Guest post by Dr. Patrick Michaels
Three items appeared last week that make me wonder if The Onion is surreptitiously acquiring science journals and trade publications. Here’s what one, “ScienceNordic” says it does on its home page:
Our team of experienced science reporters and editors follow the regional scientific communities closely, and report constantly and relentlessly on the latest and greatest discoveries.
NEWS FLASH #1: According to ScienceNordic, global obesity is caused by eating too much. Eating too much is caused by increasing concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide.
Surely one of the “latest and greatest discoveries” of our time! To wit: a Danish researcher, Lars-Georg Hersoug and his colleagues at the University of Copenhagen put six—count em’—six volunteers into rooms either with ambient carbon dioxide or elevated concentrations. After seven hours, they could eat whatever they wanted. Those who breathed higher CO2 ate six percent more. Call ScienceNordic!!
Yeah. This is what masquerades as environmental science these days. Allowing for an equal number of controls means that only three individuals were in each group. There is simply no way that these results have any statistical validity, but, hey, we’re talking about carbon dioxide, the death gas. Forget suing McDonald’s for obesity, Exxon-Mobil has a lot more dough!
Furthering my hypotheses about The Onion, you have to wonder if it has bought Geophysical Research Letters from the American Geophysical Union.
NEWS FLASH #2: Models that don’t work provide “useful estimates” for engineers.
Huh? But, indeed, a recent edition of GRL contains a paper by Francina Dominguez of the University of Arizona (with three co-authors) on changes in winter precipitation for the western U.S. predicted by regional climate models. They compared the observed average and historical 50-year record daily rainfall to values simulated by eight climate models. Gaze and weep:
Area-averaged mean (left) and 50-year maximum expected daily rainfall (right) for four western regions plus the entire area (“all”). The black marks are the models and the red dots are reality. This is what climate model failure looks like.
Damn the data! Full speed ahead!! Despite the fact that the models don’t work, they go on to generate estimates of the differences in daily and extreme precipitation projected for the middle of this century compared to the recent past. This is not “useful” information. It is bad information.
NEWS FLASH #3: A great idea: “1984” in 2084.
People were horrified that the socialist dystopia in George Orwell’s 1984 employed sophisticated “science” for behavioral modification and social integration. S. Matthew Liao of New York University and two colleagues think such things in fact should be considered because global warming is so horrible.
They write in the journal Ethics, Policy and Environment, “our central aim here is to show that human engineering deserves consideration alongside other solutions in the debate about how to solve the problem of climate change”, they then propose some examples that they think are feasible, including
•a pill or a patch that would induce nausea when people eat meat
•embryo selection or hormonal modification to make people smaller
•drugs to enhance empathy and altruism, because “higher empathy levels correlate with stronger environmental behaviors”
•a fixed allocation of greenhouse gas emissions per family to limit the number of children
In an interview in The Atlantic, Liao vociferously asserted that he does not think that these changes should be mandated, rather he says they should be “modifications borne of individual choices”. In his paper he is a bit more specific:
As we envisage it, human engineering would be a voluntary activity – possibly supported by incentives such as tax breaks or sponsored health care – rather than a coerced, mandatory activity. [second italics added]
Excuse me, but charging people higher taxes for not taking a pill that makes them sick, for not aborting embryos that may become tall children, for not taking drugs to care about global warming, and for not limiting progeny is nothing but coercive.
Astoundingly, Mr. Liao argues that the nausea pill enhances liberty because people who want a steak will make decisions based upon that desire, rather than “truly deciding” to be coerced by a state-incentivized drug. In Mr. Liao’s world, like George Orwell’s, freedom is slavery.
Count me out on this one. Hopefully, The Onion or whoever will stop publishing papers providing “useful estimates” for engineers based on models that do not work. And while we are at it, we could actually take a little responsibility for our weight, instead of blaming Exxon-Mobil.
Patrick Michaels is the former state climatologist for the State of Virginia, and is a senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute.
Surely, if you eat more you expel more CO2? Cause and effect – not the other way around.
Browncoats unite!
Take me out to the black
Tell ’em I ain’t comin’ back
Burn the land and boil the sea
You can’t take the sky from me
The 3rd line, with luck, would give a few ecoloons apoplexy….. 🙂
“Climate science” is an interdisciplinary field. That means physicists contribute to in certain domains, political “scientists”, sociologists, economists, and just about everyone else under the sun, in others. Some aspects of the field are really hard, hence uncertain. Other parts are frequently just basically silly.
tigerwoodsleg wrote: “What is worse? A parody of good science or someone who purports to be a good scientist wasting time analyzing same?”
The author does not believe them to be parodies. Unless we have information to the contrary, we should probably take him at his word.
The junk science itself is not worthy of study. The fact that more and more of this tosh is appearing in supposedly reputable journals, is worth examining. Especially when so much of it is climate “science” or climate “social science”. That should concern us all.
Drugs to enhance empathy and altruism, because “higher empathy levels correlate with stronger environmental behaviors”
Well I’m the quintessential em-path and I think man-made global warming/climate change is a complete load of BS.
So there goes that theory!
This “peer-reviewed” junk must be what Julia Gillard, Australia’s vain, mad, warmist PM & her precious advisors are reading.
With the high concentrations of CO2 in many submarines, those guys and girls must eat like horses! It shouldn’t be any too difficult to check out the eating habits of submariners versus those of (say) destroyer crews. On reflection, many probably wouldn’t be able to make it out of the conning tower after a lengthy deployment. Without difficulty, such an approach could drum up a count of a lot more than just six subjects.
Geoff Alder.
The truly staggering & mind blowing thing for me is that these people, genuinely believe the crap they come out with, they don’t care nor even see that people are going to die in large numbers as a result of their “belief system”! It goes against everything I was brought up with as a Christian & have been trained as a Chartered Structural Engineer. Truly staggering. And we thought Hitler & Stalin were bad people, when in practice they were mere rank ametuers in comparison!
Perhaps they should allocate an age limit of say 30 in their dystopian society with certain elements of that society assigned to “terminate” you once you reach that delicate age. You could call them, I don’t know, Terminators say, or even something benign, like Sandmen for example. But then you would just get people who would run away & hide from these Sandmen, called these could be called “Runners” I guess, when they turn 30? I dare say even some of these Sandmen might decide to “Run” when they reach 30! I am amazing, I have a great idea for turning this into a book or even a film!!!!! I am rich at last!!!! Whoorah! Sarc off. 😉
This is the Onion.
@tigerwoodsleg:
They should have been in “The Onion.” Unfortunately they are in peer reviewed journals making them grist for the IPCC mill. Remember, it doesn’t matter if the study is complete hokum, if it is in a refereed journal, it is gospel.
Combine this with the past efforts of “The Team” to keep valid studies out of the refereed journals and it makes this all the more egregious.
You really should start reading the articles! You are beginning to sound like one of those paid trolls that are sent out to camp on sites and make disparaging comments without fully reading the articles. I hope you are just having a bad couple of days instead.
@ur momisugly Rex Alan “Drugs to enhance empathy and altruism, because “higher empathy levels correlate with stronger environmental behaviors”
Not to belabor the obvious, but regardless of how the authors feel on the subject, if such drugging is ever adopted it will be because the Powers-that-be support “Drugs to enhance empathy and altruism, because “higher empathy levels correlate with human domestication and cattle-like behavior.”
Hmmm… remind me to check out whether fluoride is a neurotoxin even in low doses.
@ur momisugly Cui Bobo “Brownshirts unite!”
SHINY!
As with all onions, one must peel back the layers.
We have always been at war with carbon dioxide.
Umm, if it’s being reported in The Onion, it’s because they think the source is ludicrous, and that it’s time people started laughing at it.
Maybe they increased the CO2 so much the volunteers thought it was their last meal.
What is NOT a joke is that some entity (probably taxpayers) is paying these clowns to produce this garbage…
Again, PLEASE remember to vote this November to defund CAGW climate “science”…
Looks like the TEAM has a new per review journal to publish friendly and to block opposing research and the IPCC a new source of gray literature for the IPCC Fifth Assessment
I went to college to study Science, but when I learned that Science was about discovering Truth, I switched to Journalism … with a minor in political science.
Obesity does lead to an increase in omissions. However, since CO2 is odorless and colorless, they should specify that the emissions are something I’ll euphemistically call “swamp gas.”
As for overeating causing obesity, my quack doctor says the same thing. I asked for peer-reviewed studies, but he couldn’t provide any. Do I smell a research grant opportunity?
Let these crackpot keep talking! You know the old saying, “give them enough rope…”. ;->
elftone says:
March 21, 2012 at 5:13 am
Umm, if it’s being reported in The Onion, it’s because they think the source is ludicrous, and that it’s time people started laughing at it.
————-
FYI
The Onion writes all their own “news” and does not link to anything.
Mark
In the final analysis ALL decisions are voluntary comrades. For example, some thug like Saddam or Obama is holding your wife, children and parents hostage and ask that you voluntarily sign a confession, (eg “I ate meat.” or “I do not believe in CAGW junk science.”, etc.)
It’s not like you don’t have a choice…
LOL!, this reveals an economic fact: Too much currency!, first world countries must devaluate its currencies to correspond with their actual production of goods; of course that will bring some poverty,OK, but also a lot of reality and sanity.
MarkS says:
March 21, 2012 at 6:29 am
FYI
The Onion writes all their own “news” and does not link to anything.
Mark
Yup, cheers for that info, but already knew it. Perhaps I shouldn’t have used the word “reported” that early in the morning, but as it’s a fake (and humorous) newspaper, I would have thought the connotation was obvious.
It is the old pitch that humans are the problem and that we have to be forced to change to something they dream about through models, in spite of our human nature to improve our way of life through the use of affordable and reliable energy.
The first image that came to mind was Jimmy Carter in front of a fireplace wearing a sweater telling us our best days are behind us. And they are only if we make it so.
The problem with the environmental catastrophe they are attempting to avoid is that it is a fraud and like all frauds it is based on false information designed for something bad for the target. It seems the more they lose their grip on the fraud the nuttier they get.
The science will not let us down on energy but science based on fraud supported by the political elite can certainly bring us down.