Note – this will be pinned as a top post for a few days. Other posts will appear below this one.
UPDATE: Josh weighs in with a Friday Funny.
UPDATE2: McKibben has a Forrest Gump moment with his latest propaganda video
I’m doing something I’ve never done before, I’m asking every reader of WUWT to write a letter to the editor this weekend. I don’t take this step lightly, but given what I’ve observed the last few days, I think it is time to stir the power of our collective WUWT community for the common good.
Readers may recall the debunkings I regularly put forth any time paid activists like Bill McKibben, Joe Romm, David Suzuki, or Brad Johnson (and others) try to make claims that human induced climate change is making our daily weather “more extreme”. You know and I know that this is “garbage science” (even worse than “junk science”) because it is an attempt to twist science to strike fear over climate into the hearts of the average citizen. It is an act of desperation, rooted in the fact that the modeled warming scenarios described by the scientist activist high priest of the global warming movement Dr. James Hansen, just have not come to pass. Climate feedbacks don’t seem to be strong, climate sensitivity doesn’t seem to be high, there’s been no statistically significant warming in the last decade, and thus the only thing left is to blame bouts of normally occurring severe weather on climate change. The level of thinking sophistication here isn’t much different from blaming witches for bad weather in medieval times, but the sophistication of telegraphing this message to the weak-minded is far more sophisticated than in those days.
And, yesterday, we saw a message similar to calls made during those dark times “she’s a witch, BURN her!” in Steve Zwick’s rant on Forbes.com where he says:
We know who the active denialists are – not the people who buy the lies, mind you, but the people who create the lies. Let’s start keeping track of them now, and when the famines come, let’s make them pay. Let’s let their houses burn. … They broke the climate. Why should the rest of us have to pay for it?
The level of delusional fail here is off the scale. If this were an isolated incident, we could simply laugh it off as the hateful rantings of a person afflicted with climate derangement syndrome. But there’s more.
Yesterday, it entered my children’s school (see below), and this week, we saw a survey on “extreme weather” conducted by Yale, use a phrase in the press release that is straight out of a propagandist organization, Bill McKibben’s 350.org. The heat is on to make climate all about the weather for propaganda purposes, and there’s no data to support it. It is a lie of global proportions. We need to step up. Here’s what I found in my children’s school yesterday:
At my children’s school yesterday, they had a book fair. In that book fair was this display from the publisher of a new book INsiders – Extreme Weather.
Of course you know what book I picked up to look at first, and it took me all of about 15 seconds to find this (I highlighted the relevant part digitally):
“Some scientists”? I think the author really meant “some activists”.
To be fair, there are some very good sections of the book well rooted in science, for example this one on lightning:
I know the author, H. Michael Mogil, who is well rooted in science, and who is a Certified Consulting Meteorologist. I can’t imagine him fully signing off on the climate=severe weather idea as McKibben et al put it. But, I think there was pressure from publishers to include the section on climate linkage, and I think he hedged his statement as best he could. My point is that is it beginning to pervade children’s books.
Also this week we had this poll released from Yale University, which got a ton of press thanks to it being carried in the Associated Press. It even made my own local newspaper.
The poll itself is a logical fallacy, with sloppy questions like this one:
I give it a thorough debunking here with a strong emphasis on the reporting bias introduced by our technologically saturated society. Anyone with a cellphone can report severe weather now and within minutes it can be known worldwide.
Here’s a quote from the lead author that was carried in news stories, bold mine:
“Most people in the country are looking at everything that’s happened; it just seems to be one disaster after another after another,” said Anthony A. Leiserowitz of Yale University, one of the researchers who commissioned the new poll. “People are starting to connect the dots.”
At the time, I didn’t note the significance of the “connect the dots” meme, but one of our sharp WUWT readers pointed out that this is the new catchphrase of Bill McKibben’s 350.org movement.
In tips and notes this morning, Nick Ryan confirmed this for me with this letter from McKibben he posted.
Subject: Good news.
From: organizers@350.org
To: nick_ryan@xxxx.xxx
Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2012 18:57:30 +0000
Dear friends,
Good news this time.
At some point every one of us at 350 has thought to ourselves a little despairingly: is the world ever going to catch on to climate change? Today is one of those days when it feels like it just might happen.
A story on the front page of yesterday’s New York Times described a new poll — Americans in record numbers are understanding that the planet is warming because they’re seeing the “freaky” weather that comes with climate change.
And the story ends by describing the next step in this process: May 5, the giant Connect the Dots day that people are joining all around the globe: http://www.ClimateDots.org
When the zeitgeist conspires to help our efforts, we need to make the most of it. Two weeks is plenty of time to organize a beautiful photo for May 5, one that will help spread this idea. Are you in a place where flood and rain have caused havoc? Ten people with umbrellas can make a memorable “climate dot” for all the world to see. You’ll think of something appropriate for your place — and you can find lots of examples and ideas here.
This movement is growing quickly, and with not a moment to spare — new data from scientists like Jim Hansen at NASA shows that our carbon emissions have already made extreme weather many times more likely. We can’t take back the carbon we’ve already poured into the atmosphere, but if we work together hard and fast then we can keep it from getting steadily worse.
Earth Day is coming up this weekend, and there will be thousands of events across the US. Each one of them is a great place to spread the word about the big day of action on 5/5. When you’re on the front page of the Times it’s a sign that the message is starting to get through — but only one American in 300 reads that newspaper. Now it’s up to all of us to make sure that everyone around the world gets the message, and Connect the Dots day on 5/5 is our best chance to do that. Please join us.
Onwards,
Bill McKibben for 350.org
P.S. It is key to remember that these photos from May 5 are not just for their effect on that day. We need a bank of images showing the human face of global warming — pictures we’ll use for the hard and direct political work of the next few years. If people don’t know there’s a problem, they won’t try to solve it. So let’s show them on 5/5. Here’s a heartbreaking example, from some local activists in Texas:
Climate Activists in Texas
Clearly, due to the timing and the reference he made to “People are starting to connect the dots.”, the poll conducted by Anthony A. Leiserowitz of Yale University is just a tool that is connected to this 350.org “climatedots.org” campaign, it isn’t science, it is blatant advocacy disguised as science of the brand Dr. James Hansen practices.
So looking at what is going in total this week, I think it is time for us to exercise our own rights to free speech, and thus I’m asking WUWT readers to write letters to the editor to your local newspapers and magazines to counter what will surely be a blitz of advocacy in the coming days.
This tactic is used by these NGO’s so there is nothing wrong with it. It is free speech in the finest American tradition. There is one hitch though, and that’s the newspaper editors back-channel.
You see, one of the perks of being a journalist in the TV and radio news business is that I’m privy to how things work. In print media, editors have established a back-channel to alert each other of potential letter writing campaigns, such as those form letters like we see from “Forecast the Facts”.
The key is to make this your own letter, in your own words. While I can suggest topics, the letters need to be written in your own words for them to be accepted.
You can start here with this essay, and draw from it.
Warren Meyer made some excellent points yesterday in his Zwick rebuttal at Forbes:
A Vivid Reminder of How The Climate Debate is Broken
I really liked this part, which speaks to reporting bias (like we have with severe weather):
In the summer of 2001, a little boy in Mississippi lost an arm in a shark attack. The media went absolutely crazy. For weeks and months they highlighted every shark attack on the evening news. They ran aerial footage of sharks in the water near beaches. They coined the term “Summer of the Shark.” According to Wikipedia, shark attacks were the number three story, in terms of network news time dedicated, of the summer.
Bombarded by such coverage, most Americans responded to polls by saying they were concerned about the uptick in shark attacks. In fact, there were actually about 10% fewer shark attacks in 2001 than in 2000. Our perceptions were severely biased by the coverage.
How to write a letter:
1. Go to your local newspaper website, locate the guidelines for letters to the editor. Typical letter policies limit letters to 200-250 words.
2. Do your research, craft your letter carefully. Cite facts, cite statistics such as I offer on WUWT. Use your own words, don’t quote me, though quoting people like Professor Grady Dixon “…it would be a mistake to blame climate change for a seeming increase in tornadoes” is fine.
3. [added] Readers are submitting content ideas in comments, have a look at those. Fr example Steve E. writes: Dr. Roger Pielke Jr’s posting on the IPCC SREX Report, “A Handy Bullshit Button on Disasters and Climate Change” here: http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.ca/2012/03/handy-bullshit-button-on-disasters-and.html is also a good source for letter content.
4. Send it, being mindful of length and guidelines.
Thank you for your consideration. – Anthony
Done.
Pointman
Once the dangers of global cooling became clear, warmism hysteria will stop.
To Whom It May Concern:
In the build-up to the Rio conference in June, we all are encouraged to “connect the dots” between CO2 in the atmosphere and incidents of extreme weather around the world. The claim is that rising CO2 is causing global warming, and that global warming causes more extreme weather (floods, droughts, heat waves, cold snaps, hurricanes, tornados, etc.). This claim has been repeated so often that many people accept it without any examination of the logic and facts supporting it.
First, it should be noted that all statistical measures of extreme weather show that such incidents have not been increasing with the rise in temperature apparently observed in the last part of the 20th century. Our awareness of such events is greatly heightened by modern media and hype, but in fact warming has not produced more extreme weather.
The claim is also contrary to global warming theory, which asserts that temperatures should rise more in polar and mid-tropical regions than near the equator. Since storms are the result of temperature differences, greater warming of cold regions should reduce frequency and severity of storms, and in fact that has been the observation.
Now that the warming has halted since 1998, we may well see cooler, rather than warmer temperatures in the future. In that event, the arctic may well become colder, and extreme weather increase as a result. But the change will be due to global cooling, not warming, and will be in spite of any increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. So, warming does not drive extreme weather, either in theory or in fact—that connection is disproved.
It is also not proven that rising CO2 causes global warming. In the last 15 years, CO2 has continued to rise, while temperature measures have been flat. Historically, ice cores show that changes in CO2 follow temperature changes, and not the other way around.
The dots do not connect as claimed.
Unfortunately, Anthony Watts is not up on the latest understanding of the relationship between global warming and the trend of weird weather. Here is the emerging understanding of what is going on:
http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/2012/04/videos-probe-climate-changeextreme-weather-puzzles/
“Jennifer Francis of Rutgers University, has now published a study that supports what a number of scientists have suspected for some time — that changes in the northern polar ice are having dramatic effects on the course of the jet stream.
The jet stream, a high-level flow of winds circling the northern latitudes, is the boundary between cold air to the north and warm air to the south. It is powered by the temperature differential between arctic and temperate latitudes.
As the arctic warms, and that temperature differential declines, the jet slows, becomes weaker, and begins to meander. Those meandering waves in the jet are more subject to “blocking patterns,” where weather in effect gets “stuck” over part of the northern hemisphere.
It all suggests a mechanism for the number of long-lasting heat, drought, rain, snow, and flood events that have been so prevalent over the past several years…”
> Eric Adler April 21, 2012 at 10:28 am
The idea that extreme weather events are on the increase long been discredited, pushed only by those with advocacy agenda. And since global average temperatures have been flat for about 15 years now, if the Arctic is warming, it means areas must be cooling.
> Eric Adler April 21, 2012 at 10:28 am
The idea that extreme weather events are on the increase long been discredited, pushed only by those with advocacy agenda. And since global average temperatures have been flat for about 15 years now, if the Arctic is warming, it means OTHER areas must be cooling.
Is this definitely true? All day on climatedepot it said real science had 2server problems” noe admin has posted this:
http://www.real-science.com/attention-scientist-steven-goddard-dies-at-81
There is a brief notice posted at Real Science that states that Steven Goddard has died aged 81.
If true then very sad.
Punksta,
The idea that average global tmeperatures have been flat is wrong. The year 1998 was a strong El Nino year, which made the earth’s surface temperature hot, and 2011 was a strong La Nina year which cooled the earth’s surface. The ENSO cycle is an example of an internal variable which creates a lot of noise in the earth’s surface temperature. Eliminating the effects of internal variables shows that the underlying trend of the earth’s surface temperature is warming. This is shown by all of the major indices of the earths temperature, including the lower tropospheric satellite temperature records.
In fact, the real index of whether the earth is warming is the ocean heat content, which is increasing.
http://oceans.pmel.noaa.gov/
In fact the denial that the earth is warming is being pushed by those with a strong advocacy agenda. They dislike the idea that they need to change some of their behavior immediately, to prevent a future problem, at some economic cost, in order to head off a problem that will come in the future. As a result, they will seize on some fact or specious theory that can be used to deny that the existence of a problem that is not immediately evident.
Even now, as the ratio of record high temperatures versus record low temperatures is rapidly increasing with time, which is an indication of a warming climate, a denial campaign has been instituted. This is so despite the acceptance of the need to combat global warming by all major scientific organizations.
@Eric Adler:
How’s the rapidly melting Arctic ice going this year ROFL.
Eric Adler says:
April 21, 2012 at 12:06 pm
Er, uhm, how do I say it?
No! The number of record “high” temperatures is NOT increasing, NOR is it at a higher rate than before, NOR are the number of record highs (set, as you would expect from the earlier, pre-re-propagandized IPCC reports) back in the mid and late-30’s) greater now.
So, you are dead wrong in the claim.
Do you deny the deaths and misery you deliberately wish to inflict on billions as you arbitrarily deny them food, clean water, sewage and sanitation facilities, and housing and transportation?
Do you deny temperatures rose as fast (and faster) in earlier years – when CO2 was “constant”
Do you deny temperatures rose, were steady and fell while CO2 was constant?
Do you deny temperatures rose, fell and are near-constant as CO2 increased?
You – the CAGW theists – want the death of millions of inconvenient humans as you seek a socialist utopia of hypocritical elites, while you deny your hypocrisy and lack of evidence. Those of us who seek lower energy costs, better health, better lives and greater freedom for all are denying nothing.
omg. I just read that Steve Goddard of Real Science passed away last night. Is this true???
http://www.real-science.com/attention-scientist-steven-goddard-dies-at-81
RACookPE1978 says:
April 21, 2012 at 12:42 pm
“Er, uhm, how do I say it?
No! The number of record “high” temperatures is NOT increasing, NOR is it at a higher rate than before, NOR are the number of record highs (set, as you would expect from the earlier, pre-re-propagandized IPCC reports) back in the mid and late-30′s) greater now.
So, you are dead wrong in the claim. ”
Apparently you are unable to read what I wrote. I said that the ratio of highs to lows has increased. In fact if the number of record lows is decreasing, it is a sign that the nights are getting warmer, as would be expected if GHG’s are reducing the escape of heat from the earth’s surface.
As far as the plight of the poor, and less developed countries is concerned, they are currently strongly adversely affected by the kinds of weather events that will be intensified by global warming, droughts and floods, which destroy their food supply, and don’t have the resources to cope with this.
Your statements about temperature rising and falling, for reasons unrelated to CO2, don’t prove that CO2 is not currently causing climate change. You are commiting a logical fallacy with your argument. There are many drivers of climate change, and CO2 is only one of them.
In fact, the rise and fall of temperature as ice ages came and went, has been shown to be largely a result of CO2 feedback. This article is one of many which has shown that.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v484/n7392/full/nature10915.html
You are an extreme case of someone who misconstrues statements, and applies faulty logic, without realizing it, because of a desire to avoid cognitive dissonance.
e adler~ “Jennifer Francis of Rutgers University, has now published a study that supports what a number of scientists have suspected for some time — that changes in the northern polar ice are having dramatic effects on the course of the jet stream.”
Wow! And this if the very first time it has happened in the tens of millions of years the poles have existed!
(pstt, addled- that was Sarcasm)
RACookPE1978 says:
April 21, 2012 at 12:42 pm
“Eric Adler says:
April 21, 2012 at 12:06 pm
Er, uhm, how do I say it?
No! The number of record “high” temperatures is NOT increasing, NOR is it at a higher rate than before, NOR are the number of record highs (set, as you would expect from the earlier, pre-re-propagandized IPCC reports) back in the mid and late-30′s) greater now.
So, you are dead wrong in the claim.”
It seems that you are unable to read my post. I said the ratio of highs to lows has been increasing. If the number of low records is decreasing, it is a sign that the rate of escape of heat from the earth at night is decreasing, in agreement with the results expected from warming due to increased GHG’s.
“Do you deny the deaths and misery you deliberately wish to inflict on billions as you arbitrarily deny them food, clean water, sewage and sanitation facilities, and housing and transportation?”
In fact the poor less developed regions of the planet are where people are vulnerable to the destruction of their food and water supply by drought and floods, which are the expected to increase in frequency due to global warming. In fact, the effort to halt global warming due to GHG’s is out of concern for the poor, who will be less able to cope with the results.
“Do you deny temperatures rose as fast (and faster) in earlier years – when CO2 was “constant”
Do you deny temperatures rose, were steady and fell while CO2 was constant?
Do you deny temperatures rose, fell and are near-constant as CO2 increased?”
If this has happened on occasion it is not logical proof that CO2 cannot be responsible for global warming. The incidents which you claim happened, if they exists, only show that other factors, the sun, volcanoes, internal variation like changes in ocean currents, can cause global temperatures to change.
In fact, it has been shown that CO2 feedback has been responsible for most of the global temperature changes during the recent deglaciation:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v484/n7392/full/nature10915.html
“You – the CAGW theists – want the death of millions of inconvenient humans as you seek a socialist utopia of hypocritical elites, while you deny your hypocrisy and lack of evidence. Those of us who seek lower energy costs, better health, better lives and greater freedom for all are denying nothing.”
Your rant, and the way in which you misconstrue statements that you have read, make illogical statements claiming that CO2 cannot cause climate change, show that avoidance of cognitive dissonance is responsible for your views on AGW, rather than any reasoned understanding of the facts.
Just how is Carbon Dioxide moving the Jet Stream…?
What can’t this SuperMolecule do? All by itself it raises the temp of the Earth 33°C, but how nobody knows; all by itself it forms a thick insulating blanket around the Earth even though it’s in such small amounts that for all practical purposes this thick insulating blanket stopping the Earth cooling is 100% hole; and Now the mighty CO2SuperMolecule moves the Jet Stream. Must be wearing its knickers on the outside.
Eric, maybe Anthony does have this all wrong, but I guess that if you can show him genuine numerical evidence of weather wierding he will change his mind.
To be honest I dont see any evidence; indeed, if ‘wierding’ were true we should be seeing loads of graphs from the many meterological institutes around the world, instead we see just about nothing.
OK we have all got to come up some metrics for ‘wierding’ – how about the standard deviation of the monthly rainfall or temperature anomalies?
Here is a chart of the rolling SD of the monthly Central England Temperature (CET) anomaly series data from KNMI climate explorer:
http://tinypic.com/r/e82174/5
I dont see ‘wierding’ in fact, in the last decade we have been through the least wierd period for 275 years.
Climategate Email 0476.txt
It’s true that by comparison with the glacial world, the interglacial climate has been less “angry”. … My sense is that Wally B’s notion that the ‘angry beast’ is a creature of colder eras but not of warmer times has some support.
Eric Adler says:
RACookPE1978 makes “illogical statements claiming that CO2 cannot cause climate change…”
Eric Adler has been told repeatedly that his CO2 conjecture is evidence-free. If there is empirical evidence per the scientific method [verifiable, testable, falsifiable] showing that CO2 causes climate change, then Adler needs to post it.
Otherwise, RACookPE1978 is right. And in any case, he is right about the suffering and impoverishment that are a direct result of the unconscionable “carbon” scare. I cannot imagine how someone can rationalize the deliberate harm being done to the one-third of the earth’s population that subsists on less than $2 a day.
The only proven way out of poverty is with cheap energy and a relatively free market. When those two factors are present, a country’s population always emerges from poverty; there are no exceptions. But policies that deliberately restrict supply and cause energy to become expensive, and policies that replace the free market with government bureaucracy lead straight to misery and starvation.
Hypocrites like Eric Adler still use petroleum products every day, while implicitly telling the world’s poor that they must do without, to the point of starvation if necessary. I cannot see that as anything but evil.
“In fact the denial that the earth is warming is being pushed by those with a strong advocacy agenda. They dislike the idea that they need to change some of their behavior immediately, to prevent a future problem, at some economic cost, in order to head off a problem that will come in the future. As a result, they will seize on some fact or specious theory that can be used to deny that the existence of a problem that is not immediately evident.”
I doubt that there are many who read your words here at the mad dog WUWT web-site who deny “the Earth is warming.” I don’t dislike the idea of changing some of my behavior; I loathe the idea of changing my behavior because I like to eat food from Mexico, I like to drive my car on vacations and fly to Europe every year or two. I like liberty, freedom, and being warm in winter and cool in summer. How about you?
I am delighted when I read the Climate-gate emails (Mosher, you magnificent bastard, I bought your book) to see the the smarty pantses have not given up travel, fine dining, or any other damn thing either. If they are not about to leave for Bali they are just getting back from India. I am supposed to take seriously the views of the Love Guru when he has his own golf course and I don’t? Yeah, I know they are the Vanguard of the Revolution and deserve much more than the proles but it makes it difficult to take seriously their fear mongering.
CT says:
April 21, 2012 at 1:51 pm
“Eric, maybe Anthony does have this all wrong, but I guess that if you can show him genuine numerical evidence of weather wierding he will change his mind.
To be honest I dont see any evidence; indeed, if ‘wierding’ were true we should be seeing loads of graphs from the many meterological institutes around the world, instead we see just about nothing.”
This is not so. For details about the impact in the US check out this link:
http://www.globalchange.gov/images/cir/pdf/National.pdf
“One of the most striking changes in climate
observed over the United States has been
an increase in the frequency and intensity
of heavy downpours. This increase was
responsible for most of the observed increase
in overall precipitation during the last 50
years. The amount of precipitation falling in
the heaviest 1 percent of rain events increased
nearly 20 percent. During the past 50 years,
the largest increases in heavy precipitation
occurred in the Northeast and the Midwest.”
Check out the map on page 32, where the change was 67% in the Northeast. In my state of Vermont, the reconstruction of roads in the wake of the Irene, is taking this trend into account.
“During the 1930s, there was a high frequency
of heat waves due to high daytime temperatures
resulting in large part from an extended multi-year
period of intense drought. By contrast, in the past
3 to 4 decades, there has been an increasing trend
in high-humidity heat waves, which are characterized
by the persistence of extremely high nighttime
temperatures.112”
This is an indication that the reduction in the escape of heat from the earth is driving these events, which is consistent with GHG caused global warming.
a measure of the increase in heavy downpours is a metric of a lot of instrumentation artifacts, this is due to the fact that we’ve added logging rain gauges in the last 2 decades
Eric Adler said:
You mean the rain storm?
Sure Eric, it’s never happened before…
http://www.real-science.com/climate-liars-work-wikipedia-npr
We will miss you Steve.
As I keep saying on every suitable occasion, one should rely on what, astoundingly, officials of the IPCC themselves have to say – what I found, and quote, is at http://cleanenergypundit.blogspot.com/2011/10/west-is-facing-new-severe-recession.html
[SNIP: Jeff, I understand completely, but let’s not go there. -REP]