Frequent WUWT contributor Tom Fuller has decided to step away from blogging. His final post is below. Tom provided some greatly appreciated help in keeping WUWT humming while I dealt with family health issues, and so I owe him a huge debt of graditude. Tom the door is always open at WUWT should the itch to write strike. – Anthony
Good-bye to all that
Tom Fuller
This will be my final article on Examiner.com. Thank you all for your support and your criticism. You can help with a title for this…
To Kim and Lucia who both knew best
How thoughts like these should be expressed
Prologue
When I was real and life was a child
Proved moments of calm after decision
When life is most real, it most needs revision.
Farewell, friend and farewell, foe
The urban indications meant to orient a person to his time and place
And shakes the digitalis clocks that stop and start the city’s heart
With flash of time and Celsius
Deliver us
And penetrates the whitewashed box,
Providing whitewashed baseball scores
To heaven for analysis
Paralysis
From Pratt & Whitney’s lastest, last
Combined with tarmac’s snaky coils
Of heated air that won’t constrain
All attempts at legerdemain
For fear, for fear, it’ll disappear)
Santanas reaching desert ends
For we have story plots to tend
Depending on unceasing trends
In afternoon light it flashes and shines
We shiver in blue and pause in our labors
Willing the world to be perfectly still
I light up with a phosphor match
Have faced the winter’s evening charms
By slamming dope into their arms
That economy and grace
Evocative of thought or dance
The beauty of the human race!
Drugged hatred sleeping behind their eyes
Walk to the fantail saying ‘F*** it’
With Thai stick waving in the breeze
Obscuring all the increments
Of ancient briny measurements
From ancient mercury implements
They write the numbers as they please
The light goes gray and heavy with shock
The temperature guesses are scrawled in grease pencil
We shiver in blue and sprawl on the cases
Chapter 2 – The Debate
Forensic taste of paradox
Gazing at Wilde’s stars from gutters
And commenting with geniuses and nutters
With doom our given fate
As punishment for crimes
Against our poor tectonic plate
The gods themselves protest in vain
To undergrounds for dusty years
Composed of Bowery Grenadiers
And Canadian Mining Engineers
A winning streak and well-earned fame
We brought you health and wealth besides
We tell you now of rising tides
Demands that we examine it
‘If data aged like well-kept wine
Why must you then hide the decline?’
Reluctantly break from the huddle
Enlisting voiced vituperation
From corners of all grateful nations
Denying angles of repose
And thus was born our Blogistan
From Fourier to ‘Yes We Can’
The waters warmed, the waters rose
But not as much as it was feared
Enlightenment had not appeared
The Arctic ice, the Greenland Cap
The glacial peaks, the this, the that
It comes and goes and how ’bout that?
Scraping the iceberg’s stony face
The science is what science is
And we are who we are, we are
Watching Mauna Loa’s upward trace
Caught in the climate conundrum
Will we pay? or Will we drown?
Are they priests or are they clowns?
It’s warmer in the center of the town
Epilogue
And I really must be going
Emotions mixed but eyes firm fixed
Upon an East-bound Boeing
In 30 years I’ll know
Reflecting back unearthly light
Like clouds below, oh albedo
Or soaking up all heat in sight
But which is it to be?
Light for you or heat for me?
In 30 years I’ll know
Seeks new equibilibrium
As if it were a New Jerusalem
In 30 years I’ll know
I’ll very much miss Tom’s postings. I didn’t always agree with him, but he always brought something fresh to the table, and always did so unjudgmentally. Great poem, BTW. I sincerely wish you the very best on your travels.
Paul Hanlon
To you Tom,
You seized the fire here at WUWT.
John
Thanks Tom for a unique voice in WUWT.
Best wishes Tom Fuller. I read your and Steven Mosher’s book, Climategate, and throughly enjoyed it.
However, Climate Concern Poetry? … yeesh (shudder). Every writer has their ups and downs, I guess. 😉
Andrew
And?
He was being wrong and biased all the time had people here correcting him every single time.
Sorry but no sympathy…byebye
REPLY: Gosh, for a second there I thought you were talking about yourself. Mr. Fuller, whether you view him as right or wrong, left, or right, warmer, lukewarm, or cooler, has one distinguishing quality you lack: the courage and integrity to put his name to his words, unlike you and many like you. So, unless you are prepared to put your own name to your words here, may I suggest you limit your opinion about Mr. Fuller? Thank you for your consideration. – Anthony Watts
(At the risk of lowering the level of literary merit of the poetry around here….)
There once was a blogger from ‘Frisco
a liberal proud of his wit, so
as the Earth’s climate cooled
and his party retooled
he quit to go dance at the disco
Agree or disagree, it was a pleasure reading someone who could write on contentious issues, in a sometimes hostile forum, with decency, integrity, and something rare in today’s culture, a hint of humility.
Good luck and best wishes, Tom! Your career has been proof that the skeptic community is all about ideas and is willing to both cheer and pummel “our own” on any given issue on any given day, and yet come back the next day and switch from one to the other on a new day and a new issue.
Which is exactly as it should be.
Tom,
I always enjoyed your writing here on WUWT, even if I disagreed with the content at times. You have the gift of laying out your thoughts in a way that invites thought followed by amiable discussion, a rare and civilised gift indeed in the frequently nasty world of the blogosphere. Enjoy your job and the company of your new colleagues – you will be missed.
Thank you for taking the time to post here. Your posts were always interesting and thought provoking. I would hope that you would consider, if you find the time, not to completely abandon WUWT. Your presence enriches the landscape. Finally, I appreciate your openness and candor in sharing your viewpoints for others to discuss and comment on. It shows a willingness to keep an open mind. I think, regardless of what side of this or any other debate one may be on, keeping an open mind is a very difficult thing to do. Best wishes.
Fallacies look as truths, and global warming fallacy with its apparent Gaia loving side looked even better, but these are the “tricks” the devil’s ingenuity has reserved for us.
Nevertheless we have the always present recourse of revisiting the symbols of old, silent hieroglyphs which transmit truth from forgotten generations. These do not argue but teach.
Thank you for keeping track of my sanity, Tom.
While I think you misunderstand me and some of the climate turf, you are a decent sort.
I wish you well in your new endeavors.
mt
Thanks Tom. I always found your articles engaging and entertaining. You will be missed.
Goodbye, and thanks for all the fish.. 😉
Oh. I did not know this.
“I’ve got a job and I must go”
Does this mean that you were unemployed?
“And I really must be going
Emotions mixed but eyes firm fixed
Upon an East-bound Boeing”
And you now have a job back east?
If so, congratulations!
I appreciate the civility of your posts. Those posts and many of the replies do show that people and argue points with passion and without having to be rude or insulting.
Best of luck Tom. You had some great posts. Your last post is poetic justice.
Tom,
It is a miracle, Micheal Tobis and I finally agree on something! I too wish you well.
You prove a reasoned voice can indeed work miracles.
Steve
Nice poem, I dub it “Tears of Sisyphus”.
Naaah,famous last words is better, yull be back soon 🙂
Good luck in your new job…
Stop by Bishop Hill occasionally, a civilised rational place. I’m sure Andrew would welcome an occasional contribution from the other side of the pond.
Commenting about all this takes it’s toll. I’ve had an intense years since seeing that watts up article about climategate on the 20th November 2009 (came across it on a UK newsforum)
I’ve just had a frustrating conversation with an IPCC scientists that agrees with me that a lot of the stuff green peace, wwf, 10:10 put out is rubbish.
(ie 10:10 campaign, 300,000 people die a year from climate change, or greenpeace 150,000 peole die a year from climate change, that sort of stuff, even said Pachauri was bad news)
But doesn’t think it is a scientists job to correct it (blames the media/politicians)
But of course if the scientists won’t say it is wrong, then the media politicians know no better…
The unfortuanate thing is this close friend and their organisation advices the Department of Energy and Climate Change(UK) and thinks the problems in the IPCC report were one mistake (glacier) and hasn’t read ANY climategate emails (including their bosses, and their own emails released in foia2009.zip..
So very frustrated and I’m close to giving up as well, it is not worth the toll on my family. My friend is also the parent of my son’s best friend in the entire world since they were babies, I will risk that if I pursue this with them, my son is ultimately (and it sounds shameful, worth more to me than the millions of the anonymous poor, that wil suffer because of the CGW delusion)
BUT, I just can’t stop thinking of the millions of the poorest people in the world all this money being wasted could be provided for, water, food , disease, energy)
in the UK the energy gap should wake the politicians up in 5 years, even tens of thousands of windfarms are not going to be able to replace the 14 coal and nuclear powerstations due to close in 5 years. (end of life and fail to meet eu emmissions regs, the green have prevented them being replaced)
Voters prefer their politicians to keep the lights on.
Good luck Tom and best wishes.
time will tell.
Thanks Tom, for your thoughts and your time. Hope your new boss is better than the last 🙂
Hi James
😉
Not much doubt about that. I’ll put up a sign: “Under management.”
Nice poetry, cool. First poem on climate I have seen. Good luck, Tom!
Be well and good luck, Tom. As a reader I’ll be missing your content and likely explore your history here that predates mine so much. I hope the new directions and fruitful and happy and that you find the time to check in with us. Your thoughts, approach and attitudes, whether in opposition or agreement with mine, exemplify the finest and most considerate engagements we could hope to read or share here. A great man who started so many articles with an openess to adjust and accept criticism. We’ll miss you more because science in this day and age needs that so much. Thank you falls short.
Some kind of poetry above (short sentences that rhyme). I don’t like poetry so I just skimmed it. I will miss your posts though, you always thought things through, wrote clearly, and didn’t run and hide when challenged. You will be an asset wherever you end up.
Tom thank you for your post here at WUWT, Some very revealing and others not so. It was good to read other opionons of yours and commentors here and it will be missed, good luck in your new career and hope you do find time to post again in the future.