New Year's Open Thread

Discussion and opinion from WUWT commenters on this “Call for papers” on “Climate Determinism: Then and Now” should be fruitful and worthwhile. The alert to it was posted in Tips & Notes by vigilantfish on December 29, 2010 at 10:12 am.
It fits well on an “Open Thread” and I hope some of you will run with it. There is much to ponder and learn here. A short extract from vigilantfish follows; but it is well worth slipping back to Tips to read his whole posting before commenting:
Climatic determinism has a very long and checkered history. It has provided an enduring framework for thinking about the relationship between the human and natural environments by making the climate a demiurge of social universe. In doing so, climatic determinists have put forward a particular species of political ethics whose self-serving claims about the environmental distribution of virtue, value and privilege have long been subject of debate and criticism. Most problematically, the idea of climate as a key force in social development has naturalized existing forms of cultural domination, political hierarchy, economic dependency and racial inequity. While most of such thinking has been discredited, in recent years, the omnipresence of anthropogenic climate change has caused a resurgence of similar ideas, causing scholars and commentators to ask if these represent a revival of climatic determinism and, if so, with what consequences?

From the Antipodes I would like to thank Mr. Watts and all the moderators, contributors and posters for making this site such an enjoyable and delightful adventure.
To all, best wishes for a prosperous and enjoyable new year.

Happy new year to Anthony, his family & the mods.
Keep up the good work, good sense & good science will eventually prevail.
Cheers
Norman

“*Keep calm until we know how wind blows”
AGW PR Rebuttal:
Youse dirty denialist rats. We’re going to get youse.
“we risk emboldening the sceptics”.
>>> “To this I would add the fact that the story of climate change is a story that hasn’t happened yet.”
“For 22 years, climate change has been sold as an impending apocalypse. This tactic has not worked; indeed there are signs that it has backfired.”
“There is tremendous uncertainty, but we think it will be bad and that it would be a good idea to do something. And then sell climate change like you sell house insurance.”
…-
“*Keep calm until we know how wind blows
* Michael Hanlon
* From: Sunday Herald Sun
* January 01, 2011 4:02PM”
“THIS is a good time for sceptics, former sceptics, waverers and true believers to take stock on where they stand on climate change.
The harsh weather that has been battering Europe and the US, not to mention Queensland, has, of course, emboldened sceptical voices.
“It’s just weather, not climate!” shout the believers, perhaps a little nervously – well aware that they are all too often very willing to confuse weather and climate when it suits them.”
“Michael Hanlon is the science editor of Britain’s Daily Mail”
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/ipad-application/keep-calm-until-we-know-how-wind-blows/story-fn6bn88w-1225980023565
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/mt/mt-comments.cgi

Ric Werme says: December 31, 2010 at 10:28 pm
Thanks to everyone who hasn’t wished me a Happy New Year! 🙂
Lessee, what’s next? Ah yes, Perihelion Day!
2011 2011
Perihelion Jan 3 19 Equinoxes Mar 20 23 21 Sept 23 09 05
Aphelion July 4 15 Solstices June 21 17 16 Dec 22 05 30
Ric, you forgot to point out that CO2 has made the summer three days longer already, one in the spring, plus two in the fall! /sarc
A happy, healthy & prosperous New year to all!

Ring in the New Year by Committing to Read Something which You May Not Already Agree With.
If anybody had any doubts at this point that the problem of the Information Age is in parsing and validating the information, then those people apparently lack Internet connections.
Everywhere you go online, the community is divided on issues. But, the dominant philosophy which tends to guide *both* sides is to criticize the other, and ignore their responses.
Rarely, in this current Information age, do people go out of their way to read what their critics are saying. But, for those who do, and come to develop an understanding of both sides of a debate, they learn that the extra effort to spend time within the company of those who they normally find distasteful is well worth the hassle.
Right now, you are probably imagining that *you* are not one of *those* guys. You’re imagining that you are different. You are open-minded to good ideas. You listen to your critics. You know both sides of the issues.
But, I would propose that this problem is not a problem of the Internet or the Information Age. This is a problem of humans. We desire certainty. And we want to believe that man has conquered his surroundings. It is not just romantic; it makes us feel secure and safe.
Being people, the people of WUWT are just as susceptible to these socio-psychological forces as anybody else. The people here are not some special breed. This is merely a collection of people who, for whatever reason, started listening to both sides of the conversation, on the specific issue of climate change.
But, is this enough? Have you guys gone far enough? Ultimately, somebody somewhere is going to have to create another climate model which actually works. How many of you guys have taken the next step, and started to wonder what this climate model would actually look like?
What would you change? What errors within the underlying physics would you propose that the models eliminate?
I’ve spent around five years of my time studying the subject of plasmas and plasma cosmology. I’ve heard both sides out, and to the best of my abilities, even run the arguments by both sides. I’ve read countless books by the EU Theorists and I’ve read published papers on the subject in IEEE. I’ve held countless conversations with the theorists, usually to clarify some confusion here or there.
In the process, I’ve learned the meaning of philosophy of science without ever even picking up a book on the subject. As a journalist, I’ve come to understand how scientists speak, and how to incorporate doubt into my language, where appropriate. I’ve learned how important it is to not confuse inferences with observations, as well as the inherent danger of the inferential step.
To many of you here, my views are pseudo-scientific. You guys should realize that I’m very used to that response. It is typical. It’s fine as a starting point, but only that. My expectations, over time, is that logical people do indeed listen to evidence and arguments worth hearing out.
In my experience, the large majority of the electric universe skeptics remain skeptical for the sole reason that they are not reading both sides. Nobody will ever convince you of a cosmology on a forum. But, somebody can convince you to read about another cosmology, and to cultivate sufficient interest to keep an open mind on the subject when you see others discussing it. When I discuss EU theory online, I never imagine that I’m going to sway somebody. I am merely trying to convince people that there are these other ideas which warrant their attention.
Okay, so here’s what’s going to happen:
Where Silicon Valley startups were once dominated by titans like IBM, Microsoft and Apple, today it’s ventures like Zynga and Facebook. We are going through a social networking phase, which has not yet fully run its course. Facebook will eventually peak and be chipped away by lots of smaller, more focused clones. Why? Because social networking is a powerful mechanism for formulating web content with minimal effort by the developers. A developer need only create the content management system — the framework itself — and the users will create the content if the idea is good enough to draw people.
At some point, the electric universe crowd (as well as, perhaps, other against-the-mainstream movements) is going to wake up to this. And, if they are right, somebody is going to create a social networking site dedicated to the creation of these models.
There is a big picture here. One of these fringe movements — whether it be EU or not — is going to set the precedent by coming together online and collaborating on models which are superior in their predictive capabilities to the conventional models. And from that instant forward, everything that we’ve come to imagine about how science is done in this world will be over.
It will be at this instant in time when the people of the world will realize that science for mankind can be created by the public, and can even be *funded* by the public. Investors will flock to this social networking site, and flood it with money for validating its predictions with additional observations and experimentation.
Whether or not the people of WUWT realize that this is the future of science, it’s going to eventually happen. If it does not happen in our generation, our children or grandchildren will do it.
It is inevitable.
Get over it right now.
Big Science will eventually become Old Science.
And there will eventually be a solar model which electric universe advocates can point to. And, based upon my five years reading about it, I strongly suspect that — given the power to observe the interstellar filaments which radio astronomers already follow, but in a more systematic manner — this new electric sun model will make accurate predictions. And these predictions will be sold to the US government in order to predict energetic solar events.
And all of this will really just be the beginning, because after that, these same people will move on to creating additional electric universe models. A climate model would be a natural second goal.
The third model would likely be a quantum model, with a special focus on how to properly model gravity on the quantum level.
So, at the end of the day, advocates of against-the-mainstream ideas who speak to frequently disinterested forums will win the day. They need not worry that their idea will not eventually be given its day. In the end, all good ideas will be tried. And those which work will make money. And those who refused to read about the good ideas will ultimately watch others make that money.
I’m sure it’s a story which has repeated itself in the history of men many times.

Piers Corbyn gets support for his ice age theory.
Ice Age to start in five years.
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/01/01/ice-age-to-start-in-five-years/

Happy New Year to all WUWT contributors and readers, but especially Anthony the Moderators! Surfing around today I came to the happy realization that for virtually any posting on CAGW, where comments are free and open, the skeptics far outnumber the warmists.
WUWT and the Chiefio and Climate Audit have changed the world. I wonder if there is any university in the world that would have the guts to give Anthony – or Steve McIntyre, of E.M. Smith – the honourary doctorates they so richly deserve for their attempts to keep science honest?

…….that for virtually any posting on CAGW, where comments are free and open, the skeptics far outnumber the warmists……..
Thats because we are all in receipt of hidden $billions donated by Big Coal and Oil. I’m expecting my annual bonus imminently.

Well the sun is maximum South in its annual trek due to the tilt of the earth, the moon is today at its maximum South declination for this 27.32 day period, and there are reports of killer tornadoes in the South East USA.
I could have told you so but nobody listens to the unwashed masses. It is a cyclic pattern thing, not a CO2 thing, due to solar wind shifts and lunar declinational tides in the atmosphere. Ignoring the biggest drivers of the weather and climate will always result in surprising happenings to standard observers.
Have a Happy New Year! Here’s to progress being made toward the truth.
Blogs are actively pursuing truth in all directions, you just need to digest enough of the bulk to separate out the BS from the gold hidden within.