Josh writes:
With a certain amount of hysteria and hand wringing over the latest Heartland ads I thought a more pastoral cartoon might be a good idea.
I will update the cartoon if people suggest improvements but my aim is to express where we are in the debate over Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming – I think the catastrophists are on a small island of sinking sand out there somewhere cold, and, even though there are still arguments to win and vested interests to battle, I think the land is ours.
Here is the wonderful Shakespeare reference in full.
This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,–
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.
William Shakespeare, “King Richard II”, Act 2 scene 1
Josh “Argon is a green house gas” pick one but there is more argon in the atmosphere than Co2.
Co2 does not have an observational anthropogenic so called finger print any more than argon has.
How about where “the world has warmed a little” have a couple of people enjoying a nice day on the beach?
Sparks says:
May 4, 2012 at 7:45 pm
> Josh “Argon is a green house gas” pick one but there is more argon in the atmosphere than Co2.
I assume you’re referring to some misstatement by someone who should know better or a politician, but I don’t recall the reference. (Argon, being monatomic, is very transparent to longwave IR.)
Label it Gulligan’s Island.
Nice to have a look in the head of the fake skeptics and what they fantasize how the world looks like. And how you try to improve the morale among yourself by confirming to each other how right you were, although it’s really just pure fantasy that mainstream climate science was a sinking ship.
I like it!
I would like to see a huge wave about to crash onto the alarmist island, although, I don’t see how that really fits the narrative. Perhaps rats fleeing the sinking (IPCC) ship.
That chap Shakespeare had a way with words didn’t he.
Jan P. Perlwitz says:
May 4, 2012 at 9:46 pm
Nice to have a look in the head of the fake skeptics and what they fantasize how the world looks like. And how you try to improve the morale among yourself by confirming to each other how right you were, although it’s really just pure fantasy that mainstream climate science was a sinking ship.
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Might be a good time to look at the bigger picture,
http://joannenova.com.au/2010/02/the-big-picture-65-million-years-of-temperature-swings/
Even if the higher scenarios of the IPPC temperature forecasts come true, it would be the equivalent of moving your location a few hundred miles closer to the equator, (and the equatorial regions will not warm as they are already constrained by WV) would that be such a terrible thing, worth trashing the country’s economy to avoid? Most people take their holidays in such locations.
“Dire Straits” :-), Good one.
I agree totally with Judith Curry’s comment from http://judithcurry.com/2012/05/04/week-in-review-5412/
‘Josh has a good cartoon that was posted at BishopHill. However, he omitted the lunatic fringe on the Sceptic Isle (e.g. the people at Heartland that came up with the billboards).’
Of course, as with two-party politics, there is the lunatic fringe on the other side: CAGW alarmists on ‘Thermogedon Isle’ too.
juanslayton says:
May 4, 2012 at 5:57 pm
Americans love to laugh. If HI has money to pay for billboard time, they ought to get Josh to draw a billboard cartoon aimed at the driving audience.
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Humor is a much better method of fighting compared to mud slinging. Nothing makes bullies more blue in the face that laughing at them.
A series of cartoons by Josh would be just the ticket. change them every other day or so and Joe Sixpack would soon be laughing at CAGW.
Julian Braggins wrote:
Please could you explain how you get to this claim that a temperature change, even if the worse scenarios from the IPCC report 2007 became true would be only like moving a few hundred miles toward the equator? And what time frame are you talking about?
The worst case scenarios in the IPCC report 2007 are the business-as-usual emission scenarios A2 and A1FI, latter the one for intensive fossil fuel use. These are the emission scenarios one has to assume as the most likely ones, if the ones who oppose any curbing of greenhouse gas emissions get their way in society, which is how it looks like, currently, at least in US. The likely range (66% probability) of the projected temperature change in the A1FI is 2.4 to 6.4 K[1] for the global average at the end of the century. That is, there is also a >10% projected likelihood in this scenario that it could be higher than 6.4 K. So, let’s say the worst case scenario is a globally averaged temperature increase of 6 to 7 K until the end of the century. Regional changes will vary around this average, with higher values in the high latitudes than in the low latitudes, and higher values over land than over sea. The amplification factor for the zonal and annual average over land between 25 and 50 deg. N relative to the global mean increase is between about 1.3 and 1.5. [2] (shown for the A2 scenario, but probably not much different for the A1FI scenario), and higher in latitudes north of 50 deg. N. So we are talking about a possible increase in the annually averaged temperature of about 7 to 10.5 K on the territory of the contiguous US until the end of the century in the worst case scenario. With such a warming you likely would get heat waves in summer with temperatures > 50 deg. C (> 122 deg. F) in regions where you have heat waves up to 40 deg. C today, and higher or lower scaled accordingly where you are. And it wouldn’t just stop at the end of the century. The increase in temperatures would continue into the following centuries.
Note, this is a possible worst case scenario, not the most likely one. Although the real worst case scenario would probably be the occurrence of a positive feedback leading to additional warming on top like the one that could happen due to a release of methane into the atmosphere that is currently bound in methane hydrates in the ocean floors, when the ocean floors warm.
So where would that be that you would only have to move a few hundred miles toward the equator today to have a similar change in your climatic environment like in the worst case scenario above? What are the vacation places where people like to go today where temperatures are above 50 deg. C during the heat waves in summer?
[1] The Physical Science Basis, Table TS.6 http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/tssts-5-2.html
[2] The Physical Science Basis, Figure 10.6. http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/figure-10-6.html
@Ric Werme
Nothing gets past you but the humor.
Totally brilliant, Josh!
Im looking for the Moral High Ground, but I think it may have been submerged by now…
Ya need some trees Josh. You know, the honest kind of trees responding to good sun. water and fertilizer (the animals deposit regularly).
I Love it! A land of good science versus the science practised by the CAGW ‘teamsters’. Kind of makes you wonder if there is some sort of malignant godfather(mother?) overlord ruling who discovers what findings they’re trying to call science.
It shows the barren desolution that the warmists want for their future; no consistent electricity, no personal transportation (horses emit), no malicious farming (must eat weeds signs posted along walkways) not to mention bad science institutions (I like Frankensteins castle, the Mel Brooks variety). Speaking of bad science; once the warmistas get the earth of their dreams (nightmares to us) just imagine where their role in establishing bad science will take them. Their science will establish that it’s good to drink vodka while taking tylenol; and to mix bleach with ammonia for cleaning. ( Don’t do this at home kiddies!)
Jan P. Perlwitz says:
May 4, 2012 at 9:46 pm
Nice to have a look in the head of the fake skeptics and what they fantasize how the world looks like. And how you try to improve the morale among yourself by confirming to each other how right you were, although it’s really just pure fantasy that mainstream climate science was a sinking ship.
It’s been pointed out many times before, and your comment simply reinforces it; CAGW “scientists” just don’t get humor, which is part of their psychological profile, I guess.
Oh, and look again. That sinking ship is the IPCC (my guess is it would say IPCC “Consensus” if there were room), done in by a glacier named “Donna”, (an obvious reference to Donna La Framboise). So-called “mainstream climate science” is now an island made of sand which is sinking into the sea, with climate “scientists” proclaiming that they are doomed, with the charred remains of a bird-chopper in the background. It’s genius, really.
Jan P. Perlwitz says:
May 5, 2012 at 9:51 am
> Note, this is a possible worst case scenario, not the most likely one.
The most likely worst case? What a great concept. I’ll keep that in mind to describe possible outcomes it trying to fix a customer’s problems with our file system. Fortunately, there aren’t too many.
Bruce Cobb wrote:
Oh, you totally err, if you think I don’t find this funny. Obviously just for other reasons than you. I find it very funny, because it demonstrates the distorted perception of the world on the side of the fake skeptic crowd, who, in reality, are just a fringe movement relative to where real science takes place, even though they see themselves differently in the fake reality they have created for themselves. You find it funny because it confirms your view, I find it funny because it confirms my view about your view.
Ric Werme at May 5, 2012 at 2:14 pm wrote:
It’s a possible worst case scenario. It’s not the most likely scenario.
Nice job, Josh.
No, in the ‘possible worst case scenario’ the global temperature will rise by 100 degrees Celsius by tomorrow morning and we’ll all be parboiled. But mere possibility is no reason to believe — or do — anything. Reasons require evidence.
AGW alarmists always have to walk a tightrope between saying “things are so bad that we can’t do anything” and “things are so trivial that we needn’t do anything”. Their position is “It’s good enough that we can fix it with large amounts of your money, but bad enough that we’ll always need more.” Hence all the to-ing and fro-ing.
Jan P. Perlwitz says:
First, in Georgia, we have had temperature spikes at the near 50 degree level in the 1930s, but not since. Our normal heat waves are in the high 30s. Only out west, in the desert (and near desert) do we normally see very high summer temps like that.
Where do people vacation where temperatures are in the high 50s? Some of my very favorite memories are my trips to the Arizona, New Mexico, Utah desert areas. It was nearly 52 degrees in Goblin valley the day we visited there, and reached 48 degrees most days in Moab, Utah. I LOVED it.
Millions of people a year visit Moab, Death Valley, White Sands, the Bonneville Salt Flats, and dozens of other hot spots across the West.
Why do those areas get so hot? It’s not CO2, it’s not back-radiation from Water Vapor, it’s DRY air. There is no moisture to absorb the heat during the day and carry it away, like there is in, say Louisiana. Summer heat may be uncomfortable there, but it’s not because it’s so hot, it’s because it’s muggy. Temperatures in Louisiana seldom ever hit 40 degrees. Hell, they rarely hit 33 degrees, because all the water prevents it from happening.
I’m still waiting for Global Warming to effect the Southeast, where I live. Has not happened yet. Look at the BEST temperature reconstructions for my region. See all that BLUE. Our temperatures have actually dropped. I’m hoping that our winters will get a bit more mild in the future, since I hate to be cold. I consider 28 C to 30 C be the perfect temperature, and don’t get uncomfortable until it’s over 31.
All you people who want it to be perpetually 22 C or lower are defective.
Hi Josh,
you must have been looking at a map of my locale recently to come up with that profile. That looks amazingly like the west coast of the lower North Island of New Zealand!
Where the main stream media are is Mt Egmont/Taranaki (like many major mountains in NZ it has a european and Maori name). I live where the Climate Science Refugee sign is and we are curently in a mild autumn drought so the ground colour is quite apt, it is normally verdant green like the Taranaki region. Most climate scientists at NIWA reside in Wellington which is where that guy in the white coat is walking from!
The mountain chain with the glaciers is where the large strato volcanoe Mt Ruapehu sits, and it has the only glaciers on the North Island so that works too. I don’t know if Auckland zoo has any polar bears, but if they do then you have positioned them to a tee as well. The man pointing to the shail oil drilling is also pointing towards the east coast of the North Island where there is growing opposition being stirred up by green activists against oil exploration of any kind so that is spot on as well (no pun intended).
I checked the maps but couldn’t find the sinking island off the coast, so alas we must conclude that it has disappeared beneath the waves along with the dire straits.
Cheers
Coops
Also PC. Unlike, say, Dire Gays!
“Possible” and “worst case” are redundant. But perhaps as contrasted with “impossible worst case scenarios”, it makes sense. Grammatically. Scientifically, all CAGW scenarios are looking more and more asymptotically infinitesimally possible.