From Amazon’s list of Gleick book reviews here
Must read — for the real history of the climate debate and the war by deniers,
Michael Mann — a world class scientist and communicator about the seriousness of climate change — has finally put all of the recent history (sordid, indeed) about climate denial, attacks on climate scientists, and serial and intentional efforts by climate “skeptics” and “deniers” (a word many of them self-apply) into a book. As the title suggests, there IS a war on. That war is not really about the science, as Mann shows, but about efforts to confuse the public and policymakers by pretending the science is wrong (it isn’t) and by attacking the scientists who are willing to speak about it publicly.
Much of the contents of the book is old news: we know about the efforts to slander/libel the work of Mann, which led to seven public formal independent reviews, each of which confirmed the accuracy of his work (described well in the book); we know about the efforts of serial deniers to confuse policy makers and the public (in fact, take a look at how the trolls are being marshalled to insult and criticize the book here at Amazon!).
If you are up in the air about the science of climate change; if you are interested in the true history of the battles between scientists on one side and often-paid skeptics on the other hand, get this book. Toward the end, Mann talks about the misinterpreted, out-of-context emails stolen from a university in the UK, with the observation and famous quote “If you give me six lines written by the most honest man, I will find something in them to hang him.” This describes the classic tool of using misleading, cherry-picked piece of information to argue against climate change — a tool used in bad data analysis, bad policy, and bad science. Mann carefully and clearly describes that episode in a way that — if you had previously been confused by the rhetoric — will convince you that the science is stronger than ever.
If he continues using such phrases could he be prosecuted under anti-terrorism law?
Exp – I don’t have time right now for a full expose of your fantasy world’s content as my three toddlers are having their breakfast – without the heating on(in UK, in Feb) and I am consigning the last of our charity donations to history. We will not be eating meat today (it used to be a staple roasted dinner on Sundays) and we have had to revert to washable nappies rather than the disposable ones we used to insist upon because they were compostable – there is a marginal saving in doing this but marginal is where we are. This summer will be the third in a row where we will not be taking a family holiday – just day trips somewhere cheap. Good job I became unemployed because I need the time as we now have to walk the children to their school (3 1/2 miles away half uphill half down) as the cost of diesel has nearly doubled since we found and decided upon admitting them to that excellent facility. Good job the cost of shoes has only doubled in the same time period.
I know, and am very grateful we are not in that boat, that a large proportion of the world’s citizens live in far worse circumstances. I know we cannot put all the blame for all those job losses, cost increases and loss of self respect down to the windmills, solar and biofool idiocy of the climageddonista. I know we cannot put the entire blame on stupid, stupid politicians, who do zero research whilst relying on , for the breaking of our economy, partly by bankrolling the very activist “scientists” who support their power grabs. I know we can’t expect bankers to do their oh so important work without huge remuneration…..
But I do know that the Gleick’s of this world live high on the hog whilst using, exclusively, their edjumacation’s end product to assist them in actively distorting society, the media and, ultimately, the economy via lies, distortion and fraud while real, solvable problems are ignored as they siphon up not insignificant amounts of the wealth of the 1st world and fart out.. well, not much that helps anyone.
It started with them calling me ignorant and lacking in sufficient scientific education to dare question their credo. It ended with them equating me to holocaust deniers. When I get the chance to excoriate, publicly preferably, any of this (albeit small) heinous pack of mangy curs I will take it. I will support, applaud and laud others who do the same. I will never tire of repetition in this sport as it has been done unto me and mine for years and payback is very, very sweet.
Turns out, one of the most active, vicious, willfully ignorant mouthpieces for the scam is an admitted thief, liar and fraud. Makes me wonder about the others 😉
I am extremely pissed off. I will not forget. Thankfully, I am not alone.
Thank you Anthony, moderators, legion posters here and special mention to FOIA.
/rant /sarc /underdog
\hope
I am not sure I would really appreciate any kind of review form such a notorious fraud.
@Exp: There is no real need to attack this guy, he is doing all the work. As for a ‘smokescreen’, to hide what exactly? That the HI are poorly funded and actively desire a debate? Talking of smokescreens, I think that is what the fabricated documented actually attempted to hide, did it not?
Mode, I believe my use of the ‘f’ word in my previous post, that probably cause it to be sucked into moderation, was perfectly valid.
[perhaps so but it still causes posts to automatically go into the spam bin. . it’s out now though . . kbmod]
Did you notice (I bet you did) the characteristic (and very relevant) use of brackets? Where have I (recently) seen that before?
““Fakegate”? If I didn’t know better, I’d be led to believe that is an assertion that all the documents were fake. Isn’t that a deception?”
It´s unlikely to decieve anyone who spends more than two minutes looking into the story, while it captures a major aspect of the whole Mr. G business, I.e. the fakery. Not bad for a snazzy name. “Fakewirefraudgate” just seems a tad too long.
“It’s funny to watch people who are involved in “war”. Those of us watching on the outside are left wondering what has possessed people to become so unaware of their own behavior in their belief that they are on the “right” side and therefore, anything they do is justified. ”
Yes, yes, you are on the “outside”. Just strolling by. Whatever ya say, good sir.
“I’m sure you’ve got the self-justification on the EA emails versus the HI docs nicely settled in your mind.”
It´s not very hard to come up with those justifications though, to be fair.
– Real vs. fake (well, “realfake(TM)”) docs.That´s pretty big.
– Obtained through unknown means by unknown people vs. obtained by fraud by head of AGU “ethics committee”.
– Public vs. private docs. From a public institution that appears to have put a lot of effort into avoiding the relevant FOI laws in the area. Vs. Private docs.
– Oh, and the nature of the actual contents.
Just makes it hard for us denialists to not make the jump.
“Thats the main thing as you go about your obsessively vindictive campaign against Gleick.”
I´d say “obsessively vindictive” is a better description of Dr. Gleick. Mr. Watts’ vindictiveness appears to be more amused in its nature…
What to do when the gravy train dries up?
When the money runs out I myself am driven to do things I find distasteful, such as work a real job.
Now places like Gleick’s “Pacific Institute” are starting to see the grants get smaller, and even stop. Who will pay for the plush office? Who will pay for the pretty secretary? What are they going to do!!!!???
Work a real job?
We are witnessing the behavior of desperate men.
Interesting admission by Gleick. But how all you people can stand to read through an entire three paragraphs about climate from the sitting “MacArthur Genius of stupid” is simply beyond me. I just can’t do it. I’m sorry.
RTF
This is not a left vs right issue. This is not industry vs the environment. This is a war for the truth. We had rapidly heading towards “green insanity”.
Public policy based on lies, leads to anarchy. Western governments do not have trillions of surplus dollars to waste on boondoggle programs to attack a problem which is not a problem.
Western governments must complete for jobs with Asian countries and must have balanced budgets to avoid complete economic collapse. We are losing that war. The insane AGW war policies proposed, will turn all Western Countries into economic versions of Greece.
The extreme AGW paradigm requires that the planet amplify the CO2 warming. Satellite data clearly shows the planet resist rather than amplifies forcing changes. Planetary clouds particularly in the tropics increase or decrease which reflects more or less sunlight into space to resist forcing changes.
The scientific implication of negative feedback (resist forcing change) rather than positive feedback (amplify forcing change) is that the planet will warm less than 1C due to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 from 0.028% (280ppm) to 0.056% (560 ppm), rather the IPCC predicted 1.5C to 5C.
http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/236-Lindzen-Choi-2011.pdf
On the Observational Determination of Climate Sensitivity and Its Implications
Richard S. Lindzen and Yong-Sang Choi
…We again find that the outgoing radiation resulting from SST fluctuations exceeds the zerofeedback response thus implying negative feedback. In contrast to this, the calculated TOA outgoing radiation fluxes from 11 atmospheric models forced by the observed SST are less than the zerofeedback response, consistent with the positive feedbacks that characterize these models. The results imply that the models are exaggerating climate sensitivity….
…However, warming from a doubling of CO2 would only be about 1oC (based on simple calculations where the radiation altitude and the Planck temperature depend on wavelength in accordance with the attenuation coefficients of well mixed CO2 molecules; a doubling of any concentration in ppmv produces the same warming because of the logarithmic dependence of CO2’s absorption on the amount of CO2) (IPCC, 2007). This modest warming is much less than current climate models suggest for a doubling of CO2. Models predict warming of from 1.5oC to 5oC and even more for a doubling of CO2. Model predictions depend on the ‘feedback’ within models from the more important greenhouse substances, water vapor and clouds. Within all current climate models, water vapor increases with increasing temperature so as to further inhibit infrared cooling. Clouds also change so that their visible reflectivity decreases, causing increased solar absorption and warming of the earth….
I would highly recommend Christopher Booker’s “The Real Global Warming Disaster”. Trillions of dollars are being proposed to be spent on ludicrous programs to fight the extreme AGW war. The world carbon trading program which the EU is trying to start with a tax on air travel is one example.
Another is the conversion of food to biofuels. The EU and the US are trying to mandate 20% of all transportation fuel shall be sourced from biofuels which will require all of the available agriculture land be used for growing food to convert to biofuels. Biofuels increase rather decrease carbon emissions, if forest must be cut down to grow the food to convert to biofuel. There is no surplus agricultural land. There are 7 billion people on this planet to feed.
Sourcing 20% of the world’s transportation fuel from biofuels would require roughly the entire current agriculture land area. That is insanity from an economic, from environmental, and from a third world standpoint.
http://www.amazon.com/Real-Global-Warming-Disaster-scientific/dp/1441119701
“The Real Global Warming Disaster: Is The Obsession With `Climate Change` Turning Out To Be The Most Costly Scientific Blunder In History? By Christopher Booker
…how in the 1980s a handful of scientists came to believe that mankind faced catastrophe from runaway global warming, and how today this has persuaded politicians to land us with what promises to be the biggest bill in history…… It shows how the UN s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is run by a small group of global warming zealots, who have repeatedly rigged evidence to support their theory. But the politicians, pushed by the media, have so fallen for its propaganda that, short of dramatic change, our Western world now faces an unprecedented disaster.”
The biofuel scam is only one example. The Western Countries must complete with Asia for jobs. The Western Countries do not have trillions of surplus dollars to spend on massive boondoggle projects that will make no significant difference in carbon dioxide emissions. Carbon dioxide is not a poison, a pollutant. Commercial greenhouses inject carbon dioxide into the greenhouse to increase yield and reduce growing times.
Enough is enough. This is not a right vs left issue. This is war for the truth. Insanity is insanity.
http://www.uiweb.uidaho.edu/bioenergy/NewsReleases/Biodiesel%20Energy%20Balance_v2a.pdf
Vast amounts of agricultural land are being diverted from crops for human consumption to biofuel The immediate consequence of this is a dramatic increase in the cost of basic food such as a 140% increase in the price of corn. Due to limited amounts of agricultural land vast regions of virgin forest are being cut down for biofuel production. The problems associate with this practice will become acute as all major Western governments have mandate a percentage of biofuel.
Analysis of the total energy input to produce ethanol from corn show that 29% more fossil fuel input energy is require to produce one energy unit of ethanol. If the fuel input to harvest the corn, to produce the fertilizer, and to boil the water off to distill ethanol/water from 8% ethanol to 99.5% ethanol (three distillation processes) to produce 99.5% ethanol for use in an automobile, produces more green house gas than is produced than the production consumption of conventional gasoline. The cost of corn based ethanol is more than five times the production cost of gasoline, excluding taxes and subsides. Rather than subsiding the production of corn based ethanol the same money can be used to preserve and increase rainforest. The loss of rainforest is the largest cause of the increase in CO2.
http://news.yahoo.com/prime-indonesian-jungle-cleared-palm-oil-065556710.html
Prime Indonesian jungle to be cleared for palm oil
Already excavators have started knocking down trees and churning up soil.
Drainage canals also have been built and villagers’ drinking wells are already noticeably drier as result, they say. Security forces are deployed by the palm oil company along the perimeter of the forest, guns raised when anyone tries to enter.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2008-04-14/biofuel-production-a-crime-against-humanity/2403402
Biofuels ‘crime against humanity’
Massive production of biofuels is “a crime against humanity” because of its impact on global food prices, a UN official has told German radio. “Producing biofuels today is a crime against humanity,” UN Special Rapporteur for the Right to Food Jean Ziegler told Bayerischer Runfunk radio. Many observers have warned that using arable land to produce crops for biofuels has reduced surfaces available to grow food. Mr Ziegler called on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to change its policies on agricultural subsidies and to stop supporting only programs aimed at debt reduction. He says agriculture should also be subsidised in regions where it ensures the survival of local populations. Meanwhile, in response to a call by the IMF and World Bank over the weekend to a food crisis that is stoking violence and political instability, German Foreign Minister Peer Steinbrueck gave his tacit backing.
Hard not to revel in a little schaden froh I suppose, but if you’re having fun it isn’t war, it’s sport. Up to now we’ve been playing cards, “My solar maximum trumps your deep ocean heat theory”. Since flushing one them out in to the open it is fast degenerating in to a foxhunt, the unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible.
OTOH a good exposé is food and drink to the media and could win a few anti-cause column inches. Dragging Glieck through the courts could be counter productive but the others would sleep less easy in their beds if he lost his funding.
Whatever, keep piling the straw on the camels back.
While checking out a new (and very interesting) blog on modelling I just came across this revealing example of Mr Gleick’s modus operandi:
http://allmodelsarewrong.com/all-blog-names-are-wrong/
If I were part of the Team, I would organize a face-to-face chat with Gleick. During the discussion a few of us would suggest that he come clean as soon as possible about anything else that might be weighing on him, with the idea that the longer he waits the worse it is for him personally and the worse it is for the Team as well.
“we know about the efforts to slander/libel the work of Mann,”
I didn’t know that pointing out actual bona-fide errors constituted slander/libel!
These guys truely live in a different reality to me.
Yeah, it is a war, of unsurpassed proportions. That no one in the outside world can’t see the gravity of the schtick fighting that goes on in these great minds of abnormities is just unsettling to them.
Drop another puck and look at them go…schtickschtickschtik-tiktiktikschtick.
:p
Exp, you are clearly one of the CAGW cult’s faithful who post on WUWT from time to time.
Just so you understand beyond any shadow of a doubt, I will spell out the typical sceptic’s position:
1. Almost everyone agrees the Earth has warmed up over the past 150 years by circa 0.7-0.8 degrees C. This warming is mostly the result of natural climate cycles (the number one heresy for the CAGW cult), similar in magnitude to those other warming periods which occured during the past 10,000 years of the current inter-glacial event. In other words, climate change is the norm, it is impossible to fix the climate – only the goofiest of politicians believe this nonsense of being able to fix climate as championed by the CAGW cult.
2. Yes, the activities of man have contributed a small amount to the recent warming phase, but how much of that has been due to increasing carbon dioxide levels, or other factors such as the impact of dramatic increases in agriculture/irrigation etc, has not yet been determined.
3. The CAGW cult has become a vast industry sucking in huge amounts of government funding with its grossly overpaid leaders producing very little in return, other than unsubstantiated scare stories and promoting policies designed to drive western economies back into the Stone Age. Most sceptics view this complete waste of money with total disgust, as there are so many more worthy causes for this funding.
4. The computer climate models produced by CAGW “scientists” are viewed with great distrust/disdain by sceptics, as the methodology of analysis and data is rarely made public, even though it is government funded. Innovative statistical techniques (not used anywhere else) are often in evidence, inconvenient facts are ignored, and only supporting, ‘cherry picked’, data is used. These often very complex computer models almost always have pre-determined results built into them.
5. CAGW cult “scientists” are almost never prepared to debate the subject of climate change/global warming in public, as they know their theories and “science” will be torn to shreds by any well-informed sceptic.
6. There is no evidence of any global warming over the past 12 years unless you apply and exaggerate exceptionally dubious variables to the temperature records.
7. The CAGW industry outfunds sceptical groups by a factor of at least 500 to 1. This ratio may even exceed 2,000 to 1. Yet the sceptics are steadily winning the argument.
8. Climategate and Fakegate exposed the machinations of the high priests of the CAGW cult showing how they tried to: i) stifle opposing opinions, ii) deviously manoevered to ensure only their faithful were in positions of influence in the world of climate science, iii) distort the data, and iv) create a nasty, little, devious clique which no one would dare criticise.
9. The CAGW cult refuses to even discuss the possibility that a small increase in temperature might actually be beneficial to the world, nor that it would be much less economically damaging to prepare for a small increase in temperature, as opposed to introducing futile draconian measures to try and stop that small increase.
10. The CAGW cult repeatedly makes scary statements which are blatantly untrue:
a) Rising sea levels (~3mm per year – scary CAGW version 10-25 times that figure) will drown our coastlines – the rate of sea level increase has been stable for the past 150 years and now appears to be slowing.
b) Antarctica is melting – it is not.
c) The Arctic ice cap is disappearing – it has shrunk over the past 15 years, but that may only be a reflection of rising salinity in the ocean and soot levels in/on the ice.
d) Acidification of the oceans by carbon dioxide – at current rates of absorbtion, the amount of carbon dioxide in the oceans will rise by circa one part per million over the next century. Any increase in acidification may in local instances be caused by man, but the culprits here would be nitric and sulphuric acids caused by industry and agriculture. In any event, carbon dioxide dissolved in water is the weakest of all acids and all creatures in the ocean can easily adapt to any increase in it.
e) The glaciers are disappearing – certainly some of them are retreating, but this is a process which started in the mid-1800s at the end of the Little Ice Age and certainly increasing carbon dixide levels could not have been a factor until the 1970s and 1980s at the earliest. And let’s not forget about the real impact of man here: soot from fires, power stations etc and localised decreased precipitation in some parts of the tropics due to deforestation.
f) The ‘feedback effect’ of rising temperatures in response to increasing carbon dioxide levels – pure speculation, not visible in the geological record and it is not really measurable, but increasingly this ‘feedback’ appears to be negative, not positive.
And so on.
In conclusion, I am a geologist, probably the world’s most sceptical group (government employees excepted) about CAGW – hey, what do we know about the Earth’s history and climate?!?
I always use the term “climate scientists” to distinguish those use who routinely use methods and techniques which would be unacceptable in all the real fields of science.
William Astley says:
February 26, 2012 at 3:19 am
“Enough is enough. This is not a right vs left issue. This is war for the truth. Insanity is insanity. ”
I disagree. You will find more people on the right than on the left who will tell you that optimal resource allocation needs a price signal to work, and more on the left who insist on price-fixing schemes to create their desired dream world. You mentioned the squandered trillions, and that is the inevitable result of large scale price fixing; it always ends like that.
At the German electricity exchange, spot market prices go negative when the wind is blowing strongly. This is a worse result than Soviet-style planned economy; it’s an unmitigated legislative desaster produced by a Red-Green government and not stopped by a later conservative government.
The Left has by definition a greater talent of wrecking stuff that used to work. When was the last time activists have done something productive? They thrive on destruction.
“If you are up in the air about the science of climate change; if you are interested in the true history of the battles between scientists on one side and often-paid skeptics on the other hand, get this book.”
Uhhh…does he mean that CAGW “scientists” like himself AREN’T PAID?? Bawaaahhahahahahahaa!! ROFL!!
Hey Exp. – here’s the $2.6 BILLION that your climate buddies get to spend on “science” in 2012 alone!
http://m.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/FY12-climate-fs.pdf
I can also provide you with a list of six figure salaries that your heroes make in the government sector.
All this while being bought and paid for by extremist environmental groups like Greenpeace and the WWF.
All this while trying to DESTROY other people’s jobs, such as those in the oil and gas industry who would have worked on the Keystone pipeline, except that it’s been killed/postponed due to pressure by our CAGW “science” buddies. They really don’t care about anyone else except themselves…
“….will convince you that the science is stronger than ever.”
…stronger than ever, luv, stronger than ever! Ha, ha, ha… I now declare this bazaar opened!
Frank K. says:
February 26, 2012 at 5:11 am
“All this while trying to DESTROY other people’s jobs, such as those in the oil and gas industry who would have worked on the Keystone pipeline, except that it’s been killed/postponed due to pressure by our CAGW “science” buddies. They really don’t care about anyone else except themselves…”
Tax-funded scientists always destroy jobs, simply by the act of taking buying power from the population via taxes. In that regard, they are like the typical green job. The question is whether a society can afford that.
Peter Miller says:
February 26, 2012 at 4:46 am
Some inconvenient truths there.
I’m sure the Warmists/Alarmists will pick it apart.
For example, in paragraph 2, you left off a “.” after “etc”.
With errors like that, you’ll never be taken seriously.
🙂
“That war is not really about the science, as Mann shows, but about efforts to confuse the public and policymakers by pretending the science is wrong (it isn’t) and by attacking the scientists who are willing to speak about it publicly.”
I would have said it was inconceivable that a man of Gleick’s reported intelligence could possibly honestly believe what he’s saying here. I mean, really? Pielke Sr is out to confuse the public when he questions that it’s all just about CO2, REALLY? You can say that with a straight face?
But then again, I also would have said it was inconceivable that Gleick would do something so amazingly stupid as wire fraud with Heartland, so there you have it. Is it that he’s actually just not that smart, or is he insane?
exp wrote: ““Fakegate”? If I didn’t know better, I’d be led to believe that is an assertion that all the documents were fake.”
This guy must think Watergate was all about water.
William Astley says:
February 26, 2012 at 3:19 am
“Public policy based on lies, leads to anarchy.”
Actually, public policy based upon lies leads to tyranny.
Exp says:
February 25, 2012 at 11:38 pm
‘more honorable.’
Two words, the meaning of which Gleick is clearly incapable of understanding.
there IS a war on
Well, my masters is in history. On the military side.
The only worse thing I know of is “Chair Wars” in my office.
(That and Operation Barbarossa.)