Patrick J. MICHAELS: China-style dictatorship of climatologists
NASA’s Hansen prefers rule by decree to fight ‘global warming’
Excerpts: From the Washington Times Monday, January 17, 2011
November’s election made it quite clear that the people of the United States do not want to radically change our society in the name of global warming. Pretty much every close House race went to the Republicans, while the Democrats won all the Senate squeakers. The difference? The House on June 26, 2009, passed a bill limiting carbon-dioxide emissions and getting into just about every aspect of our lives. The Senate did nothing of the sort.
The nation’s most prominent publicly funded climatologist is officially angry about this, blaming democracy and citing the Chinese government as the “best hope” to save the world from global warming. He also wants an economic boycott of the U.S. sufficient to bend us to China’s will.
…
According to Mr. Hansen, compared to China, we are “the barbarians” with a “fossil-money- ‘democracy’ that now rules the roost,” making it impossible to legislate effectively on climate change. Unlike us, the Chinese are enlightened, unfettered by pesky elections. Here’s what he blogged on Nov. 24:
“I have the impression that Chinese leadership takes a long view, perhaps because of the long history of their culture, in contrast to the West with its short election cycles. At the same time, China has the capacity to implement policy decisions rapidly. The leaders seem to seek the best technical information and do not brand as a hoax that which is inconvenient.”
Read the whole story at the Washington Times
h/t to Leif Svalgaard
I agree, TimC, that comments, opinion, ideas and thoughts towards any individual or topic is always justifiable and our inherant right to partake of.
Not even to defend Dr. Hansen, per se… just, all participants must realize how much more effective discourse is when used without personal, antagonistic method… keep it “clean”
Hansen gives Leprosy a bad name.
I was at an energy conference a couple of years ago and a Chinese Energy Ministry official showed some stats on their coal mining industry. Two stats that struck me from this were: 1) they kill 2000 to 6000 miners a year, and 2) they vent over 330 billion ft3 of methane per year out of their coal mines. If you consider that methane is about 13 times more potent greenhouse gas than CO2 that works out to over 4 trillion ft3 CO2 equalivant. That’s before we count the effluent from their growing number of coal power plants.
Dr. Hansen you might want to choose your shining examples a little more carefully.
Louis Hissink said (01/18/11, 2:46 am): “To stop Hansen’s agenda one needs to demolish his belief that the Venusian temperature is due to a runaway greenhouse gas effect. Until that happens, it’s all hot air being contributed by both sides.”
amicus curiae said (01/18/11, 4:58 am): “funny that he left cos that program was canned, later someone else oversaw the Venus probe I thought? so who? and what? was the results..funny no one ever mentions it…”
Lucy Skywalker said (01/18/11, 6:08 am): “…Probes measuring the energy output from Venus (I’m searching for the source data, either NASA Pioneers or Russia Venera) found that Venus is emitting more energy than reaches it from the Sun. Therefore it has a significant internal heat source. Therefore, of course it’s hot. No GHG effect can cause emitted energy to exceed incoming energy. No GHG effect is needed to explain the heat – even if it is a contributory factor. ”
Apparently, the effort needed to argue keeps people from focussing on a determinative finding that would end the arguments once and for all if people put their minds to it. Lucy Skywalker is right, Hansen was wrong from the start, as was the massively popular but self-serving and incompetent Carl Sagan before him. The fact is, the “greenhouse effect” should have been demolished almost 20 years ago, when the Magellan spacecraft measured the pressure and temperature profiles of the atmosphere of Venus. Gerlich and Tscheuschner briefly discussed the Venusian “greenhouse effect” idea in the appendix of their March 2010 article:
On the Barometric Formulas and Their Derivation…
Their dismissal of the greenhouse effect on Venus is succinct and accurate: “On the one hand, since the venusian atmosphere is opaque to visible light, the central assumption of the greenhouse hypothesis is not obeyed. On the other hand, if one compares the temperature and pressure profiles of Venus and Earth, one immediately will see that they are both very similar.”
Steven Goddard wrote about the comparison of temperatures in the atmospheres of Venus and Earth here on WUWT several months ago, but the combatants in the debate let it go by, as so many arguments do.
I independently (before becoming aware of Gerlich and Tscheuschner’s paper, and not knowing the details of Steven Goddard’s effort) put forward a comparison of the Venus and Earth atmospheric temperatures, at corresponding pressures over the range from ~ 1 atm. down to -0.2 atm. (essentially encompassing the troposphere of Earth), back in November 2010:
Venus: No Greenhouse Effect
As I summarized in a post just yesterday on Claes Johnson’s blog site:
“The only difference in their temperatures is entirely explained by their relative distances from the Sun. This is a monumental finding, in the context of the global warming debate, because it is so simple, and could have been done anytime since 1991, when the Venus data was obtained by the Magellan spacecraft. A student could do it, and the climate scientists should have done it, long ago. So let me repeat: Belief in the greenhouse effect is not just premature, not just overblown, not even just wrong. It is FUNDAMENTALLY INCOMPETENT, and has been for nearly 20 years. The debate of today is not a scientific one, it is an ideological one, and a political one.”
The internet community needs to come together on this point, and stamp or laugh down the greenhouse effect in every discussion, because the scientific community has failed to do so, to everyone’s eventual regret.
I wish this site allowed a preview, before posting; minor errors are so annoying — I compared the Venus and Earth atmospheric temperatures over the range from ~1 atm down to 0.2 atm, not -0.2 atm, of course.
Clive, thanks for that reporting. I would only add that the corn stalks are renewable so they don’t count as added CO2.
I kept seeing Homer S. as I watched this enlightening video. China is discussed at about 7:25 mark.
Peter H says:
January 18, 2011 at 9:20 am
“So, Dr Hansen expresses an opinion and we get a torrent of foul criticisms viz:, that he is a’miserable evil old git.‘ a ‘complete and utter ignoramous [sic]‘ a ‘fanatic‘, ‘treasonous‘ that we ‘‘locate some village in China who is missing their idiot and book a flight there’ that he ‘espouses tyranny‘, that he should be (for using the great US freedom of speech I guess?) ‘deported‘, that he is a ‘despicable men [sic]‘, that he is in ‘intellectual and moral breakdown‘ that he ‘doesn’t understand economics‘ that he is (big surprise this) a ‘watermelon‘, that his piece is a ‘loony, near-treasonous rant‘”
Why Peter, your description of Hansen is so-oo colourful.
James F. Evans says:
January 18, 2011 at 9:25 am
This will answer your question: Nothing has happened, the agenda goes on:
http://www.earthsummit2012.org/
NASA’s website lists the following under this loons page:
“One of my research interests is radiative transfer in planetary atmospheres, especially interpreting remote sounding of the earth’s atmosphere and surface from satellites. Such data, appropriately analyzed, may provide one of our most effective ways to monitor and study global change on the earth. The hardest part is trying to influence the nature of the measurements obtained, so that the key information can be obtained.”
STOP TRYING TO INFLUENCE DATA!!!!! you are a disgrace and should have your credentials revoked.
Here’s what the ultra-green Chinese are doing. But this info is slightly dated and their targets for nuclear power output by 2020 are now higher.
I guess Hansen loves coal after all. And look at that massive shift into wind power.
“Mainland China has 13 nuclear power reactors in operation, 25 under construction, and more about to start construction soon.
Additional reactors are planned, including some of the world’s most advanced, to give more than a tenfold increase in nuclear capacity to 80 GWe by 2020, 200 GWe by 2030, and 400 GWe by 2050…
Most of mainland China’s electricity is produced from fossil fuels (80% from coal, 2% from oil, 1% from gas in 2006) and hydropower (15%). Two large hydro projects are recent additions: Three Gorges of 18.2 GWe and Yellow River of 15.8 GWe. Rapid growth in demand has given rise to power shortages, and the reliance on fossil fuels has led to much air pollution. The economic loss due to pollution is put by the World Bank at almost 6% of GDP.1 In 2009 power shortages were most acute in central provinces, particularly Hubei, and in December the Central China Grid Co. posted a peak load of 94.6 GW.
Domestic electricity production in 2009 was 3643 billion kWh, 6.0% higher than the 3,450 billion kWh in 2008, which was 5.8% more than in 2007 (3,260 billion kWh) and it is expected to rise to 3,810 billion kWh in 2010. Installed capacity had grown by the end of 2009 to 874 GWe, up 10.2% on the previous year’s 793 GWe, which was 11% above the previous year’s 713 GWe.2 Capacity growth is expected to slow, reaching about 1600 GWe in 2020. At the end of 2007, there was reported to be 145 GWe of hydro capacity, 554 GWe fossil fuel, 9 GWe nuclear and 4 GWe wind, total 713 GWe. In 2008, the country added 20.1 GWe of hydro capacity, 65.8 GWe coal-fired capacity, and 4.7 GWe wind.”
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf63.html
One wonders what type of a contract he managed to sign to not have to worry over getting booted for clear disloyalty violations.
Being the head of a department or organization you’re what is portraying that organization to the outside world. Ridiculing, or dragging the organizations name in the dirt, directly or indirectly, voluntary or involuntary, is being disloyal to your own organization either knowingly or by incompetence (as in with your position you should’ve known better.)
Whit in a more democratic union such is the EU, what ever contract you sign it is still a pretty serious offense of work ethic and business law to be disloyal to your own organization, especially by incompetency especially when having a leadership position.
But in US, apparently it doesn’t matter for how many years, even decades, certain organizations are dragged in the mud and made the laughing stock off. Could, possibly be, why most people seem to have more respect for the Chilean space program ‘an for NASA (What other organization can claim to have gone from, in 1960’s, putting a man on the moon to, 2010, being question of how they able to put a man on the moon when their present, 2010, day “science” is more like the scrapping under the 1920’s science shoes.)
I think this is great news. Hansen’s mouth is a wonderful thing. He has just confirmed that he is, in fact, a Watermelon masquerading as a ‘scientist,’ which can only reduce the perceived credibility of his numbers, etc.
Also, I once read somewhere that Hansen was appointed to his job by none other than Nobel Peace Prize Winner Al Gore while he was VP. Can anyone confirm that?
China has real pollution problems that they are trying to deal with. Any reduction of CO2 is a convenient coincidence that they will brag about to make the world happy.
What a bellend.
From Harry Dale Huffman on January 18, 2011 at 10:12 am:
A browser-based Preview function is available, which comes with Very Helpful HTML tools for prettying up your post. Designed for Firefox, also works with Firefox (Mozilla) variants like Iceweasel (Debian Linux version).
It’s called CA Assistant, originally made for the Climate Audit site, works here just fine. Links and installation instructions are here:
http://climateaudit.org/ca-assistant/
Enjoy!
crosspatch says:
January 18, 2011 at 2:45 am
“So is he arguing for a Chinese style nuclear development and fuel recycling program?
I would go for that.”
crosspatch, Hansen is pro nuclear.
OTOH, he also endorsed that Keith Farnish book that says blowing up dams is an acceptable way to solve Gaia’s problems. Blowing up a nuclear plant would surely please Mr. Farnish even more, as it would destroy even more human pests.
So, Hansen is a little inconsequential… I think it comes with age; Lovelock suffers from the same syndrome.
Both are highly useful for us.
bill-tb says: “The 50-70 million dead Chinese, killed under Mao, nicely falsify the Hansen theory don’t they.”
Ah, but Hansen thinks 60+ million people represent mere “short term” consequences. You can’t make honorable egg roll without breaking eggs.
Can you say, “Messiah Complex?” I knew you could. I’ll bet you can say, “Ignorant Wackazoid,” too.
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Messiah_Complex
Peter H says:
January 18, 2011 at 9:20 am
“….So, Dr Hansen expresses an opinion…etc, etc, etzzzzzzzz”
Tell us, Peter, in your support of Dr Hansen and his espousal of the Chinese methods of how to run a country, do you therefore think that the we should have a government that can, arbitrarily, cause brown-outs, power cuts and the closure of CO2-emitting industries – at will?
Do you really feel that the rather spurious claim for CAGW and its (possible) curtailment is worth YOUR freedom? And that of your fellows?
Are you really as anti-democratic as you appear to be? Or are you coy about your political allegiances? And if you are, I guess you would be equally coy about admitting how China solves so many of its problems – like 20m dead, and counting, so far?
Climate Nazi or Climate Marxist? Not so different I think….wanting us to abdicate responsibility to them……because these things are too urgent and important to wait for democracy to come round to….
I’m sure Dr. Hansen would be very happy with the internet situation in China as I know from firsthand experience- that WUWT is one of the few scientific sites that has wound up on the banished list of the “Great Firewall”. How nice it is not to have to cope with a full spectrum of views that just might interfere with government policy and implementation efforts.
“Greenwash”, Dr. Hansen?
Try HOGWASH.
If things continue as they are, China will eventually rule the world
He obviously doesnt believe in human rights
@bill-tb
“The 50-70 million dead Chinese, killed under Mao, nicely falsify the Hansen theory don’t they.”
Apparently Hansen thinks there’s too many people on this planet so, apparently, to him and his logic, Mao didn’t starve enough people to death. 🙁