Post by Dr. Ryan Maue
Distinguished MIT Professor Dr. Kerry Emanuel, who has waded gradually — but head-first into the politics of climate change, showed up on NPR’s Talk of the Nation last Friday to expound upon his previous LA Times interview/opinion editorial. As a refresher on January 6, Emanuel uniquely declared his particular political allegiance in the article, something very few scientists in any field dare do (see John Tierney’s piece on Social Psychologist liberal bias). As a lifelong Republican, Emanuel admired Reagan, opposes gay marriage, backs a strong military, yet voted for President Obama. [See WUWT Cambridge Conservative…] Why do we need to know any of this quite personal information? Simple: using his self-ascribed conservative credentials and the helpfully crafted straw-man argument encapsulated in the headline “Scientist proves conservatism and belief in climate change aren’t incompatible”, Emanuel could position himself as a unique entity in the field — a Republican that supports doing something about climate change. In the follow up interview on NPR entitled “Take the Science Politics out of Climate Change”, Emanuel accomplishes the exact opposite: he applies a “litmus test” to political candidates based upon their “belief” in climate change:
Prof. EMANUEL: My feeling is that at this point in history, if a politician simply denies that there’s any human influence in the climate, in face of all the evidence, it so much casts doubt on that person’s ability to weigh evidence and come to a rational conclusion that I can’t see myself voting for such a person, no matter what they say about other issues.
Aside from Dr. Michael Mann who launched a preemptive broadside attack [October 8 Washington Post editorial] on the incoming GOP Congress prior to the November election tsunami, which has subpoena power, it is unusual for an internationally renowned and well-respected scientist in any field to publicly declare their political ideology AND then turn around and ask that we delicately separate politics and science when we consider policy prescriptions on global warming action. If you indeed do that with this interview, one can find much scientific agreement between Emanuel and another outspoken scientist Dr. Judith Curry.
Read the NPR transcript or listen to the interview with Dr. Kerry Emanuel.
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In my opinion, climate science has been mixed with politics since Al Gore declared that the “debate was over”. Furthermore, when the policy prescriptions are indistinguishable from the economic platform/goals of the left, it is very difficult to gather much in the way of bipartisan energy to legislate — especially from a recession-weary populace that wants to see government shrink. Did anyone in the media or on the left ever figure out the Tea Party. No.
Prior to the election of number 41, fellow Massachusetts conservative Scott Brown, President Obama and the Democrats completely controlled the Senate with a filibuster proof 60-votes, had a supermajority in the House, and could literally pass anything they wanted — assuming they stuck together. The problem was that so-called moderate or blue-dog Democrats from coal producing states looked at the economic destruction on the horizon from the “necessary bankruptcy” of that industry, and balked at passing Nancy Pelosi and Henry Waxman’s House bill. Currently, other Senators are looking towards 2012 and in no way want the burden of a climate change vote around their neck. Alas, Obama and the EPA are trying to implement new rules in spite of bipartisan opposition.
The November 2010 elections ended the dream of (federal, not state) cap-and-trade — and what did liberals get out of the last two years for their faithful and America: a failed stimulus bill, 9%+ unemployment, exploding deficits as far as the eye can see, and a health care law that is on life support without a Supreme Court ruling. But don’t take it from me, Joe Romm at the ClimateProgress does an excellent job summarizing: “The Failed Presidency of Barack Obama Part 1 and Part 1.5 and Part 2. Odds are in November 2012, part 3, 4, or 9 will be forthcoming.
Joe Romm laments, “The country can only contemplate serious environmental legislation when we have the unique constellation of a Democratic president and [large] Democratic majorities in both houses, an occurrence far rarer than a total eclipse of the sun.”
Note: this post is an analysis of the politics of climate change which has been inextricably linked with the actual science. No personal attacks will be tolerated!
“And let me say that I think that there is a campaign of disinformation going on about this, and there has been before. We saw it before with the attempts by the tobacco industry…”
What an idiot.When you are prepared to write off a minority of the population as deluded and not worth paying attention to, that’s bad enough. But when you graduate to doing that to the majority, you’re deep in elitist tyranny territory.
I wouldn’t presume to comment much on US politics. But you are SO much better placed than we are in the UK, where every political party represented in the House of Commons, and the Assemblies in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are monolithically warmist (cheered on by the BBC, naturally).
I doubt if there are enough sceptic individual legislators to make up a soccer team.
“. . . in face of all the evidence,. . .”
I give up. What evidence? This:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/02/02/uah-global-temperature-anomaly-goes-negative/
The good professor hasn’t a clue. To quote President Obama, “WTF?”
In my opinion, climate science has been mixed with politics since Al Gore declared that the “debate was over”.
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I’d say you’ve come late to the game then.
and what did liberals get out of the last two years for their faithful and America: a failed stimulus bill, 9% unemployment, exploding deficits as far as the eye can see,
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Well as far as I can tell from here Obama continued Bush’s policies as far as stimulus packages are concerned. The consequences such as unemployment are a direct consequence of the mess you got yourselves into and it was going to be painful no matter which party came up with the policies. At this stage unemployment is easing si the very least you can say is that the policies did not make things to bad.
Few now deny “any” influence, so his remark is empty.
I started out as a warmist believer.
I sought evidence to convince others.
I found none.
Over the last few years, and as WUWT has been around, I still look for evidence. There is none. Only models, conjecture, data manipulation, exaggeration, outright lies, denigration of unbelievers, scare stories, etc. etc.
I know that people who “see” enough evidence to convince themselves that AGW is a problem are the same kind that “see” things in the Constitution that aren’t there.
That’s political. And also delusional. But it sure ain’t conservative.
“if a politician simply denies that there’s any human influence in the climate….”
Denying that there is any influence excludes all those who do think that building urban centers, changing land use, etc. does have influence. About whom is he talking?
I would be considered left-of-centre politically by US standards, but I am as climate skeptic as the next reader here… and that proves? Yes, absolutely nothing.
By Aussie standards I am leaning a tad to the right*currently … mostly because Labor (the lefties) are gung ho to destroy two key industries in this country, mining through a mining super-tax, and the energy industries through a “price on carbon.”
* Trust me … slightly right by Aussie standards is still liberal by US standards. Ironically our right wing party is called the Liberals… confusing I know.
Isn’t politics about what we want, and hence make the wanted possible to some extent?
Isn’t science about what we find, discuss that finding and draw scientific conclusions?
But the real question is, as important, worthy and insightful as he may consider his own opinions, does anybody else actually know or care?
Remember Henry Ford, who was quite good at building motor cars you know, but thought this qualified him to pontificate and lecture people on World war 1, with his wealth he even chartered a ship to help him spread the word.
Most of us probably believe our opinions are far better, our insight more incisive, our intellect greater than others. Perhaps so, perhaps not.
But combine that with the delusion that one should be a performer upon the stage at which one usually lacks talent and/or experience then one either makes a complete fools of oneself: or becomes merely a passing comet that flashes to be forgotten.
Although one might get a book out of it.
As one famous entertainer said ‘it took me twenty seven years to achieve overnight success.’
Succinct.
Although I have never succumbed to it I can well understand how people are seduced
by the tawdry tinsel and the apparently easy money without ever considering the price to be paid. Dame Fortune is very fickle.
As for the odd grandstanding scientist, well forget them , the world will and in pretty short order too.
Kindest Regards.
lets face it there protecting there grants if they don,t they will be working at Mcdonalds saying any fries.
Hi Anthony,
When are you going to post this update on the Ocean Heat Content trends from Pielke Sr’s blog?
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2011/02/07/where-is-the-missing-argo-upper-ocean-heat-data/
It seems you’ve posted all other updates on the Ocean Heat Content debate, so I’m a little surprised to see this one missing.
Best regards,
Alex
“…And let me say that I think that there is a campaign of disinformation going on about this, and there has been before. We saw it before with the attempts by the tobacco industry…”
And, according to some, the disinformation/misinformation campaign is from BOTH sides.
The tobacco industry was trying to protect their product by not giving the public all the information, and the AGW crowd is trying to protect their “product” by not giving the public all the information.
And trying to tie the climate’s “good guys/bad guys” to a particular political party is insane.
It’s telling when a climate “good guy” (Hansen) actually gets arrested protesting the actions of another “good guy” (his boss, Obama).
Politicians are allowed to talk rubbish like that. That’s why we have politicians … it’s so that we can insist scientists don’t talk this kind of rubbish.
Problem is when you have both politicians and scientists talking this rubbish, with an effective one party state in science, no opposition allowed, anyone daring to question the supreme authority of the state denied access to information and then castigated as a holocaust denier.
The most annoying thing about the comments on this blog is the routine conflation of the climate issue with partisan politics. As with alarmists, most “deniers” are in denial because of their partisanship. It’s just by chance that many “deniers” have fallen on the correct side of the debate; there’s nothing rational about it. So please keep the snarky “liberal” crap out of it.
[ryanm: sigh, but there is no extricating the two when the practitioners of the science and policy become one in the same. blog police have been alerted, nevertheless]
I think that climate ‘science’ is more appropriately compared to the pharmaceutical industry. Respected publication printing information, peer-reviewed studies, mass media coverage, settled science, hundreds of researchers, thousands of physician agreeing in consensus, millions of people accepting and trusting the authority.
The only problem with all of the above is that I am talking about Vioxx.
“And let me say that I think that there is a campaign of disinformation going on about this, and there has been before. We saw it before with the success of the pharmaceutical industry in killing people with Vioxx…”
Politicians (of both genders) tend to be alpha types who beat their chests while roaring their personal mantras, few of which make a lot of sense when examined by quieter and more rational people. This guy is right up there with the English Conservative peer who declared that ‘bus drivers and waitresses don’t matter’ as they can’t possibly know anything pertinent to his level of success in the world.
What happenned to ‘by the people, for the people’ in the Western democratic process?
Mike Haseler says:
February 9, 2011 at 12:34 am
Problem is when you have both politicians and scientists talking this rubbish, with an effective one party state in science, no opposition allowed, anyone daring to question the supreme authority of the state denied access to information and then castigated as a holocaust denier.
=====================================================
i.e. An Orwellian Climate Society
The term denier is being changed from those who disagree with the made up consensus, to made up people who believe man has no influence on the climate.
Create an imaginary enemy or threat , coerce, by fear, the people to believe.
Fascism at its best? (or worse)
One can only feel sorry for sheep who blindly follow an illusion and have no independent thought. If the lead sheep in a running herd leaps in the air, all those that follow, be it thousands of them leap the same imaginary object. Is this perhaps the illusion followed or an analogy of AGW. Similar bleats from different sheep seem to echo around the world very quickly?
“I doubt if there are enough sceptic individual legislators [in the UK] to make up a soccer team.”
Then it is about time that the electorate made it known how we feel by electing some.
This does create somewhat of a challenge though, as the only sign of climate realism comes from parties with single digit support, well those except the Liberal Democrats obviously.
The challenge therefore is to get the support for the other fringe parties to increase. If you are politically of the right, then the obvious choice is UKIP. With Viscount Monckton as their climate spokeperson, then they are the choice for me too.
If you are of the left, then you are left with the BNP as they are the only socialist party in the UK who also have a climate realist agenda.
The “top three” parties are all basically the same when it comes to large government, computer-based climate fantasies, politically correctness in all things and giving away the people’s sovereignty to the EU so that almost all of our laws will be dictated to us from unelected quangocrats from overseas in a few years time.
It would not take many tories to switch, for UKIP to become the third party in British Politics. UKIP are not too far behind the Lib Dems now.
Are there many who say that humans have ‘no influence on climate’?
I’m as sceptical as they come, but wouldn’t agree with that statement.
But not agreeing that there is ‘no influence’ is a heck of along way from signing up to Jim Hansen’s wacko ideas.
I don’t see what the fuss is about. So in future, if you want to get anywhere in public office, you will not only lie about your religious believes, but also about your opinion on climate. Works like a charm.
There is an issue here that should be seriously considered before further spleen venting.
Global warming reached its cresendo during a republican watch, biofuel iniatives a very dangerous example with dramatic consequences for global food stocks. Obama like most academics trust the credibility of science. No blame can be foisted on him or them for that. Exposing the fallacies and agendas has put wuwt where it is, dont muddy the water.
Ps. I am not an american.
The skeptics are a loosely linked band of people who for various reasons don’t like the idea that humans are seriously influencing the climate. Or rather, they oppose the sort of actions deemed necessary to stop unfortunate climate changes occurring. For the most part, they are entirely sincere in their beliefs. Even those who aren’t sincere believe that the consequences of action to combat climate change are so awful that they are doing the right thing in opposing it.
In general they do a good job of discrediting themselves by holding many inconsistent and contradictory positions. The failure of skeptics to agree on what is known and what is not known about the climate is their key weakness. Having people argue that the greenhouse effect is inconsistent with the 2nd law of thermodynamics is an example. This argument is obviously wrong, but it got a very thorough airing by skeptics everywhere. Cherry picking is another technique that discredits skeptics. Choosing two data points that support an assertion, while totally ignoring a mass of data which doesn’t is not a good look. One can only assume that people who do this are trying to mislead rather than enlighten.
I don’t see any problem for anyone, be they scientist or other, to come out and say that they won’t support climate skeptics as they currently exist.
If at some time in the future, climate skeptics get organised and work out exactly where they stand on the science, and weed out the obvious deceivers in their midst, then they will deserve to be taken seriously. But if skeptics abandon their current tactics, will they lose relevance?
Although a non-GOP conservative, I’d vote with the guy to do something about climate change. End all the greenie projects and build a new nuke power plant each week in gas and oil and oil shale and oil sands and coal producing country to power the extraction and processing of hydrocarbons. And do the same to process oil in the gulf. Then give me “free” fertilizers. Tomato growing season is right around the corner. And corn requires vast amounts of all fertilizers from phosphates to nitrogen to CO2.
I agree with Latimer Alder above. Human activity does have an effect on the climate. But unlike the unsupported catastrophic beliefs of the alarmist crowd, the effect is at best minuscule, and too small to be accurately measured.
The total human population on the planet could fit inside a one kilometer sphere, with room to spare. The effect of termites is greater. Yes, there is an effect from human activity. But it is not altering the climate in any meaningful, or even any measurable way.
Mainstream climate scientists exaggerate the threat because such exaggeration has been extremely lucrative. But they have not been able to show any global harm as a result of the rise in carbon dioxide which, on balance, is beneficial to the biosphere – and to grant recipients.
“In the follow up interview on NPR entitled “Take the Science out of Climate Change”, Emanuel accomplishes the exact opposite: he applies a “litmus test” to political candidates based upon their “belief” in climate change:”
It would be nice if they did take the science out of climate change and just admit AGW is about politics.
“I can’t see myself voting for such a person, no matter what they say about other issues.” = Single Issue Fanatic
I’ve never read such drivel in my life. I’m no scientist, but I don’t need to be to recognise sophistry raised to an art form. The fact that sceptics don’t necessarily all agree with each other is a strength, not a weakness. It means that they are willing to assess the issues on their merits and reach their own conclusions. It is not sceptics who are advocating draconian measures affecting the life and liberty of everyone. All they are doing to trying to hold the warmists, who do advocate such measures, to account and force them to prove their case.
This is another example of trying to reverse the null hypothesis, trying to put the onus on people to prove a negative instead of actually proving the case for change.
Sceptics are not, and have never been, an organised group. They are simply individuals following their own reasoning and horrified by the trainwreck they see if the warmists prevail.
FrankK says: February 9, 2011 at 1:10 am
“Mike:Problem is when you have both politicians and scientists talking this rubbish, with an effective one party state in science, no opposition allowed.
=====================================================
i.e. An Orwellian Climate Society”
No, not really. It’s just plain common sense. If we see a debate where both sides have equal access to the facts and there is a fair playing field so that the argument of one side can be tested thoroughly in a public arena. If something is right, the presence of sceptics does not diminish the strength of the case but dramatically improves it because the public can see that it stands up to scrutiny.
The big mistake of climate science was to hide the facts, hide the argument and go hell for leather for a propaganda war against the “deniers”.
The public could see the argument had never been subject to public scrutiny … worse they could see the proponents of global warming were afraid to subject it to public scrutiny, actively trying to prevent public scrutiny, pretending there had been public scrutiny, fabricating inquiries to inquire whether there had been public scrutiny.
It’s a fundamental part of human nature that we support most ardently those things which we choose to support after having examined the argument. So, unless you give the public the opportunity to hear the argument, their support is skin deep at best and actively hostile at worst.
John Brookes says:
February 9, 2011 at 2:30 am
I broadly agree with many of your comments about sceptics. However, the same can be said about “warmers”. For example:
1. I can’t understand why AGW proponents claim that modern warming is ‘unprecedented’ when it clearly isn’t. The GISS global temperature record shows that between 1915-1945 temperatures rose at a rate which is virtually indistinguishable from the current trend. The arctic rate of warming, in particular, was almost exactly the same.
2. I can’t understand why “warmers” so readily accept that sulphate aersosols were responsible for for the cooling (or non warming) trend in the 1945-75 period. Even Realclimate scientists now question this. The cooling effects of aerosols are “regionally specific” (Mann & Jones 2003). The pattern of cooling was inconsistent with an aerosol effect. The arctic cooled at ~4 times the rate of any other latitude band (See again GISS zonal record). BUT – sulphates in the arctic cause WARMING not cooling due to a phenomenon called “arctic haze” (See wiki article).
3. Leif Svalgaard (and others) now suggest that solar activity has been less variable than previously thought. Along with points 1 and 2, this means the IPCC’s attribution and detection studies are in tatters. The basic forcings (solar and aerosols) which they claim explains earth’s climate before the large increase in CO2 concentrations are almost certainly in error (by a sizable margin).
4. I really, really can’t understand why anyone – let alone a serious scientist – would widely publicise a temperature proxy record when the proxy reconstruction diverged from actual observations so markedly. Apart from the calibration period (when we’d expect some agreement) the proxy reconstruction in both Briffa and MBH massively disagree with temperature record.
“Smokey says:
February 9, 2011 at 3:02 am”
Agree with what you say, and about termites too. But alarmists will state termites and termite activities are in “balance” with the Earth. Humans and human activities aren’t, thats why we have CAGW/CCC/CCD etc.
The problem with the climate debate is that the nuances are passed over for an all versus none paradigm. Obviously, the planet has warmed about 0.7c in the last hundred years. Some part of this is due to a rise out of the Little Ice Age, some part is probably due to AGW. But AGW isn’t all about CO2 and methane. There is the question of land use by human populations.
Dr. Emanuel is right. Any politician who denies that human civilization has some effect on climate is ignorant of the evidence. But that’s a self-serving straw man argument designed to obscure the real argument in which the Catastrophic AGW hypothesis (CAGW) has been exposed as an epic fail.
The real question is two part….. ONE: whether reliance on hydrocarbons as the energy-base for human civilization will cause CATASTROPHIC warming later this century.
And TWO: Whether human political institutions have the ability to control the climate.
The empirical evidence so far is a resounding NO and NO.
Therefore, Like Dr. Emanuel, I can’t see myself voting for a politician who believes the climate can be managed by technocratic government coercion or that AGW is catastrophic, “no matter what they say about other issues.” That’s the real bottom line.
Any politician who seeks to control the Earth climate through increased taxation and the limiting of my God-given individual liberties is nothing more than a scoundrel using what ever crisis he/she can drum up to seize power beyond the constitutional limits.
You know, never let a good scare campaign go to waste.
Fact is, government can’t cope with the basic stuff, like maintaining the highways, securing the borders, balancing the budge or winning the peace in their various wars, but they want us to believe that they can legislate fine weather for our children, if only we surrender even more of our liberty??? Do we look that stupid?
Annie, git yer gun. It’s time for a revolution.
John Finn says
February 9, 2011 at 3:44 am
Apologise for typos in above post.
“aersosols” should be “aerosols” (point 2: end of first line)
“sizable” should be “sizeable” (end of point 3)
What I love is that Emmanuel thinks one is deficient when they see all of the “evidence” for “climate change” when there really isn’t any. Where is all of the evidence that has not been shown to be political propaganda complete with junk science and falsified data?
This is so similar to the Bible fundamentalists who say that you have not converted (been born again) yet, not because you have not been convinced of their schtick, but because you simply are not listening hard enough. It’s all the listener’s fault.
Brooked says:
“In general they do a good job of discrediting themselves by holding many inconsistent and contradictory positions. The failure of skeptics to agree on what is known and what is not known about the climate is their key weakness. Having people argue that the greenhouse effect is inconsistent with the 2nd law of thermodynamics is an example. This argument is obviously wrong, but it got a very thorough airing by skeptics everywhere. Cherry picking is another technique that discredits skeptics. Choosing two data points that support an assertion, while totally ignoring a mass of data which doesn’t is not a good look. One can only assume that people who do this are trying to mislead rather than enlighten.”
Silly man, this is the only place where people can air their thoughts and ideas freely. Real Climate might have had some success if it were more interested in exploration and less interested in propaganda. Us lay person deniers are here because as soon as we dug just a little into the surface we became aware of the giant hill of crap that was being shoveled our way daily.
For me it was surface stations.org originally. Really, Anthony Watts is a hero. The
enlightened Kerry Emanuel can keep on imagining that all this global warming evidence is irrefutable, but he’s got some blinders of his own on and so do you my friend.
The proof of my case that AGWers are the ones really in denial is that if you talk to any of them they’ll tell you that wind and solar is the answer, if we only had the political will, damn those obstructionist republicans, we could solve this problem. Well, you might as well believe that the tooth fairy will come down and power your Prius for you because it’s just as realistic.
You’ve failed with people like me, Brookes, because people like Hansen and Gore over played their hands and plain lied to us, so now we don’t trust them. Phd. or not, I wouldn’t trust Hansen to walk my dog. He’s clearly an ideologue.
I can go down the list of failed models, rediculus studies like Briffa Tree ring, or the fraudulent hockey stick graph, penguins killed by their researchers who blamed it on global warming and now suffering fools like Krugman who apparently has a degree from Harvard blaming snow storms on global warming without a shread of evidence.
You want to convice me, bring something to the WUWT table, it will be treated fairly by this group, if it has merit.
The comments of John Brookes above (that AGW skeptics hold inconsistent and contradictory opinions, and therefore can and should be dismissed) illustrate the failure of the current public debate to address, much less resolve, the real issues.
Mixing politics with science is insane, from a dispassionate scientific viewpoint, but that is what was originally done, more than 20 years ago, in creating the UN IPCC to promulgate the environmentalist views of scientists like James Hansen. The result of politically favoring AGW in the funding of climate science has been, quite simply, an incompetent climate science — the fundamental answers everybody wants simply have not been there, and the lack of that fundamental knowledge has been hidden behind politically correct assurances that “the science is settled,” for a generation. A whole generation of scientists (and the interested public) has been miseducated, and now believes obvious nonsense. The most obvious example: Science has had the detailed temperature and pressure profiles of both Venus and Earth for over 19 years, and their proper comparison definitively proves there is NO greenhouse effect (increased global warming due to increase in the atmospheric CO2) whatsoever on either planet, as I have shown (see my blog site). It further proves that warming in the two planetary atmospheres is by direct absorption of one and the same infrared portion of the incident solar radiation, NOT by infrared emissions from a warmed surface, but because that experimental fact, ENCOMPASSING TWO WHOLE, DETAILED PLANETARY ATMOSPHERES, is counter to what scientists have been taught to believe, it is simply beyond their mental grasp to embrace the overwhelming objective evidence, rather than the pretty lie of current radiation transfer theory, as applied (clearly incompetently) in climate “science”. I have submitted the Venus/Earth evidence to “Physics Today”, in answer to the recent article there by Raymond Pierrehumbert, proclaiming the “settled science” of the current theory, but there is little chance it will be published there, because it would force all of science to confront the evidence, and their own incompetence to this point.
In short, most skeptics are no more capable of escaping the power of the consensus to befog and render powerless the reasoning, than are the alarmists (who have only a political ideology behind their beliefs, not solid science at all).
The only thing clear from Emanuel’s comments is that he isn’t a conservative.
Well, we know Dr. Emanuel’s hurricane forecasts and research can be thrown out now.
Effectively, he tortured the data so much he convinced himself (and others) that hurricanes were increasing in lock-step with the GHG forcing. Well they certainly were not. And we know that because of Dr. Maue’s objective analysis and the actual untortured hurricane numbers.
I note in the model Dr. Emanuel presented in Nature in 2005, hurricanes should have gone way over record levels this year, since his ocean box areas were very high this year.
http://www.geog.ucsb.edu/~joel/g280_s09/recent_atmosphere/emanuel_nat05a.pdf
Well, they didn’t so why would we believe Dr. Emanuel’s forecasts now?
…and Ward Churchill was a registered Republican, too.
It’s not what they say they are, it’s what they do.
I don’t want to wear my science hat but Emanuel like so many politicians has no science background. They look at a graph and believe what they are told. A scientist ought to look at a graph and ask “what is this graph saying?”. Is it saying what I assume or is there some other explanation which is equally valid that is hidden under the data.
People like Emanuel do not understand cause and correlation. It is not true to say that smoking cigarettes causes lung cancer. This does not mean that it is true to say that smoking cigarettes does not cause lung cancer. Most people cannot get their heads around this. What is true is that there is correlation between smoking cigarettes and increasing the risk of getting lung cancer. The more you smoke the greater the risk. Some non-smokers get lung cancer. Some heavy smokers do not get lung cancer. Therefore causation is not proved but it may still be the case.
There is no cause without correlation. There is limited correlation between carbon dioxide levels and global temperatures. Carbon dioxide levels may influence temperature but there are other factors also in play which may be more important.
Prof. Emmanuel uses carefully crafted weasel words and phrases to make the official CAGW position as acceptable as possible to the masses. Lysenkoism at its finest.
@John Brookes
Can you come up with one thing that humans can do that will definitively stop the climate changing, and can you show, definitively, that there will be no unintended consequences?
Can you guarantee that we won’t have the floods like we saw in Pakistan, or Australia or Brazil, or the Snowzilla that America, and before that Europe, experienced these last few months? Or the heatwave in Russia last year and in Europe in 2003.
Reducing CO2 emissions isn’t going to cut it, because even when the atmospheric concentrations were 280ppm, the climate changed. When they were much higher than present, the climate changed.
Why do you and people like you sell the line that we can all do better than King Canute and turn back the tides, for we would need that level of power over Nature to stop the climate changing.
I’ve never once heard from a warmist what exactly is an acceptable level of climate change, what temperatures should prevail in given places, how much rain and humidity, how windy it should be.
The reason there are skeptics is because the “scientists” have totally abbrogated their responsibilities to be honest about the uncertainties in their findings and to release their data so that other people can test those findings.
Yes, there are various levels of competency among us, from the absolutely brilliant (as seen from some of the posters on WUWT) to the still learning like myself. For a lot of us, “climate science” is not our day job, we go to excellent sites like WUWT because we are alarmed at the way science has been misused to sell us a totally impossible proposition.
When he made his original essay, I said he was acting like a [trimmed] for his academic friends.
Now he proves I was correct.
I would submit that most everyone believes in HIVES, Human Influenced Variations in Ecological Systems. The real argument amongst us is what we believe to be the extent of human influence, whether or not we should be counteracting that influence and at what cost. What is the logical balance of those arguments? What sense would it make for someone to spend so much money on insurance to protect themselves from financial ruin that they are financially ruined?
@ John Brookes
“The skeptics are a loosely linked band of people who for various reasons don’t like the idea that humans are seriously influencing the climate.”
Please provide evidence of a weather event or series of weather events which are unique and have not occurred previously. Of course you will not be able to and hence you are incapable of demonstrating that mankind is seriously affecting the climate.
The following link is Harlech Castle constructed 700 years ago, in one of the pictures you can see the sea in the distance. Way to go before the sea again laps at the gate. By my rough estimation at 3mm per year it will take 20000 years before it gets back to its original level?
“Ice free ” conditions prevailed in the arctic in 1922 and 1817 check this blog out or google?
The alarmists punch at shadows and expect sensible people to think that the shadows have some substance.
Then, corrections are in order; (1) the farm lobby is a very powerful one in the US. Some number of years MTBE was eliminated from the gasoline (added or the purposes reducing air pollution as MTBE was an oxygenate – see ref below). But, MTBE had ‘issues’, e.g. leaking into groundwater and was becoming a liability issue, congress at the time would not indemnify … enter stage left: EthylAlcohol as an ‘oxygenate’ (debate on that merit left for another time) added to motorfuels for pollution reduction … at the time it looked innocent enough, there was no shortage of corn for ethanol feedstock … and the rest is history …
(2) The Republican party is the current home of conservatism, recalling set theory, therefore, not all Republicans are conservative (consv are subset of repub).
(A little knowledge can be a very dangerous thing; look at the conclusions that can be wrought!)
Regards, _Jim
Ref MTBE, Oxygenates, and Motor Gasoline eia.dow.gov link
“Aside from Dr. Michael Mann …, it is unusual for an internationally renowned and well-respected scientist in any field to … .”
Please note, Dr. Maue, that you have referred to Dr. Michael Mann as “an internationally renowned and well-respected scientist.”
Whoa!
Over-generalize much?
.
Re: Jim & MTBE,
MTBE was a disaster for the state of California and poisoned ground water all over the state. Another policy by the brainiacs at CARB who had not the ounce of common sense to realize that putting billions of gallons of a water soluble chemical into in ground tanks would be a bad idea. They were hustled by oil refiners who previously had to spend money to get rid of the stuff. Well, as usual, us poor working saps got stuck with the bill, while Mary Nichols drives her state provided car complete with gas card.
regardless of how one comes down on the AGW belief scale, this opinion coming as it does from someone highly credentialed should prove beyond any doubt that AGW science IS Politics, and politics IS now science. Thanks to those who relentlessly pushed to give this idea the power of law, the issue and science in general has now been irretrievably politicized.
Yes, this is very bad for science in general, but it’s too late to lament that. It’s happened. From now on, so-called “scientists” will be regarded by the public as nothing more than a self-motivated political interest group trying to score some extra funding, actors who will say and do anything to advance their own personal agendas.
And sadly, the public will be right to view them so.
I’ll start believing that this “unprecedented” warming, is apolitical, when they stop pushing one-world socialism as the only “cure”.
Considering that that this entire thing was initiated by the Club-of-Rome LEFTIST’S back in the 80’s, it’s no wonder the demarcation lines are where they are today.
“The common enemy of humanity is man.
In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up
with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming,
water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these
dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through
changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome.
The real enemy then, is humanity itself.”
– Club of Rome
Christine Stewart, Canadian Minister of the Environment: “No matter if the science of global warming is all phony… climate change [provides] the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world.”
“We’ve got to ride this global warming issue.
Even if the theory of global warming is wrong,
we will be doing the right thing in terms of
economic and environmental policy.”
– Timothy Wirth,
President of the UN Foundation
“The data doesn’t matter. We’re not basing our recommendations
on the data. We’re basing them on the climate models.”
– Prof. Chris Folland,
Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research
“It doesn’t matter what is true,
it only matters what people believe is true.”
– Paul Watson,
co-founder of Greenpeace
“The only way to get our society to truly change is to
frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe.”
– emeritus professor Daniel Botkin
“We are on the verge of a global transformation.
All we need is the right major crisis…”
– David Rockefeller,
Club of Rome executive member
(Taken from http://green-agenda.com/index.html )
-This MIT “professor” needs some grant money. That’s why he’s abandon all principal.
John Brookes,
“The failure of skeptics to agree on what is known and what is not known about the climate is their key weakness.”
Only a weakness in the eyes of those who don’t understand science. The whole reason why sceptics are sceptical is because of the large uncertainties in measured climate values and because they recognise that the climate is a complex non linear chaotic system about which there is much still to be learned. So I, for one, would be very suspicious if sceptics all said the same thing – that would mean they were foolish enough to believe they understood exactly how the climate works.
This trait can be found on the other side of the argument however – a groupthink reinforced echo chamber that purports to know how the climate works and what the temperature will be in 100 years. The fact that they all agree points to their disingenuousness.
You know the really scary part of this and other similar things, is that the adherents truly believe they are on a crusade to save mankind, and they can’t understand why other people are non-supportive of that noble goal. True believers are the most dangerous of all, since there is nothing short of death that will dissuade them from pursuing their self-appointed holy tasks; and all means – including genocide – are acceptable to achieve their ends. It is truly a form of insanity.
Surprisinly, the problems with MTBE and groundwater are mentioned at the eia.doe.gov link above …
I also need to pause and give credit to the source where where I first heard about MTBE – Ed Wallace and his Sat. morning program “Wheels” on KLIF 570 here in the DFW area … he was all over this issue years ago.
.
The science is settled, no scientific critical thinking or debate is allowed! Sounds like the Dark Ages all over again when the Church told everyone that the Earth was the center of the Universe. Don’t theses people ever learn?
Bill
Bill Illis posts:
“I note in the model Dr. Emanuel presented in Nature in 2005, hurricanes should have gone way over record levels this year, since his ocean box areas were very high this year.
http://www.geog.ucsb.edu/~joel/g280_s09/recent_atmosphere/emanuel_nat05a.pdf
Well, they didn’t so why would we believe Dr. Emanuel’s forecasts now?”
———
Well, I read that paper too, and it seems to me that Kerry’s methods and assessment is flawed at best if we look back on 6 subsequent years of observations. If he is shown to be wrong then, why should we believe he’s correct now?
What troubles me more than anything though is the introduction of politics into science. The science should stand on it’s own. I feel the problem is not unlike lawyers becoming politicians.
I must have missed when John McCain “denied” that there was any human influence on the climate. In fact I think he supported cap and trade.
It bother me when people are ignorant of what politicians view are but then support them (or not) based on their view. But I usually think of these people as having low IQs, I don’t think of professors at MIT as being this ignorant about a subject and yet having such strong views on it.
Alex Harvey
I think it isn’t posted because there really isn’t anything there. It isn’t ready yet. It seems that as the el nino event of 2010 is building we may have gotten a slight increase in ocean heat content. I don’t think that is a surprise but I don’t know if it is important.
“”””” The basic forcings (solar and aerosols) which they claim explains earth’s climate before the large increase in CO2 concentrations are almost certainly in error (by a sizable margin). “””””
Who in their right mind, would include “solar” in a list of “basic forcings”; now I am only interested in the 150 years or so since they had some sort of global measuring system, such as HADCRUT. So don’t get into orbital shifts and Milankovitch etc.
So TSI changes about 0.1% over an 11 year sunspot cycle; and I believe Leif’s position is that nobody has observed any 11 year cyclic Temperature variation linked to solar cycles, and the calculated BB Temperature change is about 70-75 mdeg C.
I’m of the belief that even larger changes in TSI are simply mopped up by cloud cover changes. As to the cosmic ray theory; while I believe the physics of it is real, I don’t know whether the CR fluz is enough to explain much; mayb, but maybe not.
So in my view, the sun is simply the power supply that runs the whole system; it is not really part of the signalling system.
Anyone who knows anything about analog systems; or even digital systems, knows that they are deliberately designed to be immune to power supply changes. Analog control systems in particular can typically tolerate all kinds of noise or fluctuation of power supplies; and I don’t think the climate sytem is much different when it comes to the sun; the H2O feedback cycle involving cloud cover modulation can deal with any solar output changs that we have observed since people have been systematically observing the sun.
So aerosols get involved in the formation of water droplets, and hence clouds; whoop de doo ! It’s that CLOUD SYSTEM that is important; not the aerosols.
Mother Gaia, knows just where all the clouds are all the time. Humans don’t, and they vary too fast for us to monitor them properly.
All the circulation cycles such as ENSO, AMO, PDO and all the other Os do perturb things; and I’m glad that people study those to help with weather reports; but in the end, I doubt that they are involved in any one way slide into an ice ball or the fires of hell. Study the physical, chemical, and biological properties of H2O, and you will pretty much understand what is going on with climate.
I always enjoy your essays Dr Maue! What a privilege for us all that not only are you credentialed, but you also have an independent mind. Most refreshing.
I am beginning to think that being republican or democrat, tory or dipper makes no difference any more. It’s now just a matter of whether one is even capable of telling the difference between fact and fiction. If you really believe drinking Bud Light scores chicks, then new and improved Global Warming® is for you!
You know the marriage is over when one or both partners say the matter is settled and there’s nothing left to talk about. When Al Gore declared that the “science is settled” and the “debate is over”, that’s when I realized that many climate scientists had left their love for science for the welcoming arms of politics.
The truth was that McCain was hardly a “denier” and had a similar position to Obama in accepting AGW, working with international organizations, and imposing cap-and-trade on the US economy; McCain’s proposal was a little more business friendly in that it would have allowed the CO2 emitters to keep the permits for use or sale, Obama wanted to force industries to buy the permits from the government, the funds which would be used to subsidize alternative energy schemes, etc. See: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/23/eveningnews/main4472851.shtml
A “conservative” would have favored McCain’s position on climate change and on many other issues. Whatever Emanuel’s positions in the past, he has become a rent-seeking statist whose involvement in the AWG racket means that his interests are aligned with a totally leftist, Democrat-party dominated government.
wes george says:
February 9, 2011 at 3:54 am
“…. Fact is, government can’t cope with the basic stuff, like maintaining the highways, securing the borders, balancing the budget or winning the peace in their various wars, but they want us to believe that they can legislate fine weather for our children, if only we surrender even more of our liberty??? Do we look that stupid?”
Elegantly stated.
John Brookes: “…Cherry picking is another technique that discredits skeptics. Choosing two data points that support an assertion, while totally ignoring a mass of data which doesn’t is not a good look. One can only assume that people who do this are trying to mislead rather than enlighten.”
The same argument could be applied to alarmists. Unfortunately, depending on your point of view, these tactics are contributing to public distrust among the general public and increased scepticism about catastrophic global warming.
“I can’t see myself voting for such a person, no matter what they say about other issues.” In my experience, single issue voters that I have known are exceptionally narrow minded.
FrankK says:
February 9, 2011 at 1:10 am
Mike Haseler says:
February 9, 2011 at 12:34 am
Problem is when you have both politicians and scientists talking this rubbish, with an effective one party state in science, no opposition allowed, anyone daring to question the supreme authority of the state denied access to information and then castigated as a holocaust denier.
=====================================================
i.e. An Orwellian Climate Society
###
An OCS (Orwellian Climate Society) to Gore?
sorry. I’ll go now ……
Maue: “…the policy prescriptions are indistinguishable from the economic platform/goals of the left,…”
When did the left support the expansion of nuclear power? The cap and trade concept came from free market economists not the left. The political left had nothing against carbon dioxide until scientists became persuaded of its dangers and initially some conservative politicians agreed on the need to reduce emissions. The latter flip flopped after being by threatened by well financed primary challenges from the Koch-Tea Party.
AGW “scientists”: The sea level may rise by 1m (1000mm) by 2100.
Skeptic: Tat would mean the sea level would need to rise 10mm per year. Has it risen by 10mm a year even once in the last 20 years? Has it risen by 9mm a year even once? 8mm? 7mm? Isn’t sea level on track to drop for 2010?
“Dr.” Emanuel: DENIER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
George E. Smith says:
February 9, 2011 at 8:19 am
TSI is only part of the sun’s output. While TSI varies ±.2%, that is just the visible bands. High energy UV, X-Rays, gamma rays, etc., vary as much as 10% according to some sources. Perhaps more so, because this is just looking at it from our recent perspective utilizing modern equipment for a very short history.
As for politics, yes, let’s divorce it from science. If it were that easy. Sure, the majority of Republicans seem to be yet in the warm-earther bandwagon, but can anyone name just one Democrat politician who is a climate realist? One?
Bush was on the correct side of the science, for whatever the reason, since he threw obstacles in the way of Kyoto ratification. He took withering fire over this from Democrat and Republican alike, including Congressional investigations, but stood his ground. Climate alarmism was still a strong plank in the platform on which the Democrats were elected in 2008. Bush caused many of us conservatives to take a hard look at the science, realizing it was far from settled. This was before we had reasonable voices on the scene, like Lord Monckton and WUWT, to enumerate the proper scientific arguments.
As for Prof. Emanuel— I had taken recent courses at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and I can attest that this area is one of the most provincial I have ever seen. MIT is one of the most difficult places I found to navigate to (like an ivory tower island). I guess if one does not conform to the “Cambridge Way” of thinking, one can easily be ostracized, even attacked. My WAG is that Prof. Emanuel might be being cagey; perhaps he was feeling the heat for not being 100% “on board”, and this is his way of casting a red herring, and pointing out that he is not to be associated with the “infamous” Lindzen. Just sayin’!
Elizabeth says:
February 9, 2011 at 9:04 am
Please always keep in mind that the onus, the burden of proof, is always to be placed upon the alarmist. He must back up his hypothesis. He is the one proposing Draconian measures.
“Cap and Trade” did NOT come from “free market economists”. Cap and Trade is just a mechanism for more government control through tax policy, which is anathema to any true believe in free markets.
Cap and Trade was first dreamt up by Enron in the late 90’s, Yes, THAT Enron, who saw that it would be a fantastic way to game their way to even more billions of paper profits. It was a SCAM from the very moment of its inception!!!
John Brookes says:
February 9, 2011 at 2:30 am
“Having people argue that the greenhouse effect is inconsistent with the 2nd law of thermodynamics is an example. This argument is obviously wrong, …”
Please state precisely how and why the argument is “obviously wrong”.
Mike
February 9, 2011 at 9:12 am
Maue: “…the policy prescriptions are indistinguishable from the economic platform/goals of the left,…”
When did the left support the expansion of nuclear power? The cap and trade concept came from free market economists not the left. The political left had nothing against carbon dioxide until scientists became persuaded of its dangers and initially some conservative politicians agreed on the need to reduce emissions. The latter flip flopped after being by threatened by well financed primary challenges from the Koch-Tea Party.
########
Every time I read one of your comments, I feel as if I was just transported into the “Twilight Zone”.
Read between the lines –
Prof. EMANUEL: Well, I don’t know if you – you know, if you polled them today, I don’t think it would be any different. I think what’s happening here is just the early phase of an attempt by special interests in their sort of larger-scale campaign to disinform the American public about climate. One of the things they’re trying to do is discredit scientists by claiming that scientists are driven by their politics.
‘Special interests’ like the IPCC, WFF, Greenpeace, US Government, Club of Rome ….
But what was it about climate change or global warming that created the divide?
Prof. EMANUEL: Oh, I think money did. I mean, there’s not a whole lot of money riding on the outcome of a debate about evolution, but there certainly is about the debate about climate change. And you have lots and lots of organizations and people that perhaps stand to lose a lot of money or think they stand to lose a lot of money if people start getting serious about doing something about the climate.
Losing money, like study grants, cap-trade/CO2 taxes, raises in our power bills?
Prof. EMANUEL: Yeah, that’s true. I mean, the whole thing has become very fractured, and we live in an age in which information has become very fractured. You know, we used to be, even 20 years ago, most of us in a major city read a common newspaper, or maybe one or two common newspapers. We watched the nightly news. Now people can go and get reinforced in the opinions they already have, and they’re not necessarily being exposed to other opinions, and I think that makes it easier for people to circle the wagons.
Really means “We want our control of the media back!”
Prof. EMANUEL: Well, you know, I think it’s perfectly justified to change one’s opinion if it’s what the evidence warrants. I myself changed my opinion. I mean, back 20 years ago. I said, you know, the evidence really isn’t there yet. We really need a lot more before we can say that. But 20 years have gone by. A lot more evidence exists now, and I changed my mind about it. I think that’s fine. I don’t know why anybody in this particular issue would change their mind in the opposite direction.
In 1972, Pauline Kael’s infamous quote “I don’t know anyone who voted for Nixon.” became a rallying cry for those who wish to paint liberals as out-of-touch northeastern elites.
Prof. EMANUEL: My feeling is that at this point in history, if a politician simply denies that there’s any human influence in the climate, in face of all the evidence, it so much casts doubt on that person’s ability to weigh evidence and come to a rational conclusion that I can’t see myself voting for such a person, no matter what they say about other issues.
Dear Professor, can you honestly say, instead of ‘any’, catastrophic or meaningful human influence.
Prof. EMANUEL: Absolutely. And so we have several lines of evidence. We have the actual temperature records. We have computational models and we have theory, and they all point in the same direction. And that gives us confidence that we’re seeing signal. Where most of the uncertainty lies is going forward. And there is a lot of uncertainty. And everybody in the field, I think, that I know of is completely open and honest about that. So you have a spectrum of possible outcomes…
So you have temp records (GISS/Hanson adjusted, by his own published papers) and models (which do not include many significant drivers) to prove a hypothesis (not a theory). Uncertainty?? Please show data that ‘Everybody’ is open and honest about this.
As for his claim of being a Republican, I think Robert Heinlein wrote a pretty good quote about this.
Political tags — such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth — are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort.
Joe said about Obama’s by quoting Pooley:
Anyway, I assume Joe agrees with Pooley. Does this mean that Joe is upset that Obama realized (along with everybody else apparently) that there is no need for overreaction vis climate? I think so.
For once Obama showed some sense if only because he recognized the political impossibility of the whole thing. Maybe he’s not so inept after all.
Having seen the liberal agenda, including climate change, clobbered in the last election liberals still think the country is behind them when in fact it is they the country has put behind.
Climate change has always been political with politicians using willing scientists with the lure of government grants. Maybe the new congress will use their power to put a check on that kind of behavior and abuse of power.
Ken Hall says: February 9, 2011 at 1:31 am
“I doubt if there are enough sceptic individual legislators [in the UK] to make up a soccer team.”
[Then it is about time that the electorate made it known how we feel by electing some.–
The challenge therefore is to get the support for the other fringe parties to increase.— the obvious choice is UKIP. With Viscount Monckton as their climate spokesperson, then they are the choice for me too.–It would not take many tories to switch, for UKIP to become the third party in British Politics. UKIP are not too far behind the Lib Dems now.]
—————————————————————————–
I agree with Ken Hall.
The mess that the UK and Europe is currently in (caused by their incompetence in the financial sector coupled with their intransigence over carbon based energy supply) is leading towards desperate poverty in that part of the world. One can see by the recent dissatisfaction in Tunisia and Egypt uprisings that this can lead to the swift overthrow of seemingly stable governments. Remember the recent uprisings in Greece (one of the so called PIGGS). That was getting close to home as far as Europe is concerned and that links straight back to the Euro economic and energy policies that are together crippling these people.
So what I am saying is that if you make the masses desperate enough – they can and will show where the real power lies. In the UK you have the potential leadership in UKIP that could take it out of Europe and away from the insane unelected bureaucracy that dictates policy in that part of the world. To me, the lunacy over AGW is leading towards economic ruin in the ‘west’ for absolutely no good reason. Therein lies madness.
Douglas
Every time he opens his mouth about global warming, “professor” Emanuel confirms he’s a fool and a charlatan. Apparently, it’s going to take the advent of another mini-ice age to silence him and other cockamamie Warmists. In the meantime, they’re doing every thing possible to keep the global warming gravy train rolling. The AGW Cassandras realize they’ve tapped into a research Motherlode. They want to grab as many tax dollars as they can before falling global temperatures unmask their scam.
The statement is hesitant and unconvincing. He’s not being honest with himself let alone his constituents. I couldn’t vote for someone with such muddled thinking. He stands out as being rather immature.
In my opinion, climate science has been mixed with politics since Al Gore declared that the “debate was over”.
————–
CAGW “climate sciences” was birthed by politics and continues to be sustained by politics. Al Gore jumped on the environmental movement feed trough long before he became vice president in charge of environmental activities. That’s about when NOAA, NASA, EPA, and other agencies started doing subjective research.
DD More says:
February 9, 2011 at 9:42 am
Read between the lines –
As for his claim of being a Republican, I think Robert Heinlein wrote a pretty good quote about this.
Political tags — such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth — are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort.
###
Thanks for reminding me of this statement. Knowing that there are people who can still reason, has restored my faith in humanity, which was pretty low after reading the insanity spewed forth from the fingers of mike the troll.
“”””” _Jim says:
February 9, 2011 at 7:22 am
Grant Hillemeyer February 9, 2011 at 6:33 am
Re: Jim & MTBE,
MTBE was a disaster for …
Surprisinly, the problems with MTBE and groundwater are mentioned at the eia.doe.gov link above …
I also need to pause and give credit to the source where where I first heard about MTBE – Ed Wallace and his Sat. morning program “Wheels” on KLIF 570 here in the DFW area … he was all over this issue years ago. “””””
The anti-MTBE movement got really under way as a result of the Mornign Show (mostly) at KSFO readio 560 in San Francisco.
I have to fess up, that I twice joined in a concerted civil protest action on the steps of the Capitol building in Sacramento; to tell those pencil brains to get that muck out of our water.
Adding Oxygen to a fuel, is the equivalent of adding water (or CO2 if you prefer). The loss of stored chemical energy is pretty much the heat of combustion of H2, when you add oxygen to the fuel. That is not the same thing as providing oxygen to be used in combustion of hydrocarbons in an environment devoid of Oxygen, such as happens with hydrogen fuelled space rockets; that have to also carry an oxidizer with them.
The reduction in mileage with MTBE fuels, is about equal to the percent of MTBE added, so you have to burn even more hydrocarbon fuel to obtain the same thermal energy. But it did allow the petrochemicals industry to charge us money for burning up their toxic waste products, as if it was automobile fuel.
Chevron says they can meet ALL California, and federal clean air standards, with ordinary gasoline blends containing no oxygenate of any kind; including no alcohols either.
Douglas:
You are right. The consequences of these policies have killed millions already with starvation and cold, due to high food and energy costs.
One question to pose to the good professor: “Do you think it is a good idea to convert coal to ethanol?” His answer, I fear, would tell all, and reveal his elitist attitude. After all, the developing world is just mostly the untouchable caste, who may regrettably have to be sacrificed to Gaia for her continued support.
Ken Hall wrote
“I doubt if there are enough sceptic individual legislators [in the UK] to make up a soccer team.”
Then it is about time that the electorate made it known how we feel by electing some.
Before last year’s UK General Election, it was widely put about by various sources in the Tory party that the vast majority of their new election candidates held “climate sceptic” views. Many of these candidates were subsequently elected, but not a single one of them has yet spoken out against the suicidal energy policies of Chris Huhne who seeks singlehandedly to “save the world from meltdown”.
It is now apparent that Tory Head Office deliberately spread this misinformation in order to mislead the millions of the Tory faithful who were threatening to vote for UKIP.
I have question whether Dr. Emanuel has an informed opinion on climate science, it is a broad multi-disciplinary field, and the crux of the issue is NOT in his specialty of hurricanes. He would have had to have gone out of his way to study the issue of whether the net feedbacks to CO2 forcing are positive or negative, and he doesn’t appear to discuss evidence relevant to that issue at all.
Emanuel is disturbed by those who suspect that climate scientists are guided by the political agendas. But if such suspicions aren’t well founded, how does he explain repeated model based peer review articles on increased risks of drought, that don’t discuss the model diagnostic literature showing how weak the models are with respect to precipitation.
I must also doubt Emanuel’s conservative credentials, since he dismisses climate denial as due to moneyed interests. Even if a conservative accepted that the climate science was conclusive, he wouldn’t assume that large expenditures of money are needed. Emanuel seems to assume that command and control measures would be the only solution. Any conservative would question using climate science as an excuse for tax increases, at the very least carbon, gasoline or heating oil taxes could be combined with other measures that make them revenue neutral, assume one also concluded that global warming was a negative thing.
The majority of political parties support man made global warming. There is to much money at stake, whether your in power or likely to be in power.
I am more liberal than Obama and have been a democrat for the last 50 years! I voted for Kerry, Gore, Clinton, Mondale and Johnson!
But I voted for McCain in the last election because I cannot vote for a conservative democrat!
Anyone can make up BS, and then claim anything they want. I defy anyone to prove that what I have written is not true. And not being able to do so, it must be gospel!
but alas I am not an alarmist, so the media just does not report my lies, like the did Kerry Emmanuel’s.
Iren says:
February 9, 2011 at 3:39 am
[Brookes, 2:30 am.] I don’t see any problem for anyone, be they scientist or other, to come out and say that they won’t support climate skeptics as they currently exist.
If at some time in the future, climate skeptics get organised and work out exactly where they stand on the science, and weed out the obvious deceivers in their midst, then they will deserve to be taken seriously. But if skeptics abandon their current tactics, will they lose relevance?
“I’ve never read such drivel in my life…”
———————————————–
Right, there seems to be a never-ending contest going on among the “annointed ones” to see just who is the most “annointed” – of course, as judged by the wildest self-congratulatory confabulation possible compared to reality, while also denigrating the ‘correct’ faux enemy.
However, a humble word to all of the above contestants, Satchel Paige’s admonition still applies: “Don’t look back, because
someoneGreg Craven might be gaining on you!”Let’s all gather together and chant, in unison, “we are all individuals.”
I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a look of misery and dejection on the face of my daughter as I just did a moment ago. She just couldn’t understand why the Distinguished MIT Professor Dr. Kerry Emanuel would undermine the efforts of fellow conservatives. “Even my Grandpa?” she asked pitifully.
I sat down with her on the sofa and (as calmly as I could) tried to explain to her why Dr. Emanuel has rushed to judgment and besmirched the good name of every conservative, past and present. “And yes honey, even Grandpa”, I was forced to say.
I tried to keep my voice steady, but it became increasingly difficult – the rage and feelings of helplessness were just too much. I think my daughter could tell something was wrong. I found myself at such a loss for words – nothing made any sense; nothing makes sense anymore. I finally had to admit, “Honey, I just don’t know – I don’t know what’s going on in this country anymore…”
When I finished her lower lip started to tremble and her eyes began to fill with tears, “Daddy” she said, “why are these faux conservatives doing this to the country?” Well, that was it for me: I finally fell apart. She just fell into my arms and we both began sobbing for several minutes.
For once she had to comfort me and get me back on my feet. Sometimes I just think it’s too much, but seeing the strength in my young daughter’s voice helped me to get through.
The beauty of the blogging era, is that we can postulate ideas, realizing that if they don’t have merit, they will be picked apart with logic. This seems to happen only on the skeptics’ side. That is always true with despots—truth or dissent cannot be tolerated. Remember what happened to Casey, a pro-life Democrat? Lieberman, a hawk—he was thrown out. Casey was thrown out. Anyone who does not tow the party line is thrown out.
But they are thrown out, not for the force of their arguments, but for their impudence at questioning the dogma, or even listening to the opponents’ side.
Back to topic, why did the Piltdown Man hoax survive 30 years? No blogs then! The soft scientists in the field of anthropology could draw imaginative faux pictures, and their graduate students and the rest of society had to go along with their expert proclamations to get along. It was a closed classroom. The science of “imaginative bone reassembly” (aka Anthropology) took years to recover.
The science of “imaginative computerized climate divination” (aka Climatology) may suffer the same setback.
I’m going to start a new organization:
“Liberals Who Know that AGW is a Lot of Rot.”
I know from reading a lot of comments here that many WUWT regulars won’t bless the “liberal” part of that sentence, but the fact is — and I hope *everyone* will welcome *this* — there are some of us of a traditional left-liberal persuasion like myself who have *seen through the con game* of the warmistas and can appreciate real science (hint: think falsifiability, always questioning one’s own assumptions, not forming politico-scientific clans where ideology trumps science, irregardless of the political persuasion of the scientists involved, and above all understanding the intrinsic limitations of particular methodologies and knowing what GIGO means).
I’m willing to bet there are a lot more who will follow shortly. Thanks to Anthony and everyone else at WUWT who has defended the values of critical scientific thinking, which belongs to no political party or ideology.
psi, PhD
At least the voters can boot him out at the next election. We have Prince Big Ears, I mean Charles, pontificating about climate change this week. But then again having such a dope on your side probably isn’t pleasing to all the warmistas. Come the revolution…..
So Professor Emanuel is basically cutting off his nose to spite his face. The kicker is his face isn’t doing anything to deserve the spite because climate change (at least warmer climate with more CO2) is a GOOD thing. The earth turns green from pole to pole when there’s no ice and exceedingly high levels of CO2. It’s those times of great fecundity that laid down the fossil fuel beds in the first place. What a
dumbassgreat mistake the professor makes.No, it’s a thinly disguised right-wind rant.
The lies start in the title:
“MIT Professor Emanuel won’t vote for climate change deniers”
let’s check what he actually said:
So, first off, he’s not calling anyone “deniers”, that’s Ryan Maue misleading the reader by putting works into his mouth. Neither is he expecting anyone to buy the whole AGW fantasy.
I don’t go along with AGW hysteria but I wouldn’t say there is NO human influence on the climate, it’s just been grossly exaggerated. So I too would question the judgment of anyone who “simply denies that there’s any human influence in the climate”.
Prof Emmanual’s stance seems fairly reasonable.
This is not an “analysis of the politics”, it’s a blattant party political hit piece based on lies and distortion. It is not uncommon to see this sort of ranting in comments but it’s a shame that this blog is now stooping to allowing this sort of thing as a featured article.
Note: I’m neither a Republican nor a Democrat supporter since I believe in supporting democratic republics!
My vote for WUWT as best science blog failed to register. I won’t be trying to resubmit. Let me know when you get nominated as a political blog.
[ryanm: …if a politician simply denies… to you that doesn’t mean denier in short. that’s quite the contortionist act required to pull that off.]
It is so hard to be civil when such moonbats are out in publikka.
Skeptics are not climate change deniers. It is the AGW crowd that predicted rapid sea level rise, global drought, sweltering heat and no more snow. The climate did change, only it did not change the way they predicted it. It went thataway.
Now they say they predicted it all along, when they did no such thing.
3 increasingly bad winters in a row plus cooling summers found them with cold egg on thier faces.
It is the AGWarmers who are in a state of denial, attempting to deny what they predicted, and got terribly wrong.
Oh, and how wrong they got it.
Anthropogenic Global Warming Predictions proved no more unstoppable than the Titanic was unsinkable.
February 9, 2011 at 2:29 pm
I’m going to start a new organization:
“Liberals Who Know that AGW is a Lot of Rot.”
I know from reading a lot of comments here that many WUWT regulars won’t bless the “liberal” part of that sentence, but the fact is — and I hope *everyone* will welcome *this* — there are some of us of a traditional left-liberal persuasion like myself who have *seen through the con game* of the warmistas and can appreciate real science (hint: think falsifiability, always questioning one’s own assumptions, not forming politico-scientific clans where ideology trumps science, irregardless of the political persuasion of the scientists involved, and above all understanding the intrinsic limitations of particular methodologies and knowing what GIGO means).
I’m willing to bet there are a lot more who will follow shortly. Thanks to Anthony and everyone else at WUWT who has defended the values of critical scientific thinking, which belongs to no political party or ideology.
psi, PhD
Totally agree. Thinking that one’s left/right political position has a bearing on your opinion about AGW just shows a lack of ability to think.
Sadly it seems many people can’t form their own opinion and so decide they are in one camp and go along with what they imagine is the party line. They make a black or white choice and stick loyally to it.
However, there are many on the left who don’t accept the global warming scam and even some on the right who do believe it. But then everyone is entitled to their opinion, however stupid and ill-informed it may be. 😉
He has a right to vote for whom he pleases, but he is a jerk, Ph.D not withstanding.
I’m sorry that people like him influence the young and credulous!
I noticed that the bookstores in Harvard Square do not in general, have any books by
deniers or skeptics, so I mentioned the fact, while visiting Harvard Books, that they don’t have The Real Global Warming Disaster by Christopher Booker and said I was aghast that they seemed like they were trying to stack the deck of the argument. The woman was cornered and she ordered the book while I stood there! A small victory for truth!
I don’t care what Emanuel thinks or says. I doubt he is a Republican anymore (if he ever was), he obviously does not vote Republican. Maybe he is a RINO. Also don’t care what NPR says, though I’m very interested in defunding it at the Fed and state level.
The key to climate science politics is the IPCC, created by 2 UN orgs in 1988. Maurice Strong was the brains behind the IPCC creation. The mission of the IPCC was (and is) to find human causes for global warming. The IPCC is controlled by the governments of the world, who almost all have a vested interest in finding that man is causing global warming and that the advanced economies of the world need to pay for their carbon emissions.
The first step for the USA is for the EPA to stop outsourcing climate science to the IPCC. The second step is to dramatically cut funding to climate science true alarmists (particularly those who are most political) while increasing funding to climate science skeptics.
P. Solar:
“Thinking that one’s left/right political position has a bearing on your opinion about AGW just shows a lack of ability to think.”
Climate alarmism has been a lefty issue from the beginning. In the USA, the Dems overwhelmingly support the alarmists, while the Republicans have finally started resisting climate alarmism. Abstractions aside, in the USA a vote for a Dem most likely is a vote for alarmism while a vote for a Republican is most likely a vote against alarmism.
Thanks for the input George.
I really want to get back and emphasize to that first poster I responded to that ethanol was not placed in the fuel-supply chain as a biofuel per se, but, was the substitute the EPA accepted as an oxygenate (for better or for worse, and some say for worse, but let’s debate that later) over MTBE and probably promoted by them (the EPA) as well … as did the farm lobby. Since the farm lobby means votes (certainly in the farm belt!) – and money – they are a political force unto themselves to reckon with.
.
Neo
February 9, 2011 at 1:35 pm
Let’s all gather together and chant, in unison, “we are all individuals.”
###
I’m not!
I have a simpler test. I don’t vote for anyone who has a combover or fake tan.
In relation to my statement:
“Having people argue that the greenhouse effect is inconsistent with the 2nd law of thermodynamics is an example. This argument is obviously wrong, …”
mkelly asked:
Please state precisely how and why the argument is “obviously wrong”.
So here is a test for the skeptics. There are plenty of you who know why this argument is wrong. How about one of you take the time to educate mkelly? Go on, prove me wrong, show me that skeptics will correct each other.
@P.Solar 3:59 pm
As one hard-core conservative engineer, I applaud you. (But just this once. ;-))
John Brookes says:
February 9, 2011 at 8:01 pm
In relation to my statement:
“Having people argue that the greenhouse effect is inconsistent with the 2nd law of thermodynamics is an example. This argument is obviously wrong, …”
mkelly asked:
Please state precisely how and why the argument is “obviously wrong”.
So here is a test for the skeptics. There are plenty of you who know why this argument is wrong. How about one of you take the time to educate mkelly? Go on, prove me wrong, show me that skeptics will correct each other.
—————————————————————————–
Come on John Brookes. Don’t try Tremberth’s trick of shifting the burden onto the sceptics to answer mkelly’s question to you. . Mkelly asked YOU.
YOU answer mkelly. Enlighten us.
Douglas
P. Solar says:
“I don’t go along with AGW hysteria but I wouldn’t say there is NO human influence on the climate, it’s just been grossly exaggerated.”
P. Solar, I am in complete agreement with that statement. We may be somewhat apart in our political views, but regarding the science, I think we are on the same page.
There is simply too much public money available, and alarming the populace funnels tax money into the pockets of self-serving charlatans. I suspect that even far right conservative scientists zip their lips when plenty of public grant money is on offer.☺
Anthony: Daniel Frank’s comment (February 9, 2011 at 3:55 am) is blatant commercial advertising.
More importantly it totally distorts the WUWT philosophy in its first line (which is wholly cynical in intent): I’ve just come across Watts Up With That and I was impressed by your advocacy for combating climate change and other green issues.
You may have approved it after thought; or it may have just slipped by. Will you have another look at it?
[Thanx, deleted.]
My note to Anthony above jumped the shark, or tab… it was meant for Tipsy Notes and has been re-posted there. Sorry.
On the political side, one has to note that the push for a “price for carbon” isn’t solely coming from alarmists greens on the political left abusing the precautionary principle – a principal lobby for carbon taxes are the actual energy companies and especially the nuclear power industry. Without a “price for carbon” to distort the economic realities of natural gas and coal power generation vice nuclear, the industry cannot get the regulatory side to approve rate increases for working capital to fund plant construction.
Being a conservative myself, I’m pretty much prepared to read Kerry Emmanuel out of the conservative movement if he thinks that “politics” should be taken out of the issue. The fact is that scientists such as James Hansen and others have called for very specific and draconian measures based upon this hoked-up science, and their fellow-traveling Chicken Littles caterwaul along with them in an effort to recreate the world in their own image. This gambit is NOT conservative; rather, it is an attempt to seize power – a kind of power to dictate over people’s lives and economies in extensive ways. If Prof. Emanuel wants to fellow-travel with these individuals, I think he grossly misunderstands who Reagan was and what conservatism is about.
mkelly & Douglas, why doesn’t the 2nd law of thermodynamics forbid the greenhouse effect? Have a look at:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Second-law-of-thermodynamics-greenhouse-theory.htm
Don’t trust that link? Try this one:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/23/quantifying-the-greenhouse-effect/
I [fill in the name] hereby unequivocally declare that humanshave a negligible effect on the climate.
===================
There that pledge should get Dr. E’s vote.
As far as I can see, no one is. However man has as much impact on the climate as A flea has on a dog’s movement. The scale is somewhat off, as the flea is actually bigger in relation to the size of a dog than man is to the earth. But the analogy is apt. And Emmanuel is a buffoon.
But doncha know, it’s a “living” Constitution, and similarly “living” science (aka PNS). It’s science by
mobmajority rule. What could go wrong?If Prof. Emanuel still supports Obama, he is not a conservative. If he supports the government intrusive, massive socialist programs signed into law by Obama, he is not a conservative. If he says he is, he is not telling the truth.
Please don’t enable this charade by ever referring to him as ‘a conservative’ again.
John Brookes
“So here is a test for the skeptics. There are plenty of you who know why this argument is wrong. How about one of you take the time to educate mkelly?”
I can’t find what post you’re talking about. Please copy it out or reference the time if you want a serious response.
Here’s an example of the second law of thermodynamics.
A small portion of the Sun’s energy is reflected back toward the Sun from the Earth. So heat is flowing from the Earth to the Sun (much like the back-radiation from the CO2 in the cold atmosphere flows back toward the warm Earth surface and warms it even further). We are talking about photons of light here which can obviously move from a cold body to a warm body.
But.
But the Sun is 5778K and puts out 63,200,000 watts/m2 at its surface (an amazing number if you ask me). By the time, the Earth’s reflected energy gets back to the Sun, it is a measly 0.0003 watts/m2.
Is that going to make any difference to the Sun? Photons are flowing from the cold Earth to the hot Sun but the Sun needs to increase its energy level by 45,000 watts/m2 to raise its surface temperature by 1°C.
Its a pretty good law (even though measly amounts of photons of energy violate it very slightly – as a general principle, it is about as valid as it gets – cold bodies do not warm warmer bodies).
“if a politician simply denies that there’s any human influence in the climate, in face of all the evidence”
Ah, the classic illogic strawman. Either you must believe in catastrophic man-made climate change or you must either a) deny any human influence on the climate, or b) deny that climate changes. Okay, I guess there probably are some US politicians dumb enough to believe either or both of these, but I must confess to getting increasingly irritated by continued use of this argument by the warmists as I’m guessing most people here believe neither? (You’re allowed to believe natural influences massively outweigh man-made ones provided you don’t deny the latter exist!)
There is more than one “Phil” posting under that handle.
Harvard Medical School recently released a report on the negative health effects of coal. IMO these are the more pressing issues than ppm of CO2. I think even Hansen said a warm epoch went to ice age at about 425 ppm CO2 & we are not there yet.
But chronic disease is the number one increaser of the US national debt. The toxins from extraction and combustion of fossil fuel exacerbate or even cause chronic disease. How one regards cancer or heart disease as a liberal or conservative malady is beyond me. Does a society elect to profit economically and environmentally from renewable energy and efficiency or continue the slings and arrows of selective profit from exclusively fossil or nuclear interests? AGW is a secondary argument.