I laughed out loud when I read the press release. Romm just can’t stand the fact that we are in Washington, which he considers his turf, so he had to do something, anything. Heh. Gosh a conference call where he’ll diss “deniers”. How original, we get this 24/7 already. But at least there’s some legitimizing going on in the attacking of it. So thanks, Joe. See what Caruba says in the essay. – Anthony
Guest post by by Alan Caruba
In the words of Gandhi, āFirst they ignore you, then they mock you, then they fight you, then you win.ā
Thursday, June 30, will mark the beginning of the Sixth International Conference on Climate Change, sponsored by The Heartland Institute, a free market policy center headquartered in Chicago. The conference will be held in Washington, D.C., an appropriate location considering how much hot air emanates from Congress and the White House.
I attended the first conferences that took place in New York City, just across the river from where I live, so I was āthere at the beginningā for conferences that were, in the words of Gandhi, largely ignored by the mainstream media and subsequently mentioned but only as the object of mockery.
When, in 2009, emails exchanged between a handful of scientists who provided the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change with the most specious, deliberately duplicitous ādataā to prop up the āglobal warming” hoax were revealed, the whole house of cards began to collapse.
It has since been propped up by a bunch of media, political, and science dead-enders who had stacked their reputations on pulling off the great hoax of the modern era; that an infinitesimal amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphereā0.038 percentāwas causing the Earth to heat up, the seas to rise, and Minnie Mouse to announce she was pregnant.
The success of the forthcoming conference, however, has been blessed by the modern form of respect, a preemptory news release attacking it. The Center for American Progress issued a āpress call advisoryā titled āClimate Deniers Congregate in the Nationās Capital.ā
It began, āThe Heartland Institute, a conservative group funded by Exxon Mobil and Charles Kochā¦ā Whoa! Mr. Chairman, we rise to question why the Center for American Progress would engage in an outright lie? Answer: Thatās what progressives do because they are immune to the truth.
For the record, neither Exxon Mobil, nor Mr. Koch, has contributed to the cost of the conference. The former has not contributed to the Institute since 2006 and the Kochs have not sent any money in more than a decade.
But letās finish the Centerās opening sentence that characterized the conference as āboasting a full agenda of notable climate deniers.ā The term climate deniers has long been attached to any scientist, academic, politician, or commentator such as myself who had the temerity to point out that every single claim made on behalf of āglobal warmingā was pure horse-hockey.
Since 1998 we have been discussing the new climate cycle, a COOLING one!
The Center for American Progress sought to make light of the conferencesā theme, āRestoring the Scientific Method.ā And a damn fine theme it is considering the damage to the entire scientific community that, prior to the global warming hoax, was not famous for deciding what the truth was by āconsensus.ā
Real science still depends on peer review and the thorough testing of a hypothesis until it can no longer be disputed because it is reproducible. You can say the Earth is flat until you are blue in the face, but it is still round. The āwarmistsā, however, did everything they could to short-circuit this rigorous process.
The Center for American Progress is concerned that the forthcoming conference asserts that āglobal warming is not a crisisā and it will be devoted to āending global warming alarmismā and ādisputing that global warming is man-made.ā
Would someone please tell the Center that the Earth is now more than a decade into a perfectly natural cooling cycle and that mankind does not control the sun, the oceans, the clouds, the volcanoes, or any climate event? Whenever a tsunami, blizzard, or tornado occurs, Mother Natureās advice to mankind is āGet out of the way!ā
Since I am loath to travel further these days than the Bagel Chateau one town over from where I reside, I shall be watching the conference on streaming video, June 30 to July 1. It should be noted that, in addition to a roster of some of the worldās most respected climate scientists who will make presentations, the Institute has routinely invited some of the most prominent alarmistsāwarmistsāto participate.
A recent Forbes article noted that āa virtual Whoās Who of global warming media houndsā had been invited to participate in the conferences over the years. Conference coordinator, James Taylor, the Instituteās senior fellow for environment policy, said that Al Gore, James Hansen, Michael Mann and others āall seem to have some sort of scheduling conflict whenever they have to share the stage with a scientist who will be challenging their evidence.ā
Meanwhile, the egregiously misnamed Center for American Progress will hold a conference call on Wednesday to launch an attack on the conference. No longer ignored or mocked, the Heartland Institute and its conference are clearly on the winning side.
Funeral ceremonies for āglobal warmingā will follow with the mourners all wearing green.
Weird. The phone number and conference call ID are listed. Will someone at the meeting call in an listen? Would it be legal to for a 3rd party record the call in DC?
So if it is all just good science why not release Heartland funding sources? If there is no follow the money issue why not just open up the books?
REPLY: Ask the Center for American Progress the same question, and you’ll be making a fair argument. And please note, Greenpeace has also taken funding from Exxon-Mobil, so let he who is without sin cast the first stone.
From CAP’s Wikipedia page: Some open government groups, such as the Sunlight Foundation and the Campaign Legal Center, criticize the Center’s failure to disclose its contributors, particularly since it is so influential in appointments to the Obama administration.[16][17]
The Center for American Progress is classified as a 501(c)(3) organization under U.S. Internal Revenue Code. The institute receives approximately $25 million per year in funding from a variety of sources, including individuals, foundations, and corporations, but it declines to release any information on the sources of its funding. No funders are listed on its website or in its Annual Report. From 2003 to 2007, the center received about $15 million in grants from 58 foundations. Major individual donors include George Soros, Peter Lewis, Steve Bing, and Herb and Marion Sandler. The Center receives undisclosed sums from corporate donors.[19]
Your complaint is denied. Take a 24 hour timeout for excessive thread trolling – Anthony
Moderate Republican
We will release our money records when every green environmentalist release their money laundering list and not one moment before. Nevertheless, dispute the science – that is if one of your AGW junk science charlatans ever finds the nerve to show up and be questioned by their peers. I say – let the games begin. We’re there armed and loaded – the question is where are your magicians? You really want to prove us wrong? Well – here’s the place to prove us wrong and break us forever. Or are your side to afraid to show up?
@Moderate Republican, your moniker is suspicious. Most taxpayers, including this centrist Republican, would rather ANYBODY other than ourselves fund warming/cooling/Little Ice Age/whatever science. Why do warmists always want to shoot the messenger?
Moderate Republican says:
June 27, 2011 at 8:10 pm
So if it is all just good science why not release Heartland funding sources? If there is no follow the money issue why not just open up the books?
__________________________________________________
How about revealing the funding sources for your side of the fence?
Oh, that’s right, a lot of the CAGW funding sources have already been published here, but you pooh- poohed them and tried to divert attention from them, as you always do.
You can’t win the argument on scientific merit, so you mock those who oppose you.
Again, I ask you: if you have data supporting your climate- change position, then let’s see the links.
You’re all about openness and honesty, let’s see them!
Lol, the center for american progress is a massive globalist think tank. Their name is actually opposite to their goals.
lucia says: June 27, 2011 at 7:49 pm
————-
According to the press release, they have already made plans to record the call and everyone must agree to be recorded. Here is their statement,
With this wording already in place, why would it be illegal to do what they have already announced that they are doing?? (wink, wink)
Good luck.
PS. I’ll be calling in to listen also.
“Moderate Republican” says: June 27, 2011 at 8:10 pm
———————————
Dear “Moderate Republican”,
As I am an actual Republican and being somewhat moderate in my views, I would humbly ask that you change your moniker. You are giving actual moderate Republicans a bad name. (No not really! Most of the regulars here know that you are actually a liberal, but that is beside the point.)
In the spirit of the truth in advertising act (and plain simple honesty), please stop trying to pretend to be something you are not. We would have a lot more respect for you and your actual ideas if you were at least honest with your name. Otherwise, we can only assume that you are just out to bash those moderate Republicans with whom you disagree.
Please consider this in peace.
When you have no rebuttal, attack the messenger, not the message.
How retro. A contest to see how many progressives can fit in a phone booth.
===============
Double Heh, next, how many people can fit in a Voltswagen.
==================
Excellent post by Mr. Caruba. The hallmarks of climate fear science are stark and clear for all to see. Hidden data and analysis preluding independent scientific replication of results violating the most fundamental principle of the scientific process. Failure to comply with Freedom of Information Act requests for data and analysis furthering the dishonest and deceitful act of concealment. “Pal” review instead of “peer” review in support of climate fear study (with of course unavailable data and analysis) publications while deliberately side tracking and delaying any study not preaching the unscientific orthodoxy of CAGW. Complete lack of transparency in IPCC proceedings with no regard for conflict of interest violations which bias the process of objective selection of studies ensuring only CAGW viewpoints are allowed. This lack of transparency is overlooked and ignored by much of the main stream media who act as co-conspirators in the schemes designed to push nothing but climate fear political ideology in the absence of any objective scientific basis (complete lack of scientific replication). The use almost exclusively of pure conjecture in framing arguments for CAGW without any scientifically supportable data and analysis. This is most markedly demonstrated by the constant shifting of positions as real world events destroy prior positions including “snowless winters (which failed to happen)” followed by “greater winter snows” due to increased global water vapor even though global water vapor levels have been in decline since the 1950’s, climbing global temperatures (which are not happening despite greatest ever levels of CO2 emissions) followed by any change in weather is extreme and on and on always presented of course via conjecture and hand waving arguments. This is just a short list of the scientific abuses, deception, deceit, political manipulation and just plain underhanded behavior representing the legacy and hallmarks of climate fear science and scientists. Just a note to “moderate Republican” – choosing to hide your identity from view puts you in good company with the climate fear scientists who hide their data and analysis because they know their work cannot survive in the light of day. The end of climate fear global tyranny is fast approaching. The house of cards underlying this fraud is collapsing.
i’d like to see the Sierra Club’s(?) funding list because rumor has it that about 10 years ago they stopped complaining about illegal immigration and haven’t uttered a peep on the subject since, because they got a huge grant from some anonymous donor who insisted they change their stance on illegal immigration 180 degrees….
what say you, “moderate” republican…
This may be OT but this thread seems to have a bit of political basis to it. Happy to be snipped if it’s inappropriate.
The number one alarmist newspaper in Australia (The Age) is running an on-line survey. The question is “Should tackling Climate Change be a priority for Australia?”. Currently the No vote is winning but it’s very close because the alarmists are better organised. Anybody who would like to vote No would be helping the cause in a big way. If this vote goes against the alarmists then they will have lost the last piece of support they have in Australia. Every other poll is against them, if they can’t win a poll in their own newspaper it’ll be all over. If that happens then it’ll put even more pressure on the government who are in desperate trouble already.
http://www.theage.com.au scroll down to the bottom of the page, look under “Most Voted”
Thanks for your post Allen.
I had look at their web site and what an eye-opener.
Eight of the more than one hundred experts in the organization are so-called climate change experts.
Given their degrees and working backgrounds, they sound more like a group of political and media strategists. No science backgrounds.
To think, there are thousands of similar organizations out there employing tens of thousands of well paid employees.
I trust the day will soon come when the goose called carbon dioxide becomes the dead parrot of the climate world. No more golden eggs for these folks.
May the up-coming conference see a few more feathers plucked.
Eh? Anthony took away one of our chew toys? No matter, I’m sure another will pop by sooner or later. The funding question is an interesting dynamic in this greater discussion. I’ve tried several times, but I guess I won’t make much head-way with this concept. Oil companies don’t care about this climate discussion other than the fact that it gives them more opportunities to make more money.
Somehow, people think the laws we pass here effects their bottom line. It doesn’t really. For example, did you see their reaction to the moratorium on off-shore drilling Obama put on our part of the gulf? They picked up stakes and found other places to drill. Sure, it cost them a few $million to do so, but they know they’ll make that up just as soon as some speculator realizes there’s a dip in production. And they did. (This isn’t tricky math or rocket science.) Conoco actually helped set up the carbon market for the EU! I used to post the link showing the oil companies bragging about their participation in all of this….(it was probably an inside joke with them laughing at the alarmists all the way to the bank)
I’m not even going into the mindset necessary to desire to punish every successful industry this nation has ever seen. It boggles my mind.
It seems the alarmists repeated failure to engage can be put down to their increasingly desperate attempts to hide the decline in their credibility.
“…..pulling off the great hoax of the modern era; that an infinitesimal amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphereā0.038 percentāwas causing the Earth to heat up,…”
While I agree that CAP does seem to be an extremely dishonest organisation, populated by agit prop specialists and hard line believers, I wish some on the sceptical side could ditch some of the really poor arguments e.g. “it’s only a tiny little bit of CO2, how could it have any effect on anything” meme. While the effects are, I believe, being grossly overestimated by the true believers, using the small relative concentration of CO2 by itself as an argument is a fundamentally poor argument. For an analogy, 0.038% is about the same concentration you would get from tipping a 44 gallon drum of black ink into an olympic size swimming pool. Anyone like to bet that the transparency of the pool to white light would not change fairly strongly?
Let’s stop giving the alarmists free kicks. One of their main tactics for maintaining even a shred of credibility with is arguing against the weakest arguments put forward by the sceptic side, while studiously avoiding the sound criticisms.
heh heh heh – odds are that “moderate republican” is good old Tailgunner Joe himself!!!
(you know he googles his own name every 5 minutes)
I’m a climate denier! I deny there is a climate!
Of all the propaganda and labelling, this one genuinely has me scratching my head. What on earth does it mean?
Minor quibble with Caruba:
“Real science still depends on peer review and the thorough testing of a hypothesis until it can no longer be disputed because it is reproducible.”
In fact the formal process of peer review has been broken in most areas of science for a long time. Crimatologists are nothing special in this regard, except that they lost the sense of honor and took full advantage of Pal Review. Most other areas are still honorable.
The vast majority of “publications” are LPUs (Least Publishable Units) because you have to publish a certain number of times per year to reach tenure and then keep your prestige. LPUs never include a new discovery, so they’re not worth the trouble of testing and reproducing.
Real science with real discoveries now happens mainly outside the formal process, through personal communication and web postings.
Great analogy Jimbo W.
A 44 gallon drum of black ink and 0.038% (from all sources) of a colourless, odourless, tasteless trace gas exhaled by us all and essential to all plant and animal life. Certainly makes the more common comparison between apples and oranges “pale” into insignificance!
Very few argue CO2 doesn’t have some small often localised effect, but that’s a far cry from seeing the even tinier fraction that can be laid at the feet of humans as a main driver of alleged possible runaway catastrophic global warming.
Moderate Republican
Judith Curry has already covered this extensively. Please have a read here:
http://judithcurry.com/2011/02/14/blame-on-heartland-cato-marshall-etc/
āboasting a full agenda of notable climate deniers.ā – oops they have invoked Godwin’s law here and their argument holds no weight
KV,
CO2 isn’t colourless in some IR bands, which is the thing of relevance when the case is being made for it causing warming (which it indesputably does). The relevance of it being odourless, essential to plant life, exhaled by all of us etc. evades me for the purposes of the warming argument. perhaps you can enlighten me?
From your second paragraph, it appears that you are using one of the other arguments which makes me, as a sceptic, embarrassed to say so, the old one about the rapid and ongoing increase in CO2 levels over the last century not being mainly down to us burning fossil fuels. That’s another totally unnecessary free kick for the other side. Why can’t we just stick to sensible stuff like the hockey stick fraud, the totally unjustified assumption that water vapour and clouds will be net positive rather than negative feed backs etc? It’s not like we don’t have sufficient other ammo.
Mod: In the 6th paragraph you write “dead-enders who had stacked their reputations”
Don’t you mean “staked their reputation”?
Hey MR, there’s a reason why you attack the messenger rather than dealing with the science.
Four ounces of swimming pool dye is enough to change the color of a 20,000 gallon pool. I think 55 gallons of ink would be overkill! The swimming pool dye does filter out of the system in about a week. I’m not sure about the ink, but I wouldn’t dump it in my pool. I guess that’s kind of analogous to CO2 being filtered/absorbed into the biosphere and eventually sequestered in carbonaceous rocks. There are still plenty of unanswered questions about that process. How the earth works as a “filter” is big question and the science certainly isn’t settled.
James Sexton says:
June 27, 2011 at 11:05 pm
Last time MR was given a time out, MR’s brother started posting, asking us why we were so mean to MR. Oddly enough, the brother posted from the same IP address.
The Center for American Communist Progress seem to employ all types of socialists from the far left socialists to the moderate republicans, err socialists on the wrong side of right to the left.
What you want to do is, collect their numbers, reprogram you phones to have them redirect incoming calls to someone that is more cranky about prank calls from communists than even the director of FBI, yes that’s right, the head janitor of the CIA.
The reason that alarmists won’t hold debates with skeptics is that the skeptics would win. It’s that simple.
If John Q Public sees a skeptic poke a hole in an alarmist argument he thinks the alarmist must have thought of that so he gives the alarmist the benefit of the doubt.
When the spokesman for the alarmists has no rebuttal that makes sense John Q looses faith in the alarmist position.
Despite 5 years of asking I have never discovered why if CO2 followed temperature by 800 years alarmists think it caused significant warming.
CO2 is a GHG and CO2 was there so it MUST have caused warming but was it .01 Ā° C or .001 or .0001 Ā° C ? Without measurements alarmists cannot talk about the subject intelligently. No measurements are possible or else they would take ice core samples for the last 120 years and tell us how much warming CO2 caused during that period.
This gaping hole in the CAGW argument caused my first skepticism.
JimboW says:
June 27, 2011 at 11:35 pm
For an analogy, 0.038% is about the same concentration you would get from tipping a 44 gallon drum of black ink into an olympic size swimming pool. Anyone like to bet that the transparency of the pool to white light would not change fairly strongly?
Bad analogy, JimboW, for two reasons: 1) The light-blocking effect of the ink would, presumably, have a linear relationship, whereas the warming effect of C02 appears to be pretty much logarithmic, and 2) black ink would accurately be described as a pollutant, whereas calling C02 one is incorrect.
Letās stop giving the alarmists free kicks.
Yes, let’s.
The author writes:
“Funeral ceremonies for āglobal warmingā will follow with the mourners all wearing green.”
I hope that it is not that tasteless green that the Greens wear. It should be a dark green suggesting black.
Attending a funeral ceremony for “global warming” could be greatly rewarding. There could be great speeches about the achievements of Al Gore, Joe Romm, and others. We could watch Joe Romm turn ever redder until he finally explodes before our eyes. All the Warmista media personalities could pontificate tearfully. Not an event to be missed.
“JimboW says:
June 27, 2011 at 11:35 pm”
Bad analogy. Human contribution is only ~3% of that 44 gallon drum of ink in the pool.
JimboW says:
June 27, 2011 at 11:35 pm
For an analogy, 0.038% is about the same concentration you would get from tipping a 44 gallon drum of black ink into an olympic size swimming pool. Anyone like to bet that the transparency of the pool to white light would not change fairly strongly?
——————–
I appreciate what you’re saying, but this is a really poor analogy. We’re not increasing the amount of CO2 from 0% to
0.038%. Actually, I’m not sure it would have a big difference when mixed up, even if starting with a 0% concentration of ink. So it would be interesting to find out. Which would be better, through experimentation and observation or by creating an expensive computer model to predict it? Perhaps it wasn’t a bad analogy after all? š
I actually think pointing out the numbers in these terms is a good way of bringing people round to our point of view. There’s that much people who don’t look into it don’t have a clue and if asked would probably put a much higher number on it. I beleive there was a poll that asked this question and many people where way off. Then if you look at CO2 levels on a geological scale and how they have been much higher etc. people start to question things.
Bruce Cobb says:
June 28, 2011 at 6:11 am
“Bad analogy, JimboW, for two reasons: 1) The light-blocking effect of the ink would, presumably, have a linear relationship, ”
I don’t think so. Imagine a number of light-blocking black particles randomly distributed in the pool; and imagine how much more light they would block if their number doubled, doubled again, etc. As the number of particles grows, they would more and more frequently stand in each others way from your point of view. So the”blackness” must grow logarithmically.
A better analogy than black ink in a swimming pool would be fog that becomes denser and denser; as fog, like CO2, re-emits the light it receives. (This is why Dessler’s favorite term “heat-trapping gases” is not describing the phenomenon very well, to be polite).
From the Press Call,
The conference will begin with Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), who declared that global warming is āthe greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American peopleā in 2003 and described it as āhysteriaā in 2008. Sen. Inhofe continues disputing the science, backing legislation that would strip the EPA of their authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and ignoring the extreme storms, flooding, droughts, and rising sea levels that the world has been experiencing.
And they say this like it’s wrong?
The left and right are just the different faces of the same coin. They are both one and the same group working in a circular motion from the “liberal” and “conservative” sides of a circle and the plan is to meet at the same point. People who refuse to see this happily battle their opponents’ side while the shepherds are winking and nodding and exchanging notes about the simplicity of fooling the divided masses.
Perhaps “Moderate Republican” will release all of (his/her/it’s) funding sources…
Since they realize climate zones have not changed one iota and temperature rise is well within the natural weather pattern variations historically observed within these climate zones, they will have to fall back on weather events. They accuse Inhofe of “…backing legislation that would strip the EPA of their authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and ignoring the extreme storms, flooding, droughts, and rising sea levels that the world has been experiencing.”
If they play that hand, they will lose. Why? The role anthropogenic CO2 plays in weather events cannot be established and their theory is nothing but pure conjecture.
They have just cut off their nose to spite their face.
Coincidence or conspiracy? Romm’s name is also an acronym for Risk Of Material Misstatement. Heh.
Mods: IMO, The entry of MR has significantly lowered the quality of discussion on this blog. While I welcome intelligent debate, (and have seen plenty here), the incessant repetition of stuff that has been gone over, debated, debunked and refuted previously is downright annoying.
While it may be educational for some to see this behavior, it is quite tiring to me.
For the first time since I started reading WUWT, I am NOT checking the “Notify me of follow-up” option.
It is good to see that some are willing to discuss ALL the issues, whether they like them or not. I thought that was the way science was supposed to work – until Climategate taught me differently.
The Centre for American Progress – Progressing America to become a land
that is Strong, Just and Freeof Aristocrats, Enforcers, and Serfs.In the face of unwarranted nit-picking,I feel it necessary to write to support JimboW.
Regardless of how good/bad an analog black-ink-in-swimming-pool is for CO2-in-atmosphere,he quite correctly asserts the stupidity of voicing a dismissal of CO2 purely on it’s diminutive atmospheric concentration.
Is Romm masquerading as this “Moderate Republican” guy?? Sure seems like it.
KV,
CO2 is not colourless in some IR bands, which is the point of relevance and why it does, ceteris paribus, cause warming. The relevance of it being odourless, exhaled by all, essential to plant life etc. is not clear to me. Perhaps you can enlighten me.
From your second paragraph I see that you seem to be keen on giving the other side some more free kicks, with the old “it’s just a coincidence that CO2 has skyrocketed since we started burning all that fossil fuel. The rise in CO2 ain’t us” line. Why can’t we remain focussed on real stuff, like the hockey stick fraud, the totally unjustified assumption that water vapour / clouds come out as a net positive rather than negative feed back, the failure of models to match observations over the last decade etc. Its not like we don’t have enough good stuff to go with, without looking for skydragons to slay.
Bruce Cobb,
“…The light-blocking effect of the ink would, presumably, have a linear relationship…”. You clearly have no idea what you are talking about, and I’m not wasting time to explain it to you, beyond suggesting the concept of “saturation” might be useful if you want to put in the work.
“…black ink would accurately be described as a pollutant, whereas calling C02 one is incorrect…”. OK, you have clearly missed the entire point of the analogy. Lets replace that nasty black ink with a health giving red ink, which does nothing but benefricial effects on anyone and anything which comes in contact with it. The only point relevant to the CO2 analogy is the redness of the pool, not its other side-effects. Understand?
Your “point” was the equivalent of that made by someone who, when asked for a survival strategy after a hypothetical plane crash in Amazon, answers by saying they wouldn’t be in a plane over the Amazon. Probably true, but utterly irrelevant.
I don’t know why anyone gives a rodent’s posterior about MR and his basement pal. Ignore them; both are beneath contempt
CenteR for American Progress = CRAP
Works for me.
You ask:
Oh, they read every word of your article and every reply by us contributors. The problem is, they’re so imbued with falsehoods they wouldn’t know sunshine from shinola. They’ve spent their professional careers distorting so many facts and so much logic they probably don’t know the difference anymore–why, they’re so bent they probably couldn’t sit up straight in their chairs without considerable pain. I’m betting once they eventually figure out the earth is cooling, we’ll hear a new meme–that the Earth is Cooling! Even so, it will be our fault; humans will be the cause–Yup, the big Climate Change Roller Coaster is all your fault and mine. They must have SOMETHING to stay in the game; somebody’s got to shoulder the blame!
JimboW says:
Would there be much difference between tipping a 33-gallon drum of black ink vs a 44-gallon drum of black ink into your OSSP? If you had to visually spot a small submerged object in the deep end of the pool, would it make your chances any more likely? I doubt it.
Be careful of both your math in that example, AND of the “lesson learned” from that example.
The volume of an Olympic varies depending on the source, but most list between 660,000 and 660,430 gallons of water. (US gallons.) .038 percent (more accurately, 395 ppm or 395/1,000,000 x 660,000 gallons will be 250 gallons of “ink.”
BUT – big BUT here!!! – the impact of today’s CO2 changes is NOT “adding 250 gallons of ink to an Olympic sized pool.”
Rather, it is trying to measure the difference between having added 280 gallons of water one hundred years ago, and then adding another 100 gallons this year. While six swim teams are practicing their turns in the shallow end and two dive teams are judging belly-flops in the deep end.
racookpe1978
Mea culpa. I certainly used an overly rough approximation, and just took the Olypmic swimming pool to be roughly 1,000,000 litres (a common, but apparently rather wrong comparison we often use in the water debate in Australia when trying to convey how big a megalitre is). I was looking for something more easily imagined than “emptying 380L of dye into a 1,000,000L pool”. My bad.
I couldn’t agree more about all the complexity you cite, but my beef is with the stupidity of the “a little bit can’t poassibly hurt” angle.
RockyRoad
I’ve hopefully correctly applied the Beer-Lambert law, and come up with the following: An object just visible at 0.6m depth in the 33 gallon solution, would need to come up to 0.51m depth to be visible in the 44 gallon solution. A 20% difference is pretty substantial (and far in excess of any change in overall radiative forcing being claimed by anyone from our additions of CO2). Again, this is missing my main point, i.e. how about we stick to the really good arguments, of which we have a rich selection, rather than giving away opportunities for ridicule?
Correction to response to Rocky Road,
I misapplied the formula. The same object viewed at the same depth should be around 18% brighter in the 33 gallon solution.
Small quibble. When you flame them for opening with a lie, you are not quite telling the truth. They do actually say in their article “in past years” when referring to the exxon and koche funding. I find the whole funding thing a bit tiresome really, but you are wrong in accusing them of lying. Great artixle otherwise, and keep at it.
Allan