Responding to the last blunder he made where he assigned WUWT ownership of the “Our Climate” app, Sierra Club Chairman Carl Pope makes a blunder anew, 5 times.
Heh.
See the full writeup and see if you can spot all five:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carl-pope/apple-fools-day-again_b_684263.html
Blunder aside, I found this interesting:
My post on the threat of extreme weather attracted only ONE response, whose key point was: “How on earth are we supposed to ‘destabilize; the climate? Are you not careful with your words or do you really believe that the climate would become instable with more CO2? In the latter position you would find yourself rather lonely.”
Watts Up That With? Seems like it’s time for a rebranding or a 101 course in journalism for Mr. Pope…
I was distracted watching Star Trek … … I make mistakes when typing. Most times I catch ’em when proofing. But five times? WUTW??!!!!!
I think I shall tend my garden. Not interested in soap opera.
From the comments on that post….
1st comment…
“Carl, i know Anthony Watts of WWUT and he’s a good human being, but so so wrong about AGW and climate chaos in the future. He means well, but….
That said, Carl, could you SOON, one day ASAP, interview me about my POLAR CITIES project and do a post here at HUFFPO? see images first http://pcillu101.blogspot.com and then title your post James Lovelock’s Accidental Student and of course feel free to do a balanced story about polar cities ideas, pro and con. I don’t mind criticism or mockery. What i mind is ignoring me….email me for details at DANBLOOM in the gmail dept
Seems like Mr Pope’s fans are almost as knowledgable as he is..
/sarc……
And like all these green left types.. eager for some attention….
(and no doubt some tax payer funding)
cheerio
Jim
Uhhh, Watt’s Up That With (WUTW) . . . . what’s wrong that with?
Maybe Pope was aloft too long and suffered oxygen deprivation, or got dopey from sniffing that CO2-spewing contrail.
Pope just couldn’t resist throwing out the old “tipping point” bone, and it drives me nuts. QUESTION: If CO2 is such a powerful GHG and (by itself) produces such a significant positive feedback on temp, then how did Earth recover from prior periods of CO2 > 400 ppm? Why did world temps cool 1945-1975? Why has there been no perceptible global warming over the last decade while CO2 has risen steadily?
And, from the geological perspective, why have the last 2 million years been characterized by “unprecedented”, persistent cold punctuated by brief moderate/warm spells?
All questions have the same answer in common: CO2 ain’t no big thing, unless you’re talking “food chain”.
I had no idea it was so easy to be a columnist. Whoops – take that back. Just noticed the publisher is Huffington. Never mind.
I hate these kind of quizzes, mainly because my focus is typically different than others. One thing that sticks out to me is “But I don’t apologize for my view that climate cynics are defying not only the scientific consensus but also common sense by arguing that we can indefinitely continue to modify the chemical composition of the atmosphere and count on avoiding serious results from a destabilized climate.” Given that the earth’s atmosphere has in the past contained significantly more CO2 than now, I can hardly see how he maintains we are significantly altering the chemical composition of the atmosphere.
I’ll come back with more in a minute or two.
I would take issue with the notion that because rapid change has occurred, the climate is therefore unstable. Dramatic change may have occurred due to dramatic forcings. We can’t ensure we know what they were. Nor can we ensure chosen proxies accurately portray how quickly that change occurred.
There was also the nonsense about a buildup of energy (from an infinitesmally small trace of gas) suddenly releasing a hurricane or other event.
I thought you did credit Aeris also.
I didn’t know Yoda worked at HP
or
HP? Did not Know Yodi there worked …. mmmmm
Likely more than 5 blunders, and this one may not be what you had in mind, but
“I was on a plane all day after my post last week… So I didn’t have a chance to respond”
is quite a weird thing to say. It’s Tuesday, it happened last Wednesday. Was he on a plane for 6 days and calls it “all day”? His excuse for not responding till today is that he was on a plane all day. What’s he trying to convey? That he flies on airplanes? That he doesn’t read comments to his blogs for days at a time? Saying nothing would have been better. The guy is plain spooky.
Hasty pasty makes wastey.
I like how there was such outrage and hyperventilating over his mistake.
Can we please start an award for Mangling English and give it to Mr Pope. It’s no wonder young people find it more difficult to master the language with shining examples like him to lead the way.
jimb from Canada
Yoda had a better standard of English
I too found that quote interesting too and I must admit confusing. So I went to the dictionary. Ah, instable is probably misspelled. Spelling had never been one of my strong points either. However, I think I get the writer’s point but apparently Pope did not.
Dictionary:
insatiable |inˈsā sh əbəl|, adjective
(of an appetite or desire) impossible to satisfy : an insatiable hunger for success.
• (of a person) having an insatiable appetite or desire for something, esp. sex.
DERIVATIVES
insatiability |-ˌsā sh əˈbilitē| |ˈˈɪnˈseɪʃəˈˈbɪlədi| |ənˈseɪʃəˈbɪlədi| |-ˈbɪlɪti| noun
insatiably |-blē| |1nˈseɪʃəbli| adverb
ORIGIN late Middle English : from Old French insaciable or Latin insatiabilis, from in- ‘not’ + satiare ‘fill, satisfy’ (see satiate ).
Thesaurus:
insatiable, adjective
an insatiable appetite for expensive jewelry unquenchable, unappeasable, uncontrollable; voracious, gluttonous, greedy, hungry, ravenous, wolfish; avid, eager, keen; informal piggy; literary insatiate.
Dictionary:
destabilize |dēˈstābəˌlīz|, verb [ trans. ]
upset the stability of; cause unrest in : the discovery of an affair can destabilize a relationship.
Thesaurus:
destabilize, verb
the security system has been destabilized undermine, weaken, damage, subvert, sabotage, unsettle, upset, disrupt. antonym strengthen.
I’m not sure Journalism 101 would do much good here. Perhaps English 101?
It’s like those quizzes where you have to put random words or letters into order to make a sentence or word. eg. Sense he making not is.
No prizes for the winner (not even a gov grant as they are strapped for cash)
Can’t figure out why Carl Pope is so concerned about a trace gas.
So many land use issues and real toxins to worry about, like millions of gallons of dispersants dumped into the Gulf.
Mr Pope: “increasing the concentrations in the atmosphere of gasses that retain an increased fraction of incoming solar energy that is retained by the atmosphere has the same impact as turning up the burner underneath a pot — it increases the amount of kinetic energy. Eventually, the system hits a tipping point where the “pot” boils over … More kinetic energy in the atmosphere means a less-stable climate regime”
Logical error: Assumption that turning up the burner will always cause boiling, therefore ANY increase in radiative forcing will lead to a tipping point.
This is an unjustified leap to the catastrophe scenario. Turning up the burner just a notch could have little or no net effect. Or a small increase could have some positive outcomes.
What if we simply do not have sufficent fuel supply to cause boiling, no matter how far we try to increase fuel supply to the burner. This is a possible analogy to the logarithmic forcing response.
Another way of looking at it with regard to “positive feedbacks”. Are we supposed to assume that any minor increase in the burner setting will call on some untold (unaccounted for) energy source which will amplify the increase in fuel supply?
Dennis Nikols, P. Geol. says:
August 16, 2010 at 11:27 pm
“Ah, instable is probably misspelled.”
Instable is a 15th century word for unstable. “Instability” comes from it. Pope probably means to impress by using uncommon words, such as his use of “redolent”. He went to Harvard College. ‘Nough said.
A busted hysteric.
“There is a term for this — it’s called stealing from your children. It’s wrong.”
Sure is Mr Pope so stop stealing my kids’ innocence and keep yer cotton pickin hands out of their piggy banks too!
The CO2 from his 24 hour plane trip has undoubtedly tipped the climate. That’s one really big mistake on he made ;>)
Looks like Pope didn’t read Anthony’s words here
What jumps out from Pope’s article is the effrontery of contradiction “been on a plane all day” and “the threat of CO2 destabilizing the climate was precisely my point … Eventually, the system hits a tipping point where the “pot” boils over — generates a major hurricane, alters the patterns of precipitation over Central Asia…”
Weird Ululations, To Wit.
Blunder aside, I found this interesting: My post on the threat of extreme weather attracted only ONE response…
Two, actually — the second one (at 2:37pm on the 16th) dealt with the fallacy of trying to save energy by demanding everyone drive electric cars. His post published at 11:21pm on the 16th, so he either wrote the post with a scheduled delay before it triggered, or he didn’t bother to re-check before he wrote it.
Why are so many people hyperventilating about the distinction between “released” and “promoted”? It’s curious.
Because words have meanings, and “released” is not a synonym for “promoted.” “Release” implies an ownership that “promotion” does not. Pope’s statement “…a one-hundred square mile tower of ice broke off the Greenland ice sheet” is “promoting” — the press announcement from the Andreas Muenchow saying a chunk of the Petermann glacier at least 100 square miles in area and a thickness up to half the height of the Empire State Building” was “released.”
“Indeed, the threat of CO2 destabilizing the climate was precisely my point — increasing the concentrations in the atmosphere of gasses that retain an increased fraction of incoming solar energy that is retained by the atmosphere has the same impact as turning up the burner underneath a pot — it increases the amount of kinetic energy.”
On oddly constructed sentence – CO2 doesn’t retain incoming solar radiation, it absorbs outgoing IR radiation. I suppose that is possibly correct depending on how you interpret the sentence.
Also, he says the amount of kinetic energy is increased, but I doubt he is educated enough to be referring to temperature – I think he has no idea what kinetic energy really is.
Is English his first language?