic science fiction! Make mine Harlan Ellison for really disturbing future stuff…
The comparison of L. Ron Hubbard and James E. Hansen is interesting….much similarity in the resulting cult-like followings!! However, in terms of societal impact and economics, Hubbard was a piker compared to what Hansen hath wrought!
Good website for the interested, many classics are now royalty-free and thus archived:
http://web.archive.org/web/20070204073906/www.scifi.com/scifiction/archive.html
Sorry, mods, OT!
I wish people would stop referring to this book as SF. Real SF is bounded by science and known principles. It can extrapolate and extend, but it should not violate, without some explanation ( though granted that explanation sometimes needs a little hand waving for such things like FTL travel).
[REPLY – But . . . But what about Captain Zoom? ~ Evan]
NBC Universal made the first of potentially several rounds of staffing cuts at The Weather Channel (TWC) on Wednesday, axing the entire staff of the “Forecast Earth” environmental program during the middle of NBC’s “Green Week”, as well as several on-camera meteorologists. The layoffs totaled about 10 percent of the workforce, and are the first major changes made since NBC completed its purchase of the venerable weather network in September.
Keep reading for more on The Weather Channel cuts…
A suggestion to this Board. Take the Weather Channel logo out of her picture. Her project was ended in 2008.
She is long gone and her “environmental unit” was all disbanded. Good riddance.
She wasn’t exactly doing weather forecasts.
“In 2050, when Hurricane Xavier — a category 4 monster, which sprang up from the bathtub that the Atlantic had become finally arrived — people sat back and watched it like the World Series. We knew we had a home team advantage, just like the Yankees.” – How corny can you get?
Miss Heidi doesn’t know her sports jargon either. It’s called home field advantage not “home team advantage.” Miss Heidi is probably dreaming of her starring oppoasite leo DiCaprio in the climate movie based on her book.
Heidi. Here’s a piece of sound advice.
We have entered a Grand Solar Minimum, guaranteed.
Find out where to buy a pair of snowshoes. You’re going to need them for the next 30 years at least!
So the situation with the Arctic is getting so bad that we have to shorten its name to “Artic”?
So Heidi got her 15 minutes of fame and is desperate for more. Poor little thing. Pathetic really.
Nice to see all the SF fans here. I always found Asimov over rated. Heinlein is great, Poul Anderson greatly under rated. The conclusion his and Karen’s “Murphy’s Hall” is looking uncomfortably like the future of the human race.
For later writers try Greg Benford and Greg Bear (both “Vitals” and “Quantico” are horror SF way beyond anything Stephen King has ever done.)
These are the sort of things we will see increasing rapidly during the failing hysteria phase of the death spiral of global warming. Desperation breeds tracts of this kind just at the edge of failure. It is a ‘sauve qui peut’ (save what you can) period when it is clear that all is lost. Hey the public is already leaving the theatre for gosh sakes – 58% don’t believe and a good chunk of the rest will follow before the lights go out.
jpfife hints that the second dash should follow the word “become.” The second dash, where it is now located, should be replaced by the word “and.” Whooaa! This book is going to be one fine read.
“In 2050, when Hurricane Xavier — a category 4 monster, which sprang up from the bathtub that the Atlantic had become finally arrived — people sat back and watched it like the World Series. We knew we had a home team advantage, just like the Yankees.”
Dr. Cullen may want to watch the hysteria. You never know if someone might take her seriously, start hoarding ammunition and then go to her house to take what they can; because Darwin was right. Maybe she should remember an old quote from the Ole West; “God created all men. Sam Colt made them equal.”
I am not promoting this……I am just saying that there are other Doomsday predictions.
Al Gore’s Holy Hologram writes:
“L. Ron Hubbard could not beat this shit.”
Your timing, rhythm, everything is impeccable. I laughed until I cried.
Evidently Miz Cullen’s book is not a novel, but a ‘non-fiction’ attempt to pass off trite and by-now hackneyed alarmist forecasts of the dangers of ‘climate change’. Expect to see it remaindered well before Christmas.
So it puzzles me why the discussion veered off into SF writers, except that they are vastly more interesting than promulgators of pseudo-science masquerading as fact.
Isaac Asimov was an engaging and jovial fellow, a biochemist turned profligate author. In my opinion his fiction (especially the first three ‘Foundation’ novels, and some of the lesser-known ones, like Pebble in the Sky) were much more compelling than his non-fiction work. They usually concerned a very distant future, unlike Heinlein’s ‘Future History’ stories, which related the politics of an era only a few decades hence. Asimov was, as someone said, an establishment figure as far as science went, a popularizer rather than a thinker. How the iconoclastic Robert A. Heinlein might have regarded the AGW cult is hard to say, but he was an engineer, and suspicious of all ideologies and ideologues.
No one has mentioned my favorite SF writer, whose remarkable literary inventions still intrigue and entertain with every re-reading: Jack Vance. Science plays little direct role in his work (aside from the Intersplit, which enabled FTL interstellar travel and the settlement of much of the Galaxy). Most of it has to do with the million and one quirks and peculiarities of which humanity and human culture may be—and is—capable. From a Vanceian point of view the prospect of a great civilization intent on reducing itself to poverty out of misguided and insane idealism might be perfectly understandable.
/Mr Lynn
According to Wikipedia, this is one of her publications:
Glantz, Michael H.; Cullen, Heidi (1 January 2003), “Zimbabwe’s Food Crisis”, Environment, Issue 45(1): 9–11, retrieved 10 December 200
She didn’t blame Zimbabwe’s food crises on global warming instead of Mugabe, did she? Anyone know?
Smokey says:
August 2, 2010 at 10:02 am
Phil. says:
“That would be unfair since Heidi is rather pettite [sic], a 5km race sounds more appropriate where my money would be on Heidi.”
No tenured academic can be forced to take a remedial spelling class, which is one more reason to get rid of the dysfunctional tenure system. Coasting through life on the backs of honest working people brings to mind this situation:
Wow Smokey this is poor even for you, a typo and you make unfounded personal slurs! Too much to expect that the mods would remove your insults, some of us are fair game I guess.
I’m late to this party…and haven’t read all the comments so might be reapeating this stuff, but the Weather Channel (note “weather” in its name) in general and Dr. Cullen specifically, always generate four words in my mind: Jeff Immelt / General Electric.
GE owns NBC which now owns the Weather Channel. Jeff (of GE) likes windmills. They make lots of money for GE…which owns NBC…which owns Weather Channel…which would like to see widespread panic for all to buy windmills. Dr. (sic)Cullen knows on which side her bread is buttered.
Talk about a “news” source masquerading as true, vetted information? Want more? Ask the sawed-off Jim Cantore at the Weather Channel. Science is totally foreign to him. But the chicks love him.
(If only they could see him in person….)
I have just run across one statement on the internet that might be the source of this type of alarming story. It says that at the end of September 2009, a ‘renowned climatologist,’ Stephan Rahmstorf, speaking to an international climate change conference in Oxford, England made the ‘startling announcement’ that a rise of at least 2 meters in the world’s sea levels had become virtually “unstoppable.”
RE: Spector: (August 2, 2010 at 10:34 pm )
Correction: for Stephan Rahmstorf, please read Stefan Rahmstorf…
The Happy Inifidel : August 2, 2010 at 8:53 pm
According to Wikipedia, this is one of her publications:
Glantz, Michael H.; Cullen, Heidi (1 January 2003), “Zimbabwe’s Food Crisis”, Environment, Issue 45(1): 9–11
She didn’t blame Zimbabwe’s food crises on global warming instead of Mugabe, did she? Anyone know?
She and Michael Glantz have co-authored a number of articles, all of which were climate-related. Their article is cited as a reference in “Coping With A Changing Climate: Considerations for Adaptation and Mitigation in Agriculture” — as is Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth.”
http://www.fao.org/docrep/012/i1315e/i1315e07.pdf
My guess, based on that and Glantz’s previous papers (“On Assessing Winners and Losers in the Context of Global Warming”, among others) — they gave Mugabe a pass.
Hah. I spoke a bit too soon — here’s an article in Geotimes from 2002:
“Glantz and Cullen explain the situation as a “drought+ factor.” Politics have played a large role, Glantz says, citing the example of Zimbabwe. Previously known, along with South Africa, as one of Southern Africa’s chief food exporters, Zimbabwe has suffered from policies framed by its new government. Redistributing large tracts of white-owned farm lands to small-scale subsistence farmers without providing training or infrastructure has badly hurt and weakened the economy. Poor planning and mismanagement plague all governments in the region. Decisions by international donors such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to cut agriculture subsidies and have Southern Africa compete in world markets has also had adverse effects, Glantz explains.”
Further down:
“It’s only in the last couple of decades that drought is being looked at as a multidisciplinary problem,” Cullen says.
http://www.geotimes.org/sept02/geophen.html
So, Glantz made a passing slap at Mugabe, but both he and Mizz Cullen lay the primary blame on drought.
I love the Internet…
RE: Stefan Rahmstorf’s “unstoppable” sea level rise…
After reviewing a number of internet articles, it looks like Dr. Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany (who appears to be relatively unknown in the U.S) may be Germany’s equivalent of Dr. Michael Mann, Dr. Phil Jones, and perhaps, former Vice President Gore. Some articles appear to credit him for helping formulate the current AGW policies of the German government.
Well, warmists write books and so do sceptics. I have just published yesterday my book in Spanish called “Clima Feroz”. (“Ferocious Climate”) with 9 chapters and an Epilogue. The longest part is the last chapter “Kioto Policies” and it is already having good acceptance among Spanish readers. It will go soon on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.
http://www.lulu.com/product/tapa-blanda/clima-feroz/12053175
Phil. says at 9:22 pm:
“Wow Smokey this is poor even for you, a typo and you make unfounded personal slurs!”
Hey, you left out the funny part of my post! And anyway, pointing out your factual spelling deficiency is not ‘unfounded.’ Is it?
You want to see a real personal slur against a 70 year old retired Physicist? Looky here…
[Phil wrote this about anna v in another thread yesterday]:
“It appears in addition to your ignorance of the physics that you can’t read!”
See, my ‘slurs’ are factual, Phil. That means they’re not slurs; truth is a great defense.
Your slurs are just baseless ad-homs. That means you’ve already lost the argument with anna v. And of course, this one with me.☺
Funny how the one thing conservatives don’t want to do is … conserve …
SnpCrkPopRC,
Wherever did you get that deluded notion?
Spector says:
August 3, 2010 at 1:28 pm
“RE: Stefan Rahmstorf’s “unstoppable” sea level rise…
After reviewing a number of internet articles, it looks like Dr. Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany (who appears to be relatively unknown in the U.S) may be Germany’s equivalent of Dr. Michael Mann, Dr. Phil Jones, and perhaps, former Vice President Gore. Some articles appear to credit him for helping formulate the current AGW policies of the German government.”
Yes. He and his fellow Schellnhuber are the German IPCC Bigwigs and Merkel is under their influence – that is, Merkel now avoids climate change like the plague; it’s political poison since the Western leaders tasted the Chinese medicine at COP15.