Guest post by Bob Fernley-Jones. (AKA Bob_FJ) 
In addition to regular readers at WUWT, those familiar with John Cook’s misleadingly named website “Skeptical Science” may be offended by the following interview with John Cook and Haydn Washington about their new book Climate Change Denial: Heads in the Sand. Some will also likely recall on WUWT that awful interview with Bob Ward of 2/Oct/2010. It resulted in strong ridicule of the ABC broadcaster, (Australia) and it went viral around the world. For instance, Robyn Williams shreds the tenets of science (200+ comments). So what’s new? Alas, Robyn Williams, presenter of “The Science Show”, remains in true form, and continues to defy the ABC’s Editorial Policies WRT impartiality etc.
The audio and transcript is available here, and at close on 19/May it had an unusually high 77 comments in rapid time, including many complaints. In comparison, the other five uncontroversial stories on that same show only attracted 8 comments in total, and that infamous Bob Ward interview totalled 38. However, early on 20/May, all comments and the facility to make comments disappeared, just as things were hotting up. Then, four days later, after I made certain enquiries, it all came back, without any explanation or apology, but the momentum of so many inconvenient comments seems to have stalled since. It subsequently creeped up to 83 comments over another four days but then no more comments were allowed, and that was without clearing at least three known critical comments from moderation. (as discussed at Jo Nova’s website) Strange that!
INTRODUCTION TO THE SHOW:
Robyn Williams says:
Authors John Cook and Haydn Washington analyse the approaches of those who deny climate science. Despite multiple lines of evidence pointing to the same conclusion, deniers continue to deny. Cherry picking is one tactic. Another is the use of fake experts or scientists who are not climate scientists. The authors explore why, as the science firms, the public view, at least in Australia, is going the other way.
KEEPING IT SHORT; EIGHT EXTRACTS FROM THE TRANSCRIPT:
1) Climategate:
Robyn Williams: …when we are talking about the East Anglia email scandal, there were three, possibly four enquiries, and each one found in favour of the scientists in terms of the scientific evidence. But that seems not to have stopped denying at all.
John Cook: Yes, there has actually been eight independent investigations into it, and they have all found the same results. So it’s almost like climate science where we have multiple lines of evidence finding the same conclusion. But conspiracy theories are very popular amongst any group that wants to deny a scientific consensus.
Robyn Williams was probably referring to the three British “independent” committees and the Penn State University so-called enquiry. I somehow feel that John Cook’s claim of eight such is an exaggeration. The so-called three or four have been very widely criticised for not asking the right questions, poor representation, (for instance, see this), and much more, too long to detail here. Mr Williams again expresses his clearly biased view by saying: “But that seems not to have stopped denying at all”.
2) Then, concerning the petition of 31,000 sceptical scientists, that was encouraged by Frederick Seitz, past president of the National Academy of Sciences (83 page pdf):
John Cook: The actual statement that they signed their name to is generally that human activity can’t cause climate disruption and in fact CO2 is a good thing, something to that effect. But when you look at all the names on the lists, about 99.9% of them are not climate scientists. So it’s this raising of fake experts, and that tactic has been used way back to the ’70s where the tobacco industry…
That’s not quite right, for instance, the petition was compiled before that new term for CAGW was invented. Also, the following breakdown of the scientists includes the disciplines which are foundation to various fields of “climate science”.
- Atmospheric, environmental, and Earth sciences: 3,804
- Computer and mathematical sciences: 935
- Physics and aerospace sciences: 5,812
- Chemistry: 4,821
- Biology and agriculture: 2,965
That is a substantial majority sub total of 18,337, but to continue, concerning the grand total:
Robyn Williams: Who are these scientists nonetheless? Are they scientists?
John Cook: Most of them probably are scientists. There are a few funny names there, I think Posh Spice might have been on there or somebody. But what they are, are mechanical engineers, medical doctors, and the point is when you have a technical and complicated subject like climate change, you want to get the opinions of climate experts. So, for example, if you were going to get a heart operation, you wouldn’t want a mechanical engineer cutting into you, you would want somebody who was an expert on that.
Well actually, the petition lists only a minority of “inferior” engineers, other scientists, and medical doctors within the 31,000:
- Medicine: 3,046
- Engineering and general science: 10,103
Furthermore, applied scientists such as engineers are arguably amongst the best at applying rational thought to scientific data, partly because they cannot in their careers be cavalier with any assumptions, as some elitist “climate scientists” seem prone to be. They are skilled at handling data, and researching the literature etc, no matter what the parameters, and are less likely to have a preconceived view on the outcomes. (I would further argue that peer review should not be via pal review, but from broader disciplines.)
3) Silly analogies of heart surgery and tobacco, both mentioned above, are certainly popular in slagging the sceptics, but the following is a real gem for me:
Haydn Washington: Yes, as far as we know maybe chimpanzees deny things too because they carry around dead babies…
He claims to be an environmental scientist so should know that chimps are biologically close to humans, including emotional stuff. Even dogs are observed to dream, and suffer badly from separation anxiety etc. Chimps clearly have not learnt societal “closure” mechanisms like us, such as burial ceremonies, so do they deny grief? I think it is far more likely that the mother does not know how to handle what’s happened, but can surely recognise, not deny, that something ain’t right. (but then I’m only a mechanical engineer).
4) On the subject of how many sceptical scientists are there:
John Cook: I could probably count them on both my hands I guess, maybe a half dozen or so scientists that actually published papers that are sceptical that global warming will be bad in the future…
However, there is a listing entitled “900+ Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skepticism of “Man-Made” Global Warming (AGW) Alarm” at Popular Technology.net, that is rather difficult to count on two hands. Some of the journals employed are not popular with alarmists though, including GRL for example. (The Climategate Emails revealed plans to change the editors of GRL, for committing the sin of publishing some sceptical papers alongside with mainstream.).
5) Then there are feedbacks affecting “climate sensitivity”:
John Cook: No, I think the general sticking point among sceptic qualified scientists is they tend to hang their hat on this proposition that negative feedback will cancel out the warming that we cause, it’s like a get out of jail free card. But the main argument against that is when we look back through Earth’s history, that has never happened before, there has always been positive feedbacks of amplified warming.
Uh?
6) And, some wisdoms on proof of the effects of CO2:
John Cook: …one is that we measure the actual effect from CO2 so satellites and planes observe the heat coming from the Earth and escaping out to space, so they can compare what we simulate or what we expect with what is actually happening. So observations show that CO2 is causing warming…
Well, radiative energy fluxes are variously determined in recent times, (aka EMR or electromagnetic radiation, which BTW is not HEAT), but such spatially and temporally very complex data cannot possibly explain if increasing CO2 has caused it.
7) On the wisdom of Sir Paul Nurse’ BBC TV documentary. (not a climate scientist BTW):
Robyn Williams: …and also went to a fascinating place where they are actually showing climate models in action. You know, you’ve got a screen above and a screen below, one is the model showing weather patterns lines, streaming out according to the model, and the other one is the actual weather being shown from a satellite, and they are exactly the same. It’s quite remarkable. The models I think have been portrayed as being unsophisticated, bodgy, and computer crunching, in fantasyland, but in fact they are unbelievably exact, aren’t they.
But, the IPCC as recently as 2007, based on various models and scenarios, have forecasted global warming of ~0.2C degrees/decade for the near term, which is greater than anything in the records over the past 150 years. Unfortunately, there has actually been a slight cooling over the past decade or so, or, if you prefer, a plateau. BTW, science journalist, Robyn Williams, has claimed great knowledge by reading some 25 journals/week. This is a typical example of a Dorothy Dixer from him, and he defies the ABC Editorial Policies on impartiality etc
8) On the unprecedented recent warming:
Haydn Washington: …our civilisation evolved in 8,000 years of stable climate, so we have never had to adapt to a rapidly changing climate.
Obviously he is a non-believer in the MWP, and the collapse of some civilizations that has been strongly attributed to climate change. The most recent big one I believe was the Khmer-Angkor great city civilization drought some 500 years ago, that has been attributed to monsoonal changes whilst coming out of the LIA.
WRAP UP:
If you listen to the 17 minute audio, or read the transcript, (link repeated), there is more head-shaking stuff, but I’ve kept it brief.
An interesting aspect is that this makes the sixth book of exclusively alarmist genre that Robyn Williams has reviewed since declining to review Bob Carter’s highly acclaimed new book. (at the time of the Bob Ward attack, more info here).
The authors say that they are doing a special parliamentary edition signed by two important Oz politicians, (John Hewson, Bob Carr), and seven climate scientists, to be sent to every federal member. The book also has a foreword by Naomi Oreskes.
Great write up Mr. Werme. I always find it funny that these clowns consistently rely on the argument from authority fallacy. We engineers are not experts thus our opinions are not valid. What a pile of rubbish. As you suggest our analysis of data doesn’t have the same luxury that their crackpot methodologies do, if we make mistakes like them we would be fired at a minimum and for anyone with a PE they would be even more legally liable if there were an accident based on fraudulent data like “the team” clowns produce.
Correction: Thanks to Mr. Ric Werme for posting and thanks to Mr. Bob Fernley- Jones for the write up.
[Ric: Hey, someone who can read and understand the attributions! You likely won a couple brownie points from Anthony. 🙂 I’ve been impressed at how well BobFJ’s articles are appreciated by Aussie readers, so I’m glad to help out.]
My garden is strugging for lack of rain. Same thing for cereal growers in western europe, and, I believe, north america. Rather than arranging underground heating, I and other growers are going for more irrigation. The extra CO2 is already there.
Prospect for more rain next week, fingers crossed.
From the very practical jolly farmer.
They’re just sore because the Climate changed in the direction opposite to what they had predicted. It’s called a pity party. They cannot debate on a level playing field, so they indulge in ad hominem. No guts.
Harold Camping, to his credit, admitted he had erred.
Hathaway revised his solar prediction for SC24, rather than attacking everyone to cover his miscalculation.
Warmists, however, play a shell game with predictions, claiming they knew warming causes cooling all along.
I challenge any alarmist to provide the following,
Please provide the objective criteria for determining who is a climate scientist.
I have asked this many times without a satisfactory answer. When I did at Skeptical Science their moderators quickly jumped in to shut down this point of debate, claiming it was not important. Yet Mr. Cook throws it around as if he knows the definition.
Brother Cook’s grammar skill appears to match his science:
…there has always been positive feedbacks of amplified warming.
…there has actually been eight independent investigations…
While host Williams nearly stumbles into truth:
The models…are unbelievably exact, aren’t they.
Now that’s an adverb you can believe in, Robyn….
BTW if you happen to live in Australia and care for the environment but do not think the Carbon Tax is going to do anything – then have a look at Say No to the Carbon Tax Australia. Basically if you agree with the focus of the page, please Like it and share. Note: This is not about whether you believe in man made climate change or not, rather the focus is on the Carbon Tax and if you don’t want it, yet still care about the environment.
Basically, I’m fed up with the lack of quality debate and apparent choice around the Carbon tax in Australia and want to send a clear message that we need more meaningful discussion and debate.
I’ve never understood the line of “reasoning” that says 99.9% of those 31,000 people who signed the skeptical petition are not “climate scientists”. Regardless of the actual numbers involved, this implies that there are 31 people who are in fact “climate scientists” as defined by the scorner. How can the scorner explain away 31 certified climate scientists? Oops they can’t, let alone the thousands of others.
Ric,
Looks like my original post may have gone into the spam filter possibly. The correction I posted was in reference to my mistaken attribution in my original post, but I do not see the original posted. Thanks in advance.
[Ric: Hmm. Looks like it simply got missed by the otherwise stellar mods. Rescued, and I guess I have to partially take back the good things I said about you. 🙂 ]
My first major clue that something was seriously amiss with climate science was Real Climate where pointed questions were heavily edited, and then made fun of out of context. My second clue was seeing posts on Real Climate asking where they could go to get a balanced point of view. The response was a link to Skeptical Science.
Didn’t take much reading to get the scam. If the “climate scientists” at Real Climate couldn’t deal with a couple of tough questions without editing them first, and have to dress up a blatantly pro-warmist site as a skeptic site in order to fool people… One doesn’t even have to delve into the science in order to realize something stinks.
As for Cook’s “well, they aren’t climate scientists, only climate scientists understand climate” bullarky, I think we’ve heard that reasoning before. Here is one example:
Shaman: Spirits speak only to me. Say bring much gold. Put in my tent.
pdp10? youngster.
pdp8. data entry with toggle switches.
you wrote tight code in those days not (as many believe) because of the limited memory and cpu power, but because it took so darn long just to enter it.
my last post seemingly got sucked into spam land…can fish it out?
[Done. ~dbs]
It’s a mystery where Cook’s co-author, Dr Haydn Washington, who “has a degree in ecology, a Masters of Science in eco-toxicology (heavy metal pollution), a Dip. Ed.and a Ph.D.” gets the idea that “…our civilisation evolved in 8,000 years of stable climate, so we have never had to adapt to a rapidly changing climate…”.
Could it possibly be from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png
— a sort of inverted ‘hockey stick’, where assorted disparate proxy series are lumped together, averaged and the result is a rough trend line (if it can be claimed to be that)?
Here is another interesting interview of Professor Bob Carter by Andrew Bolt today:
http://pindanpost.com/2011/05/29/climate-bubble-and-squeak/
and a mocking of millionaires in Oz on 3 sites:
http://pindanpost.com/2011/05/29/mocking-the-mi…-to-pay-for-it/
Hahaha Ric, fair is fair =) I prefer to take credit where credit is due, lol. What got me was the “about Ric Werme” snippet. Posting from a smartphone does have its risks…on a different note, you were on ARPAnet, you wouldn’t happen to know a fella by the name of Mike Hart would you?
[Ric: Nope, I don’t recognize the name. I was at Carnegie-Mellon, and worked on OS-level ARPAnet and telnet protocols, and user level FTP.]
This pro AGW attitude is par for the course for our sad broadcaster. The weekend Australian ran a lengthy article entitled ” Whose ABC ?” This is a parody of the “Your ABC” promos conducted years ago. Condensing this down, it appears that the staff are in control, and the ‘nice’ MD Mark Scott will not rock the boat. The ‘in’ joke is to name the broadcaster SBS ,the Sydney Broadcasting Service. The axis of power lies with Sydney/Melbourne inner city employees and the point of the article is that rural or outer suburban people are simply not being represented by the public broadcaster.
And inner city people are predominantly left leaning Labor or Green.
Looks like the citizens of this fair country have lost control of their national broadcaster, and this government will not change a thing.
It’s as if hysterical orders have been issued from the Green Bunker that, because of the frigid, damp weather, affecting their urban heartlands of Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney; global warming propaganda must be ramped up to counterbalance any tendency the population might have to grow skeptical.
The bizarre pronouncements of Dr Flim Flannery’s Climate Commission (an organization which does not have a single skeptical member) are relayed hourly by the ABC, and yesterday I heard the good news that after a lengthy study of cow farts, agricultural methane was not as big a threat to mankind as previously thought…
With most of Australia turning up the knob on their heater dials right now…even the dumbest are beginning to wonder how much more expensive it will be to keep warm if Julia goes ahead with a carbon tax.
The Warmists are making a horrible squealing noise, like naughty children in the supermarket who think that by being noisy and disruptive they can intimidate their parents into buying them that candy bar.
But the parents…ie us and the politicians, have got that stoney look in their eyes…they have fallen out of love with their little darlings.
Deep down even the ABC folk have seen the writing on the wall…it won’t happen overnight but many will lose their careers because there simply is no rowing back from the very extreme positions they have adopted…a new generation will ensure that there is some balance.
This is fascinating to watch and so enjoyable after fifteen years of Warmist Drivel.
And by the way that’s a great picture of Cook…if ever they do a remake of A Clock-work Orange he should definitely audition.
Great write up. I like to stroll over to skepticalscience every once in a while to see what kind of vitriol Cook is cooking (pardon the pun). I’ve had the courage to comment on a few of his articles from time to time (comments that were deleted, by the way) and I have never been more amazed by the pomposity and ruthlessness of the admins, including Cook, and the regular readers of Skepticalscience. Skepticalscience has no room for dissent or opposing views and it seems that everything with the “peer reviewed” label is taken as true, perfect science – a reflection of the state of climate science and the agenda of the pro-global warming crowd.
I applaud Jo Nova for decimating Cook’s arguments. She’s done such a good job, that after a few responses to Cook’s articles, Cook went silent on the issue. I believe it’s been over a year since Cook went silent. Regardless, as Steven Goddard once said about the SS crowd: “where up is down and down is up.” There is no arguing with those people – very frustrating.
This guy is much worse than I thought. Rommlike.
The difference between climate scientists and engineers is that the latter often bury there mistakes.
Here in Australian our ABC is a Government supported who unfortunately very left and in matters of AGW supportive of that view. Robyn Williams predicted a 100 metre sea level rise was likely this century. There are many in the ABC of like mind.
I find it strange that, despite the critisisms from many sites like this one over years regarding a strong ABC Australia AGW bias, that it hasn’t filtered through to management.
If this was a company aware of consumer feedback, the CEO & board would know that they are accused of breaking their charter, or ‘Mission Statement’ in corporate parlance. At the least they would address concerns by answering emails or providing critics with an official reply, not a deafening silence.
Unless, of course, the agenda starts at the top.
I think that the idea that we are not qualified to comment needs to be attacked head on now.
I often point out that to produce a theory about climate change you have to be able to weave together many threads spanning many disciplines. eg Stats, computer modelling, geology, oceanography etc
To break a theory all you need to do is break one link in the chain.
If climate science relies on ‘chain links’ in my area of expertise they will have to be able to survive very close scrutiny. By an expert in that area.
@Another Keith in Hobart
I’d agree completely. What the pro-AGW camp forgets is that the many scientists and engineers they label as ‘deniers’ are perfectly capable of reading and understanding science in fields outside their own specialism. They bring breadth of perspective collectively. Is it a matter that they have only looked at one side of the argument? Highly unlikely. Something in what they’ve read has formed their opinion. They may represent a significant fraction of “those who have bothered to look” at both sides of the science behind the headlines. Climate science is complex but that doesn’t mean ‘difficult’.
Also they forget that the nuances of climate scientists’ behaviour as revealed by Climategate may be lost on many of the general public, but its unacceptability is only too plain to those who familiar with academic research, even if they are in other fields.
It would appear that whatever advantage was gained by Williams and Cook’s propaganda broadcast has just been blown by bringing in “rich Hollywood A-lister” Kate Blanchett to tell the rest of her fellow, but not rich, Aussie mates that they have to stump up a carbon tax to save the world whilst she and her cohorts continue to indulge themselves in moralising whilst flitting around in a carbon fuelled frenzy to preserve their riches. I don’t think yer average “Mate” is going to take too kindly to that. http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jciNle_Ah0_l2ymFPe-3UIX-5RFA?docId=CNG.0784d30f2c5679b8a39ba1b49e6192a6.411
Keith Minto and others worry about bias of Australia’s national broadcaster (the ABC).
All I can say is thank God the ABC exists, because without it we’d be left to the Murdoch media and commercial TV for our understanding of the world.
Wow, these guys are delusional… or idiots… Or both.
My favorite quote: “But conspiracy theories are very popular amongst any group that wants to deny a scientific consensus.”
As a scientist, if those conspiracy theories are testable and falsifiable then I’m all for them.
“So it’s this raising of fake experts, and that tactic has been used way back to the ’70s where the tobacco industry… ”
Recently 10 hard science (chemistry/science) Nobelists (and 7 others) signed a manifesto in support of AGW. That represents 3% of living hard science Nobelists, leaving 97% who declined to support AGW.
Note that Mr. Cook (http://oi51.tinypic.com/11jqcdj.jpg) is deeply invested in hippie Kool Aid:
“A sustainable society will require fairness (equity) and justice locally and globally.” – John Cook (“Climate Change Denial”, 2011).
“Preventing the collapse of human civilization requires nothing less than a wholesale transformation of dominant consumer culture.” – John Cook (“Climate Change Denial”, 2011).
“Just because there a professor of something denying climate change does not mean it is not true, it is just that the professor is in denial. This is why one must make use of the preponderance of evidence in science, the collective view.” – John Cook (“Climate Change Denial”, 2011).
“[Climate change] is the canary in the coal mine warning us of the toxic choke-damp (CO2) and the danger involved. It is a wake up call that denial is a dangerous element in the human psyche that can become a pathology. But climate change is truly an opportunity for us to get it right, to heal the damage our society, our numbers, our technology and our carbon fuels have done to the world. It is the change to abandon denial and accept reality, ethics and responsibility. It is a chance to move to a dream of Earth Repair, the Great Work of our time.” – John Cook (“Climate Change Denial”, 2011).
“We need to replace private consumption of goods with public consumption of services.” – John Cook (“Climate Change Denial”, 2011).
He’s a groupie of Paul Ehrlich who wrote the 60s book “The Population Bomb”. This is amusing to me since I grew up on The Whole Earth Catalog which was the hippie bible, and yet it was inspired by Bucky Fuller’s bashing of Malthusian claims that starvation was nigh due to resources not keeping up with population. So “who are these alarmists?,” I have recently asked myself, since I know first hand that they are not tree huggers. Cultism seems to be a pretty good description of the small players, but when academies of science are on board too, I really don’t grasp it all yet.
Spen says:
May 29, 2011 at 1:28 am
The difference between climate scientists and engineers is that the latter often bury there mistakes.>>>>
Oh let’s make no mistake about it. The engineer may attend the funerals of those who died on the collapsed bridge s/he designed, but if the world were dumb enough to implement the sharp curtailment of CO2 production demanded by the “mainstream” climate alarmascientists the number of deaths and people sentenced to a lifetime of poverty would dwarf anything an engineer could do (by mistake or on purpose).
http://www.skepticalscience.com/1500-year-natural-cycle.htm
Dan Pangburn has not been censored for discussing science that he disagrees with on skeptical science.
The execrable propagandist John Cook attacks the 31,000 reputable scientists who co-signed the following statement:
Who is John Cook to pass judgement on tens of thousands of scientists like Edward Teller and Freeman Dyson? Cook himself is a cartoonist, not a climate scientist.
And a comment about his overused derogatory term “deniers”: Cook and his purveyors of pseudo-science constantly denigrate scientific skeptics as ‘climate change deniers’. But that is mere psychological projection: imputing Cook’s own faults onto others. In fact, the believers in Michael Mann’s debunked Hockey Stick chart are the only ones who deny that the climate ever changed prior to the industrial revolution – no MWP, no LIA [the long shaft of Mann’s bogus hokey stick]. Scientific skeptics know that the climate always changes – naturally.
Mann’s falsified chart has been repudiated, even by the journal Nature. But that fact doesn’t matter to Cook and his fellow climate change denialists, who still pretend that there was no MWP or LIA. Their belief system in an unchanging climate prior to the industrial revolution is contrary to all of established science.
The truth is a stumbling block to Cook and his ilk. Open debate has falsified his belief system, and now censorship of the truth is his only recourse.
Robyn Williams says:
” Another is the use of fake experts or scientists who are not climate scientists.”
So it is much better to use fake experts or scientists who are climate scientists?
“The authors explore why, as the science firms, the public view, at least in Australia, is going the other way.”
I tend to agree that the science (the real science at least) is firming. Just not in favour of CAGW.
And after all their rhetoric, they yet again presented no scientific evidence for their cause.
Tim says:
May 29, 2011 at 1:54 am
This is perhaps the biggest obstacle to the truth getting out there. Virtually all Governments everywhere have jumped the global warming shark in a big way. That is why global warming seems impervious to reality — it has the full force of the corporo-government-media complex behind it. Finance ministers and treasury secretaries the world over have already spent the trillions they expected to harvest through taxes derived from the whole climate scare campaign. They can’t back out now or they will be ruined. Global warming is the cash cow governments have been dreaming of for years. It will not go easily. Europe has already burned through their climate change windfall, and are now looking to the west to save their sinking carbon free ship of state. This is all about money and power. Nothing more.
The whole “positive feedback throughout history” is codswallop. If there were poisitive feedbacks, the Earth would have rapidly gone real hot or real cold, not remain relatively stable as it is.
Of course this is really the worst cook book of all and since I truly expected this to be posted already but it hasn’t (so far), here goes:
(Skip ahead to minute 7:50)
“Skeptical” Science
“Real” Climate
Climate “Progress”
Pravda “Truth”
John Cook is such a hypocrite
He claims The Doran survey is proof of over 97% consensus among scientists on AGW
yet it refers to only 75 out of 77 scientists.
He feels 75 is an acceptable number to claim the consensus.
Yet when he trashes a skeptic survey he says this:
“32,000 Sounds Like A Lot
In fact, OISM signatories represent a tiny fraction (~0.3%) of all US science graduates (petition cards were only sent to individuals within the U.S)
According to figures from the US Department of Education Digest of Education Statistics: 2008, 10.6 million science graduates have gained qualifications consistent with the OISM polling criteria since the 1970-71 school year. 32,000 out of 10 million is not a very compelling figure, but a tiny minority – approximately 0.3 per cent.”
32,000 is a tiny fraction but
75 is a lot.
“You know, you’ve got a screen above and a screen below, one is the model showing weather patterns lines, streaming out according to the model, and the other one is the actual weather being shown from a satellite, and they are exactly the same. It’s quite remarkable. The models I think have been portrayed as being unsophisticated, bodgy, and computer crunching, in fantasyland, but in fact they are unbelievably exact, aren’t they.”
Yes, so exact that the MET office who run some of these models have dropped seasonal forecasts as they were so wrong the MET office was and is a laughing stock.
But aren’t nearly all newspapers in Oz on the warmist bandwagon?
John Cook: “So it’s this raising of fake experts, and that tactic has been used way back to the ’70s where the tobacco industry…”
Isn’t John Cook, by his definition, a fake expert himself? Maybe he should become a Greenpeace expert, they’re fake too.
Another Keith in Hobart: “I often point out that to produce a theory about climate change you have to be able to weave together many threads spanning many disciplines. eg Stats, computer modelling, geology, oceanography etc
“To break a theory all you need to do is break one link in the chain.
“If climate science relies on ‘chain links’ in my area of expertise they will have to be able to survive very close scrutiny. By an expert in that area.”
This is exceptionally well put. Just as in a criminal trial the prosecutors must prove (beyond a reasonable doubt) each element of a crime, the defense need only create doubt about one of those elements. To create a compelling case for AGW, one needs expertise in multiple disciplines. To refute it, one needs expertise in only one. If the chemistry is wrong, or the physics, or the math, or the computer model, or any other link in the chain is wrong, then the conclusion is, if not wrong, at least not proved. Superb point Another Ken.
A point related to another question brought up in this thread: What exactly is a “climate scientist?” And who decides? I am not a scientist at all. Indeed, I did not even stay at a Holiday Inn Express.
Here is what I do know: I am a lawyer. I can show you my law school transcripts and my passing bar score. So can millions of others. Big deal. But at least there is some more or less reasonable minimum threshold one must achieve to be called a lawyer. Where are the standards for these mystical “climate scientists” in whom I am supposed to put all of my faith and trust? As with so many arguments, the winning is in the definitions and assumptions, not the reason and logic. As far as I can discern, anyone with a science degree who believes in AGW is a “climate scientist,” and anyone who disputes it (regardless of credential) is not. How convenient.
And a second point: I know lots of lawyers who graduated from law school and passed the bar and they are still idiots. Treating climate scientists as if they are all created equal seems a dubious proposition at best. It brings to mind this old Joke:
Q. What do you call a doctor who graduated at the bottom of his class?
A. “Doctor.”
Until these jackwagons are willing to consider scrutiny from experts in all related fields, I will not be any more inclined to believe them (or fundamentally change my life) any more than I did for that Camping dude. (Is it May 21st yet?)
Sorry for the rant. Back to the real scientists . . . .
Poptech makes a claim about SkepticalScience: that the moderators there “shut down the point of debate” over objective criteria of who is or who isn’t a climate scientist. Poptech asked that exact question in a thread dedicated to him: http://www.skepticalscience.com/meet-the-denominator.html
When he asked the question in post 48, he was answered in post 99 and elsewhere. His claim of shutting down debate on that point is incorrect. He was censored during that thread, but mostly for making ad-hom accusations and other violations of their blog policy. I’ve had a couple posts removed there and although some weren’t explicit violations of their policy, they do not generally censor questions or comments unless they are off-topic, ad-hom etc.
While poptech has made a good effort and has added value in creating his list, he takes the criticism of it from skepticalscience partisans way too personally and thus doesn’t do a very good job defending it (not that many people could do better in that situation). He does a decent job with the research and list but not good at defending it. I believe that is because the list lacks the rigor to make it fully defendable.
Eric (skeptic),
Why don’t you try to post a link to this article and thread over at Skeptical Pseudo-Science?
And saying that Poptech “does a decent job with the research and list but not good at defending it. I believe that is because the list lacks the rigor to make it fully defendable” is such a vague claim that it is undefendable itself.
John Cook. Cartoonist:
http://www.cartoonebooks.com/author.php?authora=2
http://wiki.sev.com.au/About-Us
A cartoonist complaining that there are people unqualified to contribute to this debate? Taking pot shots at engineers?
Unbelievable.
Isn’t “Climate Science” largely a new field created for pushing the “Global Warming” propaganda? I’ll bet in the 60’s most Universities didn’t even have a “Climate Science” program. So if you are a “Climate Scientist” of course you believe in “Global Warming”.
John Cook;
So, for example, if you were going to get a heart operation, you wouldn’t want a mechanical engineer cutting into you, you would want somebody who was an expert on that.>>>
I’d want someone with demonstrable skills and a succesfull track record. Beyond that they could be a stone mason for all I care. Are there any “climate scientists” with demonstrable skills and a succesfull track record? And studies of the past don’t count. Track record is someone who made multiple predictions from 20 or 30 years ago that have come true based on documented science used to make them. Got one John? Just one? No? Not even one?
John Cook;
You know, you’ve got a screen above and a screen below, one is the model showing weather patterns lines, streaming out according to the model, and the other one is the actual weather being shown from a satellite, and they are exactly the same.>>>>
Which shows John that either you didn’t understand what you were looking, or if you did, you lied. Even the most strident modelers admit they don’t even get close to “exactly the same”, the IPCC admits that the best of the models they used in AR4 were still +/- 4 degrees. But no need to argue stats and so on, just ask the obvious question. If they are “exactly the same” how come tomorrow’s weather report is worded like “60% chance of rain”? You’d think with only 24 hours into the future to predict they could get either “it will rain” or “it won’t rain”. But they can’t anymore than they can tell you what the temperature will be in 30 years.
John Cook;
The models I think have been portrayed as being unsophisticated, bodgy, and computer crunching, in fantasyland, but in fact they are unbelievably exact, aren’t they.>>>
You can’t make them right by saying so. You have to have models that predict the future with any degree of accuracy. The IPCC used 19 models in AR4, none of which came within any reasonable agreement with any other single model, they were all over the map. On predicting the future, taking all the predictions of all the models from 5, 10, 20 years ago… it appears they are unsophisticated, bodgy, computer crunching in fantasy land, and no two of them come close to agreeing which hardly meets the criteria of “exact” let alone that none of them predicted the last 10 years of flat line and slightly cooling temps.
John Cook;
this proposition that negative feedback will cancel out the warming that we cause, it’s like a get out of jail free card. But the main argument against that is when we look back through Earth’s history, that has never happened before, there has always been positive feedbacks of amplified warming.>>>>
Is that like the get out of jail free card that the warmalarmists have where each time someone shows a given direct effect of C02 is over estimated they just bump up the positive feedback estimate to compensate? As for positive feebacks throughout history, could you find a single geologist or historian to back this up? Or perhaps you mispoke? What you meant is the history of the earth shows the positive EFFECTS of warming…
John Cook;
satellites and planes observe the heat coming from the Earth and escaping out to space, so they can compare what we simulate or what we expect with what is actually happening. So observations show that CO2 is causing warming… >>>
What they show is that what is escaping is not what we expected, that the hot spots we expected don’t exist, it is meaningless to measure what is escaping unless we also know what is coming in (which we don’t) and without which we’ve no idea what is cause, what is effect, and what the net change is. You might want to look up logarithmic at this point John, discover that any more CO2 beyond what we have right now is increasingly irrelevant according to both theory and observation…
This isn’t Monopoly Mr Cook, and there’s just no such thing as a “get out of jail free card” in the real world. Unfortunately, there is also no “go to jail, go directly to jail, do not pass go” card because there’s a long list of names pushing discredited and fraudulent poppycock dressed up as science at the expense of billions of honest hard working people who pay for their trumped bogus credentials and fake science experiments who richly deserve just that.
How easily some people are fooled, or dazzled by technology. I remember that clip. It was fairly short, had the camera jumping around but it seemed to have served its purpose. I remember watching the ‘weather pattern lines’ (or clouds as I think they’re known in the trade) diverging over Australia. I expect if the comparison sequence ran longer, it would have diverged more. I wouldn’t have called the videos ‘exactly the same’, but then as an engineer I guess I have a diffent understand of what an exact match is. Those were close enough for climate science I suppose.
Ironic that a cartoonist is setting himself as the arbiter of who is or is not “qualified ” to opine on the alarmist AGW hypothesis.
So we are alleging, Climate Change Denial: Heads in the Sand, eh?
Since the authors must be implying a definition of “climate change” meaning “CO2=CAGW”, I assume this whole book is about those who deny that there has been any climate change without “CO2=CAGW”? Apparently including the authors themselves?
So Cook feels I am not qualified to judge the utility of climatology as it applies to me and mine, Ok I agree as long as, I am also disqualified from having to contribute any money to fund the same and its insane policy offspring. Otherwise good luck with selling the CAWG Mr Cook. Or to quote Cheech& Chong, ” Good thing we didn’t step in it.”
To be fair to John Cook, from his website…..
I have some sympathy for that opinion. The ABC, like the BBC, played a role in creating a collective consciousness and informing and unifying the Nation. This is in its charter. Sometime in the 1970’s this seemed to change and the attitude it took was anti-authoritarian e.g. ‘This Day To-night’. Feminism was discussed frequently, Corporations were all bad even after the ABC was incorporated !. This anti-consensus approach turned 180deg for AGW, which is very odd given the past history.
The Board has a role to ‘ maintain independence and integrity and to ensure news and information programs are accurate and impartial’. Well, where is the Board now ? hiding under the table with Mark Scott ?
Certain programs like ‘Bush Telegraph’, aimed at country folk can be be brilliant. The presenter Michael Cathcart (ex Uni lecturer) really gave Mike Hulme rigorous questioning recently, but this program together with ‘Counterpoint’ are islands in a sea of AGW fawning consensus.
One day the ABC will adhere to its Charter.
I forgot to add that Patrick Cook is the cartoonist.
I’ve been locked out of that Skeptic non-Science site for posting links to peer reviewed papers contradicting the site owner’s nonsense.
I would have put myself in with the reported 97%. Indeed, I would be very surprised if anthropogenic CO2 had not warmed the planet. I expect the amount is very, very small, a mere fraction of what the alarmists claim, and I expect the future effects to be trivial as well. However, I am no denier, so in the tradition of climate science, please abuse the statistics!
“The authors say that they are doing a special parliamentary edition signed by two important Oz politicians, (John Hewson, Bob Carr), and seven climate scientists, to be sent to every federal member. The book also has a foreword by Naomi Oreskes”.
I really hope those two “important politicians” are going to be “cooked”… at the next elections
[Snip. Calling others the d-word violates site Policy. ~dbs, mod.]
I gave up on the Skeptical Science website after my replies (to criticisms of my opinions) were moderatively-edited down to zero characters for being irrrelevant. I came across most of the usual epithets, despite the code of conduct asking people not to insult each other.
One phrase I didn’t see was “Climate Infidels”, but I’m quite happy to be the first….
I don’t know Mr Cook but his statements are exactly what one would expect from a malignant narcissist. These people feel they *must* be right or it challenges their very existence. Psychological projection is rampant in their writings. Smokey called this one perfectly.
The continued reference to climate scientists is absolutely hilarious. All climate scientists do is take the hard work done in other field and try to collate it into something they can sell to a journal. There is NO real science being done. They don’t do radiation physics, nor thermodynamics, nor geology, nor oceanography, nor solar science, nor astronomy, nor biology, and they sure don’t do a very good job at statistics. They take the tough work done in other fields and use it. That’s why it’s so easy for skeptics to follow the science.
That Cook does not understand this simple truth shows how smart he isn’t.
R. de Haan
Both those politicians are ex politicians, Hewson because he didn’t know when a tax (GST) was actually levied, and Bob Carr an ex New South Wales State Labor premier, who was also tossed by his own side of politics.
This is Australian politics where the unlikely get into bed with each other and think they are being highly intelligent for their enlightened way of thinking (this week!!) could change of course next week, just like the weather here!
Hence the long suffering weariness of Australian voters who are sick of the inadequate response of both sides of politics in this country. With compulsory voting politicians know they only have to appeal to either the best organised minority as those noisy groups get the attention of the media, appeal to the made to vote -can’t care less individuals that will elect a government and then complain bitterly when it wrecks the economy when true agenda is revealed.
Then revenge or anger eventually removes that government. In that sort of “climate” the good old Australian white ants can munch away in the background destroying the fabric of the country much like normal termites do to timber frameworks of houses, which is exactly what is happening, hidden away in the background of this debate. We now the extreme intellectual University left wingers and their John Cooks and also the termites, the organised extreme left wing groups hiding among the Green agendas, groups like “Get-up” who are only now being revealed as classic “green on the outside, but raging red on the inside” well funded by both government taxpayer funded sources and funded out of compulsory levies in trade union organisations, even though, the end result may be the ultimate destruction of Australian Industry and jobs.
We live in interesting times, one day we might just wonder what happened to this “Lucky Country”of easy going friendly people, and it has absolutely nothing to do with saving our lifestyle or the planet for the betterment of our children’s children.
A wake up call for all.!!
davidmhoffer says:
May 29, 2011 at 10:16 am
“I’d want someone with demonstrable skills and a succesfull track record. Beyond that they could be a stone mason for all I care. Are there any “climate scientists” with demonstrable skills and a succesfull track record?”
How about Dr. Peltier?
http://www.atmosp.physics.utoronto.ca/~peltier/long-cv-peltier.pdf
Pretty well one of the smartest people on the planet. He supports AGW.
According to these guys neither James Hanson nor the late Stephen Schneider qualify as climate scientists. Hansen was an astronomer with the Pioneer Venus project in the seventies, even had an experiment on the spacecraft. But suddenly he quit the Pioneer project, didn’t even finish his experiment, and joined GISS in 1978. His reason: “The atmosphere of our home planet was changing before our eyes.” And three years later he was in charge. Looks like it wasn’t the atmosphere but promise of fast track to management that made him change. As to Schneider, he was simply a mechanical engineer, no training for climate science.
Here’s one of the “important” politicians, he’s placed a photo up at his blog
http://bobcarrblog.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/climate-change-denial-launch.jpg
Actually Bob Carr wasn’t so bad, especially with the hindsight of how those who replaced him performed.
I had to laugh at the picture though, where was it taken? Sure looks like a ‘grass roots’ effort.
No objective criteria was presented in post 99 just a dodge. I have never received a satisfactory answer on this and when pressed to present it, the moderators shut that discussion down.
Eric, please don’t come here and post lies about something you have no knowledge of. MANY of my posts were censored and had NOTHING to do with ad-hom accusations which are allowed by anyone who attacks me and the so called “violations” amount to whatever the moderators feel like. The skeptical science moderators censor whatever they feel like whenever they feel like it, especially when you are involved in debating them in a topic and prove them wrong. They cannot be embarrassed on their own forums so they censor you. I am now banned and cannot comment there.
I refuted every lie, misinformation and strawman argument made there. Dozens of my posts were censored so it appears I did not reply and thus did not defend my position.
Name one thing I have not defended.
The list is was not created to fit your personal opinion on climate change, this was explained to you when you brought it up.
Nothing pisses me off more than liars like Eric. It is one thing to disagree with me it is another to be dishonest about their censorship.
I cannot tell you how many times I have had comments censored at skeptical science and asked the moderators why. They said because I “violated the comment policy”. So I asked what part? No answer.
Other times I re-posted the EXACT same post that was censored and asked what part of it violated the comment policy, again no answer but this time the comment remained????
It is clear the moderators there abuse their powers to censor skeptics from commenting. They apply a double standard to alarmists who can ad-hominem at will.
It is a good scam going on over there as they state the propaganda that all of the posts that were censored “violated the comment policy” whether they did or not. Then they get people like Eric to go around and spread the big lie.
John Brookes says:
May 29, 2011 at 2:59 am
…And I say thank God for Murdoch, or there would never be two sides to a story.
Robyn Williams: …”and also went to a fascinating place where they are actually showing climate models in action. You know, you’ve got a screen above and a screen below, one is the model showing weather patterns lines, streaming out according to the model, and the other one is the actual weather being shown from a satellite, and they are exactly the same. It’s quite remarkable.”
Good grief! The man cannot possibly be that naive ? Or?
In case it hasn’t been linked, John Cook has just been allowed a blog at the Australian ABC:
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/2737050.html
The barrage of CAGWists in Australia is reaching a crescendo as the Greens-led (joke) Labor Government is attempting to push the carbon (sic) price (sic) on the unsuspecting Aussie public.
I maybe wrong but I thought Cook was NOT a climate scientist. If not then why does he not stop dispensing climate related information?
John Cook seems keen to promote hiself as a “physicist”. However, he seems to have done nothing more than study undergrad physics then become a cartoonist.
I suppose someone who wants to tells other who is and is not qualified to speak on these matters is right to keep his true background a little hush hush.
http://wiki.sev.com.au/About-Us
“A cartoonist working from home in Brisbane, Australia, John is currently juggling the tasks of taking care of his daughter Gaby, drawing new Sev Space cartoons, continually developing and programming the Sev Wide Web, developing a new cartoon series Terrible Twos, posting regular updates in his cricket blog as well as obsession about past and future Ashes series, dabbling in screenwriting, programming for PaperWeb Design and consequently getting nothing done!”
Dr. James Hansen is not a climate scientist. Al Gore, Nobel Prize winnner, is not a climate scientist. I won’t even talk about the railway engineer Pachauri, head of the IPCC. Though Pachauri is in cahoots with BIG OIL. Read….
http://www.glorioil.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7&Itemid=10
In the years to come Mr. Cook will have come to represent everything that is bad about climate science today. His sceptical faculties have been erased – something that is anti-scientific.
Bulldust;
The Oz gov only has to defeat and sideline science and the public. No worries!
Poptech, hello? Nothing frustrates moderators at Skeptical Science like what you did above, yammer twice with the same whine, the latter being simply ad hom and censor worthy. I didn’t lie about what they said, I pointed out that your question was not censored. Yes, you are right they dodged the answer, but that’s not what you posted at the start of this thread. I am not a “liar”, you should withdraw that.
You are not able to mount a rigorous defense of your list and the simple reason is that your list lacks rigor. It is a hodge podge of contradictory stuff, some very good, some junk. That is also true of the other side but that doesn’t give you a pass. You are shifting responsibility, accusing the other side of not defining climate science while quite obviously shredding the definition yourself. I suggest that you organize your list and flesh out coherent set of counterclaims to CAGW, organized around models, trends, paleo, etc. Each CAGW claim (e.g. hasn’t happened before) has dozens of papers debunking it.
You have a choice: you can yell and scream at me some more, call me a liar for pointing out facts. Or you can start to make a rigorous argument against the CAGW trolls at Skeptical Science and shut them down.
Concerning the eight investigation, two of the unidentified could be Norwich Police, who have still not concluded, and the Information Commissioner, who concluded there was prima facie evidence of a crime having been committed, but he was time limited by statute in pursuing it.
How does that square with “and each one found in favour of the scientists in terms of the scientific evidence”? Well, that’s climate science reporting for you.
Eric (skeptic), “Poptech, hello? Nothing frustrates moderators at Skeptical Science like what you did above, yammer twice with the same whine, the latter being simply ad hom and censor worthy. I didn’t lie about what they said, I pointed out that your question was not censored. Yes, you are right they dodged the answer, but that’s not what you posted at the start of this thread. I am not a “liar”, you should withdraw that.”
Sorry but that is not what I did and the censored posts were not “ad-hom and censor worthy” as I am very careful about how I phrased posts there.
Strawman, where did I say the question was censored?
You claim to magically know that my censored posts included ad-hominems or violated the comment policy – they didn’t. Their own moderators could not even answer why they were censored yet when they falsely state that they “violated the comment policy” you come over here and repeat the big lie. Pathetic.
Where does the list say “papers that only Eric (so-called skeptic) approves of?” No one gives a damn what you “think” is “junk”. Don’t you get it? No one cares about your personal opinion on the issue. Yet you seem to think everyone should.
What part of the list is a resource and not a unified theory do you not understand?
Where the hell did I shred the definition of “climate science”? I don’t define it anywhere let alone attempt to redefine it. What I am doing is stating an irrefutable fact – it is not possible to objectively define who is a “climate scientist”.
The list is organized, simple categories exist. It is a basic resource of peer-reviewed papers nothing more and does not claim to be. I already told you I am not interested in your useless suggestions of turning the list into one that is “Eric approved” – GET OVER IT.
You don’t point out facts, you repeat lies and propaganda. It is dishonest and you should know better.
Go make the rigorous argument! Go do it! Why aren’t you? The reason is because you have no intent to, you just baselessly attack someone who is spending an incredible amount of time compiling resources for real skeptics to use.
I know, I know people should listen to you because you are the “moderate” one, you are the “reasonable” one. I know this game, get someone who pretends to be a skeptic to seem “rational” so I will remove papers off the list. That is why you include the word (skeptic) in your name so people know you are a “skeptic”. It is a bunch of BS.
You don’t fool me with your BS though I am sure you think in your own mind you are fooling others.
[Please everyone, play nice. ~dbs, mod.]
Eric,
Name one thing I have not defended.
I am not interested in your subjective opinion on how good I did as you hold no such ability to judge this.
Eric,
Why am I not allowed to include papers you don’t approve of?
Why am I not allowed to include mutually exclusive papers and let the reader make up their own mind which is more convincing?
Should a reader of a paper ask your permission before they accept what is presented in a paper?
Who made you the deciderer on this issue?
I love the arrogance of people like Eric who believe they know what is best for everyone else.
Since Eric (“skeptic”) seems to know so much, please explain how some of my posts were censored for allegedly “violating the comment policy” yet when re-posted EXACTLY how they were the first time and asked how they violated the comment policy, not only did I got NO ANSWER, the post remained? Explain this to me.
Explain how a post that was allegedly full of “ad-hom and magical comment policy violations” remained posted a second time? Come on I want to read you deep and insightful “logic” on this issue. I want the “rational” and “moderate” answer only someone like you can provide.
All you need to know about Eric is the skeptical science moderators agreed with him that if I removed papers I would be making the list “better” and they are only trying to help as if they care about making the list better or “helping” – what a crock.
The reality is the size of the list is becoming a very big problem for them which is why I got blitzed with attacks when it reached over 900.
Tom Harley at May 28, 2011 at 11:39 pm
I greatly enjoyed your first link, or rather the video within it, and I repeat the source link for others here in case they did not bother to click this entertainment:
http://pindanpost.com/2011/05/29/climate-bubble-and-squeak/
However your second link did not work for me. Are you able to clean the latter?
Joseph at May 29, 2011 at 1:08 am
Sounds a bit masochistic to me.
Tim @ May 29, 2011 at 1:54 am
The chairman of the board, Maurice Newman, has critiqued ABC staff for “groupthink” on various matters including climate change. However, the editor-in-chief is the managing director, Mark Scott, whom appears to be unsympathetic to the views of the chairman. For instance, it was Mark Scott whom submitted on a complaint from Ross Garnaut resulting in retraction of a Kerry O’Brian report of the LIHIR Gold Coy dumping tailings into the sea, when Garnaut was LIHIR’s chairman.
“The reality is the size of the list is becoming a very big problem for them which is why I got blitzed with attacks when it reached over 900.”
No the size isn’t the problem. It’s the credibility. When authors of the papers themselves say you’re misinterpreting them but you refuse to budge its pretty clear evidence that you’re delusional in thinking this list deserves credibility.
Poptech, thanks for all the “clarifications”, but you demonstrate my point. If you simply sit back, think about what I wrote, and compose a clear organized response in one post, then you will have an analogy of what I would like you to do with your list.
Ultimately you said: “All you need to know about Eric is the skeptical science moderators agreed with him that if I removed papers I would be making the list “better” and they are only trying to help as if they care about making the list better or “helping” – what a crock.” You have every reason to be suspicious, SkepticalScience has a habit of divide and conquer, for example every natural factor will analyzed for correlation to some portion of warming (usually measured with GISS) and then dismissed. The few posts that have contain all factors are fudged up with aerosols or Grant Foster statistics.
In your thread at SS I first said http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?p=3&t=788&&n=571#39787 “The only skeptic papers worth arguing about, IMO, are those which acknowledge AGW and show low or no amplification or show that 2C or less in a century is manageable, or that give a broad perspective of drawbacks and benefits of CC. Those can be countered with specific arguments to the point where presuppositions, logic and conclusions can be compared.”
I agree that looks like I am trying to get you to “remove papers to make the list better”. I can’t argue my motives here, since I have no proof is this venue. So I ask you and others to read what I wrote subsequently in that thread: “My advice to Poptech is to categorize the papers by type of argument.” I don’t see any evidence of organization in the list http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html Is there another page for that?
I then said “I believe the urgent-action-required side could use categories like models showing sufficient warming to melt Greenland in century timescales or trends in catastrophic impacts or other CAGW arguments.” because we all know what the other side does, especially SS, is use the papers supporting AGW to give implicit support to CAGW, particularly their brand of CAGW. Note I gave my advice freely to both sides. Dana then agreed with me in post 132. He wanted you to apply filters without stipulating the same for Rob H’s list.
In my next post, where I complained about papers in your list that argue that N2 is a “greenhouse gas” you defended your organization and said my preferences were my taste, not objective. But that’s where I disagree. I do not believe it is possible to defend against the SS false logic that AGW=CAGW with papers that dispute AGW or even GW. If CAGW is wrong (which I believe it is), and AGW is basically correct (except for degree) then CAGW needs be challenged with benefits of CO2, benefits of warming, lack of catastrophic trends, lack of predictive ability of models (except GISS models to GISStemp, etc), previous equivalent and greater warming, etc.
You call that my own taste, but I believe it is objective: CAGW is wrong and this is why. Beck’s debunked CO2 measurements (as just one example) are not a reason why CAGW is wrong.
Robert:
At May 30, 2011 at 1:31 pm you assert:
“When authors of the papers themselves say you’re misinterpreting them but you refuse to budge its pretty clear evidence that you’re delusional in thinking this list deserves credibility.”
Nonsense!
The list is merely a set of references to peer reviewed papers that ‘skeptics’ may want to read and/or reference. The list does not represent or “misrepresent” the papers: how could it?
And, for the record, most of us who are authors of papers on that list have made no comment on the list. Indeed, this comment is about your assertion and not about the list.
Richard
Gekko, check the photographs please, there is no match.
Sounds like the chairman needs a new chief editor.
Edit note: “who”, not “whom”; that’s for objects of verbs, not subjects.
Brian H @ May 30, 2011 at 4:26 pm
Mark Scott, the Editor-in-Chief and MD of the ABC has apparently agreed to renew his second 5-year term effective July this year. Also, to be fair, the reason for getting the 7:30 report to retract and apologise for its research on LIHIR gold MIGHT (I WONDER) be related to a fear that Ross Garnaut is said to have deep pockets and a good deal of influence. It’s strange that shortly after the stink it was announced that the host, Kerry O’Brian, would move onto a different show.
Thanks for the grammar tip ‘who’ versus ‘whom‘. I tend to use whom before a verb cos it sounds posh, and six months ago, I couldn’t even spell ‘engineer’.
Poptech says:
May 29, 2011 at 9:45 pm
Nothing pisses me off more than liars like Eric. It is one thing to disagree with me it is another to be dishonest about their censorship.
I cannot tell you how many times I have had comments censored at skeptical science and asked the moderators why. They said because I “violated the comment policy”. So I asked what part? No answer.
Yep, got my comment there this morning censored:
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2011/05/31/cooking-the-books-snip-snip-go-the-censors-scissors/
Tallbloke, why did you do a screen capture after you made your “half-axxed” comment? Did you expect it to get deleted? I know I would which why I would not use that phrase there. You should know better than that.
Eric, I’ve read all your posts and I am not making an “Eric approved” list. What part of “GET OVER IT” Do you not understand?
These are your word, “The only skeptic papers worth arguing about, IMO” – that’s right in your opinion.
The list has nothing to do with defending against this. The list includes papers that support skeptic arguments against AGW and AGW Alarm. I am not removing those that support skeptic arguments against AGW because you prefer the latter. Both types are staying on the list.
Maybe you are blind but some basic categories exist,
An Inconvenient Truth:
Antarctica:
Arctic:
Clouds:
CO2 lags Temperature changes:
Coral Reefs:
Deaths:
Disease:
Droughts, Floods:
Ecological:
Glaciers:
Greenland:
Gulf Stream:
Hockey Stick:
Hurricanes:
Medieval Warm Period:
Roman Warm Period:
Natural Disasters:
Ocean Acidification:
Permafrost:
Polar Bears:
Sea Level:
Species Extinctions:
Storms:
Tornadoes:
Weather Stations:
Wildfires:
1,500-Year Climate Cycle:
Cosmic Rays:
Solar:
Climategate:
IPCC:
Kyoto Protocol:
Socio-Economic:
Stern Review:
Rebuttals to Published Papers:
ect…
The fact that you cannot even recognize what is subjective is all anyone needs to know. Your personal opinion on this issue is NOT objective.
poptech, I read the arguments for and against CO2 backradiation on a daily basis, and I don’t think that science (or any science) is completely settled. The weight of the evidence is that CO2 increases cause (some) warming. The evidence, such as vibration modes of CO2, IR absorption measured via satellite, etc is not my opinion, but fact. OTOH, a model with parameterized weather that “predicts” catastrophic warming is not evidence of anything, just complex speculation. Not attacking the weakness of catastrophic AGW is a strategic mistake. Attacking the strong points, such as the tie from high resolution ice cores to Mauna Loa measurements is pretty much doomed. I have never asked you to remove those papers as I explained above. But I did ask for proper labeling.
The consequence of the list in its current form is a lot of arguments made in fora whether the arguer cannot ultimately succeed because the arguments he uses are so easily debunked. Without saying, for example, Beck is debunked I end up arguing endlessly against people who are convinced that Mauna Loa is faked or ice cores are not high res enough or too smoothed (not true in Greenland), or warming of the oceans caused the 100 ppm increase (warming caused at most 10 ppm). It is possible that a lot of science will be overturned and make Beck’s measurements valid (although his own data is contradictory).
So while you may say that you don’t have time or it isn’t your job or it isn’t your fault if the list is misused, it is being misused and costing a tremendous amount of time (and ultimately credibility) on the side arguing against CAGW. There is no easy answer to this dilemma, just a lot more work for people like me.
Eric, I am well aware of your opinion on this issue, you have stated it multiple times. Various skeptics disagree with this position and that is their right. The papers that support their position are included on the list. This list was not made to make your life easier and I could careless if you believe it is making your life more difficult as it has NOTHING to do with you. The current form of the list has nothing to do with how someone uses it as that is an impossibility. People are free to use the information on it however they see fit as I have no control over anyone else’s actions and do not wish to control them like alarmists do. Again you opinion on this is just that.
For the 500th time I don’t care about your opinion about the list and nothing will ever be changed to make it “eric approved”. How many times do I have to say it?
The list is a resource period.
But when you look at all the names on the lists, about 99.9% of them are not climate scientists.
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Isn’t Mann an astronomer by training?
Mark;
Yes, there are very few “Climate Scientists” by degree specialty world-wide, and none on the Cru-Krew, or at Goddard, etc. The few prominent ones around like Lindzen and Ball are contemptuous of the “climatology” posers. And when they look at the borrowings of climatologists from their own specialties, so are virtually all other specialists, from physicists to programmers to modellers, etc., etc.
Only by inventing a degreeless sub-specialty and forming a tight clique have Phil & the Phakes contrived to present themselves as qualified experts. Second, third, and fourth-raters at the controls of a huge gravy train.
Just a note,
Phil Jones a Ph.d in Hydrology
Michael Mann a Ph.D. in Geology
Gavin Schmidt a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics
Pat Michaels a Ph.D. in Climatology
John Christy a Ph.D. in Atmospheric Science
Roy Spencer a Ph.D. in Meteorology
Richard Lindzen a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics
and Tim Ball a Ph.D. in Climatology
“Well actually, the petition lists only a minority of “inferior” engineers, other scientists, and medical doctors within the 31,000”
Cook didn’t say anything about them being “inferior”. That is just a petty smear.
JOhn H June 1, 2011 at 12:58 pm
I was being sarcastic. Did you read what he did say, implying (I think) that the 31,ooo did not include physicists and those with disciplines that are often the same as so-called climate scientists?