Guest Post by Ira Glickstein
Seinfeld fans will remember how proud Kramer was when he thought he had slipped one past the goalie. Well, I’ve managed to slip a few comments onto RealClimate’s discusion of the Times Atlas “Greenland Meltdown” fiasco.
Those of us who have followed the story here on WUWT (1, 2, 3, 4) know the basic facts. (1) The 13th edition of the Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World was published this past September, (2) The Atlas includes a misleading map of Greenland ice cover, (3) Publicity for the Atlas hyped a non-existent 15% meltdown in Greenland, (4) The Atlas has withdrawn the bogus claim, and (5) They will create a corrective insert for the Atlas and make it available online.
RC’s 08 November 2011 post on this issue Times Atlas map of Greenland to be corrected, said the original claims were “rather bizarre” but -amazingly to me- they did not not mention that the error was in the direction of excessive warming. Comment #1, by a seemingly misled RC reader, blames the error on the fact that “Harper Collins is owned by Rupert Murdoch.” The RC moderator cautions against personal attacks, and notes that such a claim wouldn’t make any sense, but he does not acknowledge why – because the error was in the Warmist direction!
To be fair, RC did include a link to another posting that, after a bunch of Warmist hype, is pretty clear on the direction of the original error. However, that link was misleadingly titled “Greenland Meltdown” (since changed to “reported earlier”).
So I posted my first-ever comment to RC, and they published it, in an edited manner that partly reverses my point, as follows:
(Comment #7) Ira Glickstein says: 8 Nov 2011 at 4:54 PM
Thanks for reporting “… the first edition was completely in error, and led to some rather bizarre claims about the amount of ice loss in Greenland.”
However, you do not
acknowledgereiterate the direction of the error, which was to report an impossible, way overstated 15% ice loss.An interested reader would have to follow your link to the
misleadinglybrilliantly, amusingly and accurately titled Greenland Meltdown to learn that: “…, the large exaggeration of that loss rate by Harper Collins in the press release for the 2011 edition of the Times Atlas was of course completely wrong. … the confusion came most likely from a confusion in definitions of what is the permanent ice sheet, and what are glaciers, with the ‘glaciers’ being either dropped from the Atlas entirely or colored brown (instead of white) … there is simply no measure — neither thickness nor areal extent — by which Greenland can be said to have lost 15 % of its ice.[Response: edits in italics 😉 –eric]
Well, an attentive RC commenter followed the link from my name to my personal blog, and from there learned I am a “guest contributor to the denialist disinformation blog WUWT”. I thought that might end my new career as a commenter at RC, but the Moderator passed my second comment (# 12), unedited, even though I challenged the use of “denialist” with respect to WUWT, and included five WUWT links to my “Visualizing the ‘Greenhouse’ Effect” series to prove that we skeptics accept the basic science. Perhaps the comment was passed because I also approvingly quoted James Hansen on the Carbon Tax.
My third comment (# 22) was also passed unedited, but the Moderator said my claim that “despite the steady rise in CO2 over the past decade, there has been no statistically significant mean warming” was “simply false”.
My fourth comment (#31) explained what “statistically significant” means (less than a 5% chance it is wrong), and noted that Phil Jones, head of the Climategate Research Unit said as much in his well-publicized BBC interview. The RC Moderator cut my Climategate jibe, but passed the rest unedited. Further discussion has been shunted over to RC’s Open Thread sidelines, where I am attempting to continue it.
The point of this posting is that, whatever the difficulties, it is possible for skeptics to post over at RC, so long as we are not too blatant about it, and if we are not too sensitive about our words being edited.
The WUWT links in my comments have generated some traffic back here, which is evidence some RC readers are open to reasonable discussion. I urge my fellow skeptics to open-handedly accept this opportunity.
It might be a surprise to American readers but the News International companies in the UK, such as The Times, Sky News, and HarperCollins are quite firmly in the believers camp on the AGW issue. This could be connected to the fact that the executive chairman of News International, James Murdoch, is married to Kathryn Hufschmid who works for the Clinton Climate Initiative. Therefore the comment that the error may have been a result of HarperCollins being under pressure from a Murdoch could have been correct.
I understand the point you are making but simply don’t trust them, so I’m afraid I won’t be joining in. They are run by professional PR wonks who are skilled at misrepresentation.
I don’t waste my time over at RC any more, they proved themselves to be nasty people in my book so I stay away. Much prefer informative blogs where I actually learn something new (like Bob Tisdales stuff and of course WUWT).
BTW – not to mention Willis 😉 as entertaining education would be a mistake.
“and included five WUWT links to my “Visualizing the ‘Greenhouse’ Effect” series to prove that we skeptics accept the basic science.”
Real sceptics do not accept the basic science. CO2 does not somehow magically create additional energy after it leaves earth as many so called sceptics claim.
You are a warmist but not an alarmist. You accept the basic implausible pseudo science but just challenge the extent of warming.
[Using multiple screen names violate site Policy. ~dbs, mod.]
Why bother posting on RealCensorship when you know you will be denounced and black-listed.
James Reid says:
November 13, 2011 at 2:15 pm
“I don’t waste my time over at RC any more,”
Agree. Complete waste of time. They are devotees who are not interested in science. There are a lot about who will never change their mind.
I agree with James. I almost never go to RC, Romm, or Tamino; the acolytes are nasty and the “Team” at RC, Romm, and Tamino are arrogant and censor almost any post that disagrees with their dogma. I also don’t want to count as a “hit” on their websites.
Most of my posts show up over here, minus the snarky ones.
I actually come here more often than RC, as RC is just too boring, what with all their factual climate science talk and what all.
My 3rd most favorite site is the old newsclips and cherry picked graphs website run by someone whose name I can’t remenber at the moment. Sorry. Oops.
Am I to understand that RC edited your submitted comment? — as in changed some of the words? Why in the world would they do that? What incredible hubris.
Dr Glickstein,
Blog owners with comments, have every right to snip my whole comment – or partial comment.
They DO NOT have the right to put words in my mouth – or edit what words i use, as long I’m civil.
I will NOT comment on a blog that uses my name and edits my words to promote their ideas
/ ideals.
IMO…They allow your comments [ with edits ] as a PR tool….[ look here people we allow dissenting views ]. When in fact, the edits change the content.
I never managed to get a post passed at RC. Tried at 3 different occasions. No nastiness from my side. They are censoring like they were a part of the old eastern european press.
I’d rather stick needles in my eyes. Besides, if history is any indication, what you claim is some sort of breakthrough of common sense is likely just a prelude to something horrible and nasty. Note what happened to Anthony when he made an honorable attempt to work with the BEST folks. I don’t think they can help themselves.
I can see a moderator snipping an entire offensive or abusive comment, or even inserting “[snip]” when deleting part of such a comment; but actually changing the words and editing the comment? Seems pretty dodgy to me.
I’m a fan of realclimate because they explain the science well, are experts in the field they write in (usually) and are not as prone as some other blogs to pile on the rhetoric – though they’re hardly perfect.
For instance, they gave a link in the post mentioned here to an explanation of where the Times likely got their map from. They do not talk about political motivations for the error, do not suggest it was deliberate, and note that it was the scientific community that pointed it out.
The take home message for me is not that there is a conspiracy at the Times Atlas or the Guardian (“Atlasgate” – huh!), but that an error in sourcing and consequent wildly exaggerated interpretation was quickly rebutted by the experts. If there is any political component to this story it is about sensationalism. Nothing to do with warmista or skeptics.
Any chance the discussion can occur without the interminable bi-polar narrative should be leapt upon. The game of sides is all political and always muddies the waters.
Muller acknowledges no significant warming in the last decade. You can link to his WSJ article from his web-site.
Gavin Schmidt mentioned something about warming since the 1980s (as being undeniably AGW) in the incredibly boring video when he visited Churchill to love-in with polar bears. Why since the 1980s? This is especially interesting given the lack of warming in the past 10 years. Gavin’s warming only lasted 10 years? And the 1980s were warmer than the 1970s and the 1990s were warmer than the 1980s and the 2000s were, oops.
I used to read JC until I caught her back-paddling in Muller’s canoe. Now it’s all about the defense.
“I also approvingly quoted James Hansen on the Carbon Tax” – wait Ira, you’re not trying to slip one by the goalie are you?
Why on [a naturally warming] earth would you support a carbon tax?
Why do they feel the need to edit the postings? Why do they feel this is perfectly acceptable to delete and alter the author’s words?
RC is 99% proctoganda. I see no point in visiting them.
Ira,
in the post you link to, where you say that RC does not indicate the direction of change, there is this quote in the body of the article.
The first commenter probably skimmed the article and didn’t follow the link.
Consider: the point is that the Times got the science wrong and scientists correct it. This is factual and has no politics in it.
Now, consider that the error was in the direction of…. what warmista would prefer? At this point the discussion moves from the factual to the political, and this is how you entered the conversation at RC, with politics. In a neutral world, the ‘direction’ of the error doesn’t matter – just that there was one. As soon as you start speculating otherwise, you bring politics to the table, and thus you got the response you did.
Ira,
You are not a RC virgin anymore? If you were near Saratoga Springs, NY then I would buy you a couple of brews (or martinis) to celebrate! I remember when I lost my RC virginity, it was so non-consummating. : )
John
There’s a very similar policy at most blogs. Your words can be snipped, your post deleted here (at WUWT), there and many other places. The strikethroughs and rewording was a bit creative, but at least we got to see the original text.
jorgekafkazar says:
November 13, 2011 at 3:08 pm
RC is 99% proctoganda. I see no point in visiting them.
I am with Jorge. The real problem with dealing with RC (or others like them), is that after they have edited your response, you are stuck with what they say you said, however much you might disagree. At best you look like you changed your mind.
If you do not want to be misquoted, do not let them quote you. There is no benefit and only misery down the line – if you get irritable you just prove them right when they say they try but the deniers are impossible to work with.
By the way, I, being Doug Proctor, write proctoganda. RC writes propaganda.
I just watched James O’Keefe’s latest ‘To Catch A Journalist”. Some people just don’t like having the light of truth shone upon their tactics. Not unlike this story here. Good on ya!
barry says:
November 13, 2011 at 2:57 pm
“Any chance the discussion can occur without the interminable bi-polar narrative should be leapt upon. The game of sides is all political and always muddies the waters.”
……………………………………………..
Hmmmmm…. editing my words to change the content….is what – If not political?
It has long been well known tha RC censors, edits, alters and manipulates discussions.
That is a trait common to left wing blogs of every type.
They are always the ones with the most restrictive rules, hyper-sensitive moderators and thoroughly unethical methods.
That’s what control freaks do.
barry says:
November 13, 2011 at 3:18 pm
“Your words can be snipped, your post deleted here (at WUWT)”
……………………………………
Huge difference… [ snip ] does not put YOUR words in my Comment – neither does deleting my comment. I’m sorry you don’t see the difference.
“[…] and if we are not too sensitive about our words being edited.”
You post a comment to see what Gavin and his thugs turn it into? Not my cup of tea. It’s much more fun to dissect the drivel Stefan Rahmstorf posts there on other, honest forums.
This article prompted me to visit the RC website for the first time in many months.
I read the article on the tar sands pipeline and while I disagreed with most of it, it was reasonably argued.
Then I read the comments which followed; that’s the really scary part. In my ignorance, I had not realised the mind set of the average member of the AGW cult. Economic reality is not even a consideration – while dubious, unsupported theories are everything. I had the distinct impression that at least 95% of the commentators are dependent on government largesse, either directly or indirectly.
It is kind of like watching a replay of Greek economics and the Euro: “Don’t worry, we can carry on forever like this, someone else will always pay for us, we don’t have to be responsible for our actions.”
Well that someone is the taxpayer (or the Germans in the case of Greece) – mostly in the private sector – who are becoming increasingly fed up with financing goofy policies of ‘progressive’ politicians.
It really is an eye opener to see how the other half think and how they generate and justify their alarmist doctrine on the world’s climate.
Steve from Rockwood
Would that be the 2 year-old WSJ article, before BEST had done its work, he had crunched the numbers and learned differently?
In his more recent WSJ op-ed, he writes,
Regarding decadal trends, this from the BEST website:
I’m relatively new to the world of blogs and had no idea RC or any other site alters your posts, naive I am. I agree that if my comment is not posted that’s far better than having it changed thereby possibly reversing the meaning. Now that I know I don’t see any point in posting at RC.
RJ says:
November 13, 2011 at 2:26 pm
I agree, CO2 is not a magical molecule, in fact, its big and lazy in comparison to other molecules in our atmosphere.
The degree of warming is a joke. I looked up the average mean temperatures of the earth by randomly going to different sites and here’s what I found 1851:14.9C, 1930:13.9C, 1960-1990:14C, 2011:15C. So in 160 years the temperature has increased by 0.1C. What warming?
The idea that “Murdoch is a conservative” is one of those bizarre shared myths that both sides use for their own purposes. Not only his British properties but the “news” people at Fox are firmly on the Green side of the debate.
Fox’s commentators are Republican, not conservative, and they take that side because it gets ratings. Remember that Fox’s so-called “conservative” commentators were firmly for John McCain, who was the Greenest of the two candidates in 2008. They supported him because he had the R on his flag, not because of any ideology at all.
A couple of points:
1 Given that RC is run by members of the “Team” and acolytes, I can rest assured that whatever is posted there is either AGW propaganda or is based on such things like Mann’s Hockey Stick and the like. There is no practical value in reading anything there simply because you never know what is fact or fiction.
2. Before I realized that it was a “Team” site, I attempted to join in the discussion a couple of times some years ago. It took only two posts to experience editing of one and deletion of the other. It was immediately clear that what goes on there bears little resemblance to scientific discourse. Half a discourse at best. Again there is no practical value in attempting to have a scientific discussion when there actually isn’t one going on.
3. However, there is some real solid scientific value there for practitioners in psychology. If one wishes to spend the time dissecting post numbers, and perhaps place a few sheep into the mix to post alternative opinions just to see what happens, then a “haul” may await the psychoanalytically inclined.
4. RC is perhaps a classic proof of Xie, et al, “Social consensus through the influence of committed minorities”, PHYSICAL REVIEW E 84, 011130 (2011). From the abstract and summary we have:
“We show how the prevailing majority opinion in a population can be rapidly reversed by a small fraction p of randomly distributed committed agents who consistently proselytize the opposing opinion and are immune to influence. Specifically, we show that when the committed fraction grows beyond a critical value pc ≈ 10%, there is a dramatic decrease in the time Tc taken for the entire population to adopt the committed opinion.
In closing, we have demonstrated here the existence of a tipping point at which the initial majority opinion of a network switches quickly to that of a consistent and inflexible minority.”
5. The final problem with RC has apparently been with it, and us, since the beginning of sentience. RC really isn’t about discourse, and therefore not about the science of climate, at all. It seems more about a phenomena many of us wish we had seen the end of.
It would seem appropriate to take one Alfred Lohar Wegener as the example. A meteorologist, he first published the Theory of Continental Drift in 1912. It wasn’t long before the established authorities closed ranks against Wegener’s concept as if they were stamping out a plague. He never understood the depth of resistance to his thinking. Continental drift was received not merely as a mistaken idea but as an evil that jeopardized the credibility of geology as a science and the professional reputation of anyone who espoused it.
In November,1930 Ernst Sorge, of Wegener’s Greenland meteorological expedition, discovered the records of paleoclimate preserved in the ice. Glaciologists at the time thought of the ice sheets almost exclusively as geological features whose movement across the landscape chronicled the slow waltz of a changing climate. Wegener died that Greenland winter of 1930 trying to reach their low altitude base camp in a blizzard. His Continental Drift theory of 1912 would not be proven until the 1960’s, revolutionizing geology as the Theory of Plate Tectonics. It would take until the 1990s before the scientific contributions of Ernst Sorge were fully recognized as another revolutionary concept: Abrupt Climate Change.
In light of this, it is difficult to not perceive the behavior of RC et al as commensurate with the sort of denialism which seems to take something like half a century, still, to work out of the system. In other words regardless of what we have learned about this behavioral complex, it is apparently very much still with us. This is literally as far as we can claim to have come in just the last century.
You realise that you can read the original comment in full? The words are not deleted, they are struck through, and the mod indicates what has been added by italicising. Whereas completely snipping words can change the context of a post, and readers will not know the original.
kim, are you Ira? You keep saying, “my words.” But it appears you haven’t gone to RC and read the comment and seen for yourself that Ira’s words are all there.
On the very rare occasions I take a peek at RC I always feel a little bit “icky”. It’s pretty wierd over there.
polistra,
It’s some world where a person’s political persuasion is completely defined by their take on global warming. You imply that no true conservative could possibly have a Green streak.
An RC commenter said: “…the denialist disinformation blog WUWT…”
If it were not for psychological projection, folks like that wouldn’t have much to say.
The alarmist crowd believed Michael Mann’s false claim that there was very little temperature variation prior to the industrial revolution. Mann has since been thoroughly debunked on that score, but his true believer acolytes still accuse scientific skeptics of being “denialists” regarding “climate change”. Many of them just cannot accept the fact that the MWP and the LIA were global events. Of course, skeptics have always known that the climate changes constantly; always has, always will. Only the alarmist contingent believes otherwise. Therefore: projection.
And all the “disinformation” is necessarily on the side of censoring blogs like RC, making that comment just more psychological projection [imputing your faults onto others]. WUWT allows and encourages open debate with input from both sides, and it moderates with a light touch. The truth emerges via free discussion, like wheat sifted from chaff.
But RC cannot allow uncensored commentary, because they can’t make a valid case for climate disruption caused by CO2. That’s why Mann is so afraid to debate; he can’t control the discussion.
The planet is proving alarmists more wrong every day. Far from WUWT being a “disinformation” site, anyone can post here – unlike at true disinformation blogs RC, tamino, the rommulan’s ultimate disinformation blog, etc. Psychological projection rules the alarmist mind as a function of cognitive dissonance. Orwell called it “doublethink”: they simply cannot accept what the planet is telling us.
“The trouble with quotes on the Internet is you never know if they are genuine.” —Abraham Lincoln
[THANKS, Latitude, made me laugh, and a bit of wholesome humor raises spirits. -Ira]
Good job, Ira. You just quadrupled RC’s page views for the day. At least.
Really, we should be doing something to help get RC’s readership up before it’s too late. How could we claim to be a credible member of the opposition after there is no one left opposing us?
Ira, If this were in Australia, RC would arguably have committed a criminal offence. In addition to copyright, all authors have moral rights, which, unlike copyright, cannot be waivered or transferred. In brief, if someone uses your material in a manner that casts aspersions upon you or brings you into disrepute (e.g. using Mickey Mouse in a porn flick would do so to Walt Disney), then they have violated your moral rights. Changing your “misleadingly” to “brilliantly, amusingly and accurately” arguably mis-portrays your opinions and creates a false impression of you in the uninformed reader’s mind – exactly what moral rights are designed to prevent.
But legalities or not, it is disgraceful to reverse the meaning of a comment and pretend that it is the original opinion of the commenter. It is not a question about sensitivity to being edited – all newspapers edit letters for brevity etc. This is about lying to the reader about your true opinion.
And to any genuine enquirer who happens to be wandering by right now: Please compare the treatment of comments on the “Climate science by climate scientists” blog to the practically unrestricted comments on WUWT. The side with something to hide is the side that worries about what critics have to say about them.
RC made me feel physically sick after about two minutes on all my previous visits except those done for scientific purposes – to record the full extent of their anti-skeptical articles and see their wiki where I note I’ve got a mention, crikey wot me? but I have no desire to read it.
So if RC can organize a wiki why can’t we?? They call it RC wiki but the page title actually reads RC “deniers”… Anyone interested in picking up the skeptics climate wiki I only started but have virtually no time for for another 6 months – email me!
barry says:
November 13, 2011 at 3:50 pm
“You realise that you can read the original comment in full? The words are not deleted, they are struck through, and the mod indicates what has been added by italicising. Whereas completely snipping words can change the context of a post, and readers will not know the original.”
………………………….
Nice try 🙂
When someone like RC or SkS edits my comment – it changes the content.
If [ snipped ] or deleted…I can resubmit my comment – changing MY WORDING to adhere to blog policy…Or forget it. Either way – Someone else hasn’t written my comment, using their wording.
………………………………
“kim, are you Ira?”
…………………………….
Try to follow along 🙂 Did you read my first post?
…………………………….
“You keep saying, “my words.” But it appears you haven’t gone to RC and read the comment and seen for yourself that Ira’s words are all there.”
…………………………………
Assumptions are dangerous in debates 🙂
Yes, all there…. and struck out.
Look… If you need, or think “parental guidance” is needed to reword your comments……….mama or papa, should be your first choice.
I, on the other-hand, get pretty darned defensive of people who set themselves up as authoritarian figures who tell me what to think…not allowing me – to think!
I choose my mentors – very carefully.
RC and Company are a sheer waste of time. I have better things to do like wash my hair….
Ira, I don’t post there, and I will not do so. The appearance of any serious skeptics there gives them credibility. They are playing you, my friend, and playing you hard. Be assured that the amount of your posts that get through is in direct proportion to how unthreatening they are perceived to be.
I totally disagree with your urging of reasonable skeptics to associate themselves with RC in any manner, even as opponents. If you do then they can say see, we let comments through … we’re not anti-science. And they can say see, our visitor figures are going up …
Because Ira, I assure you, if you start asking hard questions, they will
. And other than your complaining about it elsewhere, the regulars at that site will never even know that you have been made a temporary un-person.
So let me go on record as saying I won’t be a useful idiot and participate in the RealClimate farce. Let them die from lack of visitors, let them get bored with the echo chamber effect of their gang of dittoheads, but I will not give them whatever small legitimacy my participation there might offer.
Ira, you’re getting suckered … the place reeks of Noble Cause Corruption, it’s James Hansen’s bumboy. Why on earth would you want to be associated with them in any fashion?
w.
[Thanks for the warning and advice, Willis. I have the highest respect for you and I love your topics and comments here at WUWT. I am sure RC will censor my future, more substantive comments, and I will eventually tire and retreat from my adventure over ther. But, for now, I am enjoying it. -Ira]
But the editor used a smilicon, so it’s ok, apparently.
barry says:
November 13, 2011 at 3:50 pm
”
“Huge difference… [ snip ] does not put YOUR words in my Comment – neither does deleting my comment. I’m sorry you don’t see the difference.”
You realise that you can read the original comment in full? ”
Barry, there is not enough evidence to be sure about that. Obviously the moderators at RC feel free to make changes to posted comments. The one who edited Ira’s comments used strike-through. Maybe others take other freedoms. This one had fun replacing “misleading” with “brilliant”, negating the meaning of the sentence, and adding a smiley face in the end; obviously he had quite a lot of fun negating the meaning of a comment. How do you know that that’s all they do? They obviously feel free to play any kind of game with the material they get – they treat it like they treat temperature data, in other words.
I note that your friend (SecularAnimist) was quick to suggest that you be consigned to the “borehole” at #27. As far as I can gather, to post at RC you must be willing to remain extremely polite while having unmoderated, warmist abuse piled on you by the rabid locals. As with most posters here I would rather find less painful things to do with my spare time. As for Eric the mod:
“[Response: ]Please don’t give fodder to the idiots that think they get called ‘deniers’ because of some relationship to Holocaust denial. That’s inflammatory and in any case ridiculous. People get called deniers because they are denying something, plain and simple. It’s a word, that’s it.–eric”
Um, what exactly is it that we are denying en masse? Your friend SecularAnimist went on a patently ludicrous rant (#16) which not only survives moderation at RC, but also the endorsement of the words denier/denialist despite the claims being entirely baseless in describing WUWT. A web site is not a person and can therefore not be a “denier” any more than the Cirque du Soleil can be such…
The contributors here have a range of views on AGW/CAGW and can not be collectively referred to as “denialists” either. So either way you look at it the comments were completely nonsensical and should have been moderated. But, as is so often the case with RC, baseless insults supporting their side sail through censorship, ooops I mean moderation, while the reverse is rarely the case.
RC allows Ira’s (edited) posts because he is not a skeptic. While perhaps not an alarmist like the usual RC posters, his views, at least those he has written about here, track better with the IPCC than they do with most folks here.
Barry;
You realise that you can read the original comment in full?>>>
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. A comment that makes a strong point against the warmist claims either never appears at all, or is edited heavily so as to make the point weak, and then it is ridiculed. Follow up comments protesting the behaviour never see the light of day. I learned that the hard way, and have not been back since.
Ira;
They’ll let your comments through as long as your comments are useful to THEM. Since your comments scored no major points, they let them through, but even then, felt the need for subtle editing. They get to say they let you post, and the moment you make a valid point of any importance, they’ll either disappear it entirely, or, more likely based on my experience, edit it in such a fashion as to make you look foolish. Don’t feed the beast, you’ll only get bitten.
Ironic …the use of the word “Climategate” is not allowed – tis a sore spot?
Yet “denier” is rampantly used.
[Right on, kim2ooo! I guess that makes them Climategate deniers :^) – Ira]
I won’t waste one second of my time at blogs like Real Climate. It’s not because I’ve succumbed to confirmation bias and refuse to look at the other side of the issue, but because I won’t tolerate censorship disguised as moderation to reasonable comments with an opposing view.
barry says:
November 13, 2011 at 3:41 pm
Steve from Rockwood
Muller acknowledges no significant warming in the last decade. You can link to his WSJ article from his web-site.
Would that be the 2 year-old WSJ article, before BEST had done its work, he had crunched the numbers and learned differently?
——————————————————-
Barry, I think I have Muller figured out.
He was a skeptic until he did an enormous amount of work and proved that all the previous climate scientists were right (including the hockey stick) and that the world has warmed dramatically during the past 60 years. So he changed his mind. Fair enough.
But he remains skeptical about the cause of global warming and to what extent it will impact humans in the coming decades. But with more research he will no doubt uncover the truth to these important questions.
But I can save Muller all the expensive research. He will come the startling conclusion that fossil fuels are indeed the cause of the alarming warming and that the future of mankind is in trouble. We are at a tipping point he will argue. If we don’t start reducing our CO2 emissions the world will see a runaway global warming marked by extreme weather events and where as many as half of all life could be in peril.
A true scientist, who changes his mind every two years. I wonder how he started out so skeptical? Was he as stupid as the rest of us, ignoring the settled science of Mann and Hansen? Has he now completely debunked the work of McIntyre and Mckitrick? Were the Vikings able to survive in a Greenland colder than today?
Ira.
If i posted on specialist blogs ( say on cars, tech, or horses or dogs ) with some comments on any controversial areas and they struck my words and inserted words of theirs over top…it would be my second last post…the last post would be the one that gets me banned, after telling them what cowardly sleveens they are
I don’t see anything wrong or dishonest in the way that RC edited Ira’s post. The comment was edited openly, so that readers could see the original wording. The editing was annoying and disrespectful, however: it shows a lack of respect for the opinions of others. But I must say I see plenty of disrespect here for the opinions of the AGW proponents.
[Reply: Commenters don’t get disrespect from moderators here …unless they bring it on themselves. And never for an opposing view of science. ~dbs, mod.]
I have evidence that when “regulars” of SkS and RC get out from the protective shell of these moderated blogs – they don’t do well in debating AGW – IPCC claims.
A contributor on a blog, I post on, asked for help from the “regulars” because they couldn’t debate, with evidence, why they believed in the claims made.
On the blog we were on, at least two “regulars” showed up and attempted 🙂 The problem, for them, was the blog allowed dissenting opinions [ with civility ] – something not experienced within the echo chamber.
Ron House,
But that is not what happened. If eric wanted to pretend the edits was the original opinion of the commenter, he wouldn’t have left the original words in, or pointed out what the additions were.
Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill.
Dirk,
[Me] “You realise that you can read the original comment in full?”
[Dirk] Barry, there is not enough evidence to be sure about that
I think it’s clear from Ira’s description. But hopefully Ira will set the record straight for us, preventing any unwarranted speculation from festering.
Michael Klein says:
November 13, 2011 at 5:29 pm
“I don’t see anything wrong or dishonest in the way that RC edited Ira’s post. The comment was edited openly, so that readers could see the original wording.”
……………………………..
hmmmmmmmmm………
Michael Klein says:
November 13, 2011 at 5:29 pm
“The editing was annoying and disrespectful, however: it shows a lack of respect for the opinions of others.”
……………………………
Make up your mind, yet?
Michael Klein says:
November 13, 2011 at 5:29 pm
But I must say I see plenty of disrespect here for the opinions of the AGW proponents.”
If true….. You are saying because one does it – ?
Do you believe that when scientists chose to become authoritarian – they should be held to higher accountability?
I do!
“Alex says:
November 13, 2011 at 2:50 pm
I never managed to get a post passed at RC. Tried at 3 different occasions. No nastiness from my side. They are censoring like they were a part of the old eastern european press.”
Hehehe… they do have ties to the reminisce of the old eastern European press. Trace their ties through Green Peace, WWF, Sierra Club, and so on.
Why wonder when they censor and re-write history like the old eastern European press? A person’s words, spoken or written, are history once laid down and RC re-writes that history regularly, or simply deletes it at will.
It is a snake-pit.
Ira, you’ve been there, done that. Should a person jump in head first or feet first to lengthen the brief stay at RealClimate? You seemed to be dancing so I will guess feet first. ☺
RJ says:
November 13, 2011 at 2:26 pm
“and included five WUWT links to my “Visualizing the ‘Greenhouse’ Effect” series to prove that we skeptics accept the basic science.”
Real sceptics do not accept the basic science. CO2 does not somehow magically create additional energy after it leaves earth as many so called sceptics claim.
You are a warmist but not an alarmist. You accept the basic implausible pseudo science but just challenge the extent of warming
Steve from Rockwood says:
November 13, 2011 at 2:59 pm
“I also approvingly quoted James Hansen on the Carbon Tax” – wait Ira, you’re not trying to slip one by the goalie are you?
Why on [a naturally warming] earth would you support a carbon tax?
Doug in Seattle says:
November 13, 2011 at 4:58 pm
RC allows Ira’s (edited) posts because he is not a skeptic. While perhaps not an alarmist like the usual RC posters, his views, at least those he has written about here, track better with the IPCC than they do with most folks here.
##############
Maybe that’s where Muller got his idea from to begin claiming he was sceptic..
Fifth columnist. Keeps repeating all the same junk AGW science fiction memes in his posts and pushing for carbon taxes ‘as a solution’ to the non-existent problem all the while claiming he’s just like ‘us skeptics’. B.S. in bucketloads.
So why does he want us to go over there to post? He screwed with my posts here in a discussion, abused his guest poster ability to enter into my posts – he’s not the greenhorn Willis describes him. 🙂
While you’re over there, Ira, ask them to explain what happens to the 95% thermal infrared from an incandescent bulb when what you say you feel as heat comes from the 5% visible emitted? Does it get trapped in the bulb or what?
Boiled water with blue visible for the coffee yet?
barry says:
November 13, 2011 at 5:44 pm
“If eric wanted to pretend the edits was the original opinion of the commenter, he wouldn’t have left the original words in, or pointed out what the additions were.
Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill.”
………………………………
Nonsense! ….
He [ eric ] felt the need to implant his thoughts and words.
What was so “dangerous” in the original posts – that he felt the need?
barry;
Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill>>>
I recommend reading the history of how tyrannies begin with the seed of an idea that takes root and is nourished be steadily increasing manipulation of information. If left unweeded, the inch becomes a yard, and the yard a nation, held hostage by force to a fictional cause by those who hold power and will cling to it no matter the cost in lives to do so.
There is NO excuse to justify the editing of someone else’s words, be the edit minor or major, in a debate about anything at any time, and the complete striking of comments in their entirety, a known practice at RC, is just as reprehensible. Manipulating the debate in the smallest of ways and trying to justify it is simply giving the weeds an inch.
Those who ignore the lessons of history are condemned to repeat it. Unfortunately, when the naive repeat history, they frequently condemn the rest of us to repeating it with them.
Not one inch sir. Not one tiny fraction of a molehill, for molehills do, in fact, grow to be mountains.
kim,
Haha. you have ‘implanted’ the idea that Ira’s post was ‘dangerous’.
If it was that big of a deal, eric could simply have not allowed the post in the first place.
Ira’s post was silly. I’m surprised it made it through moderation to begin with.
I have posted at RC on occasion, and even posts that were not skeptical of the topic or disrespectful or anything have been barred. On re-reading my comment and the thread, it has become clear that my post was barred because it was a) repeating something that had already been said, or b) poorly reasoned, or c) poorly articulated, d) off-topic. My personal experience is not that posts are barred for being skeptical, but because they are not good enough in quality, or because they add nothing new to the topic.
On other occasions, I have had skeptical posts admitted – because they were clear, on topic and unsullied by ad hom or any political rhetoric.
RC have a lower tolerance for poor-quality posts or ignorance than some other blogs, including this one. That is their right.
I know that some people keep a record of their posts that were barred from there. As it would not be inappropriate to the topic here, I’d be interested in checking some of those out. (Of course, it would be difficult to verify that the commenter had honestly kept a record of their original post).
Spelling.
Re: ” Comment #1, by a seemingly mislead RC reader…..” Can “mislead” be changed to “misled”?
IanM
Ira, do you know what the term “Judas goat” connotes?
.
barry;
RC have a lower tolerance for poor-quality posts or ignorance than some other blogs, including this one. That is their right>>>
They have a low tolerance for dissenting opinion, and they allow the most egregious of remarks to be made in regard to those they disagree with. I speak from experience, as do many others. Is it their right? No, actually, it isn’t. Disinformation, misrepresentation of the facts, half truths, and suppression of dissent are not the right of anyone in a free world. Unless you wish to forego the freedoms your forefathers faught and died for, you cannot justify a single edit to someone else’s words be it overt or subtle.
History’s lessons on this are clear, and I for one don’t have any desire to repeat it with you.
barry says:
November 13, 2011 at 6:17 pm
“Haha. you have ‘implanted’ the idea that Ira’s post was ‘dangerous’.”
……………………………..
Ha ha ha yourself………….When eric edited – HE was the one who gave the impression that the wording used by Ira was “dangerous” and needed rewrite.
Logic not your strong suit?
…………………………..
barry says:
November 13, 2011 at 6:17 pm
“Ira’s post was silly. I’m surprised it made it through moderation to begin with.”
……………………………….
I’m surprised that you’re surprised……but then again………….
Have you ever heard the term….”pawned”?
davidmhoffer says:
November 13, 2011 at 6:35 pm…………….
……………………..
WELL SAID!
“Perhaps the comment was passed because I also approvingly quoted James Hansen on the Carbon Tax.”
Hansen opposed the “cap-and-trade” legislation supported by Obama and Al Gore. He said it was “not a smart approach.” Instead, he favors a form of Carbon Tax that he calls “fee-and-dividend”. I couldn’t locate the Hansen quote Ira was referring to. However, it is clear that while Hansen opposes carbon trading, he does not oppose carbon taxes.
For some reason I get the strong feeling that
“the goalie” is reading this thread and laughing his butt off.
Please, you strain the limits of credulity.
I must agree with the assertion that going to RC lends credibility to it. I cannot see any value in visiting RC, not even to see some supposed proof of how bad they may be.
Note that persuasion is an illusion. Generally, only pain forces one to change an opinion. I have found that people will believe whatever they want and base it on anything they desire to deem worthy.
Why would anyone want to waste time in that place?
Ira Glickstein writes:
“——- WUWT links to my “Visualizing the ‘Greenhouse’ Effect” series to prove that we skeptics accept the basic science. Perhaps the comment was passed because I also approvingly quoted James Hansen on the Carbon Tax. —– The point of this posting is that, whatever the difficulties, it is possible for skeptics to post over at RC, so long as we are not too blatant about it, and if we are not too sensitive about our words being edited.“
Ira, any Skeptic who, when writing to RC, openly accepts and admits to what you call “the basic science” and furthermore is willing to be edited by RC is very welcome to post whatever they wish to write on RC.
Why not write a post here on WUWT wherein you state what the proof for AGW is?
The Natural Greenhouse Effect is a theory that may have some kind of consensus, but there seems to be no data, that I can find, that supports it. Therefore for me, it remains an unproven theory.
Proof for AGW is, to me, not that the Sun is only capable of warming a blackbody the size of the Earth, without an Atmosphere, to a temperature of minus 18 Deg. Celsius – (255 Kelvin) and that it must therefore be the atmosphere’s GHGs that supply the rest of the energy necessary to raise the planet’s temperature by 33 K.
IMHO the “formulas and constants” used to work out the “Blackbody Temperature” (BT) pay no attention to the fact that the Earth is turning, on its axis, at such a fast rate that the surface never, in – or at any spot – cools down to anywhere near Zero Kelvin (0 K.) Therefore the Sun does not (and probably never did) have the job of warming the Earth’s surface up from scratch.
–OK, so I’ll go along with the fact that the “water cycle” is helping to keep the warmth in, but if the Earth was orbiting the Sun in the same manner that our moon orbits the Earth, then by how much would CO2 and the rest of the GHGs warm the Earth? –Well, I don’t know, but I doubt there would be anybody here to work it out.
don’t want to give a shred of cred to RC, and NO hits ….
don’t ever go there !
Ira,
You haven’t slipped anything past them over at RC. You aren’t addressing the actual science just some amateur’s goof, and they know where they are vulnerable as well as we do. Try getting them to address the model accuracy needed to attribute and project an energy imbalance of less than 1W/m^2, or to address the implications of the diagnostic literature for the error range of their climate projections, or to address the implications of the model diagnostic literature for the magnitude and even the sign of their fearmongering scenerios, e.g., droughts in light of Wentz (2007), etc. H*@k, even try getting a straight answer on where some of the figures in the published papers came from. They’ll toy with you until you start hitting too close to the mark, and the final word is always theirs, because yours never appears.
Secularanalcyst is a vicious, mendacious, frothing at the mouth mad dog that routinely has its posts deleted over at Mother Jones Blue Marble blog in response to my knowledgeable, topical and well received comments there.
I quit trying to post at RC when my responses to the attack dogs’ nonsense were held up in moderation while they continued to pile on about how I was too cowardly to respond to them.
I respond and am blocked. Their conclusion is that I am a paid denialist.
I think that is the essence of the point Dr Judith Curry is trying to make about the Team with her free for all blog, like her style or not.
H Dahlsveen says:
November 13, 2011 at 10:40 pm
–OK, so I’ll go along with the fact that the “water cycle” is helping to keep the warmth in, but if the Earth was orbiting the Sun in the same manner that our moon orbits the Earth, then by how much would CO2 and the rest of the GHGs warm the Earth? –Well, I don’t know, but I doubt there would be anybody here to work it out.
You don’t have to go along with it – AGWScience Fiction Inc has actually taken the water cycle out, the water cycle primarily cools the planet. With our fluid gaseous atmosphere but without the water cycle the temps would be 67°C, think deserts.
Every claim made by those perpetuating the global warming memes is science fiction, describing a different world, imagined not real. All the basic premises are ridiculous as the exclusion of the water cycle shows – and that’s absent because there is no convection in this imaginary world they tax us to hell already for its imaginary problems we’re blamed for creating – based on Arrhenius’ misreading of Fourier.
http://greenhouse.geologist-1011.net/
And don’t expect any honesty from these science fiction meme pushers, they exclude Arrhenius’ 1906 correction to his 1896 paper and everything else from real world physics which shows up their fictional world for what it is, which lies and cheats by manipulating data in support of their fictional existence as the norm, that’s been proved over and over.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/11/without-energy-life-is-brutal-and-short/#comment-795859
Chuck L says:
November 13, 2011 at 2:30 pm
“I agree with James. I almost never go to RC, Romm, or Tamino; the acolytes are nasty and the “Team” at RC, Romm, and Tamino are arrogant and censor almost any post that disagrees with their dogma. I also don’t want to count as a “hit” on their websites.”
I agree with most of the comments, it is simply a waste of time. After trying to engage in conversation one realises fast they are not interested in dialogue, so why lose time? One needs track each comment, check if and what has been changed, play by their rules, let them insult yourself, let them twist every word, etc etc and why? If somebody wants to be informed they have the possibility to come and check for information. I do not see science advancing in the pro-CAGW camp and the main reason is that scientist have to be skeptical to have science advancing. Would there have been the CERN experiments with only pro-CAGW thinking? How about the variations inside the solar radiation (UV) and its implications? Further solar influence? How about studies of the MWP and past climate? Holocene optimum? What advance in climate study has come from the pro-CAGW camp? Which valuable hypothesis? Here some I found let me know if you know any better: farting mamals ending the glaciation, their killing by humans causing the Younger Dryas? Genghis Khan killings causing the greening of the woods and the end of inexistent MWP? LIA caused by the conquistadores? Any other? Oh yes, our SUVs causing waterworld and aliens going to kill us for not behaving.
So I appreciate your trying to communicate on their sites but I do not plan to retry it.
Keep on the good communication, the good dialogue about science here and the people interested to read about it will come here.
“…seemingly mislead RC reader…” should be “…seemingly misled RC reader…”
Ira, I guess the reason why they say that there is significative warming lately is that Phil Jones, a few months after the BBC interview, came back and told that there was significant warming after all. I suppose it has to do with growing sample size.
Barry let me help you to understand. Please see below your comment moderated as you seem to like it:
“barry says:
November 13, 2011 at 2:57 pm
I’m NOT a fan of realclimate because they DO NOT explain the science well, are experts in PR the field they write in (usually) and are not as prone as some other blogs to pile on the rhetoric – though they’re hardly perfect.
For instance, they gave a link in the post mentioned here to an explanation of where the Times likely got their map from. They do not talk about political motivations for the error, do not suggest it was deliberate, and note that it was the SKEPTIC scientific community that pointed it out.”
Thank you barry for your post, great to see we are aligned.
EFS_Junior says:
November 13, 2011 at 2:31 pm
Most of my posts show up over here, minus the snarky ones.
I actually come here more often than RC, as RC is just too boring, what with all their factual climate science talk and what all.
Why not just shout out “I’m a warmist troll!” It says the same as what you said, but in fewer words.
Alex says:
” I never managed to get a post passed at RC. Tried at 3 different occasions. No nastiness from my side. They are censoring like they were a part of the old eastern european press.”
I have never tried posting at RC but have made three attempts at Tamino, all brief, on-thread and polite, without success and in sceptical terms I am an agnostic not an atheist. It would be an interesting piece of research to compare the percentages of “warmist” posts featured on sites such Anthony’s and Climate Audit with “skeptic” posts permitted on sites such Real Climate.
What I find astonishing is the zeal with which RealClimate sycophants justify their censoring. Barry, do you realize you are not helping them out at all? You are being an enabler, rationalizing everything. When you have kids you are going to learn a few lessons yourself about putting your foot down, drawing bright lines, and speaking up when someone does something wrong. Re-wording the commenter’s post is not acceptable. If another commenter does it in jest or parody, that’s one thing because at least the original source comment is still there and visible. Moderators doing something in jest or parody? What? One other thing that others have mentioned, you say that the comment is still there, but as other’s have pointed out, how the heck can you say that with no evidence? Perhaps because jumping to conclusions despite lack of evidence is Climatology’s modus operandi.
Now about that point that the ‘original comment is still there’. Well what a mess I see. The moderator Eric says that “[Response: edits in italics 😉 –eric]”. Hmmmm, looking at Ira Glickstein’s post above I see lots of italics. Does Eric mean he used <I> Italics tags? What if Ira Glickstein also used <I> Italics tags. That would result in a mess. Real Climate Moderator fail.
Perhaps Ira Glickstein enclosed the entire post (from RC source code) here in <BLOCKQUOTE> tags as is normal procedure. Well that is even trickier because most often that results in toggling any existing <I> Italics tags (vanquishing Eric’s moderation footprints). So RC posts become non-transferable without extraordinary measures. Whoops. Real Climate Moderator fail.
Now, looking at the source code to the above, it looks to me that moderator Eric may actually have used <EM> Emphasis tags. Well, that may or may not mean Italics because any tag, particularly these, can be redefined by a CSS style sheet anyway. To see any possible variations in these tags when affected by a site’s style sheet, we’ll have to perform a test …
Here is … Emphasis and Italics … shown normally.
Yeah, what could possibly go wrong? Mixing these tags perhaps? For example, Commenters using Italics and Eric the Moderator using Emphasis within the same text! Yeah, that’ll work. Brilliant idea!. Way to get clarity and precision. BTW is that Eric Steig? I would hate to think that an allegedly careful scientist on the cutting edge of Climatology would be this incompetent as a blog moderator. How many levels of bad judgment calls and enabling does it require for this practice to still be in occurring today after years in the spotlight?
One more comment about this practice of using Italics tags ONLY for assigning attribution. Unless someone is browsing the web using Microsoft Word (or similar), naturally all formatting is lost when doing copy/paste operations. The paste destination will result in one heck of a mess of tangled words with no clear path back to the original authorship. Most importantly here are <STRIKE> tags. Example: Climate
ScientistAlarmist, becomes: Climate Scientist Alarmist. And just what do you think Google will spider and index? Yep, the plain text of course. What do you think Google will display in its search results. Yep, the plain text of course. Whoops. Real Climate Moderator fail.To Ira Glickstein … you should consider editing the top post and remove the <BLOCKQUOTE> tags (sacrificing the indentation) and add <EM>Emphasis</EM> tags to the final line from Eric in order to recreate the RC original formatting.
Here is my guess as to how your quoted comment from RC should appear in the top post above (but I am not sure because I refuse to visit that place). Between the following dashed lines …
(Comment #7) Ira Glickstein says: 8 Nov 2011 at 4:54 PM
Thanks for reporting “… the first edition was completely in error, and led to some rather bizarre claims about the amount of ice loss in Greenland.”
However, you do not
acknowledgereiterate the direction of the error, which was to report an impossible, way overstated 15% ice loss.An interested reader would have to follow your link to the
misleadinglybrilliantly, amusingly and accurately titled Greenland Meltdown to learn that: “…, the large exaggeration of that loss rate by Harper Collins in the press release for the 2011 edition of the Times Atlas was of course completely wrong. … the confusion came most likely from a confusion in definitions of what is the permanent ice sheet, and what are glaciers, with the ‘glaciers’ being either dropped from the Atlas entirely or colored brown (instead of white) … there is simply no measure — neither thickness nor areal extent — by which Greenland can be said to have lost 15 % of its ice.[Response: edits in italics 😉 –eric]
I just noticed that the CSS style sheet here at WUWT treats <P> Paragraph tags as a single CRLF (at least here in the comment section). Therefore here is that same re-creation with extra <BR> tags for each paragraph …
(Comment #7) Ira Glickstein says: 8 Nov 2011 at 4:54 PM
Thanks for reporting “… the first edition was completely in error, and led to some rather bizarre claims about the amount of ice loss in Greenland.”
However, you do not
acknowledgereiterate the direction of the error, which was to report an impossible, way overstated 15% ice loss.An interested reader would have to follow your link to the
misleadinglybrilliantly, amusingly and accurately titled Greenland Meltdown to learn that: “…, the large exaggeration of that loss rate by Harper Collins in the press release for the 2011 edition of the Times Atlas was of course completely wrong. … the confusion came most likely from a confusion in definitions of what is the permanent ice sheet, and what are glaciers, with the ‘glaciers’ being either dropped from the Atlas entirely or colored brown (instead of white) … there is simply no measure — neither thickness nor areal extent — by which Greenland can be said to have lost 15 % of its ice.[Response: edits in italics 😉 –eric]
barry said:
“…In a neutral world, the “direction” of the error doesn’t matter – just that there was one. As soon as you start speculating otherwise, you bring politics to the table, and thus you got the response you did…”
However, in the “alarmist” world, the direction of the “error” does matter (i.e, Tiljander proxies).
If the data supports CAGW, it’s ok. If the data doesn’t support CAGW, it’s either flopped till it does, or left out completely.
Myrrh says
While you’re over there, Ira, ask them to explain what happens to the 95% thermal infrared from an incandescent bulb when what you say you feel as heat comes from the 5% visible emitted? Does it get trapped in the bulb or what?
————
What you feel as heat on your hand is the proportion of the lamp’s radiation output absorbed by your hand. It does not matter if the light absorbed is infrared or visible light. So
Thanks for your opinion, RJ, but I get the impression that most “real skeptics” do accept the fact that Atmospheric water vapor, CO2 and other so-called “greenhouse gases” are responsible for the Earth being ~33º C warmer than it would be if the Atmosphere was pure N2 and O2. So you can put yourself down as what I call a “disbeliever”.
Please read my series here at WUWT by Googling WUWT Visualizing the Greehouse effect.
Sorry to confuse you guys with some counter examples, but some of my posts didn’t make it past moderation at Real Climate either.
I think the reason is simple enough, they are picky about the quality of the post.
And all the moral outrage is overblown. The edit to Ira’s post was just a joke and a tease. But you guys don’t have a sense of humour and take yourselves far to seriously.
Like, are we supposed to CARE what “RC” says about anything…I think not. I sure don’t. They are NOT the last word or final authority on anything.
Besides, I’m sure none of the moderators use any fossil fuels or energy derived from fossil fuels, because I’m sure they wouldn’t want to be seen as hypocrites…
Perhaps I am a masochist :^). No, actually I believe it is better to light one little candle than to curse the darkness.
AND, by showing the actual extent of the censorship and editing at RC here at WUWT, a very popular public forum, I am documenting specifics. My posting here garnered more comments -both pro and con- in a few hours yesterday than the RC Times Atlas topic that has been up since 8 Nov. As I mentioned, my discussion was shunted over to the RC “open thread” sidelines, and I went over there and am attempting to continue. I plan to post updates in this WUWT topic so the “world” will know how things go. Stay tuned.
Thanks, Louis. The Hansen quote may be found at: http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2009/WaysAndMeans_20090225.pdf
My views on a revenue-neutral carbon tax may be found at: http://tvpclub.blogspot.com/2009/03/carbon-tax-yes-cap-no.html
Even a stopped clock is exactly right twice a day :^ Hansen criticizes the Cap & Trade scam, which is a politician’s delight and will not work. He and I (and conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer and the WSJ) favor the alternative. I use it as a counter to Cap & Trade because you can’t fight something with nothing. I also think it will help make us less dependent on oil from unstable foreign sources, and save us blood and treasure we’d have to spend to maintain that access.
Sorry to Ira, and a few of the other posters here, but RC is complete and utter BS. For those of you who believe editing comments is ok, or even “not such a big deal” .. are you freaking kidding me? OMG, WTF, what are you people smoking? Any alteration, and I mean ANY alteration of a comment, whether strike-through or not, whether or not the original comment was retained, ANY alteration within the original content alters the context and the message. Hello? .. are there not any behavioral scientists or psychologists in the room? I feel like I am back in 1940’s Germany…. sheeesh… give me a break. I don’t care if you simply add a comma, or remove a period. In doing so, it is no longer MY comment. It is either left perfectly in tact and complete, or it is no longer my words! … period! …
I can’t even believe some of the comments I am reading here … unreal … no wonder we have so many problems in this world … sheeesh…
It is fundamentally dishonest for any site to insert words into your posting to change the meaning. It speaks volumes to the character and morals of the scientists that run the RC site. Honesty and integrity is not a requirement of a PhD.
From my experience and observations with RC they are a cult indoctrination site, following the same techniques used by other cults applied to an Internet Blog.
What RC is looking for is personality traits as revealed by their treatment of your postings, to judge how susceptible you are to indoctrination. If you are not susceptible, you will be quickly weeded out lest you infect the other cult members with your views.
RC is definitely science. It is a skilled application of mass psychology to achieve cult indoctrination on a large scale to generate political support for continued funding for the benefit of those scientists involved. What you are seeing is not accidental.
Ira,
Successfully posting at RC is like successfully visiting a house of ill repute and counting it a success because you did not get a STD.
I am impressed you are able to be posted there, but I would rather blog at a more reputable place.
My bet is that after the post this thread has grown from your career at RC will come to an early end.
I think Fred has it in a nutshell, if a genuine – according to the rules – comment is edited, removed or otherwise tampered with (censored) and it is common for posts to go through a censorship ‘panel’ then the entire website must be based on the same principal. This would make it a website that offers a single viewpoint of the subject, or in other words a ‘Public Relations’ website – definately not a ‘scientific’ one.
Deletion or rephrasing a post to suit an agenda? ok, remove blasphemy or anything that may cause someone distress, e.g. like calling them a denier, etc. But I am gobsmacked that posts are being edited to say something different to what was intended.
What next from these people that claim to be scientists ?
Thanks for your well reasoned comment, O H Dahlsveen. “AGW” is Anthropogenic (human caused) Global Warming, which has three aspects:
1) The Atmospheric “greenhouse effect”: Due to water vapor, CO2 and other so-called “green house” gases in the Atmosphere the Earth is ~33ºC warmer than it would be with pure N2 and O2.
2) Natural cycles and variations: The ice core data proves that mean temperatures and CO2 levels have varied way above and below current levels over the past (pre-human) several hundred thousand years. Thus, some (perhaps most) of the measured increase in temperature and CO2 since the late 1880’s is not under control or influence of humans.
2) Additional warming due to human activities: Any decrease in albedo (reflectiveness) and/or increase in CO2 will tend to increase mean temperatures above what they would be absent those human activities (ALL ELSE BEING EQUAL, and they are not equal according to my point #2)
Virtually all of my posts here http://wattsupwiththat.com/author/iraglickstein/ provide evidence for one or the other, or all, of these aspects of AGW. My posts also provide evidence that :
1) The Official Climate Team has systematically diddled the data to exagerate the amount of warming since the late 1880’s, perhaps by up to a factor of two,
2) That they have exaggerated the amount human-caused warming due to human activities by their overblown estimates of CO2 sensitivity (how much temperature rise is expected due to a doubling of CO2) by a factor of two and perhaps up to eight.
3) That they have attempted to induce our political leadership and media, who are mostly naive when it comes to science, to adopt so-called “green” policies, such as subsidizing biomass (ethanol) and solar (Solyndra), pushing the Cap & Trade scam, and otherwise “picking winners” based on political connections and influence. These “solutions” are counter-productive and will further wreck our economy.
ALL of the aspects you mention are included in the estimates of blackbody temperature and the effect of the Atmospheric “greenhouse” effect. They even consider the contribution of the heat generated by the molten hot, radioactively heated, core of the Earth. IMHO, a scientifically astute skeptic should accept the basic science and reserve his or her skepticism for the amount of warming, the portion of that due to human activities, whether or not additional warming is any real threat to human civilization (or perhaps a net benefit), and whether or not any of the proposed “solutions” will be worth the cost (or even work at all).
1) The Official Climate Team has systematically diddled the data to exagerate the amount of warming since the late 1880′s
==============================================
You think?…………………….
http://www.real-science.com/paper-trail-mikes-nature-trick
What hasn’t been mentioned about RC is the despicable practice, of revealing confidential information, provided during sign-up, should someone actually start effectively make skeptical points. This tactic, against skeptics, violates all common decency and is intimidation at it’s worst. This has happened to me and I will not abide. Beware! GK
RC STATUS UPDATE —– Ray Ladbury, I hope you see this and reply. advTHANKSance
I accepted the invite at RC (from Ray Ladbury who sometimes comments here at WUWT) to move the conversation to RC’s Off Thread sideline. RC published my acceptance comment (#159) on 12 November.
Ray Ladbury then posted a comment asking me some valid, respectful questions (#160) on the same day. I replied the next day with a respectful, substantive answer to Ray’s questions, but my comment has not yet passed RC Moderation.
OK, Moderation sometimes take a while. BUT, today (14 November) they just published this disingenuous comment, also dated 14 November, that calls me out for not accepting the invite to the discusion there!
Here is the 14 November comment (#175) in full (no edits or snips :^):
Here is my 13 November comment that seems to have been censored by RC:
SO RAY LADBURY, if you are following our discussion of RC censorship here at WUWT, will you please post to the RC Off Thread sideline and ask them what happened to my 13 November comment. If RC is no longer interested in our cross-discussion, I now invite you to continue it over here by replying to my comment above. I hope to hear from you.
And, by the way, if RC does not publish my 13 Novmber comment (edited or not :^) in a day or two , I will repost it again, and again, and … and of course, report the results here where those of us in the “free world” can see it.
@Fred Berple,
You are precisely on the money and to add further… Liftons criteria for a “thought reform” organization is as follows:
Milieu Control
Mystical Manipulation (Planned Spontaneity)
The Demand For Purity
Confession
Sacred Science
Loading the Language
Doctrine Over Person
Dispensing of Existence
See http://www.kashiashram.com/Liftons8Criteria.htm
RC exerts all of the above including excommunication and ostracism of “sinners” as punishment for resisting the doctrine. Heresy and apostasy are singled out for special attention. To post on RC is to be a willing participant in the process. Avoid such places as they are rigged worse than poker machines.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/13/slipping-some-past-the-goalie-at-rc/#comment-796521
“Why not just shout out “I’m a warmist troll!” It says the same as what you said, but in fewer words.”
Great.
An ad hominem.
Fully expected.
Thanks.
Got any more?
Ad hominems, that is.
barry says:
November 13, 2011 at 6:17 pm
“…
RC have a lower tolerance for poor-quality posts or ignorance than some other blogs, including this one.
…-
I think you’re right. Your comment got through.
Ira;
SO RAY LADBURY, if you are following our discussion of RC censorship >>>
See Ira? Sorry, but you’ve been used. You’ve exposed nothing that anyone with a tough question or two doesn’t already know about RC, and you’ve provided them ammunition by engaging at all because their audience is never going to cross check with WUWT and so will swallow the story that you didn’t respond hook line and sinker.
You lie down with dogs, you get up with flees.
I think part of the problem with sites such as RC and WUWT is quite simple – views are often too polarised ….if you will all excuse the punn!
Warmists are prone to crow every time there’s a tiny shread of evidence pointing to AGW but by the same token, there are a great many skeptics who are guilty of the same practice. Akin to football fans, many on either side of the divide refuse to accept there is even the tiniest merit in the opposition. While the evidence of this practice is well documented on this site as regards the views of warmists, it’s worth remembering that there are many commenters here, who are guilty of crowing well bfore the battle is done. Let me give you all an example – for those who clearly blind themselves to the data.
In Autumn 2008 and again in Spring 2010, the well documented arctic sea ice recovery very briefly converged with “1979-2000 mean sea ice extent” line and stood for a while well inside standard deviation. This was indeed encouraging but in no way should have been regarded as a recovery from the 1979-2000 mean. However, I remember reading the headlines at the time on this very site..”Arctic Sea Ice Normal” for example!!?? Even although these were very brief episodes, it amazed me how so many contributers made statements to the effect that “all is well with arctic sea ice”. Inreality of course, for this to have truly been the case, the time spent above the mean should have at least equalled the time spent under the mean…… OVER THE COURSE OF AT LEAST 1 ENTIRE YEAR. Furthermore the depths of the deficits should have equalled the heights of the excesses over the course of the year. This clearly also did NOT happen and hasn’t been anywhere near happening at any time this decade.
While I accept that we do have a limited satelite record, we must still use what data there is. Even if the 1979-2000 era does represent a particularly abundant period of arctic sea ice (which is questionable at best), we should still at some stage begin to see signs of recovery towards similar values to that of the 1979-2000 mean. Besides which, if we really want to crow about winning this particular battle, it ‘s far better to win the battle on battlefield in question rather than running away to another venue. In other words – beat the opposition on their home ground.
For this to happen, it means in effect, beginning to see the ice extent line not just converging briefly but rising above the 1979-2000 mean on several occasions in any one year. Again, this has not happened for well over a decade and still shows no real sign of happening in the near future. While I’m personally convinced that this will happen at some stage, I must concede for the time being, the warmists are winning this particular battle. Until such time as the conditions I have described above start to emerge, I will do NO crowing on this particular issue. My team is currently well behind the opposition in the race for the sea extent & area title and has lost this war in several consecutive years. Let’s be honest with the facts that we do have and not stoop to the depths of the opposition.
As always, Dave, it is great to hear from you. And, to tell the truth, I have been a bit itchy lately, and it is probably the flea infestation I got from RC.
Yes, I am being used. RC commenter MARodger (who called me out over at RC) and other RC readers think I ran away from the RC discussion after Ray Ladbury asked me a few (seemingly) hard questions. However, MARodger, according to his or her comment at RC that I reproduced above (November 14, 2011 at 9:04 am) has been watching this WUWT thread. So, if MARodger sees my reply here, that will be proof that RC censors respectful, serious postings that have been invited by members of the RC community. Also, Ray Ladbury, who I hope is following this WUWT thread, will see the proof. As will other open-minded RC readers who may come over here for a visit. And some may stay with us and learn something new.
And, the much larger WUWT community, that has heretofore only heard second-hand about bad experiences skeptics have had trying to post at RC, will now also have proof that they can watch in real time at both sites. Yes, this exchange will yield more cross-visits to RC than to WUWT, but, the rich owe some charity to the poor :^)
So perhaps only a few RC guys may come over here, and we can’t be sure they will see this proof, but, as I said above, it is better to light one little candle than to curse the darkness.
When it stops being fun, as you and Willis and others who I respect and who have tried to post over at RC have wisely advised me, I will stop.
Why the hell anybody would want to post anything scientific at RC is beyond me LOL
“RC readers think I ran away”
That is NOT a new stunt by the unethical RC. They’ve been doing that for years.
To block rebutal after their team posts comments made to appear to have cornered the visitor. Then when the visitor is prohibited from following up they declare he ran away in defeat.
And Ray Ladbury could very well be the most caustic and unethical alarmist posting on any blog.
Ira Glickstein, PhD says:
November 14, 2011 at 5:42 am
RJ says: November 13, 2011 at 2:26 pm
…Real sceptics do not accept the basic science. CO2 does not somehow magically create additional energy after it leaves earth as many so called sceptics claim.
You are a warmist but not an alarmist. You accept the basic implausible pseudo science but just challenge the extent of warming.
Thanks for your opinion, RJ, but I get the impression that most “real skeptics” do accept the fact that Atmospheric water vapor, CO2 and other so-called “greenhouse gases” are responsible for the Earth being ~33º C warmer than it would be if the Atmosphere was pure N2 and O2. So you can put yourself down as what I call a “disbeliever”.
Only sceptics who haven’t examined the sleight of hand perpetrated by the AGWSF department’s meme that ‘greenhouse gases warm the atmosphere’…
“Atmospheric water vapor, CO2 and other so-called “greenhouse gases” are responsible for the Earth being ~33º C warmer than it would be if the Atmosphere was pure N2 and O2”
That is a lie.
This is the truth:
Atmospheric water vapor is responsible for the Earth being 52°C cooler than it would be if the Atmosphere was pure N2 and O2.
This is such a very clever meme produced by the AGWScience Fiction meme producing department. It is a subtle sleight of hand to deceive to make it appear that ‘greenhouse gases such as water vapour and carbon dioxide warm the atmosphere.
But, without water vapor, CO2 and these other so-called “greenhouse gases” and with an atmosphere of nitrogen and oxygen the Earth would be 52°C hotter than the present 15°C.
So how is sleight of hand achieved? By subtle misdirecting of context and confusing terms, that 33°C comes from another context, comparing the Earth’s temperature with the temperature of the Earth without any atmosphere at all.
That figure of ’33°C warmer’ comes from a comparison of Earth with all the atmospheric gases including oxygen and nitrogen, and Earth with no atmosphere at all, none of these gases.
Oxygen and nitrogen therefore are included here as “the greenhouse gases” responsible for raising the Earth’s temperature from -18°C without them to 15°C with them – making the Earth warmer by around 33°C.
It is all the atmospheric gases including oxygen and nitrogen which are responsible for the Earth being 33°C warmer than Earth without these greenhouse gases.
This figure of 33°C warmer comes from a comparison of the Earth with all the atmospheric gases including oxygen and nitrogen and Earth without any of them at all, without any atmosphere at all.
It is all the atmospheric gases including oxygen and nitrogen which are responsible for the Earth being 33°C warmer than Earth without these greenhouse gases.
The Earth with an atmosphere of only the greenhouse gases nitrogen and oxygen but minus the greenhouse gas water vapour would be 67%deg;C.
Which means, without water vapor, CO2 and other so-called “greenhouse gases” but still with an atmosphere of the greenhouse gases nitrogen and oxygen, the Earth would be around 52°C hotter.
The greenhouse gas water vapour is responsible for cooling the Earth ~52°C from what it would be without it.
(The other ‘greenhouse gases’ are insignificant and carbon dioxide included anyway in the water vapour because part of the water cycle; water and carbon dioxide have an irresistable attraction for each other, all pure clean rain is carbonic acid, as is dew, fog and so on. That’s why iron stuff outside rusts.)
So let’s go through that again.
The Earth has a heavy volume of fluid gases surrounding it, this is our atmosphere, the atmospheric gases. It is very heavy, this vast volume of gases is pressing down on us around a ton/square foot. You have a ton of it on your shoulders. All these gases comprise the Earth’s greenhouse, they are therefore all greenhouse gases.
Before, note how Ira puts it, the “so-called greenhouse gases” of water vapour, carbon dioxide etc. were stressed as being ‘greenhouse gases’ by the AGW propaganda, all our atmospheric gases were thought of as the earth’s greenhouse gases, because all these gases make up the Earth’s atmosphere so likened to Earth having a greenhouse around it. A real greenhouse, with windows and convection..
Our real greenhouse gases therefore are practically 100% nitrogen and oxygen, without the around 5% water.
Oxygen and nitrogen are the majority greenhouse gases of our greenhouse atmosphere surrounding the Earth.
NB that. No quotes required. Oxygen and nitrogen are the majority greenhouse gases of our greenhouse atmosphere which comprises all the gases.
Without any of our greenhouse, which is the whole atmosphere of gases surrounding the Earth, the temperature would be around -18°C.
With all our greenhouse, all our atmosphere of greenhouse gases surrounding us, but mainly around 95% nitrogen and oxygen and around 5% water vapour, our temperature is around 15°C.
It takes all our greenhouse gases which is our atmosphere and mainly the greenhouse gases oxygen and nitrogen to raise the temperature of the Earth around 33°C from the -18°C it would be without any atmosphere at all.
With the main greenhouse gases oxygen and nitrogen in place, but without the water vapour, the Earth would be 67°C.
Think deserts.
By taking out the around 5% greenhouse gas water vapour but leaving the greenhouse gases nitrogen and oxygen, by taking out the Water Cycle, the Earth would be 52%deg;C hotter
The Water Cycle brings the temperature down to 15°C in our real greenhouse.
Water vapour is the prime cooling greenhouse gas in our atmosphere by the mechanism of the Water Cycle.
By taking out the around 5% greenhouse gas water vapour but leaving the greenhouse gases nitrogen and oxygen, by taking out the Water Cycle, the Earth would be 52%deg;C hotter
The greenhouse gas water vapour cools the Earth by 52°C.
The Earth is cooler by 52°C because of the Water Cycle.
The Water Cycle is excluded from the AGWScience Fiction department’s energy budget which wants to make you believe that ‘greenhouse gases’ warm the Earth.
Myrrh says:
November 14, 2011 at 3:33 pm
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Proof positive that at WUWT, all view points, be they warmist or skeptc, well argued or poorly, founded upon fact or fantasy, are allowed through, and unedited.
It is of course a double edged sword to allow flights of fancy to stand equally with well thought out science facts, but if the choices are one or the other, then I choose Anthony’s version. Though if there was just one commenter that I… never mind. I’ve said enough.
Ira, thanks for the note. I admire your persistence. As long as you can laugh about it, it’s likely worth it.
w.
THANKS Willis. Let us laugh together. I wonder how this will play out, and will stop when it is no longer fun. Do you have any documentation on how they treated you unfairly or edited your words? Were you able to get a friendly website to watch the events in real time? Ira
Funding?
… Anyone interested in picking up the skeptics climate wiki I only started but have virtually no time for for another 6 months – email me!
I hope someone does this, and organizes a point/counterpoint document containing rebuttals or at least tonings-down of Skeptical Science’s alleged debunkings. Such a book could have an impact exceeding that of The Delinquent Teenager …; it is badly needed as a handbook by contrarians to rebut the condescending on line comments of Nonsensus-parrots.
Thank you Ira, your response to my earlier comment seems very precise and informative.
My understanding of it all is that you describe quite accurately how scientists are interpreting the science of “Global Warming” and I am therefore not saying that you are wrong. – I am aware of the possibility that I may be the one who is wrong, but my interpretation of some of the “Laws of Thermodynamics” and of a few experiments I have made the past, make me feel that scientists haven’t got it quite right. – Not yet..
However I have written two (quite long) responses to you on my brand you “lap-top” and they have both vanished (on the backs of Gremlins, perhaps?) and I am now writing this short note on my old PC as I have had “no time” to spare for yet another re-write. – I will be in touch again later, to try to explain further – but for now, I must go away as I have got places to go – and people to see.
O H D.
Any familiarity with IR Spectroscopy?
Which involves IR absorption by molecules and re-radiation by those same molecules?
Do you ‘believe’ in electromagnetism and that it may relate to molecular structure and furthermore how that structure dictates how any given molecule possesses various ‘modes of resonance’ (or perhaps none at all) at various wavelengths?
https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=IR+spectroscopy&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
.
davidmhoffer says:
November 14, 2011 at 5:44 pm
Myrrh says:
November 14, 2011 at 3:33 pm
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Proof positive that at WUWT, all view points, be they warmist or skeptc, well argued or poorly, founded upon fact or fantasy, are allowed through, and unedited.
It is of course a double edged sword to allow flights of fancy to stand equally with well thought out science facts, but if the choices are one or the other, then I choose Anthony’s version. Though if there was just one commenter that I… never mind. I’ve said enough.
Well yes, but Ira often posts here, but it’s easy enough to point out his fantasies…
I’ve said this particular AGWSF meme is very clever, not that easy to explain because of the way it includes nitrogen and oxygen as greenhouse gases in one scenario and then excludes them in the other. Perhaps trying to explain all of the nuances at once is what has confused you.
Ira said: “but I get the impression that most “real skeptics” do accept the fact that Atmospheric water vapor, CO2 and other so-called “greenhouse gases” are responsible for the Earth being ~33º C warmer than it would be if the Atmosphere was pure N2 and O2.”
First of all, that ~33°C figure is standard for the difference between the Earth with no atmosphere at all and the Earth with our atmosphere:
Earth without any atmosphere: -18°C
Earth with our atmosphere: +15°C
Difference between the two: 33°C
Ira has related that 33°C difference to an atmosphere of oxygen and nitrogen and not to what it is actually calculated on, Earth with no atmosphere at all.
So, no this sceptic certainly doesn’t accept his fantasy physics which is typical of AGW propaganda.
As RJ said: “Real sceptics do not accept the basic science.”
This is but one example of why real sceptics don’t accept the basic science.
Since what Ira has said here is obviously nonsense you’re shown to be not a very good judge of what is fantasy and what real physics.
‘Real Physics’ he says while ignoring the EM environment and contribution to the ‘energy flow’ (think: back radiation) gaseous molecules active in the IR spectrum contribute …
.
LazyTeenager says:
November 14, 2011 at 5:30 am
Myrrh says
While you’re over there, Ira, ask them to explain what happens to the 95% thermal infrared from an incandescent bulb when what you say you feel as heat comes from the 5% visible emitted? Does it get trapped in the bulb or what?
————
What you feel as heat on your hand is the proportion of the lamp’s radiation output absorbed by your hand. It does not matter if the light absorbed is infrared or visible light. So
?? So how does the hand convert this “radiation output” “which does not matter if the light absorbed is infrared or visible light”, to heat?
_Jim says:
November 15, 2011 at 12:07 pm
Myrrh says on November 14, 2011 at 3:33 pm
…
Any familiarity with IR Spectroscopy?
Which involves IR absorption by molecules and re-radiation by those same molecules?
Yes, as in an near infrared camera which collects the near infrared reflected back from bodies. Yes, as in thermal infrared cameras which measure the HEAT ENERGY, i.e. thermal infrared, radiating out from a hot body.
Do you ‘believe’ in electromagnetism
? 🙂
and that it may relate to molecular structure and furthermore how that structure dictates how any given molecule possesses various ‘modes of resonance’ (or perhaps none at all) at various wavelengths?
As I posted before in trying to explain this. Shortwaves work on the electron transition level when meeting molecules; like blue visible light from the Sun in our atmosphere which is absorbed by the electrons of the molecules of nitrogen and oxygen which then bounce it back out, this is called reflection/scattering. It is well understood in the real science field of optics. Thermal infrared however, works on the atom/molecular level of resonance when it meets molecules, being a more powerful energy than the piddling tiny blue light thermal infrared moves the whole molecule into vibration – this is how stuff gets heated up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Translucency
Scroll down to:
See, these are the two basic different levels electromagnetic wave lengths operate on, this is the basic difference between Light and Heat electomagnetic waves. Heat, thermal infrared electromagnetic waves, moves the whole molecule into vibration and this is what it takes to heat something up. It really is that simple the difference between the two.
Continue reading: “UV-Vis: Electronic transitions”, this is what these solar shortwaves do when meeting molecules, read through the four possible things. Note, that the second is a description of the mechanism as I gave above example of blue light reflecting/scattering in the sky. The third is a description of how visible light does not get absorbed by water, but is transmitted through. This is basic real world physics, water is a transparent medium for visible light. Visible light doesn’t even get in to play with the water molecule’s electrons as it does with oxygen and nitrogen in our atmosphere, it gets transmitted through without being absorbed. Visible light electromagnetic waves do not have the power to move water molecules into vibrational states which is what it takes to heat water.
Therefore, basic, well-understood, real world, physics says that the AGWSF claim that ‘shortwave solar heat land and oceans in their ‘energy budget’ is physical nonsense.
As for your next post, don’t know what you mean, but I really don’t see any possibility of anything you say on the subject about ‘backradiating’ making real world physical sense if you don’t understand the above basic real world physics.
AGWScience Fiction has created a science fiction world and all its ‘physics’ relates back to this science fiction world, and not the real physical world around us.
If you can’t see how utterly ludicrous the physics claims in this following post then it shows you haven’t appreciated that what Ira is pushing is a fantasy physics created out of mixing up properties and processes and taking laws out of context from real world physics.
It only takes one such example as above to show how nonsensical the claim that AGW pushers are ‘describing the real world’, but in every area we look, we keep finding more examples of this twisting of real basic physics.
In the real world an incandescent light bulb radiates out 95% thermal infrared and 5% visible. So, what has happened to the 95% thermal infrared heat being radiated out by the light bulb if what Ira says is true and what I feel as heat comes from the 5% visible?
Oh, of course, it must be trapped inside the glass bulb backradiating creating runaway global lightbulb warming.. 🙂
If you can’t see how ludicrous the claim that what we feel as heat comes from the visible, keep reading real world physics basics until you can. And then you’ll find other examples of how AGWSF twists real physics basics much easier to spot.
I’m not saying it’s going to be easy to find this out… As you work through looking at these basic AGWSF claims, the memes, you’ll find that they have been very successfully incorporated into the majority education system, so difficult now to disentangle. Here is one example of how traditional physics still teaches about the difference between thermal infrared and near infrared:
http://science.hq.nasa.gov/kids/imagers/ems/infrared.html
Note, near infrared is not hot, we cannot feel it. We cannot feel visible light, we cannot feel UV light. We do not feel these shortwaves as heat because a) they are not hot, b) they do not have the power to warm us up. Ira’s claim is fantasy, it is impossible for me to feel heat from the visible light of an incandescent light bulb. IMPOSSIBLE. What I feel as heat from an incandescent light is the INVISIBLE thermal infrared. When I switch off the light bulb I can still feel this.
The AGWSF energy budget which claims that these shortwave solar electromagnetic waves heat land and oceans is gobbledegook.
You can take it seriously if you want. Real sceptics don’t.
The heat we feel from the Sun directly radiating to the Earth is the invisible thermal infrared. This is what warms us up inside.
This has been excluded from the AGWSF energy budget Ira and ilk keep pushing as if real world physics and in its place they have put Solar shortwave, visible, heating land and oceans.
I do hope now you can see how this AGW claim is fantasy, science fiction. They have been very successful at introducing it into general education, which means that those now so educated, who have not been taught traditional physics basics, do not have any understanding of how the real physical world around us functions. They have successfully dumbed down science teaching for the masses.
Well said Dave. In W.S. Gilbert’s “Mikado” there is a song that goes “I’ve got a little list … of society offenders … who never would be missed …” Well, you can put him or her on that list, Dave. Like you, I prefer Anthony’s version where flights of fancy and odd scientific views are published along with the stuff I respect and find educational and interesting, even when they differ with my views.
As I’m not paid to blog my only “reward” is seeing high numbers of page views and comments on my topics, so flights of fancy comments are rewarding in that respect. You know, there are all kinds of nuts. Some, like peanuts are easy to open and enjoy, and others like walnuts and coconuts are more difficult, but worth the trouble. And then there are some nuts that are so bitter and hard to crack that they are not worth the trouble to bother with, so I simply ignore them. They are welcome to enter my world, and live in peace, but I simply do not respond to them in any way. Perhaps if others did the same, they might go away and it would be a more pleasant place.
RC STATUS UPDATE #2 —– Ray Ladbury, MARodger, I hope you see this and reply. advTHANKSance
Well, many THANKS to RC commenter MARodger, who has been following this thread here at WUWT and who saw the previous RC STATUS UPDATE (above at November 14, 2011 at 9:04 am)! My rather lengthy and substantive comment (reposted to RC on 15 November) has been published in full on RC with no snips or edits, within a rather short time of my posting it. My latest is a version of what I submitted a couple days ago, with some softening of the points.
Here is MARodger’s comment to the RC Open Thread sidelines that seems to have unblocked the RC Moderation process for me:
Here is my comment as posted at RC with no snips or edits:
Now, one sparrow doesn’t make a summer and this minor success took a lot of effort and some help from MARodger, but I hope it is a start to more open discussion over at RC. I plan to continue the cross-discussion over there, assuming that my future postings will pass Moderation (and I will be Moderate in my skeptic claims :^)
Ira;
You know, there are all kinds of nuts.>>>
True, but as you point out, there are many kinds of nuts. You’ve provided several examples of different kinds of nuts, but I’d like to point out that you are limiting your use of the word to nouns. “Nuts” can be used to describe things too. For example the saying “he is nuts”. This does not mean that he actually is a bag of nuts, or even that he has nuts at all. It is just a quick way to describe an individual who is squirrley. I’m not certain that is a fair descriptor as it is well known that squirrels collect nuts. In this modern age of 100% literacy, even the squirrels can read, and they might accidently collect the nutter because they don’t understand the nuance of the term. Where the squirrels store their nuts is beyond me. I was merely making a point.
Ira said: “Well said Dave. In W.S. Gilbert’s “Mikado” there is a song that goes “I’ve got a little list … of society offenders … who never would be missed …”
Ah yes, the 10/10 video solution to those who can see through the scam.
Ira said: “That is why I (along with James Hansen :^) have long favored a revenue-neutral carbon tax, charged at the mine, well or port of entry, where it will be efficient to collect and hard to cheat on, with the proceeds returned, on an equal basis, to every legal citizen.”
Yeah, yeah, for the good of all meme… if there’s anything left after the collectors take out their expenses..
A solution for a non-existent problem concocted out of fictional physics and defended by physical threats against those who see your peace as the offer it is, given and perpetrated for centuries by other bullies, submit or go on your little list.. Hm.
And like those you’d like us to link to, you too never, ever, deal with the real physics which shows up the fiction of your ‘science’ claims. You just keep repeating the memes and when you can’t censor the logical debunking of them, refuse to answer the questions.
A non-existent problem:
http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Scientific/Segalstad.htm#9
How sad.
“The point of this posting is that, whatever the difficulties, it is possible for skeptics to post over at RC, so long as we are not too blatant about it, and if we are not too sensitive about our words being edited.”
Unlike this blog, which simply bans people who can point out factual errors in claims made here.
[Not sure about that, but I am under no such instruction. I will however snip personal abuse ~ac]
Seems like I have been granted comment access to RC, at least in their Open Thread sideline. A couple of my rather lengthy postings, each replying to several comments by RC readers, have passed their Moderation unscathed. No snips no edits, nothing!
So, WUWT readers, I think it is time for you to try commenting over there. I suggest you avoid personal attacks, do not regurgitate the slings and arrows of the past, and stay on topic. Let us see if valid, serious, and well-intentioned comments are allowed on the main topics over there, as they are on WUWT. Good luck.
Also, be aware that they have implemented the Re-CAPTCHA spam blocker, so remember to type in the words and letters before you submit your comment.
And, keep a copy of what you post so, if you are impeded over there, you can let us know about it in this topic thread.
Dr Ira Glickstein, PhD,
[ ” So, WUWT readers, I think it is time for you to try commenting over there. I suggest you avoid personal attacks, do not regurgitate the slings and arrows of the past, and stay on topic. Let us see if valid, serious, and well-intentioned comments are allowed on the main topics over there, as they are on WUWT. Good luck. ” ].
Hmmmmm…how do I say this and still be respectful to you?
Here goes……………. You don’t make much sense , to me.
You started this post, here…telling us of “edits” to your comments by RC.
[ ” The point of this posting is that, whatever the difficulties, it is possible for skeptics to post over at RC, so long as we are not too blatant about it, and if we are not too sensitive about our words being edited.”]
You talk of – “slipping past the goalie” ………….
You talk of posting – ” as long as not to blatant about it”…………
You talk of – “And, keep a copy of what you post so, if you are impeded over there, you can let us know about it in this topic thread.”
AND then you state – ” it is possible for skeptics to post over at RC” …..
Frankly, Dear Dr… Your logic fails me.
Ira Glickstein, PhD says:
November 18, 2011 at 9:00 pm
[ ” If WUWT true believers only post here to those who agree with us, and the RC true believers do the same over there, all we will have is two echo chambers.” ]
Philosophically, your statement would have merit – if both WUWT and RC were equal.
A Pascal’s Wager………type statement..
A “what do we have to lose” argument.
Pascal’s Wager works somewhat well, in religion.
Are there, ” true believers”?
I would agree, that there are.
BUT your logic fails when you compare skeptics of the scientific [ lack ] evidence – with those who religiously believe in an unproven hypothesis.
You, and others, have proved that RC is tied, hoof and mouth, to their dogma.
One clear example, the use of the terminology to describe skeptics as “deniers”. Contrary to what RC and SkS try to say that the term is benign – It is invoked as a social [ Holocaust ] – religious [ Thomas the Apostle ] cast out. Especially when other descriptives are available to acknowledge the skeptics of the hypothesis, as presented. When one defends the use of the term “denier” you step from science [ which depends on skepticism ] into clergy gowns and a religious / dogma belief.
Science can exist within religion – BUT a religious belief of a hypothesis – can not exist within science.
You state: [ “It is better to light one little candle than curse the darkness. You seem to take the opposite course, as is your right.” ] Actually, you assume – and assumptions are dangerous in science and debate 😉
Albeit; your quote has merit – when one finds the light has flicked off while in the room – BUT one normally doesn’t enter a dark room on purpose. It would be akin to participating in a Jim Jones [ Guyana ] survival course.
.
Nah! I’ll pass! See my above comment on sign-up info. GK
I’ve been taught that… no one has the right to abuse me – Not molesters – not teachers – not bullies – not people who claim authoritarian positions.
Should I allow a molester to grope me just a little bit?
Should I allow a teacher to berate me?
Should I allow a bully to hit me?
Should I allow authoritarians to rule me without representation?
What are you trying to teach?
Personally, Dear Dr…..If I ever feel the need for abuse…I’ll buy me a hair shirt. 🙂
Hey, Kim2000, my recommendation that skeptics might post over at RC was just a suggestion. I will not think any-the-less of you or others who ignore the idea.
If WUWT true believers only post here to those who agree with us, and the RC true believers do the same over there, all we will have is two echo chambers.
It is better to light one little candle than curse the darkness. You seem to take the opposite course, as is your right.
The comment I posted at RC yesterday, providing links to Lindzen and Choi’s paper as well as to Dr. Roy Spenser’s blog seems to have been lost in cyberspace or perhaps censored. So, I just posted a modified version to see if that gets through. If any more of my serious, non-confrontational replies to specific questions by members of the RC community get censored, I will post them here where MARodger and Ray Ladbury and others from RC who seem to be following this thread may see them, and recognize specific cases were RC may be restrictive.
I have no doubt that Willis, Dave Hoffer and other WUWT regulars have had their serious postings rejected by RC in the past, as they claim in this thread. But, they have not published contemporary proof, in real-time, as I have, and as I plan to continue to do. Either RC will prove that serious, on-topic skeptic comments are allowed over there, or we will have a documented, contemporary case study on the public record over here. IMHO a win for skeptics either way.
[UPDATE 19 Nov – My modified version was passed by RC today, http://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=9601#comment-219497 unedited and unsnipped, with a Response by Gavin noting “acknowledged” errors in the Lindzen and Choi paper.]
“It is better to light one little candle than curse the darkness.”
Ira: “Thanks for your opinion, RJ, but I get the impression that most “real skeptics” do accept the fact that Atmospheric water vapor, CO2 and other so-called “greenhouse gases” are responsible for the Earth being ~33º C warmer than it would be if the Atmosphere was pure N2 and O2. So you can put yourself down as what I call a “disbeliever”.”
When are you going to acknowledge that your statement I’ve bolded above is a science lie?
The atmosphere would be around 52°C HOTTER if it wasn’t for these ‘so-called’ greenhouse gases; water vapour accounts for 52°C cooling through the Water Cycle.
Greenhouse gases COOL the Earth. The Earth would be 67°C not the 15°C it is in an atmosphere of N2&O2 without the water cycle.
Real sceptics don’t accept the science because the science is junk.
Well stated and valid reasons for you and others who take your view to refrain from doing what I have done at RC (and here at WUWT). I do not pretend to judge those, like you and others here at WUWT, who have reasoned objections to boosting the readership of RC and imputing validity to their “religious” adherence to the school of strict CAGW (Catastrophic human-caused warming).
On the “denier” issue. When that was raised in the mainline Times Atlas thread at RC, I replied (and my comment was passed) “… When it comes to the Atmospheric ‘Greenhouse Effect’, some of the commenters on that blog [WUWT] are ‘disbelievers’ (the term I prefer to the non-PC ‘denialist’). …”
One of the RC commenters later wrote “…The proper term for WUWT is ‘denier’ or ‘denialist’. And for the record, the implicit allusion to Holocaust denial is entirely intentional on my part.” [Emphasis added]. Of course that made me very angry, but I refrained (with difficulty) from blowing my stack. Later, the RC moderator added the following: “[Response: Please don’t give fodder to the idiots that think they get called ‘deniers’ because of some relationship to Holocaust denial. That’s inflammatory and in any case ridiculous. People get called deniers because they are denying something, plain and simple. It’s a word, that’s it.–eric]”
Have I accomplished anything over at RC? You and others are free to doubt it, but I think I have. Although several of my postings were lost in cyberspace (probably censored completely), and one was edited, another snipped, and others diluted by RC Moderator Reponses, and the discussion side-tracked to the RC Open Thread sidelines, some things we skeptics hold as true did get through.
My most recent posting did get through at RC totally intact and it included the following:
WOW! Now RC readers know about the internal NASA-GISS FOIA email that acknowledges that they re-re-re-re-re-re-re analyzed the 1934 and 1998 US mean data until they got the right result for them that 1998 was warmer than 1934! They even published a link back to WUWT that includes my graphic depiction of that email:
My most
Ira Glickstein, PhD says:
November 20, 2011 at 10:35 am
[ ” Well stated and valid reasons for you and others who take your view to refrain from doing what I have done at RC (and here at WUWT). I do not pretend to judge those, like you and others here at WUWT, who have reasoned objections to boosting the readership of RC and imputing validity to their “religious” adherence to the school of strict CAGW (Catastrophic human-caused warming).” ].
Thank you 🙂
[ ” On the “denier” issue. When that was raised in the mainline Times Atlas thread at RC, I replied (and my comment was passed) “… When it comes to the Atmospheric ‘Greenhouse Effect’, some of the commenters on that blog [WUWT] are ‘disbelievers’ (the term I prefer to the non-PC ‘denialist’). …” ]
Dear Dr. Ira,
It is ironic, to me, that a blog that advertises themselves as ” Climate Science by Climate Scientists ” resort to such terms… [ I have to include you, as you term ” ‘disbelievers’ (the term I prefer to the non-PC ‘denialist’).” ].
Is Climate – a Science?
OR a religious belief?
Are they – Scientists?
OR Clergy?
Many, Scientist in AGW profess themselves to be Agnostic or Atheist [ Non-theists ], and go to great lengths to distance themselves from religious. Even critical / criticizing of those that do hold religious views [ not saying that you do ].
Then along comes the unproven hypothesis.
Scientifically – what would I term an unproven hypothesis? Would I not term it – an unproven hypothesis?
Scientifically – how would I treat an unproven hypothesis? Would I not treat it for what it is?
Sans any religious connotation / implications but strictly scientifically – what would I be when acknowledging the unproven hypothesis? What terminology would best describe me scientifically?
Realist?
It’s an hypothesis seeking evidence, but without, at the present. Evidence that stands the tests against it – backed with observations.
Scientifically factual – how can I have an unbridled “belief” or label “disbelief”? How can I label “denialist ” OR even “skeptics”, scientifically, without invoking “faith” and giving way to the scientific principles that make me a scientist?
Until I prove my hypothesis – I have no ground to label / fault anyone…but if I feel the need… let me use the correct scientific terminology – they are “realists”. They acknowledge the scientific fact that I present an unproven hypothesis. At least, that way, I’ve kept my “scientific credibility”. How can I expect people to take me seriously, as a scientist, when I create a “faith based” environment around my unproven hypothesis?
I repeat: Science can exist within religion – BUT a religious belief of a hypothesis – can not exist within science.
Either they are a scientist… or not.
Either the study of climate is a science…or not.
If they are scientists – remove their dogma [ preaching ], political agendas.
If a science – keep it scientific.
[ “[Response: Please don’t give fodder to the idiots that think they get called ‘deniers’ because of some relationship to Holocaust denial. That’s inflammatory and in any case ridiculous. People get called deniers because they are denying something, plain and simple. It’s a word, that’s it.–eric]’ ]
AND this is why I refer to them as Mr…. instead of Dr. 🙂 [ It isn’t disrespect on my part – they chose to abandon the science of their degree ].
How can one deny something that is shrouded in political and faith based dogmas? It doesn’t scientifically exist!
[ “Have I accomplished anything over at RC? You and others are free to doubt it, but I think I have” ]. I think you have 😉
Thanks Kim2000 for engaging me and others at a high intellectual level. Thanks for agreeing that I have accomplished something over at RC. Furthermore, I agree with almost all you say in the previous comment.
On my use of the word “disbeliever” (aka “denier”) – I reserve that term exclusively for those who do NOT accept:
(1) The undoubted scientific fact that there is an Atmospheric “greenhouse” effect (i.e., that the presence of water vapor, carbon dioxide, and other so-called “greenhouse” gases in the Atmosphere causes the Earth surface to be about 33ºC warmer than it would be otherwise).
(2) That additional carbon dioxide in the Atmosphere, ALL ELSE BEING EQUAL, will result in some increase in surface temperatures (at least 0.5ºC per doubling, and perhaps up to 2ºC), than would occur absent that extra carbon dioxide.
(3) That human activities in the Industrial Age, including unprecedented burning of fossil fuels and land use that has reduced albedo (reflectiveness), are responsible for some fraction of the increase in mean temperatures experienced over the past decade than there would have been, ALL ELSE BEING EQUAL, absent that human activity.
(4) That multiple forms of radiation, whether we call them “light” (“shortwave” ~0.2μ to ~4μ) or “heat” (Longwave ~4μ to ~50μ), contain energy that raises the temperature of material they happen to fall on, if and when they are absorbed.
I DO NOT use the term “disbeliever: for those who doubt the IPCC estimates of CO2 sensitivity, for those who doubt the official climate Team estimate of 0.8ºC increase in mean temperatures over the past century, or for those who doubt that humans are responsible for virtually all of the increase in mean temperatures.
I use the term “Alarmist” for those who embrace what you call a “religious belief” – namely that human-caused warming will lead to catastrophic consequences (CAGW) in the relatively near future.
Ira, I see you were still posting here on November 20, 2011 at 5:40 pm, so hopefully you are still checking up on any new comments.
I understand quite well that I am one among those people you look upon as “disbelievers”.
I don’t mind that word, or name, as when it comes to warming by Long Wave Infra Red (LWIR) radiation exchange between the Earth’s surface and the so-called Greenhouse gases (GHGs) present in the atmosphere; I can only say that – “I don’t believe it!” –
John Tyndall did not, back in 1859 – 61, as far as I am concerned, prove that CO2 was, or is, “a Greenhouse gas” (GHG). All he proved was that CO2 did either: a) block, the path of certain wavelengths of the electromagnetic signal we now call LWIR radiation, or: b) that CO2 absorbs the said signal.
But – as he never incorporated a thermometer in his “brass tube” that contained the CO2 gas he could only “assume” that heat from his “right hand heat source” was transferred to the said gas present in his brass tube.
If however you do not agree, then at least take a close look at the 2nd part of the “warming by GHGs theory” which says that the heat-energy is “backradiated”, or radiated back downwards from the GHGs to the surface which thus is further warmed – or receives “extra heat” – or words to that effect.
We know, from the AGW theory that LWIR radiation from the surface, which has an average temperature of ~ 15 deg. C or K, reaches all the way out to space. – We know that because some radiation which GHGs cannot stop or absorb is escaping to space, unhindered, through the “Atmospheric Window”. Therefore “heat-energy” from, a LWIR source, say 10 times hotter than the Earth’s average surface temperature should have no problem reaching downward to the surface from a position of say around 2.5 -3 feet above it and thus warm that surface from there. – Or what do you think?
To answer that particular question on “Back-radiation” why not do a small and very simple – as well as inexpensive experiment?
Do the experiment indoors thus minimizing drafts and other unwanted air interferences.
Items needed are 2 thermometers, one to register/check any rise or fall of air/ground temperatures as a direct consequence of LWIR radiation. And – one to check that room temperature stays steady during the experiment.
You will also need a hot-plate (not the infra-red variety as that type produces short wave infra red (SWIR) radiation which does transport energy that is known to be capable of inducing “Increased Molecular Movement” (IMM) of which heat is a bi-product.
If you do not possess an “ordinary (old fashioned) hot plate, your wife’s (or your own) smoothing iron will do as a substitute. – (You may recall some time ago when Anthony Watts was replicating Al Gore’s Climate experiment 101. – He, just as Al did, used two infra-red light bulbs as “heat-sources.” Therefore the experiment showed Al up for what he is, but apart from that, it had nothing to do with AGW as that is purely, and only, down to CO2 and LWIR radiation.) What happens to “– or + feed-backs” is irrelevant, so long as AGW does not happen. But anyway, I do digress, so let’s return to where I left off, and:
Think up a way, of your own choice (it’s your hot-plate, floor and thermometer), as to how to securely suspend the hot-plate (or smoothing iron) horizontally level and approximately 2.5 – 3 feet above the floor, in such a way that the flat/heated side/disc is facing downwards. – Now place one of the thermometers directly below and in line (plum) with the hot-plate. Leave this set-up until you are satisfied that the temperatures as shown on the 2 thermometers have settled at the ambient temperature;
Now, “energize” the hot-plate. – Check and record the temperatures as displayed on the thermometers every 15 minutes until you are satisfied the temperatures have settled.
Armed with your newly gained knowledge write an essay on how “Backradiation” raises the Earth’s temperature by 33 deg. Kelvin.
[O H Dahlsveen, sorry you cannot accept the Atmospheric ‘greenhouse’ Effect. I know you are aware that other skeptics at WUWT do accept the basic science. You are certainly entitled to your opinions which you courteously express over here. Good luck. Ira]
Ira Glickstein, PhD says:
November 20, 2011 at 5:40 pm
[ “Thanks Kim2000 for engaging me and others at a high intellectual level. Thanks for agreeing that I have accomplished something over at RC. ” ]
You are very welcome 🙂
From your statements, can I take it that you believe in the basic hypothesis of AGW, as presented?
To do so, would one not have to agree that Stefan-Boltzmann Blackbody Equations have been properly verified and applied to this hypothesis?
That this is a verifiable equation for Earths Energy Budget?
[ ” Surface: S + \lambda A = G
Atmosphere: \lambda G = 2 \lambda A
Planet: S = \lambda A + (1-\lambda) G
The factor of two for A (the radiation emitted from the atmosphere) comes in because the atmosphere radiates both up and down. From those equations you can derive the surface temperature as a function of the incoming solar and the atmospheric emissivity ” ]
That Ludwig Boltzmann’s law, lambda’s value is 0.22-0.3C per watt… BUT needs to be higher?
These are the “basics” used in support of the AGW hypothesis, aren’t they?
Is there empirical evidence that supports the way these are used?
Does observational [ climate ] evidence support the way these are used?
[Sorry Kim2000, but I do not understand what you are getting at. Please restate it in simpler terms and perhaps provide a reference where your point is described in more detail. If other WUWT commenters understand what Kim2000 is getting at, please chime in. advTHANKSance. Ira]
RC STATUS UPDATE #3 – Summary
This topic has been going for nearly two weeks as has my experiment posting very restrained skeptic comments over at RealClimate.
During that time, I had four comments passed by the Moderators on their Times Atlas thread.
Early on, an alert RC commenter identified me as a WUWT Guest Contributor. A couple comments later, I was shunted off to RC’s November Open Thread sideline where I have had ten comments passed.
My first posting was edited, using
strikeoutto show my actual words and italics to mock them. My second posting got a minor snip (of my use of Climategate Research Unit instead of the correct Climactic). All the rest were passed intact, with some interpolated Responses by an RC Moderator.Along the line, a few of my comments were lost in cyberspace, most likely censored. So, after waiting a day or two, I re-posted modified versions that were passed by the Moderators. Persistence pays off (if you consider having comments on RC to be of value :^) I believe my subsequent comments would probably have been blocked had RC commenter MARodger not noticed my accounting here at WUWT and intervened.
Virtually all the replies to my comments were in opposition and some were hostile and even included personal denigration. I ignored the negative stuff and, in my subsequent replies, I stuck to climate science facts and studiously avoided any appearance of having been insulted, other than quoting William Cowper (~1763): “A moral, sensible, and well-bred man, Will not affront me, and no other can.”
BOTTOM LINE: It is possible for moderate skeptics to post over at RC if they are persistent and not overly sensitive, particularly if they have a way to report edited, snipped, or censored comments as I did here at WUWT, where RC commenters could see my reports and intervene. I would like to see more WUWT readers commenting over at RC and vice-versa. Otherwise, we will have two separate echo chambers with no possibility of serious cross-discussion. Did I do any good over there? Based on the replies I got, no. However, there may be a silent majority at RC that read and understood some of the factual information I posted about the 0.4ºC uncertainty out of the supposed 0.8ºC warming, and how that gives wiggle room used by warmist analysts to exaggerate the amount of warming and the level of human responsibility for it. But, who knows for sure?
Ira says:
“I would like to see more WUWT readers commenting over at RC and vice-versa. Otherwise, we will have two separate echo chambers with no possibility of serious cross-discussion.”
I usually agree with you Ira, but WUWT is certainly not an ‘echo chamber’. All points of view are welcome here [subject to site Policy]. An echo chamber blog is one that actively censors or otherwise impedes or deletes legitimate opposing comments, as RC and similar alarmist blogs constantly do. They end up with a small coterie of mouth breathing head-nodders; an echo chamber, where they emit the same talking points. The only skeptical comments allowed contain something they can immediately jump on, or posts that are otherwise easy to dispute. Do you think someone like the always polite and to the point Steve McIntyre would be allowed unrestricted postings at RC??
As you’re finding out, RC is a heavily censoring blog owned by the smarmy, debate-fearing charlatan Michael Mann. RC must censor to stay in business. If RC allowed a fair back and forth debate with all reasonable, polite points of view posted they would lose, because they have no testable, empirical evidence to support their catastrophic global warming claims. They have computer models and appeals to authorities like the IPCC, and that’s about it.
Don’t fool yourself, Ira. Blogs like RC must censor. They have no other choice. You don’t think they’re going to allow long-running debates that encourage different points of view like we see at this non-censoring site, do you? They have a gravy train to protect, and they’re not going to derail it by being fair and open minded. RC is the definition of “anti-science”.
Of course you are right, Smokey, to note the vast differences between RC and WUWT in terms of censorship of legitimate, serious comments, as I found out.
When I said “two separate echo chambers” I did not mean to suggest that WUWT blocks any comments (unless they contain personal attacks or are genuine spam, etc.)
On the other hand, except for some cross-discussion between those I call “disbelievers” who do not accept the reality of the Atmospheric “greenhouse” effect and those of us who do, and occasional visits by some warmists, WUWT does tend to center on moderate, science-based skepticism, with some back and forth among different wings of that general grouping. I think there are more warmists who could add to the discussion here and benefit us, and, perhaps, they could learn something by actively joining the cross-discussion here.
Having been subjected to the slings and arrows over at RC, I have been sensitized to the sometimes snarky, mean, and hostile comments made to warmists who have the temerity to venture over here. For that reason, I will try to be kinder to warmists who post here (as well as disbelievers :^), and I urge my fellow WUWT commenters to do the same. I think that will make our message more effective. And, we may even learn more.
Thank you Ira Glickstein, for your input added at the end of my previous comment.
I have no real “axe to grind” when it comes to those skeptics who believe that there is a natural Greenhouse effect (NGHE) due to radiation We are, as Jo Nova once told me, friends and on the same team. –
I too believe there is “a NGHE” of some sort, but – there ends my agreement with those who say – believe – or insist, call it what you will, that the NGHE is due to the fact that LWIR radiation is absorbed by GHGs and then re-emitted to the surface which in turn absorbs and re-emit, et cetera, et cetera.
You see, apart from the ‘Grenhouse Gas Theory’ (GHGT) there are a few other theories ‘milling around. – Some of them have stood the ‘test of time’ and are therefore by now looked upon as “Laws of Physics”, or in our special case they have become “Laws of Thermodynamics”
The very first, and the most basic of those laws is; “The zeroth law of thermodynamics which recognizes that if two systems are in thermal equilibrium with a third, they are also in thermal equilibrium with each other, thus telling us that, in our case, if all (or two) things; A and B are in thermal equilibrium with the C (the air pocket in which they reside), then everything is at, say ”room temperature” and are also therefore in thermal equilibrium with each other.
One other such law deals with energy, and it says in part; that energy cannot be destroyed, but – the first law of thermodynamics distinguishes between two kinds of physical process, namely energy transfer as work, and energy transfer as heat. It tells how this shows the existence of a mathematical quantity called the internal energy of a system. The internal energy obeys the principle of conservation of energy but work and heat are not defined as separately conserved quantities. Equivalently, the first law of thermodynamics states that perpetual motion machines of the first kind are impossible. Therefore, once the Sun’s energy effects on the surface has been converted to molecular motion – producing the bi-product we call heat, the bi- product “heat” (LWIR radiation) can not produce energy capable of producing more heat. (LWIR radiation is therefore, I am sorry, impotent and not capable of any further heating – or perpetual motion.
As I interpret it, – You either ditch the 1st law of Thermodynamics or you ditch the notion that the Atmosphere can somehow rise The Globe’s temperature by 33 Kelvin. – Those two theories do not interact.
By the way Ira, what you call basic science, seems to me to be science gone wrong, or pure science fiction – Just look at Kiehl & Trenberth’s (K&T) 1997 energy flow chart. (I use that one as, as far as I know, it was their first one.)
Apart from the fact that they give GHGs some kind of mechanism whereby it is possible to radiate 324 W/m² in one direction only, or if I am very generous; 324 W/m² in one direction and 165 W/m², in the other, their “energy flow chart” use as its “Solar Irradiation” (SI) 1/4 of the so called “Solar Constant”, thereby bestowing 24 hour sunshine on the entire planet. This kind of thing does not happen anywhere else in the entire “Solar System” which is just another reason why I cannot trust K&T to get things completely right, thou I do understand that the entire global surface emits radiation 24/7.
And,for another – by the way Ira, why do the gases Nitrogen, Oxygen and Argon not enter the K&T plan, as radiating energy towards the Earth’s surface? – After all, they all have a temperature warmer than absolute zero
O H Dahlsveen, please have a look at my series on the Atmospheric “greenhouse” effect (1 – Physical Analogy, 2 – Atmospheric Windows, 3 – Emission Spectra, 4 – Molecules and Photons, 5 – Light and Heat) and you should see that there is no perpetual motion machine at work.
As for why Nitrogen, Argon, and Oxygen play less of a role than Water Vapor and Carbon Dioxide and certain other gases, it is well known that certain wavelengths of radiation are absorbed by certain gases and others are not (see my #2 and #3). It turns out that Nitrogen and Argon pass the longwave radiation emitted by the Earth Surface and Oxygen only absorbs a very small portion of the spectrum. Water vapor, carbon dioxide, and other so-called “greenhouse” gases absorb larger portions of the longwave spectrum. Since energy can neither be created nor destroyed, when “greenhouse” gas molecules absorb that energy, they become excited and may move and collide with other molecules and/or re-emit the energy as photons in random directions, some of it downwards back towards the Surface where it may be absorbed.
If you read my series and still cannot accept the fact of the Atmospheric “greenhouse” effect, there is nothing more I can add. Good luck!
Once again Ira, thank you for your input to my last comment. I have, as you asked, once again studied your “Visualizing series” and yes, I must say you do a very good job of explaining what your interpretation of the “Global Warming theory” is (anthropogenic and/or natural).
That however only adds one more of many personal opinions which only says: “If the modern version of the “Global Warming theory” is correct then my explanation or conception of it is very likely to also be correct.
The scientific way is not to try to prove the theory to be right, but to do you very best to falsify it.
In 5 – Light and Heat – you say: “The Earth may be approximated as a sphere, with the Sun shining on only half of it at any given time.” – With that I agree completely. – Then you go on to say: “The adjustment factor for this correction is 0.25.”
Why blindly follow Kiehl&Trenberth (K&T)? – If you know that the Sun only shines on 50% of the planet, then to what purpose do you “adjust the real data by a factor of 0.25”?
Yes, I know that solar irradiation that falls on our planet must be “imagined” as falling “perpendicularly” on the square area of a disc, but that it “in fact” falls on the square surface-area of a sphere, with the same diameter. And therefore as the difference between the two formulas used to calculate the two different areas – is ¼ (0.25).
As I also know that the Sun, not just “at any given time” as you say – but always, relentlessly and without any pauses shines on only one half of, and never, on the entire globe.
Therefore to use a “correction factor” of 0.25 is to cover the Earth’s complete surface with 24 hour sunshine. Albeit at half the strength – or power – Reality is that the “correction factor” must be 0.5 or ½.
This 0.25 “adjustment factor” also has the effect of completely disregarding the fact that half the globe receives no solar irradiation what so ever. The only fact, and it is a known fact that changes this scenario, is that the Earth turns around its own axis 24/7, year after year.
Doubling the time the Sun irradiates the Earth at half power does not; to me anyway, seem to be the answer. – If you then add to that, that air – which is known to be the one, out of earth, water and wind – that is least able to hold on to heat, is the one element that causes “Global Warming” then as you say: “If you read my series and still cannot accept the fact of the Atmospheric “greenhouse” effect, there is nothing more I can add. Good luck!”
I can only reciprocate; Ira, all the best, good luck and – in a way I hope you are right as the alternative is that the Earth continues along its cooling phase.
RC STATUS UPDATE #4 – SPAM I AM !
Seinfeld fans will remember that the greatest complement for any of Elaine’s boyfriends was to be spongeworthy. Well, the greatest compliment from RC is to be spamworthy – and, SPAM I AM !
Since my last update (25 Nov) I have been involved in a nice conversation on RC’s November Open Thread Sideline with a few RC commenters, and I thought we were making some nice progress. (Just click on the prevous link and then do a find for “Glickstein” to see the 47 mentions of my name in my comments and those by others.)
However, RC seems to have put me on a spam list because my 27 November posting (reproduced below – see Exhibit “A”) was automatically rejected with a spam warning message (also reproduced below, see Exhibit “B”). I followed the instructions in the spam warming message and sent an email to contrib@realclimate.org but have not heard from them as of today (2 Dec). Over the next few days, I tried posting the same comment several times to be sure their re-CAPTCHA spam stopper was not blocking my postings. I kept getting the automatic spam warning.
On 29 Nov I posted the first part of my comment and it went through, but, as of today, it has not been published, so I guess an RC Moderator blocked it.
So, I guess this ends my career as a commenter at RC. I did successfully post over a dozen comments and got some good discussion going over there. I also confirmed the truth of the warnings from WUWT commenters who had bad experiences over at RC, and I documented, in real time over here how I was treated over there.
Exhibit “A” – My 27 Nov posting that got the automatic spam warning. (The numbers refer to comments by Ray Ladbury in RC’s November Open Thread Sideline)
Exhibit “B” – The spam warning message I got in return. (Notice that they say they look for words like “mortgage”, and “loan” and they say that socialism is not permitted because it contains the name of a drug.)
Dr Ira,
Environmental Media Service >> Fenton Communications >>> Tides Foundation >>> Soros.org.
Are lobbyists groups directly tied to RC –
I have been posting on these connections since 2008
IMO – What you’ve attempted to do – isn’t doable…. akin to trying to sell Bibles at an Atheist Convention –
Mormon’s at The Vatican’s World Youth Conference – Catholics at a Mormon Wedding.
You may get in the door.
RC is the church of CRU / AGW / IPCC.
Did you honestly doubt what commenter’s here, have stated?