As you may know, I’m traveling this weekend to be with the founders and pioneers of The Weather Channel in Atlanta for an informal 30 year reunion, which I talked about in detail here.
Thanks, sincerely, to everyone for the help and support!
Blogging will be light this weekend, though I will post highlights and other items from the event when I can.
Watch this video:
Seriously, everyone should watch this.
Actually, this posting on Mr. Briggs’ blog kills two birds with one stone:
http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=5548
So… what happened in Mexico about 200,000-250,000 years ago climate wise? Haven’t finished reading The First American by Hardaker but this one got my head scratching big time… I only have it on Kindle. I need to get a cheap book so i can flip through faster to cross reference some things. 200,000+ years ago that humans (or pre-homo sapiens) first got to Mexico… Amazing if that’s true but it is like Alfred Wegener’s theory that took a long time to be accepted so I probably won’t be alive to see that happen…
Thanks to Scott for pointing out my mess-up yesterday.
Really people. It should not be left to me to do math.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.recent.arctic.png
Current Northern Hemisphere Sea Ice Area sq km
(ave) 12,913,000 – (current) 12,866,000 = -47,000
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.recent.antarctic.png
Current Southern Hemisphere Sea Ice Area sq km
(current) 6,327.000 – (ave) 5,647,000 = + 680,000
12,913,000 + 5,647,000 = 18,560,000 Total World Sea Ice (Average)
680,000 – 47,000 = 633,000 Total Sea Ice above World Average
633,000 / 18,560,000 = 3.41056% above the 29 year average
Not much but a win is a win.
Have Some Sympathy for Scientists.
No I’m not a scientist. I even need spellcheck to spell scientist right and spell check.
I am starting to develop sympathy for the AGW true believers.
Being a scientist, mad or otherwise, must be hard. They have to have a high tolerance for tedium. All day it’s measure, record, measure, record… Boring.
Then after a couple of years working on something they passionately believe in, they prove themselves wrong. That has got to be tough to take. Sure the other scientists are saying things like “good job”, “You proved that something doesn’t work. That saves the rest of us a lot of time.”, “Great integrity”, “Can you reproduce your failure? Wouldn’t want to say something doesn’t work when it does because who would peer review that? It would be lost forever.”. But the company or university doesn’t make money and maybe loses prestige and you don’t publish.
Wait. Why don’t they publish? Knowing how something doesn’t work is important. That should be worth an abstract and a link. Hey Anthony. Start a publication. It could be called The Watts Up With That Scientific Journal of It Doesn’t Work. The studies must be properly done and reproducible. Preprints would be free but to see what passes peer-review is a $50.00 subscription. Don’t you have a regular contributor who needs a job? They could be the editor who convinces other scientists to peer-review for free. Well, I suppose they would have to be given a complimentary subscription. I like this idea. It would be great for somebody else to do.
But I digress.
There have been some recent articles on scientists with insufficient integrity. This means integrity can be hard in a normal climate. (pun intended)
Now let’s go back 30+ years. We had just gotten out of a period of very visible pollution and were becoming aware that the invisible pollutants were worse. There were a lot of unknowns that are now common knowledge, at least they are on WUWT. One could be excused for believing that human activity was changing the climate of the world toward our destruction.
Now let’s consider money and power. Because of our survival instinct you can scare people in a sound bite but it takes a long time to counter that. So equal time does not have equal effect. This issue was made for politicians and it was real. No lying or exaggeration necessary. The scientists and political leaders were legitimately going to be the heroes who save the world. So thousands of political leaders and many others associated with government were justified to hook their political power wagon to AGW. Poor countries were justified in guilting us out of money. And speaking of money, if you want to get rich, watch which way government wants to go and get out in front.
This has been going on for decades. What is the scientist going to do now? Say “Oops. Never mind.” They would have a lot of powerful people upset with them. All this time they were the heroes along with the scientists saving the world and now the scientists tell them they have spent all this time, money, power and they never were heroes. They would look like fools. Powerful rich people don’t like looking foolish because that perception of them is a big threat to their power. You think integrity is hard in a normal climate? Try standing against all of that and knowing you are going to lose your own power and future income would be in doubt. Sure the scientists would respect you and with that and a dollar you can buy a cheap cup of coffee. The mighty don’t like to fall so they are not going to fall alone. We have a very strong instinct to gain and hold onto power. Power will spin you head around.
Self respect is how much you like yourself. Self esteem is what deep down in the foundation of your psychology you “know” to be the real truth about yourself and how you fit into the world. So for decades you were the respected world saving hero and now that is all destroyed. That would be a severe psychological reality shift and terribly rough for anybody to handle.
So why would a slow typist like me write all of this? Because when people know that somebody, at least a little bit, knows what they are about to go through it’s a little less hard.
How do you change the mind of a person for whom the answer to the following question is a firm yes and how will that way of thinking effect their life?
If I am right and you are wrong does that make you a bad person?
I think this explains a lot. Especially if what they believe makes them a hero or gives them their sense of value as a person or defines their place and value in life. On those issues they don’t experience a discussion as an interesting talk. Instead it is a threat to everything that they are.
As we are aware, Hadcrut4 has replaced 1998 as the hottest year with 2005 and 2010 being warmer. The average anomalies for these three years are as follows according to the woodfortrees numbers: 0.523, 0.535 and 0.5375 respectively. However when one digs a bit deeper, an interesting fact emerges. The hottest consecutive 12 month period is still from the previous century. The hottest 12 month period around 1998 is from September 1, 1997 to August 31, 1998. Here, the anomaly according to Hadcrut4 is 0.5675. 2005 is not changed by adding or subtracting months. However for the period around 2010, the hottest 12 month period is from August 1, 2009 to July 31, 2010. And for this period, the average anomaly is 0.565, which is 0.0025 below the 1998 value. Of course I am not going to suggest any significance to this, just like there is no significance to 2010 being 0.0145 warmer than 1998 with the error bar being about 0.1. But it is something to keep in mind in case someone comments that 2010 was the warmest year due to the “fluke” of how our calendar is constructed.
I want to start a new expression.
Don’t Break The Dinosaur.
But I cannot find the story that inspired it. Many years ago on PBS there was a dinosaur show. This is the only part I remember. At a museum, I think it was in the US and over a half century ago, they had received an excellent dinosaur skeleton. It was maybe 6 feet tall. It had an anomaly. The tail was rather straight almost like a pole that could be used as a counter balance.
Well, at the time everybody knew that the dinosaur tail drug gracefully on the ground. So after careful consideration the scientists decided to do the right thing. They broke two vertebrae of the dinosaurs tail so that it would lay as it was supposed to.
This expression could be used whenever someone ignores an anomaly and/or makes adjustments so that the outcome matches the preconceived belief.
Just two problems. I cannot find the story and when it is found it has to be made famous.
The above pst by Metcalf is a “goodun”. His last few sentences are what stands out. Always, always, be aware of how a person defines themself; for some it’s their job, their wife, their class, ancestry, the house they live in and now we have people defining themselves because they are trying to “save the planet”. Once a person begins to believe the latter, there is simply no obstacle to what they will say or do, no matter how horrible it might be.
So far, none of the resident skeptics on Climate Etc. accepted the Sea-Level Rise Book Challenge. Perhaps the folks here at WUWT will be more daring in their opinions!
To review some basics, a balanced book constitutes an offer to accept either side of a set of propositions that comprises the book. Thus a non-skeptical book for sea-level rise by the year 2100 might be give-or-take bets on the following propositions, at the listed odds:
• Rise of 1 meter (or greater): 5/7 odds;
• Rise of 2 meter (or greater): 2/5 odds;
• Rise of 3 meter (or greater): 1/8 odds;
• Rise of 4 meter (or greater): 1/15 odds; and
• Rise of 5 meter (or greater): 1/20 odds.
• Over-under: 1.8 meters rise in the year 2100.
Here “5/7” odds means, a bet of 5 receives a payout of 7, for a net better’s profit of 2 (in practice, the book takes a commission on payouts either way, and tries to balance its give-and-take for each proposition, so as to be guaranteed an operating profit).
In any case, what is a reasonable book for climate change skeptics? Please note that books that offer excessively skeptical odds such as this:
• Rise of 2 meter (or greater): 1/10,000,000 odds
will be swamped by shorefront property owners looking to purchase one-dollar insurance for million-dollar properties. Are even the most ardent climate-change skeptics willing to accept a billion-dollar liability exposure, for a mere hundred-dollar profit?
For any and all climate-change skeptics who are willing to quantify their skepticism, the following template is provided:
• Rise of 1 meter (or greater): ____/____ odds;
• Rise of 2 meter (or greater): ____/____ odds;
• Rise of 3 meter (or greater): ____/____ odds;
• Rise of 4 meter (or greater): ____/____ odds; and
• Rise of 5 meter (or greater): ____/____ odds;
• Over-under: ____________ meters rise in the year 2100.
Given the immense public interest in these propositions, there is little doubt that someday (possibly soon) such a sea-level book will be established. Indeed, a substantial business opportunity might perhaps be associated to it. What do thoughtful climate-change skeptics think the initial odds offered might prudently be?
People on the left & in the Obama administration really need to learn a wee bit about history and perhaps they could start with the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover who ran it from 1924 to 1972; a man who U.S. presidents were afraid of; a man who kept files on people such as Martin Luther King. Perhaps it’s just me but it seems like Obama’s creating the same kind of monster in the EPA. No Mr. Obama, you’re not the 4th best president we’ve had.
Catastrophic Anthropogenic Antibiotic Resistance…or not.
http://www.gizmag.com/antibiotic-resistant-bacteria-lechuguilla-cave/22198/
RE: Theories
Theories are like children. There are good ones and bad ones. Just because there are some bad kids does not mean that we should stop having them from now on.
In their own words;
http://drtimball.com/2012/consensus-argument-proves-climate-science-is-political/
Can someone explain, or post a link to me, why the PDO oscillation should change the heat of the world?
I realize there is an idea it will affect surface temperatures, but what about the total temperature of the earth? Does it increase the export of heat out of the earth? If so, how.
Marlow Metcalf says:
April 27, 2012 at 5:41 pm
I do not feel sorry for those who are “going along to get along”. I feel for the guy who did decades of research that resulted in a conclusion that was the OPPOSITE of the “concensus”. What is an honest person to do? Pocket the cash? What would you do?
All rhetorical questions. I do not expect a response, ….
Something that has bothered me for a while. A while back, Willis talked about “sustainable developement” and how, say, making a shoval was not really susdtainable no metter what you did. He also did not consider space traval at all.
However…if you want REAL sustainable developement, you MUST have space traval. Lets make that shovel again.
First, get cheap access to space (that means, NASA, stay out). Once you can get cheaply to low earth orbit, you are halfway to anywhere, literally. You want to do this anyway, because if the human race is to survive, for most of our history, the word for ship must mean spaceship. If you don’t beleive me, ask the dinosaurs.
Now make mirrors, lots of mirrors, they don’t have to be huge, and take them to space.
Find yourself a nice asteroid, pretty much any one will do, use the mirrors, shine sunlight on it, melt it. If you picked the right one, eventually, with it’s rotation, all the heavy elements will migtrate out to the outside, and light ones to the inside. You also want to make one light concentrator, basically like making a laser, mirrors to concentrate sunlight into a beam. Use the beam like a cutting laser and you can peel the asteroid like an union, getting the seperated out elements, fairly pure. You can use sunlight to power smelting to purify it more.
Now, using the silicone, plus the ever present iron and nickle, make more mirrors, lots more mirrors, tons more mirrors (you can make sheap ones just out of nickle). You will also want more “lasers” and a lot of cheap say ion powered things to slowly move the mirrors where you want them and to aim them.
Now you are ready for the serious smelting. Need a shovel, grab a nickle and iron asteroid, smelt as needed (it’s pretty pure as is) and cut it up. Mix the parts with the smelted out carbon from one of those kinds of asteroids (add other alloys as needed), heat, melt together, you now have, say, a cubic mile of unusually pure nickle steel. Now, how many shovels can you make from a cubic mile of pure nickle steel?
See, sustainable developement IS possible.
Ninety percent of our resources are out there.
BTW, a book that shows the whole process is “Live Free Or Die:, by John Ringo (it’s also a pretty good yarn). You can read some sample chapters here (it just starts to get into it by chapter 6 though) .http://www.baenebooks.com/chapters/1439133328/1439133328.htm?blurb The book “cheats” a little using alien tech to get it started faster, but they were in a hurry for reasons seen in the book, you can still do it with just earth tech if you are not in a rush.
@ crosspatch says:
That video is seriously good. I’ve had similar thoughts about theory, but never articulated them so clearly.
̶N̶u̶c̶l̶e̶a̶r̶ ̶w̶i̶n̶t̶e̶r̶ Climate disruption is back on the table.
Global famine if India, Pakistan unleash nukes: study
http://news.yahoo.com/global-famine-india-pakistan-unleash-nukes-study-175608208.html
More than a billion people around the world would face starvation if India and Pakistan unleash nuclear weapons — even if that war is regionally limited, a study released Tuesday warned.
That’s because the deadly and polluting weapons would cause major worldwide climate disruption that would dramatically drive down food production in China, the United States and other countries.
Excellent video, crosspatch.
@ crosspatch says:
Watch this video:
Seriously, everyone should watch this.
Please look at it, it blew me away.
Thanks Crosspatch.
http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=5548
I found crosspatch’s comment and it is :
This is one of the most important videos that has ever been placed on youtube. It is very important that people grasp the concept that the love of theory can cloud the perception or interpretation of reality.
Vince Tzandler,
I will give you odds of 1,000,000 to 1.
Please send me all your money.
I promise to pay you in full if you win the wager.
Live well and prosper.
Mike Flynn.
Excellent vido Crosspatch. Any warmers prepared to comment?
Marlow Metcalf – re: Don’t Break The Dinosaur – maybe this is the story you were thinking of. Not quite the story of your recollection …
http://dml.cmnh.org/2000Jan/msg00456.html
… but WTH, let’s go with “Don’t Break The Dinosaur”. It sounds better than “Don’t Glue The Dinosaur”, and let’s face it, a lot of famous stories are based on fiction (An Inconvenient Truth, for example) so it must be OK to make the story famous without actually finding it. Mustn’t it?
All, this video extends to MORE than just climate. This is about all these nincompoops who seem to believe they suddenly become a superhuman intellect as soon as they are elected, appointed, or hired to a government or academic position. They they go about screwing up the lives of millions of people with their various theories and experiments. The ONLY approach that has EVER been shown to work is for government to get out of the way and that millions of decisions made by millions of individuals according to their unique situations and their unique resources always works best. Once size fits all solutions mandated from a central government NEVER works.
The ScottishSceptic did a piece where they talked about the problems we are having in winning: http://scottishsceptic.wordpress.com/2012/04/27/we-can-easily-win
I wanted to leave a kind of profound statement about what I feel we need to do to win, and I addressed some of the points that he made. Mainly I address this to any movers and shakers that can do something significant to change equation for good. Complete victory. Here my “statement”:
1. Sceptics are sceptical of our own arguments
4. The BBC are completely biased.
7. Lack of money
8. There’s no public funding
On point 1, everyone’s different, but I think the majority of skeptics feel that the opposition is absolutely full of it, Scotland or USA. But what’s important is we need to start thinking about winning, and that means taking a dedicated beeline approach to changing public opinion!!!
There’s always going to be ambiguity in the arena of theoretical argument, but public opinion is and will be the main gauge of perceived success, and public opinion will drive policy. We have to stop our kind of self-righteous sense of our own superior moral fiber, and start doing what the opposition does so effectively — campaigning in systematic structured funded ways to change opinion. We are going to have to “stoop” to employing the tricks of the trade to get the job done. And though we seem to have won the last couple of rounds, we shouldn’t get complacent, we have had the benefit of Climategate and a string of other strokes of luck, but in the future, with the tenacious leftist MSM against us, we could easily find ourselves losing again big time.
Put the rights minds and skills together, and we could raise plenty of money for systematic PR & advertising campaigns. The campaigns would bypass the leftist media and beam directly to the public. That is what it is going to take to change opinion: short effective TV (mostly) spots. Certain ads hit the main issues like: there is nothing unusual about current temps (no hockey stick), and that there is no empirical evidence that CO2 causes warming worth more than a hill of beans. And there would be other ads that hit subsidiary issues like the leftist nature of the opposition, their deceptions, ice and sea levels, whatnot.
Making the case to prospective donors should be easy now. The importance of this issue, in terms of determining election outcomes and consequential govt policies, is clear. Also, once a campaign is up and running it could be largely self-sustaining through viewer contributions — now that so many people, especially conservatives, are hyped about the issue, and would give $.
Finally, conservative govts should strive to get public funding for the resistance. Equal funding at minimum. If not, then at least cut all funding for anything that abets the ideologically motivated warmists.
Welcome to Atlanta, Anthony. I hope my home town treats you well….and the certain AGW believers at the present Weather Channel do not cause an issue.
I drive by the Weather Channel building every day then wonder why they went the way they did. Sadly, because of their editorial bent, I do not watch them any more. Not for the last decade. The NBC buyout didn’t help.
Hope your recognition of their founding is pleasant and enjoyable for you and all involved.
I notice the Weather Underground seems to promote global weather panic. Can anyone recommend a weather site that doesn’t seem to push this kind of agenda? Thanks.
@crosspatch, at the link http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=5548 you give regarding Bill Whittle’s “Love of Theory” (The Train Set) video there is an interesting comment, by Noblesse Oblige, that I’m still kind of digesting but I think it might be something to think about:
I will be bold and suggest that the word “theory” should be replaced by “story.” It is the love of story that is the root of most evil. The psychologists know this (see Kahneman, “Thinking Fast and Slow”). It is the story that is built from scratch without evidence, based only on wish and association with other stories. It is the story that is impervious to fact. There is nothing wrong with “theory” in the scientific sense, as long as it is only the preamble to test, falsification, and revision. Global Warming was once a theory. It has become story.
Dear Forest Mims, If you can hear me, I <3 your electronics book!!
You will all be Consensused.
Werner Brozek says:
April 27, 2012 at 6:18 pm
As we are aware, Hadcrut4 has replaced 1998 as the hottest year with 2005 and 2010 being warmer. The average anomalies for these three years are as follows according to the woodfortrees numbers: 0.523, 0.535 and 0.5375 respectively.
>>>>>>>>>>
Ohmigawd Werner. That means that from 1998 to 2010, rounded off to the nearest 1/10th of a degree, the temperature increased by 0.0 degrees? Why that is…. Alarmingly Glorified Warming.
Meanwhile we in the UK are suffering the wettest coldest DROUGHT in history, ever since they brought in water restrictions it hasn’t stopped raining. Rivers where the doom sayer TV reporters were walking around on the weed infested gravel riverbed are now in flood and some may breach their banks. Maybe that is where the AGW crowd are going wrong if they said nothing it would start warming up again but the more they keep shouting about how it is getting hotter and hotter it won’t.
James Bull
Thanks crosspatch – loved it
The video above gives us a candidate for “best sentence of all time”. My current favourite is this one:
“After you have convinced people that you fervently believe your cause to be more important than telling the truth, you’ve lost the power to convince them of anything else.”
Megan McArdle
http://atmo4.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/02/peter-gleick-confesses-to-obtaining-heartland-documents-under-false-pretenses/253395/
Vince Tzandler says:
April 27, 2012 at 6:40 pm
“For any and all climate-change skeptics who are willing to quantify their skepticism, the following template is provided:
• Rise of 1 meter (or greater): ____/____ odds;
• Rise of 2 meter (or greater): ____/____ odds;
• Rise of 3 meter (or greater): ____/____ odds;
• Rise of 4 meter (or greater): ____/____ odds; and
• Rise of 5 meter (or greater): ____/____ odds;
• Over-under: ____________ meters rise in the year 2100.”
From now? Even if we assume 3 mm per year that’s only 270mm to the end of the century. Where do you get these ideas from? Even the IPCC has been downsizing its estimates from report to report.
BTW, your definition of the bet lacks an acceptable basis for measurements. As we have seen during the last week of Envisat’s operational life so far, institutions like ESA completely rewrite the entire measurement history of any of their instruments if needed.
Satellite altimetry is, at the moment, NOT a scientific endevour but propaganda (Too many model assumptions involved the warmist scientists can fiddle with; and basically what they’re measuring is gravity anyhow, as the sea level is modulated by the local gravitational anomaly).
Marlow Metcalf says:
April 27, 2012 at 5:41 pm
Have Some Sympathy for Scientists.
If you are a scientist and a masochist then you enjoy being wrong!
As each day brings new revelations I feel more and more justified to have my stood my ground as a skeptic.
Gore & Mann et al have only strengthed my skeptical stance.
Werner Brozek says:
April 27, 2012 at 6:18 pm
As we are aware, Hadcrut4 has replaced 1998 as the hottest year with 2005 and 2010 being warmer.
According to my CET data the difference between max and min for the year 2010 is one of greatest (the min was 40.2% of the max).
2003 was the hottest year but the difference betweeen max and min was high too (42.1%).
It is more often around 46%.
The lowest I have found so far is 2006 when the minimum was 49.27% of the minimum.
Anthony Scalzi says:
April 27, 2012 at 8:22 pm
̶N̶u̶c̶l̶e̶a̶r̶ ̶w̶i̶n̶t̶e̶r̶ Climate disruption is back on the table.
More than a billion people around the world would face starvation if India and Pakistan unleash nuclear weapons — even if that war is regionally limited, a study released Tuesday warned.
That’s because the deadly and polluting weapons would cause major worldwide climate disruption that would dramatically drive down food production in China, the United States and other countries.
Is that what happened when nuclear weapons were being tested above ground or Japan was bombed?
crosspatch says:
April 27, 2012 at 10:03 pm
All, this video extends to MORE than just climate. This is about all these nincompoops who seem to believe they suddenly become a superhuman intellect as soon as they are elected, appointed, or hired to a government or academic position. They they go about screwing up the lives of millions of people with their various theories and experiments. The ONLY approach that has EVER been shown to work is for government to get out of the way and that millions of decisions made by millions of individuals according to their unique situations and their unique resources always works best. Once size fits all solutions mandated from a central government NEVER works.
That should be easy to do now with the internet. We could all vote on everything. The only problem is if someone starts altering the data to suit their ends.
Up thread was this comment
“Please look at it, it blew me away.
Thanks Crosspatch.
http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=5548
I found crosspatch’s comment and it is :
This is one of the most important videos that has ever been placed on youtube. It is very important that people grasp the concept that the love of theory can cloud the perception or interpretation of reality.”
Can I endorse this video, its a must see. Then I suggest we subscribe to a special fund to create 100 T shirts and 100 Mugs emblazoned with the message ‘Love of theory is the root of all evil’ (perhaps with a suitable cartoon by Josh?) and send them to the leading climate scientists around the world.
tonyb
Mods My 2.20 post.
I meant ‘cartoon’ but perhaps in ‘carroon’ Ive invented an even better word 🙂
tonyb
For any and all climate-change skeptics who are willing to quantify their skepticism, the following template is provided:
• Rise of 0 meter (or greater): ____/____ odds;
• Rise of 1 meter (or greater): ____/____ odds;
• Rise of 2 meter (or greater): ____/____ odds;
• Rise of 3 meter (or greater): ____/____ odds;
• Rise of 4 meter (or greater): ____/____ odds; and
• Rise of 5 meter (or greater): ____/____ odds;
• Over-under: ____________ meters rise in the year 2100.
Q: From now?
A: Beginning now, to the year 2100.
Q: Where do you get these ideas from?
A: An admixture of warming seas and melting polar ice. All of the above rise-rate values have precedents in the sea-level record.
Q: What is the basis for measurement?
A: Median values of the UK tide-gauge network.
Q: Why a balanced betting pool?
A: Balanced books expose risk estimates to market correction, and this correction itself has substantial market value.
On another point, it is Interesting (to me at least) that others have noticed that because soaring global temperatures have not come about Warmists started using rising sea levels as their poster girl, but as her hem line remained fairly static even levelling off, they looked at Polar ice, but as the Antarctic is not playing the right tune they only played the Arctic card. Now that appears to be a bust flush they are using ‘certain’ glaciers in Asia as indicators for AGW. Unfortunately for the Warmist mob other glaciers are not going their way. Of course we have also had them using the number and intensity of storms, nope not playing the right tune. Droughts, but they are still as erratic in nature as they have always been. The snow our grandchildren would never see has been played in and in some places more than we’ve ever known. Atmospheric temperatures, nope that’s also a no. Global disasters attributed to climate, no that’s not working, but they are trying to use the financial cost of these disasters as a proxy as the death toll doesn’t cut it. But costs are so distorted by insurance companies, individuals and governments etc, both ways, that they can not really be used to measure anything other than corruption, foolishness and greed.
So what will the next proxy for the Warmists be?
How about where plants grow on mountains…….
Excellent video at the top of this thread.
For my sins as well as being a lecturer I’m also a university researcher at the beginning of a piece of original research and recently I had a very interesting conversation with one of my bosses.
It sort of went along the lines of;
My boss: “So you know what the outcome of your project will be then?”
Me: “No, that’s why it’s called research!”
Awkward silence….
Sometimes, I’ve noticed, people confuse positions of authority with intellectual ability…..
Time for a little viictory lap Anthony. Take pride in your accomplishments. ;-D
RE: British flood-drought. My local alarmists at the Washington Post pointed to that and said “Sure, the rains are helpful – but many places got flooding downpours over the past week, not the steady rain the EA and Met Office say are needed”
Crosspatch: excellent video.
Vince Tzandler April 27, 2012 at 6:40 pm
You don’t offer a realistic number, nor zeo, nor negative.
To address beesamen’s points:
+ Tadiation transport theory robustly predicts energy budget imbalance via CO2/GHE
+ The surplus energy can be stored in any of:
– shallow ocean, and/or
– deep ocean, and/or
– atmosphere, and/or
– latent heat of ice-melting.
+ All the above raise sea-level; hence it is a natural integrative proxy for AGW
+ The predicted rise will be readily visible to shoreline property owners
+ Property insurance markets will assess the risk quantitatively
+ Balanced books will expose risk estimates to market optimization
+ AGW skepticism that neither predicts sea-level values, nor participates in markets, will be assessed as having neither evidential, nor scientific, nor economic value; hence irrelevant.
AGW skepticism must sooner or later provide risk estimates, or be assessed as having neither evidential, nor scientific, nor economic value; hence irrelevant. It is notable that to date not even one AGW skeptic has posted odds estimates. What (if any) market-testable predictions are associated to AGW skepticism?
edbarbar says:
>>Can someone explain, or post a link to me, why the PDO oscillation should change the heat of the world?<<
I would be interested in the answer to this as well. Maybe the PDO (La Nina) actually somehow moves the heat elsewhere (e.g. deep in the ocean) or brings up the cold from the deeper ocean. But I too find it hard to understand how the PDO could swing the temperature for the globe (at least as we currently measure it) so quickly.
Madman2001
Vince Tzandler says:
April 27, 2012 at 6:40 pm
You don’t seem to understand the skepticism. It’s not that the planet is not warming, it’s about the cause!
Lets have some odds on whether it’s man made or natural!
See if you can convince them that the weather channel would be a good place to report weather around the country. I know that would take some time away from current management’s efforts to convince the world that global warming is about to kill us all, but we really would like a place to find a weather report.
Vince, the assumption that sea level is a proxy for AGW must be one of the dumbest things I’ve read in ages, never heard of that big bright thing in the sky? Oh and the shoreline where I live is still exactly in the same place it was forty years ago when I was a kid, so much for global sea level rises due to AGW and this is in a geologically neutral place with little shore line erosion. But hey, why let empirical data get in the way when you can rely on models or the closed shop of climatology as given to us by the ‘team.’
As for insurance companies, well they love the alarmist claims as it means higher premiums all around for everyone and we can always blame nasty CO2 and human activities rather than mother nature.
What do you think the result would be from, say, 175 atmospheric nuclear explosions over about a year? Say maybe 250 of them over a three year period?
We saw exactly that between 1961 and 1963.
Above at 10:29pm I replayed a comment I left at the ScottishSceptic, who subsequently at his site has personally replied to me. The thread is here: http://scottishsceptic.wordpress.com/2012/04/27/we-can-easily-win
I called (see above, or the link!) for a “systematic structured funded” ad campaign to turn the tide decisively with public opinion. Public opinion, I say, is our only true gauge of success, and will for the most part determine policy.
BUT…. the ScottishSceptic seems to disagree with me, saying that (to win) “it is not that simple.” My reply to him:
Thanks for your reply ScottishSceptic. I’m in the USA, and I understand that there are differing institutional frameworks and in some places the freedom to do what I suggest may be restricted, but we see in the U.S. and elsewhere that as public opinion turned against AGW, many scientists have turned, and most of their policy goals failed. In a democracy, public opinion is going to drive policy, and scientists will eventually follow. Look what’s happening in Australia! That Carbon Tax is going to be trashed. Mark my word.
Keep in mind the leftist tilt of most scientists these days, and especially climate scientists who were for the most part pre-screened for agreement with the “science” and ideological goals of the Chicken Littles.
I agree with everything you say. We should do what you recommend. Clearly. But if it’s so simple to do what I suggest, why not go ahead and give it a shot? At least where it’s feasible. I think it would be decisive, but at minimum it couldn’t hurt. With proper managerial and creative and financial leadership (this could be just be 1 to 3 people, and outsourcing & volunteers as well). I hope to be able to spearhead it myself, maybe, though I don’t have the time and whatever right this moment, unfortunately. So I call on someone else to take the baton, if they can.
The problem with a nuclear explosion in a densely populated modern city with a lot of reinforced concrete structures, particularly if they are built to seismic standards, may not be with the number of people who die, it might be the number of people who survive that are actually the biggest challenge. In Japan, nearly every reinforced concrete building in both Nagasaki and Hiroshima survived. The trouble was there were so few of them. These buildings will create shadows from the initial radiation and will deflect and baffle the blast. More will likely be killed from flying glass than from the actual explosion. Streets will likely be several feet deep in the glass that is dislodged from the buildings.
Chances are good that if you do not receive a large enough dose of radiation to die within the first 90 days or are not killed due to physical injury from flying / falling debris, you will have a good chance of leading a normal lifespan.
The challenge in a modern city is to get to the injured in a contaminated environment and evacuate them from the area. There are going to be a lot of people who are not ambulatory in practically all floors of many buildings if such a thing were to happen during a normal working day. What is going to surprise people is how many buildings and people SURVIVE such an event and will require help.
Vince Tzandler says:
April 28, 2012 at 7:19 am
“+ Tadiation transport theory robustly predicts energy budget imbalance via CO2/GHE”
You don’t mention that there are feedbacks. Maybe you didn’t know it? Some of those feedbacks are negative. This could totally destroy the IPCC’s projections. At the moment it looks like that is exactly what’s happening.
“+ The predicted rise will be readily visible to shoreline property owners”
Not in their lifetime; tidal fluctuations totally swamp it when it’s rising with, say 1.7 mm/yr.
Heck, a small wave is twice as high as the maximum of 270mm I expect until 2100.
“+ Property insurance markets will assess the risk quantitatively”
Ha ha. Munich Re has lend two scientists to the IPCC. Whatcha think they’re doing there? Make sure that their employer has a reason to raise the premiums RSN.
“+ AGW skepticism that neither predicts sea-level values, nor participates in markets, will be assessed as having neither evidential, nor scientific, nor economic value; hence irrelevant.
AGW skepticism must sooner or later provide risk estimates, or be assessed as having neither evidential, nor scientific, nor economic value; hence irrelevant. It is notable that to date not even one AGW skeptic has posted odds estimates.”
Maybe we’re not bookies? It is totally irrelevant whether we skeptics post odds. I would love to bet against a warmist that sea level rise stays below 270mm until 2100; BUT I am interested in gains IN MY LIFETIME. And I don’t even know if such a bet would be legal for me… German laws are extremely prohibitive concerning betting.
BTW, see the climate bet for charity at Pierre Gosselin’s notrickszone.com . I didn’t partake because I’m a greedy bastard. Others did, though, skeptics and warmists.
Not sure who this richard gavin is over at real science, but he needs serious Help…
@Nerd April 27, 2012 at 5:24 pm:
Yeah, that is a great book, very revealing about the way archeologists will refuse to accept even solid geological lab results that may change their view of things. It is more important to not rock the boat than to find the facts and report them. So they buried Valsequillo as well as sediment did – hopefully not forever. The actions of that top scientist were heinous – literally destroying evidence. What a dick.
Steve Garcia
Eric Simpson said:
“I called (see above, or the link!) for a “systematic structured funded” ad campaign to turn the tide decisively with public opinion.”
The skeptics guerilla war has been successful at turning public opinion away from alarmism. What you are proposing would effectively be entering a conventional war strategy. In a conventional war the side with the most resources wins. We can’t stand toe to toe with the alarmists yet, they’ve got a few orders of magnitude more money. We’re better off sticking with our guerilla tactics for now in my opinion.
…… See the point man for a good articulation of this line of thinking.
I ran across this on Spiegel article “Setting Sun — Eastern Germany Hit hard by Decline of Solar” and wanted to share it: [click]
”The global solar industry has entered a brutal phase of consolidation and nowhere are the effects as dramatic as in eastern Germany. Several companies have already declared bankruptcy, leaving towns and cities in the region struggling with job losses and tax revenue shortfalls. The future bodes ill.”
Steve Garcia
Sometimes I hate WordPress. I don’t think I’ve ever been able to post an image or link here the first time. Stuff that posts on my own WordPress blog work fine. Here on comments they never come in right.
Steve Garcia
[You need an anchor word. I added “[click]” before the /a tag below. ~dbs, mod.]
After reading WUWT closely for a year or two, I finally saw a pop-up ad for something that’s useful to me, something that was worth clicking to examine. (Heat tape to prevent roof ice-dams)
All the other pop-up ads until today have been for pro-Green causes or pro-Green businesses. I don’t know if this heat-tape company is pro-Green or not, but it’s the only ad that wasn’t EXPLICITLY appealing to Gaians.
Certainly tells you where all the money is … or at least where businesses THINK all the money is.
The Poems of Our Climate says:
April 27, 2012 at 10:47 pm
“I notice the Weather Underground seems to promote global weather panic. Can anyone recommend a weather site that doesn’t seem to push this kind of agenda? Thanks.”
POC,
Try this video “Global Warming Panic explained” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdxaxJNs15s
From Mr. Mimms – Protocol for “total water vapor” measurement with a $50 IR thermometer…
BRILLIANT as usual!
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2011BAMS3215.1
Max
I really liked this bit in that Spiegel article”
Now, as great a we site as WUWT is, nor even ClimatteAudit, but even WUWT and CA together have not done this. This is a supposedly CAGW-believing world not buying it – literally.
What is really happening is this: When world production is more than double world consumption of an item, that cannot happen unless someone is selling someone an intenable idea. And in this case it is businesses who have bought into a drummed-up and unreal idea, that the world is just salivating at the idea of solar panels.
But the real question is this: Solar panels??? SOLAR PANELS??? You mean those things that have been around for 40 years and have never been efficient enough or cheap enough to sell on the open market? In other words, those things that people don’t think are worth it?
How did those companies buy into such an outdated concept? One word: Expected government regulations that never came to pass. Oh? That is more than one word? Eight words? Well, that is 1-to-8, or about 12.5%. And that is about the efficiency of solar panels. Now if the things cost, like, maybe $500 to cover a roof, installed, they might have made a market for themselves. But that was never going to happen.
And since that never happened, and since the governments’ promised legislation also never happened, this was a real sucker punch to those who tried to get in on the ground floor. The government prospectuses were a lot like those mining prospectuses Steve McIntyre weeds out: A lot of pretty brochure promises and no ore in the mine.
A good deal of that failure DOES have to be put down to the 2008 crash and its ripples around the world. People are not in an economic mood for paying for solar panels that will need replacing before they are paid off. The economy killed the green movement – and thank the gods they did.
At the same time, I happen to think solar panels are cool – IF THEY WORK AND ARE COST-EFFECTIVE. If I could put some on my roof and never have to pay another energy bill, hells yes, I’d love that. But I’ve been waiting since 1972 for that to happen, and it never has. Nothing appreciable has happened in solar panels since 1972. The only reason they seemed a good idea to produce was because of expected government regulations. And tight budgets meant no regulations, no forcing people to spend money on inefficient energy ‘soluions’. Though they are a good idea at the right price if they met their promise, solar panels have simply never met their promise.
Watch what happens in the next 3-4 years. Even the Chinese making them cheap now are going to stop or scale back.
Steve Garcia
[i]Why media ignore scientists who tackle taboos[/i]
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2012/04/27/lawrence-solomon-censored-science/
Why media ignore scientists who tackle taboos
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2012/04/27/lawrence-solomon-censored-science/
feet2thefire says:
April 28, 2012 at 3:04 pm
“What is really happening is this: When world production is more than double world consumption of an item, that cannot happen unless someone is selling someone an intenable idea.”
I disagree; it’s a normal Boom-Bust-Steady Growth cycle; completely ordinary in new markets. The bust happens in slow motion due to subsidies but it happens.
“But the real question is this: Solar panels??? SOLAR PANELS??? You mean those things that have been around for 40 years and have never been efficient enough or cheap enough to sell on the open market? In other words, those things that people don’t think are worth it?”
They have come down in price in a nice exponential, again, completely normal for new technologies. One of the largest costs in production is making the silicon blocks before cutting them into layers. The price for this silicon has come down very much more than people expected in, say 2008, due to more efficient production of larger quantities. Some German solar companies had to renegotiate long-term delivery contracts because of this; their argument was: give us better terms or we’re going bust. That was the choice so the suppliers agreed to lower the price. This happened already 2 years ago.
“How did those companies buy into such an outdated concept? One word: Expected government regulations that never came to pass.”
But Steve, those regulations came to pass in Germany – generous feed in tariffs. The problem for many solar companies was and is that they got successfull, fat and lazy very fast, and had a hard time adapting to the rapidly shrinking margins – they thought they could fix it with more lobbying instead of hard-nosed business practives.
And so they perish.
And one more word: The German feed in tariff was designed from the start to be reduced over time. What happens now was announced from the start. The solar companies that die now have deserved it.
@John West. “The skeptics guerilla war has been successful at turning public opinion away from alarmism. What you are proposing would effectively be entering a conventional war strategy [where we would lose].”
What you say, at first glance, sounds reasonable. But… and I applaud the incredible work of all of us in the blogisphere here in fighting the big money propagandists… this cannot be considered a war in a literal sense where actual bullets fly. We would not be “invading” anyone where a response or defense would be called for. Yes, they could respond to our campaign, but I believe the data and evidence is on our side, that is why we win debates, and that is why we would when any public battle, whether it be considered “conventional” or not.
Importantly, I think things have changed as far as our ability to marshal a competitive level of resources. As I’ve said, it’s increasingly clear that the AGW issue is having a large impact on elections, and on public policy, so potential donors can be courted on this basis. Also, any campaigns would solicit funds in the ads, and conservatives would be strongly motivated to give $ to an effective campaign. So, huge $ could be raised to support the campaign(s).
Further, you talk about the effectiveness of our guerilla effort. Problem is that it wasn’t until 2008, and really 2009 and ’10 that we made significant gains. Look at what happened in the 2000s prior to this. Despite this guerilla war, we lost. By the start of 2007 even a majority of conservatives had been duped into believing the AGW scam.
The start of the change in public opinion I think was the 2007 airing of the “conventional” TV show The Great Global Warming Swindle, which got a lot of play on the internet, and provided the publicity for the central anti-AGW arguments we needed. Later we had an incredible stroke of luck with Climategate.
But we are that close to losing again. Arguably, over the last year, in some polls anyway, it has started to go south for us again. We are up against the goliath MSM. We have to do something to get public visibility and bypass the MSM. The guerilla war, for the most part, is not reaching the public as needed.
The climate consensus says that only the experts (those with PhDs and peer reviewed articles) can speak about climate science. Yet when it comes to word definition do they defer to the consensus of experts behind the best dictionaries. Not when it comes to the word “skeptic”.
http://manicbeancounter.com/2012/04/29/michael-manns-narrow-definition-of-skepticism/
Eric Simpson says:
April 28, 2012 at 5:19 pm
But… and I applaud the incredible work of all of us in the blogisphere here in fighting the big money propagandists… …but I believe the data and evidence is on our side, that is why we win debates, and that is why we would when any public battle, whether it be considered “conventional” or not….Problem is that it wasn’t until 2008, and really 2009 and ’10 that we made significant gains. Look at what happened in the 2000s prior to this. …By the start of 2007 even a majority of conservatives had been duped into believing the AGW scam.
The start of the change in public opinion I think was the 2007 airing of the “conventional” TV show The Great Global Warming Swindle, which got a lot of play on the internet, and provided the publicity for the central anti-AGW arguments we needed. Later we had an incredible stroke of luck with Climategate.
But we are that close to losing again. Arguably, over the last year, in some polls anyway, it has started to go south for us again.
==================================================
Eric, I am afraid, the slight recent change in the public opinion was not caused by the sceptical blogs in the first place, but rather by one or two cold winters. And by the fact, that the warmist propaganda (successfully) interpreted warm weather as a sign of “global warming”. So logically some people interpreted cold weather as an evidence against “global warming”. If one or two hot summers occur, they will change their mind again.
Another problem is, that some of so called sceptics are in fact moderate warmists, who actually reinforce the fundamental position of the radicals, and if you confront them on the core issues, it is getting nasty. Look at the thread “Why there cannot be a global warming consensus” for example.
The third problem is, that like 99% of what has been published on the blogs is ineffective in sense of changing the public opinion, because the most ordinary people would not even read the articles to the end, too complicated. A lot of articles would be in the best case perceived by them as speculations, only in a different direction. Any way, this is my perception.
I am not saying, that I have a perfect solution, but I think the top priority should become the core statements, basics of the AGW concept, because they are fictions, although skilfully constructed. These basics can be debunked in a way, that would be understandable for ordinary people. Again, chasing all the 99999 errors of the AGW is ineffective and unnecessary. Just core issues.
If you look at the list of government grants that have been given to the State Penn, you can understand why Mann made global waming is vitally important to the State Penn.
http://www.research.psu.edu/news/news
I believe the “climate consensus” has developed during a period where concern about the environment became fashionable and considered by many, as indicative of moral quality and selfless social responsibility. I suspect that many in the press and entertainment media felt obligated to justify their high incomes by committing themselves to noble social causes–with some, starting with Rachel Carson, devoting themselves to exposing alarming environmental problems caused by modern industrial pollution, real or illusory.
Scientists are people just like everyone else and are not immune to being influenced by the noble causes promoted by the media and the social milieu about them. The shared desire to promote this ‘noble cause’ may have induced the runaway mutual generation of an unfounded body of soft evidence purporting to show the serious danger of CO2 in the environment.
In most cases, I believe, this was done by people who thought they were right–were sure they were right and the public must be quickly persuaded to accept these results to avert global catastrophe.
Good scientists know that what they believe doesn’t affect whether their theories are correct or not. Only empirical data can tell them that.
The problem is, not so good scientists and many non-scientists think belief is important, and with belief comes emotional attachment to those beliefs.
Well, I switched to Intellicast.com for that very reason. Not bad, no climate meme to push, just straight weather and forecasting.
Eric Simpson;
As I replied to Noblesse Oblige on Briggs’ site:
crosspatch says:
April 28, 2012 at 12:36 pm
The problem with a nuclear explosion in a densely populated modern city with a ….
———————————————————————
I watched a one hour special on Chernobyl last week. The whole area remains contaminated and humans no longer live there. But the animals have returned and they are thriving, even though they are exposed to high levels of radioactivity. The wolves, deer, beaver, eagles are all doing very well now that humans are gone. A worthwhile special to watch if you can find it.
An thanks for posting the “love of theory” video. It was excellent.
@Greg House.
I think you are hitting it spot on with your major point, and I have only minor differences with you on your other points.
Mainly, you are so right, when speaking to the public at large, we need to stick to the core concepts, in simple succint, and not overly technical, language. There are two main points. 1) It’s not unusually hot, current temps and rates of temperature change are not unusual. Show in graphic and unarguable terms that the hockey stick is fabricated bull. And, 2) contrary to what the ipcc led us to believe, there’s no empirical evidence that CO2 causes climate scale warming. (It can be presented to make it look accurately like it doesn’t have any significant effect, a trace gas in comparison to much more powerful elements like the sun and sea.)
In an ad campaign we would stick to those 2 main points, mostly. We should not deviate from the simple concise cores, except to cover some subsidiary points in separate but also concise packages. We don’t foist forward a doctoral dissertation or treatise when 30 words will do! Indeed, the (long) length of many skeptic rebuttals argues against the skeptic… the longer it is, the more the reader thinks we are full of it. When a warmist can take 10 words and say.. “it’s hotter than hell” and “look what CO2 did to Venus!” to make an argument, and we have 70 pages of this and rambling that??
Anyway, while John West argued for the effectiveness of our “guerilla war” (I took that to mean the blogisphere), you suggest that it’s not really done a whole lot. I do agree in that it (our guerilla internet war) doesn’t reach everybody effectively… yet the blogisphere is often the only available alternative to the liberal MSM (Fox can only do so much), and it’s a place where arguments have been honed, and the good arguments have risen to then be touted by key talking heads and op-ed writers in the traditional media.
But I would say that the change in public opinion has been a bit more than ‘slight.’ And not slight at all in terms of conservatives, at least in the USA. With conservatives, it has been a complete sea change. In the three years of 2009 to 2011, conservatives have en masse switched to the skeptic side. A few key things (with blogisphere help) combined to push conservatives into the skeptic column; they are: Climategate, arguably cooler temps, the debunking of the hockey stick, and the exposure as false of the original ipcc contention on CO2 (see Al Gore repeat this key deception on CO2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WK_WyvfcJyg). The problem is that most independents and Democrats have not listened so intently to the things conservatives paid attention to… so non-conservatives don’t understand much other than -perhaps- that it has not been as hot as predicted. Many don’t even know much of anything about Climategate, as the MSM did not cover it much. We need to change this.
Conservatives are going to be hard to dislodge from their skeptical position now. But you never know, and if independents turn against us, we could be in trouble again. Instead of possible defeat, we want to end this war, to go home in victory, to put an end to the misguided policies, and to make sure that nothing like the radical cap & trade scheme (83% mandated CO2 cuts by 2050) that passed the U.S. House ever comes close to succeeding again. And we want to put the insulting warmist profiteers (like Zwick, Hansen) out of business. To do this, we have to get out of our blogisphere shell, and foray into traditional media… to change the opinion of the busy political independent and moderate Democrat (U.S.). Then it’s over… for them.
There are lots of member-vs.-member bets regarding future temperatures on a futures markets maintained at Intrade, here: https://www.intrade.com/v4/markets/?eventClassId=20
Your time-scale would be too long for them, though, and for bettors, because the money would be frozen for the duration. so even the winner would lose money by not getting interest on it and being eroded by inflation.
As someone who periodically lectures in the subject of Psychrometrics, I have repeated to my classes ad nauseum the mantra that “temperature is not heat”. But it is ‘global temperature rise’ that is mentioned consistently whenever the AGW drum is beaten. Two enthalpy cases:
Air at 20,0 deg C 10% rh has an enthalpy value of 23,4 kJ/kg dry air.
Air at 20,0 deg C 90% rh has an enthalpy value of 54,0 kJ/kg dry air. A vast difference!
This is on an enthalpy scale which is based on a datum of 0 kJ/kg for bone dry air at 0,0 deg. Can anyone from out there enlighten me as to why enthalpy receives no consideration (so far as I can recognise) in the Global Warming debate?
Eric Simpson says:
April 29, 2012 at 5:31 am
There are two main points. 1) It’s not unusually hot, current temps and rates of temperature change are not unusual. Show in graphic and unarguable terms that the hockey stick is fabricated bull.
====================================================
I would rather challenge the calculations of the “global temperature” and “global warming”. My point is that those calculations are not based on science and thus pure fictions, the same goes for the past climate assertions, including “medieval warm period” and “ice age”. We do not really know, whether it is getting on average warmer or colder or whatever.
This would be an essential change of sceptic strategy, though, I understand that, and maybe a little bit painful for some sceptics.
Here’s another very good video.
And since this is Open Thread, read about an optical clock here:
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2012/apr/26/germany-sends-optical-clock-signal-over-nearly-1000-km
Greg House says “I would rather challenge the calculations of the “global temperature” and “global warming”. My point is that those calculations are not based on science and thus pure fictions” and that this would be an essential change of sceptic strategy.
I thoroughly disagree – this is a _denialist_ strategy, unless the point is that temperature is not the same as heat – but I don’t think that was the point. The temperature measurements we make around the globe give an approximation to global temperature, and global temperature is an approximation (or proxy) to global heat. Most self-respecting sceptics accept that the world has, happily, warmed a bit since the Little Ice Age, and that it warmed from about 1975 to about 2000. All the questions are about why and how much is CO2 implicated and what will happen next.
And I don’t believe it is denialism that has changed conservative American thinking on AGW – it is scepticism (sorry, skepticism over there) with all its concentration on facts, especially the fact that the Sun is unlike anything for about 200 years.
Rich.
Be interesting to see if billionaire Julian H Robertson of the Environmental Defense Fund regains top donor status soon.
Billionaire William Koch gives another $1 million to pro-Romney ‘super PAC’ – Los Angeles Times
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/apr/20/news/la-pn-koch-donation-romney-super-pac-20120420
http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/meet-mitt-romneys-billionaires
Romney Holds Unpublicized Fundraiser at Home of Controversial Billionaire’s Town House | The Moderate Voice
http://themoderatevoice.com/145417/romney-holds-unpublicized-fundraise-at-home-of-highly-controversial-billionaires-town-house/
Ed Mertin,
You ought to get out of your mom’s basement once in a whilst.
See – owe to Rich says:
April 29, 2012 at 1:05 pm
this is a _denialist_ strategy… Most self-respecting sceptics accept…
The temperature measurements we make around the globe give an approximation to global temperature, and global temperature is an approximation (or proxy) to global heat.
=======================================================
Yeah, names calling, head counting… (sad).
My point about the calculations of “global temperature” and “global warming” is that they are not really scientific. I am not going to go into detail about it now, because I wanted just to outline the strategy I prefer.
Of course, if you are sure that those calculations are OK, then it logically will not be your strategy to challenge that, that is clear.
The problem is, as I see it, that a lot of people do not properly look into the issue of those calculations and simply accept them.
The real reason AGW true believers can not change.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2136547/Power-really-does-corrupt-scientists-claim-addictive-cocaine.html
“More than a hundred years after noted historian Baron John Acton coined the phrase ‘power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely’ scientists claim the saying is biologically true.
The feeling of power has been found to have a similar effect on the brain to cocaine by increasing the levels of testosterone and its by-product 3-androstanediol in both men and women.
This in turn leads to raised levels of dopamine, the brain’s reward system called the nucleus accumbens, which can be very addictive.”
“He added that power has also been found to make people smarter because dopamine improves the functioning of the brain’s frontal lobes.”
Now even the Department of Home Land Security is in the environment business
http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/mgmt/dhs-environmental-justice-strategy.pdf
Hey Vince I see you are Joy over at Climate Etc, I guess that is one way of increasing your following!
In my Notes From Skull Island I list nearly 20 things that we climate contrarians (“skeptic” is too mild a term) would be doing differently if we were in fact well organized and well funded:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/05/out-manned-but-what-happened-to-the-science/#comment-760039
See – owe to Rich says:
April 29, 2012 at 1:05 pm
“I thoroughly disagree – this is a _denialist_ strategy, unless the point is that temperature is not the same as heat – but I don’t think that was the point. The temperature measurements we make around the globe give an approximation to global temperature, and global temperature is an approximation (or proxy) to global heat.”
Shannon’s theorem is violated so massively you can’t even know what you’re missing, say, by collecting the data from 6,000 thermometers around the globe. You can and will have aliasing artefacts in temporal as well as in the spatial dimensions. Or even better, in a mixture of both. The only hope of getting anywhere near an approximation would be the satellites but they have their own issues, limited lifetime, switchover and recalibration to another satellite, a tomography-like algorithm to deduce temperature in a certain atmospheric layer, aging of sensors…
The honest approach would be to talk about the development of continuously measured temperature time series in one place only, and discontinue that series on station moves. All other measurements, extrapolations, interpolations, adjustments, splicings and griddings should be left to the yellow press.
The global temperature anomaly is not a measured value. It is a construct.
Thanks rogerknights on your link for Notes from Skull Island. A must read for those interested in improving our standing with public opinion:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/05/out-manned-but-what-happened-to-the-science/#comment-760039
My mom passed coming up on 15 years. Arrows from clown republicans, think it bothers me? No
So Wal~Mart lost 12 billion in Mexico in two days. Bush lost that much in the deserts of Iraq in one day. 383 tons of $100 bills, poof! Gone. At least some fools who lose our money are at least trying to create jobs.
Eric Simpson says:
April 29, 2012 at 11:17 pm
A must read for those interested in improving our standing with public opinion:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/05/out-manned-but-what-happened-to-the-science/#comment-760039
====================================================
In his 10. the author suggest to talk more about mitigation and says in the article nothing about challenging the fundamental fictions the AGW concept is based on. This is a wrong strategy.
It’s the right strategy if you want to win votes. Our side is already “challenging the fundamental fictions the AGW concept is based on” in blogs like this and in some scientific papers. I didn’t suggest that this activity should be reduced. I said nothing about it because nothing needs be said except “carry on”—which will happen without my blessing anyway.
What I suggested was that that sort of strategy is not a vote-winner among the public, because it can so easily be countered by the consensus card. That card is a “winner,” PR-wise. It’s the other side’s strong point in terms of public perception.
If we wish to “move the masses,” we should attack the enemy at its weakest point: “the costliness and ineffectiveness of mitigation strategies” that the other side greatly over-sold in the past, and is now coming home to roost. That will put them on the defensive and raise doubts about their credibility on other matters—like the science. I reproduce my item #10 below.
rogerknights says:
April 30, 2012 at 4:49 pm
…because it can so easily be countered by the consensus card. That card is a “winner,” PR-wise. It’s the other side’s strong point in terms of public perception.
If we wish to “move the masses,” we should attack the enemy at its weakest point: “the costliness and ineffectiveness of mitigation strategies”
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If the consensus card is a winner, they will come with the consensus card on mitigation, too.
The second reason is that you the issue of “costliness and ineffectiveness of mitigation strategies” is too complicated and I am afraid is based on very much speculation. It is definitely not a winner to me.
rogerknights says:
April 30, 2012 at 4:49 pm
…because it can so easily be countered by the consensus card.
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I have just posted something on the issue of consensus:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/30/consensus-argument-proves-climate-science-is-political/#comment-972119