WUWT readers may recall our guest post from Russ Steele in 2009: CA Academy of Science AGW display apparently not very popular
Here are a couple of photos from his visit then:
That’s one big hockey stick they got there – click to enlarge
He wrote then:
For the most part these displays were ignored, except for a few casual observers seeking refuge from the long lines at the real science displays. This lack of interest and participation seems to reflect the recent Gallup Polls indicating people are not really concerned about global warming, or ocean warming either. It could be our children have caught on to the scam, or they have reached global warming overload for the school lessons, and want some real science for change of pace.
I visited the CAS for the very first time on Saturday with my children, and I’m pleased to report that the exhibit is now in pieces on the floor, and cordoned off from the general public. I asked a museum docent “why is the global warming exhibit in the museum brochure (showing her mine) but closed off?”
Her response was priceless:
People just weren’t warming up to the exhibit. We are doing a new one on Earthquakes opening soon.
Russ Steele was right.
Maybe it had to do with the message. For example, this bit of ridiculous propaganda in the original exhibit:
Image from “In my Copious Free Time“
Or maybe the fact that people didn’t like being lectured on what to eat, especially when the exhibit was in full view of the museum’s Academy Cafe:
Image above from Wandering Architect.
The “Carbon Cafe” is in shambles now, as is the “green building” portion of the exhibit, click to enlarge:
Here are more views of the dismantled exhibit:
In it’s heyday, it looked like this:
Image above from Cinnabar, Inc. details: New Academy of Sciences, Cinnabar’s “Altered State” Exhibits Speak Up about Climate Change and California
The whale skeleton hanging from the ceiling is still there, but everything else is dismantled.
Maybe it was the labeling of California as an “altered state” in their press release for it that did it in. The LA Times said at the opening that it was a Museuem that Shouts Climate Change.
I guess maybe they shouted too loud, because now they plan to exhibit on something that Californians can really relate to:
When the über green California Academy of Sciences pulls the plug, you know “climate change” is a dead issue with the public.
I’m laughing. It’s probably very wrong of me, but I’m enjoying it. 🙂
Looks like they mixed up the hockey stick (“one big”) with helicopter Ben’s money supply!
When an exhibit has blatantly misrepresented items such as that CO2 graph, it is no wonder people didn’t like it. Anyone with half a brain would be wondering whether the academy thought that the Earth began around 1000 years ago, let alone swallow the “angry beast” simile.
I guess relevance is a relative term. Mother nature is far more interesting than propaganda.
Sign of the times. That ‘Angry Beast’ theme is about as far from science as you can get, except maybe archaeology or paleontology. Think like a Neanderthal kids!
And what’s with the whales? Or did the Great Acidification strip their carcasses to the bone?
The angry beast is Joe Lunchpail and Sally Housecoat who just realized that they’ve been fed a steady diet of propaganda for the last few years.
Has anyone else noticed that the average person no longer believes in AGW? If there’s one thing that the salt of the earth have that the rich don’t is a great b.s. detector – and theirs went off about the same time Al Gore (the inventor of the Internet) started popping up on every board in the country that had a handful of stock options to hand over to him.
Only fly in the ointment I see is that they will likely blame the “Earthquake is coming” on CO2.
I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall at some of their board meetings when they must have surely discussed what a failure the whole exhibit was before deciding to dump it.
People grow tired of the propaganda. It’s no longer ‘cool’ to be green in a ‘climate’ way I guess.
Hahahahahaha! 🙂
Oh Anthony ! you are killing me. Why don’t they have an exhibit on designs for chain mail suits for sea otters ?
Now that would be something I could get my teeth into.
From the 2008 “altered state” manifesto
http://www.calacademy.org/newsroom/releases/2008/altered_state_release.php
“They can videotape themselves making a pledge to reduce their carbon footprints, and then email the video to their friends; submit ideas for alternative energy technologies on a communal bulletin board;”
My idea would be to make anyone suggesting an energy technology personally liable for the subsidies if thinks go wrong and the technology is actually implemented through legislative mistakes.
I saw that exhibit for the first (and apparently the only) time about six months ago. It was a joke. I mean, the climate is a fascinating thing, but they turned it into something dead, dead, dead …
Then they poked it with sticks, and stuck alternately boring and threatening words and boring and threatening pictures up on the wall, deadly dull displays, and hard-to-understand mini-dioramas … the whole thing looked like it had been put together by sixth graders with a minimum of adult help. Inspired, passionate sixth graders, to be sure … but sixth graders nonetheless.
I laughed more in that exhibit than I had in a while, and went off refreshed to see the real science. They have a suggestion box when you leave, or they did then. I blush to remember what I suggested they do with their climate exhibit … and now it seems they have done, if not what I suggested, at least something constructive with it.
w.
PS—How do I know that they didn’t do what I suggested with the exhibits? I don’t really know, but the circumstantial evidence that they turned my idea down lies in the fact that there was no spike in admissions to the hospital Emergency Rooms of Academy of Science employees with proctological complaints …
All that crap is being warehoused next to the “Duck And Cover” exhibit of 1955. They’ll drag it back out in 30 or so years and have a laugh at it too.
That exhibit was vacuous and weak. It used up a large amount of space and was extremely weak in the way it delivered its science. I am pleased to learn that they are replacing that ridiculous “agit-prop” with an exhibit that is at least relevant.
Instead of wasting all that space on the CO2 fiasco, they should have rebuilt the “Life through time” exhibit that was in the old Academy building, which was quite detailed and was a huge hit with the kids, or the fascinating army ants exhibit they had in the temporary location while the new building was being built.
What happened to the archives. I was trying to find a copy of
Prof Davies paper on the cloud levels falling, so I have it before I talk with him about it.
someone got a link to that paper ? please
What’s the betting their new “Earthquakes” exhibit includes
AGW, Climate Change, Climate Extremes,Sustainable Development (the new IPCC mantra) spin and drivel.I don’t see a reference in the other page, but is this the museum that put a lot of money into solar panels and stuff that never quite worked out as well as they hoped?
Yeah, guess so, see http://www.calacademy.org/academy/building/sustainable_design/ – no performance data available from a cursory look.
George E. Smith; says:
February 19, 2012 at 9:59 pm
> …get my teeth into.
Love it!
If they kept it, they would have to change their name to the Calif. Academy of Political Science
Ric Werme says:
February 19, 2012 at 10:14 pm
“Yeah, guess so, see http://www.calacademy.org/academy/building/sustainable_design/ – no performance data available from a cursory look.”
“Surrounding the Living Roof is a large glass canopy with a decorative band of 60,000 photovoltaic cells. These solar panels will generate approximately 213,000 kilowatt-hours of energy per year and provide up to 10% of the Academy’s electricity need. The use of solar power will prevent the release of 405,000 pounds of greenhouse gas emission into the air.”
What is that, a science museum? And they are unwilling to give you a simple value like peak performance, which I estimate at 70 kWpeak from these numbers, or about 12 times the typical homeowner’s installation.
How does science education profit from unclear writing. They could give clear crisp numbers and their fluffy numbers as a bonus on top. They don’t seem to know anything about science.
Sorry to say this but this site and all “climate” sites will go same way as less and less people become interested in the subject as they are now noticing that climate really hasn’t changed and will not in their lifetimes LOL
This is what happens when a display has no “science”. They promised “science”, but didn’t deliver. No surprise the public gave it a negative reception.
So they have given up on unpopular science. The right decision for all the wrong reasons. This attitude to science is why we are in this mess right now.
Well done Russ for Steely eyed reporting and you didn’t even get a grant, silly boy.
What a week Fakegate a shambles and Museumphonypropagandagate taken down by an lack of interest /Earthquake, yes the walls are tumbling in on the warmist.If only more Californians could wake up from the sleep walking and do something concrete to tackle these crazy socialist running the state (mental) government institution!
And a nod of the head to DirkH and his comment to Aaron Huertas of the Union of Concerned Scientist
You are the Author of the letter to Heartland Institute.
DirkH permalink
February 19, 2012
Greetings, Aaron.
I’ve read your letter to the Heartland Institute. You know the one you had Ray, Dave, Mike, John, Ben, Gav and Kev sign.
Why didn’t you sign as well? It would have been honest to see “UCS” on the letter, wouldn’t it?
Or don’t you do honesty?
I’m expecting this comment to never see the light of day, of course.
http://aaronhuertas.com/2011/12/motivated-minority-climate-change-debates-lopsided-and-dangerous/comment-page-1/#comment-8158
maybe they could sell the display to the Australia labor gov,t, they still believe in global warming’ god bless them for they DO not KNOW what they are doing
Had a good laugh at this – great article.
Anthony,
Thanks for remembering my original post on the subject. My daughter and son-in-law only live a few block from the Academy of Sciences now and Ellen and I will check out the new display on our next visit.
The public didn’t like being poked with sticks…..
That can turn us into angry beasts.
I hope someone has lots of detailed photos of this exhibit, and the others like it that have been displayed in person and on the web around the world. Those are valuable educational materials.
We will need them to document this era. After the fall of the paradigm, there will be concerted attempts at historical revisionism. The brighter amongst the warmists are undoubtedly preparing now.
The reason even children are catching is that the AGW’ers are almost “cult like” in the way they spread their propaganda. Even a 10 or 12 year olds have seen enough to realise that there`s something “not quite right” about these people.
“Climate is an angry beast…” Actually the climate is pretty bloody good – good enough for 7 billion of us!
Too bad they don’t set aside a small amount of space to fads and fakes in science. A small memorial to the Piltdown Man would be nice.
I can’t believe everyone is ignoring the elephant in the room. The CAS display is obviously another casualty of the Heartland Institute’s war on science made possible by their superior funding from big oil.
Okay, I’ll add /sarc just to be clear…
Willis Eschenbach says:
February 19, 2012 at 10:03 pm
“…PS—How do I know that they didn’t do what I suggested with the exhibits? I don’t really know, but the circumstantial evidence that they turned my idea down lies in the fact that there was no spike in admissions to the hospital Emergency Rooms of Academy of Science employees with proctological complaints …”
ROFLMAO! I just had to quote that. Beautiful! 😀
This is what I’ve dubbed generational problem evolution. AGW and our solutions will be so last generation to the next generation and after. They will have problems ours does not. They will prioritize them, they will find solutions that suit them. We will be no more influential to them than the flapper generation is to us. Plagued with the same alarmists as we for what ever cause should prevail, they will repeat the error of mitigating solutions that will require yet future generations to support because arrogance is endemic to our specie and they will not, of course, succeed because those that follow own the right to prioritize the struggles of their time.
If global warming is to become the norm then there will become a generation that will accept it as the norm and none amongst them will crave our cold uncomfortable climate as an ideal to return to. Who today longs for glacial dikes and inundations, cold that steals time from art and science, cold that mandates coal fires, foraging of wood and dung, and pillars of smoke and valleys choked with sooty haze? CO2 will be seen as the mechanism of deliverance from our brittle winters and our barren northern plains that in their time will feed the hungry world.
Regardless, we will pass our priorities torch to those who follow as it is not ours to keep. Our 30 – 50 year plans are absurd and become ridiculous beyond only 10 years. That is the nature of a multi-generational problem. We don’t get to shepherd our solutions to the end. We lack not only the necessary vision – we lack the lasting influence. Just one more thing we didn’t learn from our parents.
I was there on October 26, 2009 and had the same impression — cherry picked data and no real science.
http://www.synthstuff.com/mt/archives/individual/2009/10/last_night.html
I did see something of interest in one of their ancillary labs; a motorized small camera stand and emailed them a request for more info. Their response?
– – – crickets – – –
The rest of the place was decent and I am surprised that it has taken them two-plus years to come up with a new “temporary exhibit”
They’ll probably ship it to Aus – our politicians are still dumb enough to wet themselves over the threat of AGW
Damn – I didn’t even notice tango’s comment – beaten again.
I’m guessing the museum CEO was schooled in the arts, not the sciences…
A suggestion what the museum could do with one of the exhibit pieces.
http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii317/zefalafez/al_gore_fire_angry_beast.jpg
GB hysteria has made them rich.
Rogelio says:
February 19, 2012 at 10:29 pm
Rogelio, I fear I ouldn’t disagree more. First, it will be a long time before this current climate madness plays out. As Thomas Kuhn remarked about the response to a failure of a scientific paradigm:
So there will be lots more playing out of this story before the “global temperature is a linear function of forcing” paradigm dies, and is replaced by a new paradigm, “global temperature is the result of multiple interlocked thermostatic, input-throttling, homeostatic, buffering, and entropy-maximizing phenomena at a wide range of spatial and temporal scales”.
Second, if this site were about being AGAINST the AGW claims, you’d be right. As you say, if your site’s raison d’etre is opposing something, when the public loses interest in that something your site will suffer correspondingly.
But this site is about promoting and encouraging original, insightful, good climate science, honest and transparent climate science. I do original climate science research, investigations, and inquiries, and write them up here, as do Anthony, and a host of guest posters. And as is the essence of science, part of that research is taking apart and falsifying bad science. Science progresses by the exposure of errors, problems, and incorrect conclusions.
The posters here produce interesting, novel investigations of a host of climate issues. We are not just “opposed to” or “against”. We are leading by example, doing original work and providing information and linking to sources and providing code and insisting on transparency and ethical science.
I guess what I’m saying is that this site is about climate science. Real climate science.
And because it is, it will be of interest as long as the climate is of interest to scientists.
w.
Urgent Request
When historians look back at this scam, all they will see is a few official documents – the reason is simple – after a scam like this no one wants to admit they were part of it, and so only stuff which has to be kept will be available. And, what kind of a story will that tell?
These pictures of the exhibit and probably hundreds similar worldwide, and classroom material, and local authority literature. It’s all going to be a gold mine to the future to let them understand the anatomy of the biggest scare-scandal in history.
I don’t know how we do it, but we do need to start collecting this information and ensuring it is not all lost as all those involved start ditching the material and pretending it never happened.
“Climate change” is dead.
Anthony’s sure got it right on that issue.
George E. Smith; says:
February 19, 2012 at 10:11 pm
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/09/declining-global-average-cloud-height-a-significant-measure-of-negative-feedback-to-global-warming/
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2012/2011GL050506.shtml
Willis,
Complete Agreement, but you could have just said.
” As long as there is something/someone/somewhere wrong on the internet, WUWT will be there to point out, and break down the issues…” and left it at that. Just Sayin’,
Best Regards,
Jack H Barnes Jr.
Does anyone know what happened to these exhibit pieces, more specifically are they for sale as I would love to have trophy for my wall!
It’s a pity we can’t hold all those people who wasted taxpayers money on this Climate scam, responsible.
I wonder if they will smash and burn it all like Stanley Kubrick did with the spaceship from ‘2001 A Space Odyssey’, so that the exhibit does end up in some [other] Sci-Fi B movie.
ew-3 says, February 19, 2012 at 9:34 pm
Right on queue … http://www.guardian.co.uk/discussion/comment-permalink/14752250
Beautiful!
I would love to see that happen to the CSIRO “Science” Centre in Canberra. The first view when you enter is of an enormous “hockey stick” graphic on the entrance wall.
Sickening.
The times, they are a changin’
“The public is an angry beast and we are poking at it with sticks”.
As other folk have said the climate is a fascinating subject, one that will still interest me long after the Warmists have moved on to the ‘next big narrative’.
Looking at the photos and art work, I only have one word to describe the exhibition:
BORING
(Alright. I could add irritating – like the huge size range of the text of the ocean warming and stick poking slabs – which are also boring in their bland choice of colours. I know its all to do with tag clouds but it’s nothing to do with science and a lot to do with advocacy.)
I used to love visiting museums, way back before they become post modern propoganda forums.
On one hand: Food is 25% of our carbon footprint.
On the other: The huge animal skeleton.
One wonders, since animals do not drive SUVs, what could be the carbon footprint of a whale? Maybe almost as big as Gore’s.
Everyone wants to rule the world. Until they wake up.;)
My main reaction to the photos was disgust at the expense of such huge exhibits, as well as regret concerning the roughness of the pictures, by which I mean the similarity to pix in books for small children, like those showing a brightly-colored locomotive engine grinning and swaying with three wheels off the track as it careens around an impossible curve. I apologize for the long sentence, but those exhibits were just gross.
How many Heartland Institute budgets did that thing cost?
J says:
February 19, 2012 at 9:16 pm
You are on to something.
The graph is more representive for money involved in the scam …
Museums are skating on thin ice these days, with city and state funding about gone.
So a very expensive and useless exhibit will tend to teach a lesson to other museums and organizations now, in a way that wouldn’t have happened in richer times. Every exhibit has to pay its way.
Gaea’s revenge on Gaia, yet again! The Greenies consumed the surplus resources that made their existence possible. Negative feedback rules the world, and it even rules the idiots who think it doesn’t.
Scottish Sceptic: ‘When historians look back at this scam, all they will see is a few official documents’. Don’t underestimate historians as they are very good in digging up information and are not satisfied with a few official documents. That’s the reason we know so much of the Third Reich propaganda. This propaganda (post-modern science) and all those involved will be remembered for centuries.
My comments consist solely of an old Southern insult.
“Bless their hearts.”
Rogelio says:
February 19, 2012 at 10:29 pm
Sorry to say this but this site and all “climate” sites will go same way as less and less people become interested in the subject as they are now noticing that climate really hasn’t changed and will not in their lifetimes LOL
Rogellio, you should read the site description in the header (at the top of every page).
Commentary on puling things in life, nature, science, weather, climate change, technology, and recent news by Anthony Watts.
FYI Rogellio, this site is a “science” site of which climate is only a part, and will survive the shake out when the pure “climate” sites are regulated to the dust bin of history.
I am a born skeptic and individualist but I still worry about overreaction and backlash. Maybe it is time to worry that the whole ecology movement will be destroyed in reaction to the foolish excesses of warmists and green extremists. There is a small segment of the green movement that is valuable and important and I hope we don’t let the green zealots unintentionally kill that part with their nonsense. I remember the days of smog alerts and rivers so polluted that fish could not survive and swimmers were warned to stay out of the water. We don’t want to go back there.
Perhaps this site could be helpful in identifying and supporting good green science at the same time it identifies and attacks green foolishness. Willis Eschenbach has made some nice contributions along that line. Maybe the subject deserves a thread of its own.
Ding dong the witch is dead….. the wicked witch is dead!
The melancholy of the communist hippies
Once upon a time the hall of self-proclaimed reason were filled to the brim with neophyte personas. From wall to wall and ceiling to floor, jammed packed at the door. There was everybody that was somebody and more. After all, the halls protected against the insanity that was the outside reality. The speaker spoke and the quiet settled, everyone listened intent, straining their ears and with bulging eyes horrified at the madness that was to come.
That was then, this is now, empty is the hall save one.
The chaos of murmur and the cacophony of righteous anger dissipated over time. What remains but a mere ec(h)o-chamber covered in the gray mass of the one’s slime. The “comfort+” cell at the insane asylum a mirage of reason to the oblivion of silence–that now echoes from wall to wall and ceiling to floor.
The days of glory all but gone, the outside rationality has won. :p
“Climate is an angry beast and we are poking at it with sticks.”
Honestly, I just feel sad.
Thank you for the photos of the lecturing carbon cafe; visited LA for the first time a few years ago, and this easterner was stunned at the signage (also pleasantly surprised at how nice LA is! After all of the moaning and groaning one hears, I was expecting some sort of festering cloaca, and quite enjoyed my stay, finding much of it beautiful) everywhere, and I started taking pictures myself because after a while it was funny to me.
My favorites were the small tasteful public signs affixed to streetlamps blocks from the beaches in Santa Barbara and points north saying “Warning: Tsunami Danger Zone” (I started looking around, much like the devotees of the Chruch of Jesus Christ the Kidnapped in Vonnegut’s Slapstick, and just couldn’t stop), and best of all, the signs on restaurants: “Warning: This establishment serves fish and other sea products, which could contain mercury and other substances known to the state of California to cause, cancer, birth defects, and other conditions. Notice required by state law XXXXXXX”.
My brother in law took us out to a lovely place in LA, and to see that engraved in brass plated to the marble wall at the entrance of this beautiful place (where we had a delicious FISH dinner) pretty much blew my mind. “Known to the state of California”…indeed!
Anthony, my jaw dropped when the new museum launched and I saw what a bogus political and fraudulent science was allowed in one of my favorite museums before it was replaced by the new one. I even posted to some museum design boards about how the exhibit was not science, talk about the alarmist push back for the museum exhibit designers!
Stuff like this really gets me wondering … what would things be like right now if they had been able to lock us all up into one big ‘camp’ where we would be cut off from the rest of the citizens, unable to warn everyone else that ‘something’ going on wasn’t quite right? Of course they’d have to create an enforcement group tasked to devise a system to secretly identify each one of us and then a method of extracting us that was never noticed by any large group of people all at once.
Extraction is the easy part, do it at night when most of us are asleep at home – where we ‘feel safe’ and are usually only surrounded by our own family. But then where would they find enough informants to study every citizen’s activity to see whether or not they were like us, certainly that would be too big of a task force to all be working for the government and might arouse an even broader suspicion among the population? So no, they would have to keep the new department very small but well funded to contract informants who could mingle among us unsuspected and report our names to the enforcement group. The enforcement group would then extract us, place us in “protective custody”, (just to make it ‘legal’) and then “re-locate” us.
A few more minor details would include taking away our guns because, after all, they wouldn’t want to fear getting shot while knocking down the door of one of us in the middle of the night. Another would be to control the newspapers and radio stations which is relatively simple because there aren’t many. They could just bribe those owners willing to scrub any stories about the “re-location” activity and plant stories to tidy up when things went wrong. Fatal ‘accidents’ would then be arranged for any who refuse to accept the bribe which would only serve to verify to the bribe takers that they made the right choice.
Hopefully you suspect that the above sounds loosely like late 30’s, early 40’s Germany
Just because they haven’t taken away our guns doesn’t mean they will ever stop trying.
Just because they haven’t started collecting each our names doesn’t mean they don’t want to.
Just because they are not censoring the Internet doesn’t mean they aren’t planning how to do it.
Just because you haven’t read about any grand scheme to use ‘global warming’ as a means to take away your freedom – doesn’t mean that it isn’t already happening.
At 9:33 PM on 19 February, misterjohnqpublic had written:
I haven’t yet noticed that. To the extent that “the average person” in my experience thinks about man-made global climate change – particularly if that “average person” considers himself educated – he treats with the concept in much the same way that he treats with taxation, earthquakes, atherosclerosis, and U.S. foreign policy: hideously awful and life-threatening, but impossible for him to affect, and therefore something about which his purposeful personal action can make no difference.
Therefore why think about it?
In modern psychiatry, the phenomenon of “thought blocking” is much discussed as symptomatic of major thought disorders, chiefly schizophrenia, but in commonplace usages the expression is applied to the much more superficial tactic – actively or passively adopted by almost all people – to dismiss from constant conscious consideration distressing information about which the person concerned understands that nothing can be done either to abate the condition or to mitigate its adverse effects.
To the best of my personal appreciation, this appears to be what “the average person” in America today has done with regard to the AGW hokum.
Especially the person who considers him/herself to be educated (and therefore “believes in AGW” on the basis of what he believes to be the “settled science” of the “97% of climate experts”), having confronted the fact that – no matter what is done to reduce the carbon footprint of “the average person” in these United States – activities in other countries (Red China, India, etc.) will still continue to increase the anthropogenic carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere, recognizes that the Draconian enactments of our Mombasa Messiah’s EPA and the shrieking “Liberal” fascist pogroms perpetrated by the rest of las warmistas neither can nor will make any real impact upon the impending catastrophe of “We’re All Gonna Die!” global warming.
Got that folks? It must be understood that “the average person” in these United States and throughout the rest of the industrialized world does most assuredly believe in the “crippled conjecture” behind the anthropogenic global warming fraud, but has simply given up all belief in the efficacy of either personal or government action to forestall or even mitigate the oncoming catastrophe, and therefore simply refuses to think about it, much less to support any of the actions being pushed by the Watermelon warmistas.
An unintended consequence of the fervent campaigns of Trenberth and Algore and Prof. Jones and Dr. Michael “Hide the Decline” Mann and the chittering root-weevils of the lamestream media – striving (in the words of Confederate general and prominent Ku Klux Klan member Nathan Bedford Forrest) to “keep up the skeer” – has been quite effectively to so thoroughly terrorize “the average person” who “believes in AGW” that said person despairs of doing anything about it, especially in the face of facts in recent years demonstrating that nothing proposed by las warmistas could possibly do any goddam good at all.
It’s not skepticism of the AGW fraud that we’re seeing on the part of “the average person” but plain paralytic funk.
CAS Pullgate!
I don’t think that this is anything to take encouragement from quite frankly.
From the looks of the snaps in the story all this exhibition consisted of was placards. Who’s going to want to see professionally produced placards?
If this exhibition had, say: an Argo float cut in half, a model of all the satellites doing their thing and a working model explaining how the MSU instruments worked it would hold some interest and people would have had a look.
Sorry, this isn’t anti CAGW sentiment. From the look of this thing it was built by people who knew what the message was but had no grip whatsoever on the detail – it’s what happens when you let PR people run a museum.
Another church of global warming goes down…
Mildly off-topic but relevant nonetheless – here in the UK, the government is having to have a ‘summit’ with our water companies and other interested parties about the drought in the southern half of the UK (those of you out there who think it rains here all the time – we get less rain in London than Paris or Santander in Spain. Just south of where I live in Cambridge, gets less rain than Casablanca in Morocco. But I digress…)
This is the same government which is absolutely committed to the building of (literally) hundreds of thousands of new homes in the same south of England…
FORTUNATELY, a few years ago the previous government passed the Climate Change Act, which presumably, along with the ability to cause the wind to blow at precisely the correct velocity 24/7 to power all those wind turbines desecrating our countryside, is also able to cause it to rain in sufficient quantities to fill the reservoirs, but not to cause inconvenient floods…
It’s fun to dream as long as you don’t let it lull you into a false sense of security. It’s a really really big witch and this display is only a hang nail. When she actually dies be sure to step out of the way when she falls over.
This is absolutely priceless. At least a 7.0 on the Richter scale!
I really want to see how the earthquake exhibit is designed and presented. Will they choose to alarm and scare us? Demand “action”?
I mean, there is in fact a real risk from earthquakes, especially when you live atop the Hayward fault, as I do.
I’m guessing it will be a more objective presentation without the scare tactics but with a few prudent warnings. I hope so and that will provide even more evidence of just how corrupt the AGW racket became prior to it’s collapse.
@Willis Eschenbach — Sixth Graders
Yes, in my experience, that is a feature of many of the efforts of the so-called “intelligentsia”. I can never tell if they’re being condescending or if that, in fact, is the intellectual level on which they operate.
I can’t help but to observe that there seems to be two classes of people who participate in what may be termed public debates: those who present their ideas in an infantile, obnoxious manner, and those who address their audience in a fashion respectful of their intelligence. Furthermore, there seems to be a high degree of correlation between the class into which a person falls, and the nature of his views in the debate.
The picture with the ‘hockey stick’ graph, ‘carbon in our lives’ was clearly a mistake. The CAS must’ve accidentally used Obama’s budget numbers instead.
“When the über green California Academy of Sciences pulls the plug, you know “climate change” is a dead issue with the public.”
This is very bad news for the climate industry, because when public interest wanes, so too will the funding for climate science (at least from public sources). With an election coming in November, look for Trenbeth, Hansen, Mann et al. to become even more strident in their rhetoric (if that’s even possible).
Skyrocket energy prices himself is still at work driving Lisa Jackson to kill the economy. AGW is still taught in schools. The MSM interprets any warming as “climate change”.
I have visited the California Academy of Sciences twice. The first time was when the building first opened and the second time was with grandchildren when they had a day off of school. My impression both times: the people staffing the exhibit were ardent advocates stating with certainty facts of dubious quality. If there was one thing I took away from my interactions, the science was settled. Maybe, just maybe one of the reasons why the public didn’t warm up to the exhibit was because there was no mystery, no adventure, a future to explore. Everything relevant to be known is known; lets go look at the fish.
The Greenies have already declared that frakking causes earthquakes.
http://news.discovery.com/earth/fracking-earthquakes-gas-120106.html
http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2012/0102/How-fracking-might-have-led-to-an-Ohio-earthquake
Any one want to give odds on that being included on the earthquake exhibit?
The Greenies have already declared that fracking causes earthquakes.
http://news.discovery.com/earth/fracking-earthquakes-gas-120106.html
http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2012/0102/How-fracking-might-have-led-to-an-Ohio-earthquake
Any one want to give odds on that being included on the earthquake exhibit?
In this case, what problem? Global warming is a set of solutions looking for a problem.
/More Soylent Green!
Can you say “no visitors”?
When the new CAS re-opened back in ( when? 2009? ), I was so let down by the AGW focus of every part of the museum, that I felt compelled to let drop my family membership to the museum. I felt irresponsible taking my kids there!
We were betrayed as the museum had sacrificed so much real science floor space for this climate change nonsense. We live in California and there was not one earthquake exhibit, are you kidding me?
Geology is science too!
Maybe they are starting to right the ship. If they do, I’ll probably re-join the museum.
Contrary to some of the other posters on this panel, the “The climate is an angry beast…’ quote seems very relevant and correct to me. The ice cores do show that the shift from interglacial to glacial happened very quickly, possibly within less than a decade.
We should at least remain aware that the climate is quite evidently just as stable in a glacial mode as in our current interglacial and we have no understanding of what makes the difference. AGW models that deduce a linear relationship of temperature to CO2 however also fly in the face of reality. Still, an experiment with our atmosphere is a bad idea, imho, because we really don’t understand the possible consequences.
One immediate implication of our ignorance is that we should be working hard to end our use of fossil fuels, which means nuclear. On that front, Hansen is correct, at least imho.
“The Greenies consumed the surplus resources that made their existence possible. Negative feedback rules the world, and it even rules the idiots who think it doesn’t.”
shrewdly observant polistra!
will the parasites kill the host?
Compared to fighting the CAGW hoax exposing the frakking earthquake hoax ought to be a walk in the park. Very quickly the general population will understand that they are twisting the word ’cause’ to mean ‘trigger’ followed by the understanding that, even if frakking actually could trigger an earthquake – it was going to happen eventually no matter what – leading to the conclusion that frakking helps protect us against major earthquakes because it triggers several minor ones before larger stresses can build up.
Who knows, maybe someday deep high pressure steam injection along fault lines will become an accepted mitigation procedure and then these fruit cakes are going to have some serious egg on their faces.
Some Beliefs or Myths can be fun, such as the belief in UFOs or Bigfoot aka Sasquatch. In some cases, the evidence for those may even be more compelling than the one about manmade climate change. Anyway, the problem is that they need to make the MMCC myth more fun. Maybe a “climate change” theme park would do the trick.
Yeah! How dare those termites emit all that GHG stuff! They’re not thinking and their little experiment could kill all of us! Kill the termites! Kill the termites! …before they kill us.
Please pass the DDT….
It’s all ‘fun and games’ … until somebody hits you with a Sasquatch Tax.
Whether it’s ennui or dawning shame about the “CAGW Follies”, it would be a mistake to dispose of all that stuff. The Heartland Institute surely could manage an eleventh objective in their multi-million-dollar budget: Build and dedicate a Museum of Catastrophic Anthropegenic Global Warming somewhere in Washington (?), which feature this and other displays for posterity. In the foyer, Gore’s film could loop continually while a talking wax statue of himself could lecture visitors from a cherry picker.
… just a thought.
CAGW deserves a place among the great scientific hoaxes of all time:
http://listverse.com/2008/04/09/top-10-scientific-frauds-and-hoaxes/
Great photo-essay, by the way, Anthony. I like that it ends with the “next big thing.”
To me, this is very shallow thinking, along the lines of the of the Mayan calendar ends on December 21, 2012, so we need to be prepared for a possible disaster.
Seriously.
/More Soylent Green!
Bill Parsons says:
February 20, 2012 at 8:34 am
“CAGW deserves a place among the great scientific hoaxes of all time:”
That’s a great idea! A permanent exhibit on scientific hoaxes. That would draw great interest, and would have immense educational value.
Steve in SC says:
February 20, 2012 at 3:12 am
My comments consist solely of an old Southern insult.
“Bless their hearts.”
One has to have heard this from someone of the coastal plain – and most of my wife’s relatives are/were in Savannah and rural Chatham County, GA. It’s been awhile. Thanks for the reminder. It does fit.
ImranCan says:
February 20, 2012 at 4:32 am
““Climate is an angry beast and we are poking at it with sticks.”
Honestly, I just feel sad.”
On the positive side, it takes 30 years to react.
My dad’s parents were from Tennessee and Kentucky. I heard this from the Grands every time I did something… well, naughty (which was all the time). So… you’re saying this wasn’t a benediction?!
I did a photo essay on this exhibit a few years ago. It is at http://www.climateviews.com/Climate_Views/Download_Articles.html along with photo essays of other climate exhibits in Chicago, Philadelphia and Boston
These are “scientists”.
oh…. really….
I say they are propagandists.
Science is now a religion hijacked by the greens. You can’t trust a scientist anymore.
I was the exhibit director for a children’s museum. After having built many successful exhibits, I have the feeling I was “let go” because I refused to acknowledge global warming and did not want to build exhibits about global warming. Some of the educators became very angry when I mentioned the medieval warm period and pulled out the chart about recurring ice ages. One of them told me that none of that mattered; if the fear of global warming would stop people from polluting then it was a good thing. I would have gladly tackled any real environmental issue. However, it was not what everyone else wanted. Things have changed though and my old boss was recently “let go.” It is too late for me though because I no longer build exhibits.
Kudos for the viewing public for ignoring the exhibit. Some of the observations remind me of a visit my family took several years ago. We visited the Monteray Aquarium with my two sons (one elementary the other middle school aged at the time). From a previous visit several years previously I had talked up what a great museum to the aquatic realm the aquarium was. Unfortunately, after a long wait to get in, I was shocked to see how propagandized the overall experience had become with the overwhelming message that we, the people, were destroying the world. Talk about “painting with a broad brush”! But the most irritating message was the sledgehammer “lecturing” about what we should and shouldn’t eat. Even my kids were put off.
Those ‘duck and cover’ drills were two-purposed DavidA, as anyone who lives in the Midwest (as I did) or central US can testify to …
Map: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tornado_Alley.gif
.
Rogelio says:
… All climate fights will go the same way …. and he is correct. But Anthony, like all warriors, after an epoch battle will go about their life perusing their new interests and looking for new challenges. An on his walls will hang the bloggies, emblems of his victories for common sense and real science. History may well record his contributions to the human race.
Crap? I don’t think so. It is very possible to be plenty far enough outside of the kill zone from the direct radiation of a nuke hit but lose you life from flying glass from the shock wave or lose your sight by looking at the UV. “Duck and cover” is as valid today as it was in 50’s. Hopefully you’ll never have to thank me…
Of course if you live in Massachusetts your chances of survival after a nuke are a lot less thanks to John Kerry who penned exec order 242 for Michael Dukakis.
The display was just as ill-conceived as Renzo Piano’s awful eco-architecture. The greenies RUINED the Academy of Sciences. Shame.
etudiant says:
February 20, 2012 at 8:00 am
“Contrary to some of the other posters on this panel, the “The climate is an angry beast…’ quote seems very relevant and correct to me. The ice cores do show that the shift from interglacial to glacial happened very quickly, possibly within less than a decade.”
—————————-
Etudiant,
I think you are off by at least a factor of 100 or more in your decade estimate for transition from interglacial to glacial. The transition looks more like at least ~1,000+ yrs based on proxy data and geology.
I cannot easily get references handy while socializing at a Starbucks near the Mission district here in San Francisco. : )
John
I submit that it wasn’t a lack of interest in climate change as the reason for shutting it down.
It was more likely the continuous belly laughs coming from that area of the Academy that made them close it in embarrassment!
I know I would have added to the din! 😉
Like anecdotal weather citations not being climate, anecdotal occurrences like the CAS’s climate change exhibit closure is not evidence that the philosophical battle is even close to being over in the struggle for objective climate related science embedded voluntarily in an individual right based free society. Vigilance is needed more than ever my dear independent thinkers (aka skeptics).
On the bright side, however, the accelerating number of anecdotal pieces of evidence of the dissolution of the IPCC centric CAGW by CO2 appears to energize independent thinkers to significantly increase engagement in the open discourse. : )
John
etudiant says:
February 20, 2012 at 8:00 am
“We should at least remain aware that the climate is quite evidently just as stable in a glacial mode as in our current interglacial and we have no understanding of what makes the difference.”
Do have a go at these two things:
http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/07/in-defense-of-milankovitch-by-gerard.html
The above is Luboš Motl (trf) ‘The Reference Frame’ on July 6, 2010 (and a bit more on 1/9/212) comments on this paper . . .
In defense of Milankovitch, Geophysical Research Letters (backup), Vol. 33, L24703, doi:10.1029/2006GL027817, 2006 (full text PDF)
Find here:
http://earthweb.ess.washington.edu/roe/GerardWeb/Publications_files/Roe_Milankovitch_GRL06.pdf
—————————————
“experiment with our atmosphere”
If you mean CO2, then you might like to investigate the physics of saturation regarding radiation and such gases. Namely, the current effect on atmospheric temperature is probably under 2 Celsius degrees and the gas concentration would have to double to produce another equal effect. And then double again to get another two degrees. Then work out some usage numbers to determine whether or not that will ever happen. Then, explain how anyone knows that a slightly warmer atmosphere would be catastrophic.
“working hard to end our use of fossil fuels”
So far, this only works for a country that has neighbors with power plants capable of sending excess power to your under-performing wind and solar experiments. Germany thought so highly of your “nuclear” option that they shut off their reactors. See the current post and many others on P. Gosselin’s NoTricksZone:
http://notrickszone.com/category/alternative-energy/
Nice lush rain forest exibit…in a greenhouse.
Nice fossilized megafaunal specimen from another era when life was far larger, diverse, and abundant, under some other radically different past…climate conditions.
How appropriate that this famous academy is located in the city who is represented by the hockey puck Pelosi who is such a strong advocate of climate change legislation intended to penalize hard working Americans. Congrats to the CAS for recognizing that the hockey stick mentality must be abolished and replaced with REAL science. It was shameful to see the exhibit when visiting the academy.
Bill Parsons says:
February 20, 2012 at 9:28 am
Bill,
Funny. Sorry to hear you were so categorized. Erroneously, perhaps, as you obviously have progressed to the surprise of all concerned.
Suggest they replace it with a ‘low carbon’ exhibit… about the La Brea tar pits?!
Much more interesting and based on verifiable science.
Dave N at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/19/california-academy-of-sciences-pulls-the-plug-on-their-climate-change-exhibit/#comment-897337
While it looks like it was not a very compelling exhibit, I don’t see anything misrepresented in the CO2 hockey stick.
Do you object to microphotography on the grounds that the solar system isn’t well represented? The variety of time scales is simply part of the turf. You pick one and make your point.
A longer time scale might be distracting for the intended audience, since it would have more features, but you would have to step back mighty far to obscure the point it was making. It remains a key fact that the ongoing increase in CO2 has no known precedent in terms of its rate and amplitude. Do you dispute that?
“”””” Dave Wendt says:
February 20, 2012 at 12:46 am
George E. Smith; says:
February 19, 2012 at 10:11 pm
Many thanks Dave, I knew somebody would figurei t out before I did. I couldn’t find the “older posts” tag at the bottom of the visible page to go back.
It seems that they have the archives posted on the side there. Well they say the best way to hide your house key, is to hang it on the outside of your front door. Who’d a thunk Anthony would put th’archives on the side ? !
I just tried your link and got what I needed; thanx.
And I was so looking forward to seeing glaciers filling Yosemite valley again! Oh wait, that would be global cooling …my mistake.
I decided to check on who “Russ Steele” is, the guy whose quote criticizing the museum’s cautionary climate change exhibit is found close to the beginning of this article. A minute’s worth of searching on Google revealed that “Russ Steele” is, by his own biographical account, “a systems engineer, freelance writer. Lt Col, USAF (Ret)” who got a “social science” degree from Troy State University.
Hilarious! Isn’t it wonderful how on ludicrous websites like this, you peddle nonsense on technical matters from people who have zero technical background in the areas of science on which they make pronouncements!!!
To anyone not determined to believe what is posted here because it agrees with their smug prejudices, this Website stands discredited as a know-nothing anti-global warming site. Enjoy preaching to the choir.
Berto the man gave an opinion just like yours. Now since you feel compelled to judge, give us your name and background to be fair.
Well it seems that I once actually visited the CAS, which is an absolute miracle because I do NOT go to San Francisco for any reason; Well sometimes my wife brow beats me into taking her to see something like maybe the King Tut exhibit, every 25 years, and every time I vow never again.
and the one thing I do remember about the CAS was that stupid climate exhibit, which was as dumb as a pet rock. So dumb, that I have absolutely no recollection of whatever else they might have there. I’m still debating whether I am going to go to SF to watch Team Emirates New Zealand lift the America’s Cup from Larry Ellison. (fear not, Larry, we’d love to have you come back down under to try and get it back).
For any of you Euro Yachtie fans out there, the Volvo round the worlders are scheduled to arrive in Auckland, the day after I get there (March 8th) I’ll be down at the Viaduct to greet them, and help them enjoy some Kiwi beers or wines.
When this climate phantasy passes from our view; yeah it warms and it cools; so what ? we’ll find some other interesting science to visit our attention on. I doubt that we will ever exhaust everthing so that we are left with just the first 10^-43 seconds after the big bang to wonder about; suppsedly that’s when those big Higgs Bozos were all over the place; damn small place it was.
“”””” Michael Tobis says:
February 20, 2012 at 11:59 am
Dave N at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/19/california-academy-of-sciences-pulls-the-plug-on-their-climate-change-exhibit/#comment-897337
………………………..
A longer time scale might be distracting for the intended audience, since it would have more features, but you would have to step back mighty far to obscure the point it was making. It remains a key fact that the ongoing increase in CO2 has no known precedent in terms of its rate and amplitude. Do you dispute that? “””””
Well hell yes Michael, earth used to have around 7,000 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere, and life flourished like nobody’s business.
In fact right now, earth is enjoying a period of the lowest atmospheric CO2 that we have had in hundreds of million years; sure it was lower in 1958, when believable measurements started , but under 1,000 ppm has been a rarity in the grand scheme of things. So far, nothing much has happened as a result.
IT’S THE WATER !!
Michael Tobis says:
February 20, 2012 at 11:59 am
A longer time scale might be distracting for the intended audience, since it would have more features, but you would have to step back mighty far to obscure the point it was making. It remains a key fact that the ongoing increase in CO2 has no known precedent in terms of its rate and amplitude.
By “distracting” you must mean “not at all scary”, since the whole point of that graph is to alarm, not inform. Otherwise, they would have shown graphs like these:
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/last_400k_yrs.html
Willis Eschenbach,
Given that the most common US slang phrase for you suggestion is “stick it where the sun doesn’t shine” and that the exhibit will likely end up in some windowless store room this could be read as compliant with your suggestion depending on the precise wording
Bruce Cobb, see that vertical stripe way over on the left? I find that quite concerning. Clearly there is nothing like it in the record. Now the public might miss it on that scale, but it’s the single most salient feature of the whole thing.
So it makes sense to focus in on it on a shorter time scale, and it was entirely true and in no way misleading.
Berto says:
February 20, 2012 at 12:36 pm
To anyone not determined to believe what is posted here because it agrees with their smug prejudices, this Website stands discredited as a know-nothing anti-global warming site. Enjoy preaching to the choir.
=============================================
As less and less people believe…..
….you will be left with the lowest common denominator
Hang in there Berto…you might be the last one standing
Berto, God bless your little heart. You are trying.
And how many bus loads of school kids were paraded in front of the con job brainwashing displays without parents around to offer snide comments?
Michael Tobis says:
February 20, 2012 at 1:01 pm
see that vertical stripe way over on the left? I find that quite concerning. Clearly there is nothing like it in the record. Now the public might miss it on that scale, but it’s the single most salient feature of the whole thing.
So it makes sense to focus in on it on a shorter time scale, and it was entirely true and in no way misleading.
Do you find the increased plant growth, and thus extra food for the biosphere, and for man concerning? I sure don’t. The whole point is for them to try to demonize C02, and in particular man’s C02. It’s a clever little ruse. Apparently it got you.
Berto says:
February 20, 2012 at 12:36 pm
=====================================
See:
Victor Eigen says:
February 20, 2012 at 6:01 am
=====================================
Thanks, Berto.
QED
At 12:36 PM on 20 February, Berto posted a comment critical of Russ Steele (whose 2009 guest post (CA Academy of Science AGW display apparently not very popular) was cited by Mr. Watts above, and whose photographs of the exhibit were reproduced retrospectively), writing:
This is, of course, evasion of the responsibility to address the substance of Russ Steele‘s 2009 article (or, for that matter, Mr. Watts’ own current post) by attacking Mr. Steele personally by commenting on his supposed lack of “technical background in the areas of science” upon which Mr. Steele had been writing in 2009.
This, of course, is the logical fallacy of argumentum ad hominem.
It might be well to ask what “technical background” could have been required for a person visiting this gormless warmista propaganda display in 2009 to have spoken on what he’d seen, and to report (for example) on how:
The perpetrators of the great gaudy “man-made global climate change” fraud (and those “useful idiots” who clamor and caterwaul the catechism of the AGW cult) seem always and ever to fall back on expertism (a version of the logical fallacy called “appeal to authority”) in which the incantations of academically credentialed charlatans spending taxpayer funds allocated by politicians must be considered automatically to trump the observations, reasoning, and conclusions of people who think and speak and write honestly on the basis of explicitly supported observations of factual reality.
There is in the noise of Berto and his co-religionists a complete abnegation of the principles upon which scientific method operates. It does us well to bear in mind the following statement:
I’m really tired of this “experiment” meme. The planet has played with excursions of CO2 scores of times higher than the present total, and hundreds of times greater than any impact we could have. And nothing happened. If it was warm, it stayed warm. If it was cooling or cold, it stayed that way.
To (significantly) cut back on fossil fuels means the pauperization of the world’s population. Far worse than anything even significant warming would/could/might-or-might-not achieve.
Michael Tobis says:
Bruce Cobb, see that vertical stripe way over on the left? I find that quite concerning. Clearly there is nothing like it in the record.
That is because “the record” was created using an entirely different methodology than was used to create that “vertical stripe way over on the left”. It is analagous to splicing the thermometer “record” onto the treemometer “record”.
So it makes sense to focus in on it on a shorter time scale, and it was entirely true and in no way misleading.
It is incredibly misleading. Splicing an instrument record onto an ice core record is dodgy enough, let alone cropping the ice core record so as to greatly exaggerate the apparent difference between “natural” and “anthropogenic” CO2. And of course, the error bars are MIA.
At 1:51 PM on 20 February, Bill Parsons responds to a warmista: Berto, God bless your little heart. You are trying.
To do what? In Berto‘s comment, the only thing he’d been “trying” was to utter the logical fallacies of argumentum ad hominem and appeal to authority.
Certainly, he said nothing of substance except in his partial recapitulation of what Mr. Steele had previously posted online concerning Mr. Steele‘s personal history.
The hockeyschtick graph of Mann was for temperature. This graph is for CO2.
The temperature hockeystick was generated by abuse of the data and statistical malfeasance. The CO2 graph is from measurements of trapped gas bubbles etc. No statistical skullduggery was involved. It is an experimental result. While one might question details like how long it takes for gases to get trapped as the ice packs down and so on, the current graph uses the best known answer to those questions. It really is that shape.
Of course if you go back far enough you will find still higher CO2 levels – 1000ppm – 2000ppm – more – but not unless you are prepared to go back an awfully long way. I have no doubt myself that current CO2 levels are unusual. I am just sceptical about the claim that this will drive temperature or indeed that there will be much in the way of negative impact at all.
To paraphrase one of the now defunct displays
“Democracies are angry beasts and the Alarmists are poking them with sticks”.
On what basis these arrogant twerps think that their propaganda is swallowed whole without critical consideration by the people of democratic societies who get bombarded with advocacy and propaganda via the media all day every day is utterly beyond me. Good grief, just look at the utter tosh the Republican primaries are throwing up for our contemplation ( and I live in the antipodes and still have the rubbish on my TV so I pity the Americans!) and yet we filter it out, piss it down the toilet so to speak and get on with our lives.
The article just further quantifies the arrogant, empty headed stupidity of these buffoons.
Tucci78,
I suspect Bill Parsons was being sarcastic.
Tucci78 says:
February 20, 2012 at 2:47 pm
——————-
Tucci78,
I took a different view than you about Bill Parsons’s comment to Berto @1:51 PM on 20 February.
I thought Bill Parsons was being appropriately condescending in a sarcastic way to Berto’s ridiculous discourse.
John
Berto says:
I decided to check on who “Russ Steele” is, …
Really? So, you decided to make an ad hominem argument? And you think that this is something that you’d want to brag about? Huh.
Given that the technical matter of your post is a criticism over proper methods of epistimological reasoning, how do you rate the validity of such commentary coming from someone who brags about making ad hominem arguments?
LOL
Am I to understand that a science museum, in California, did not previously have an Earthquake section?
So this is proof that global warming isn’t real?
[Reply: You’re making comments like this on other threads too. Per site Policy, threadbombing is not allowed. Fair warning. ~dbs, mod.]
Berto – Freeman Dyson admits that earth’s climate is not his field of expertise, but he does comprehend (and that verb is an understatement) science, and he is a CAGW skeptic.
@ Willis
“PS—How do I know that they didn’t do what I suggested with the exhibits? I don’t really know, but the circumstantial evidence that they turned my idea down lies in the fact that there was no spike in admissions to the hospital Emergency Rooms of Academy of Science employees with proctological complaints …”
=============
That is a classic. It could not have been expressed better.
“Climate is an angry beast and we are poking at it with sticks.”
==================
Contact the Humane Society (HSUS) and PETA. Rabid behavior?
Poster JJ should be more cautious before accusing someone of resorting to an “argumentum ad hominem.” An argumentum ad hominem argument is one that rests the plausibility of what is claimed on the nature of the individual in question, as in “the Iraq II war was unjust, since Pres. George Bush launched it.” Of course that’s a ludicrous argument. The justice of a conflict doesn’t depend on the virtues of the person who declared it. In contrast, the point I made, one that seems to have escaped the resident Latin and philosophy expert, JJ, is that the casual and snide remarks Russ Steele made about the California Academy of Science’s exhibit on global warming are not to be taken seriously since, by virtue of his non-scientific educational background (degree in social science and that from a third-rate school) he has no expertise in climate science that warrants taking his views seriously. To ascribe any credence whatsoever to anything that Steele says about matters of climate science makes no more sense than to ascribe any credence to anything that I might claim about matters of quantum electrodynamics or the merits of medieval literature. While I respect the integrity and scientific seriousness and intellect of a Freeman Dyson, Steele does not deserve a seat at the table of experts whose informed views about climate science merit our non-dogmatic consideration.
Berto says:
February 20, 2012 at 9:41 pm
Berto, you’re not making any sense. After reiterating that your attack is not an ad hominem, you explicitly explain it to be an ad hominem. You say his opinion is worthless because he “does not deserve a seat at the table of experts whose informed views about climate science merit our non-dogmatic consideration” … bro’, that’s nothing but an ad hominem. That’s attacking HIM, and not HIS CLAIMS, which is the very definition of an ad hominem.
Here’s the deal, Berto. Either Russ Steele is right, or he is wrong. It doesn’t matter whether he has a “seat at the table of experts”, that’s more AGW-pushed nonsense. Either he’s right or wrong, and his personal history and what table he sits at is quite meaningless.
According to you, if Russ Steele says that E = MC^2, we should disbelieve him because you don’t like his credentials …
Finally, surely you realize that you have LESS credibility than Russ Steele, because he has declared his name and we know his education. You, on the other hand, are an anonymous nobody who is unwilling even to use his own name … and here’s the crazy part:
Your lack of any credentials makes no more difference to me than do Russ Steele’s credentials. Either what you say is right or it is wrong, even though you’re just an anonymous internet pop-up.
The problem is not your anonymity and your personal lack of even the slightest credentials. The problem is, in this case … you’re wrong …
w.
At 10:25 PM on 20 February, Willis Eschenbach addresses Berto‘s wallowing in argumentum ad hominem anent Russ Steele‘s 2009 guest post reporting on the C.A.S. exhibit, but seems to have missed something else.
When he’d posted at 9:41 PM, Berto had also written:
…presumably anent Dr. Dyson’s opinion of the anthropogenic global warming bogosity, perpetrating yet another argumentum ad hominem fallacy, this time attributing to Freeman Dyson some kind of credibility not on the basis of what Dyson had said or written but simply because Dr. Dyson has a good personal reputation in the sciences.
That’s a positive rather than negative receipt of the skeptical position on the AGW fraud, but it’s still argumentum ad hominem, and is further flawed by virtue of coloration with the logical fallacy of “appeal to authority.”
Have any of these Watermelon witlings so much as had experience of competitive debate in high school, much less passed an introductory college-level course in Logic?
Berto says:
Poster JJ should be more cautious before accusing someone of resorting to an “argumentum ad hominem.”
Poster JJ is quite cautious. And in this case, absolutely correct. QED.
Nice co2 enhanced four story tropical greenhouse.
My wife and I became members of the CAS when it reopened after a lengthy renovation. I love the new CAS (especially the EcoDome), with one exception: the climate change exhibit was one of the most jarring and politically motivated exhibits I have ever seen in a museum dedicated to science. I just gritted my teeth every time I was confronted by it. The claims it made for CAGW were so out of line with the truth, but this is San Francisco, so I was not surprised.
Truth is an equally angry beast. The California Academy of Sciences was really poking at it, and not just with sticks. Now, they see the result.
I had been a CAS member for 20+ years – even during the tough times when they were temporarily located on Howard St. I was thrilled w/ the new CAS, until I saw all the global warming BS. In a quasi-academic fashion the CAS listed their resources for “evidence” of global warming. I looked up these sources only to discover that they fell into 2 categories. 1.) government agencies that have received a great deal of funding based on the myth of global warming, or 2.) environmental organizations worshiping at the alter of climate change, and receiving a lot of funding to “research” global warming.
When it was time to renew my membership, I declined. To their credit, CAS membership office called me to ask me to renew, I explained that I did not subscribe to their far left leaning environmental agenda.
I believe their agenda has cost them a great deal of membership, and the daily census is way down. Let’s face it, people see that global warming is a farce, and they won’t support it with their disposable income. I think the tide is beginning to turn – no pun intended – in that government agencies aren’t as willing to fund this nonsense either.
A hundred years ago it was accepted as fact among the intelligentsia that eugenics was a proven scientific method of improving humanity. Prominent people bought into the ideology. With global warming, those in the know winked and nodded to one another, thus demonstrating their superiority to us non-believers. They went so far as to give their acknowledged leader an Academy Award, and a Nobel Peace prize. Today those trophies are not worthy to hold the door open.
Willis Eschenbach says:
February 20, 2012 at 12:36 am
“I guess what I’m saying is that this site is about climate science. Real climate science.”
Thankfully its about more than climate science. I agree with Rogelio, that the Catastrophic Climate Change/disruption myth is near an end. This site will evolve to cover issues of more current interest (or it will perish).
IMHO Anthony should jump on the idea of a Lunar colony. After squabbling for so long over so many negative, depressing topics (Nukes, ‘nam, cold war, terrorism, economy, and phony science like climate change) folks are really thirsty for a positive look forward. We are looking for something beyond simulations and CGI graphics. We are looking for real tangible exploration and accomplishment.
“Climate is an angry beast and we are poking at it with sticks.”
Science is plenty bad magic for greenies. They know better. Climate is an angry beast and we are poking at it with sticks. This is powerful IPCC sciance(tm). I must go now, and poke the angry climate beast with my hockey stick.
Across the Bay, the Chabot Space & Science Center still devotes an entire room to climate change. They issue RFID cards to the children as they enter, urging the children to be sure and complete every activity in that room, then later look up their results online. Not only are they giving incentives to the children to waste their hours at Chabot absorbing propaganda instead of science, they’re also tracking their whereabouts and activities with RFID cards so they’ll become accustomed to being tracked like property. This I experienced/verified Monday, 20 Feb 2012.
Dave Worley says:
February 21, 2012 at 5:21 pm
“Thankfully its about more than climate science. I agree with Rogelio, that the Catastrophic Climate Change/disruption myth is near an end. This site will evolve to cover issues of more current interest (or it will perish).”
Don’t worry. After every warming scare comes a cooling scare. The alarmists are the exact same persons.