Dr. Roger Pielke jr. writes:
IPCC Lead Author Misleads US Congress
The politicization of climate science is so complete that the lead author of the IPCC’s Working Group II on climate impacts feels comfortable presenting testimony to the US Congress that fundamentally misrepresents what the IPCC has concluded. I am referring to testimony given today by Christopher Field, a professor at Stanford, to the US Senate.
This is not a particularly nuanced or complex issue. What Field says the IPCC says is blantantly wrong, often 180 degrees wrong. It is one thing to disagree about scientific questions, but it is altogether different to fundamentally misrepresent an IPCC report to the US Congress. Below are five instances in which Field’s testimony today completely and unambiguously misrepresented IPCC findings to the Senate. Field’s testimony is here in PDF.
Full story here, well worth a read
Field looks uncannily like Dr Harold Shipman….shudder!
[REPLY: You may well be right, but how does this advance our understanding of the issue… unless you are a eugenicist or an enthusiast of Cesare Lumbroso… -REP]
AGW was to be the ruse that created a sense of crisis so that ordinary citizens would voluntarily submit to the kind of collectivist schemes that have never worked in the past. Unless you belong to the politically connected class. Except this time the form is to push regulation and to tax away benefits of ownership and award govt largesse to connected companies. Freezing was the preferred theory for a while and Club of Rome books from the 70s make it clear any rationale will work. It’s the political, social and economic transformation and control over personal behaviors that the point.
If the working definition of Corporatist Socialism is a planned economy and intrusions into what a citizen may say, do, or feel , we are there. Yes, I am aware of other names for this political racket from the past. But what’s important first is to capture the essence of the fundamental relationships involved.
Then we can bring in other notorious names for these practices where political power seeks to override reality.
All, this thread is what is wrong about the climate change debate. I scanned Field’s testimony and the blogosphere replies, so do not yet have this nailed excpt for the following. Not clear worth further effort, since the trends are clear. How about not ‘yelling’ past each other, and engaging? Weather related economic losses are real. Question is what, if any, AGW contribution. Now Fields asserted everything, without a shred of proof. You all are asserting nothing, also without giving a shred do proof. The laws of physics say carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. It must increase warming at least a bit. But there are other important factors. It is the future influence of those factors, not today’s weak climate signals relative to a very (as AW showed via surface station siting) noisy background, that matters.
In the military you are taught not to attack all targets (lest waste all ammunition). Advise you follow this doctrine. As I did on a previous post here about provably wrong corn yield consequences. You want to stop the nonsense, then ‘shoot to kill’. Don’t do what the Taliban does, which is spray and pray. Specifically meaning taking AK47s and just pulling the tigger in some general direction. AW ‘shot to kill’ with his surface station study. Emulate that.
I thought it was interesting that the IPCC said there was “no trend,” concerning hurricanes, while Field stated, “The evidence on hurricanes is mixed.”
There is some evidence hurricanes up-the-East-Coast are to some degree influenced by the warm AMO. Of course, this has nothing to do with CO2, which would suggest a reason to downplay the connection. If people were aware the AMO has been warm, and that the “trend” would be more hurricanes up the east coast until it cools, they might expect a repeat of 1893, or of 1954. If you say there is no “trend,” people will not expect another Carol-Edna-Hazel season, and when it happens it will be more possible to point at CO2 as a culpret.
I’m an alarmist, but not about CO2. I’m nervous about a repeat of 1954. We’ve been pretty lucky, so far, this warm AMO. I thought Irene was “The Big One,” but it was slow enough, and in over the cold shelf waters, and the eyewall fell apart. I hope our luck continues.
One of the big mistakes we make as skeptics is judging the other side by our own standards.
I have been known, on occasion, to tell known lies, but for the ‘right’ reason. For example, I told my kids that Father Christmas was real, even though I seriously doubted the proposition. But it was done for a good reason and I would do it again.
These folks are doing the same. After all, its not REALLY telling lies. is it ?…
@ur momisugly Rud Istvan
If you want to ponder the issue of “yelling past each other” I suggest a long, hard stare in the mirror.
Dr. Pielke Jr.’s comments were not in any way, manner, shape, or form about the reality of AGW.
They were about Field’s misrepresentations lies concerning what the IPCC had to say about the matter. You need to work on your English comprehension skills.
You foolish people. He was brought in to say exactly what he said. The whole point of him being there was to give a scientific imprimatur for that exact view point. It’s over. Done with. It is now part of the congressional record and congressmen can point back to it as the scientific basis of their legislation. If it wasn’t him, it would have been someone else.
Listening to a NPR broadcast today about gay marriage they had a theologian present to refute arguments that homosexualism was religiously proscribed. Not that I’m one way or another on that particular issue, but it points out that those the left brings forth to “testify” are going from a well rehearsed script. They will find someone with sufficient credentials who will say whatever it is they need them to say.
Come’on! You guys have figured that out by now, right?
The “graph” on page 3 of the pdf needs addressing as it states, simply and cleverly, that the number of record highs is increasing. If the world is cooling then it is surely inconceivable that we are experiencing more and more record highs. As a confirmed sceptic this is the first piece of information (evidence?) which has caused me to doubt my views.
“Is it a crime to mislead Congress?”
If you are under oath and you lie, yes.
Mark
The thing that really drives my skepticism, is the lack of locusts.
True Believers of the global warming are looking pretty silly riding their pink donkey to the capitalism-free Utopian dreamland of the Left. But, something is wrong when to get there the Left just can’t stop the lying.
Rud Istvan says:
“Fields asserted everything, without a shred of proof. You all are asserting nothing, also without giving a shred do proof.”
.
The scientific method places the onus entirely on those making the claim. The claim [actually, a conjecture] is that CO2=AGW.
Skeptics do not have to offer ‘a shred of proof’. That is the job of those proposing the AGW [and much more preposterously, the CAGW] conjecture. They have failed. Although radiative physics implies that because CO2 absorbs and emits IR the atmosphere should heat up, empirical observations indicate that more is at play. Because the planet is not warming as endlessly predicted. Quite the opposite.
There is not a shred of testable, verifiable scientific evidence showing that CO2=AGW. None. The alarmist crowd has completely failed to make a scientific case. According to the scientific method, they must now discard their falsified conjecture, and formulate a new one. Scientific probity requires it.
Stanford eh?
What does he teach, Climate Scientology? Global Warming Justice?
Excuse me, did this distinguished person just… well… LIE? How very unusual.
Can anybody give me 1(one) example of a climate scientist who did tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
another farce for MSM & public consumption.
here’s another:
31 July: BBC: Olympic taxis make 130-mile round trip to fill up in Swindon
Hydrogen-fuelled taxis, introduced in London for the Olympic Games, are being transported on a 130-mile round trip to Swindon to refuel.
The fleet of three low-emission cabs was introduced to ferry VIPs and officials during the Games.
But the hydrogen fuelling station, at Lea Interchange near the Olympic Park, has had to close for security reasons…
In the meantime, the taxis are loaded on a transporter to make the trip to the nearest filling station at car manufacturer Honda’s plant in Swindon..
Richard Kemp-Harper, from the government-run Technology Strategy Board, said the situation was “short term”.
“The benefits for those taxis – apart from showing off some great British technology to the rest of the world – is actually that they produce water out of their tail pipes,” he said.
“So the particulates and air quality – it’s a big difference for London even if there’s a small carbon problem with having to ship them up to Swindon to pick up hydrogen at the moment.”…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-19049209
One can see why the IPCC and other U.N. daughter organizations want
immunity from prosecution for their members/employees/consultants
should one/some of them violate a host of national laws… like perjury
or “Contempt of Congress”.
Barb Boxer indicated that there weren’t any U.S. government Department,
Agency, or Office staff employees “invited” to testify at today’s hearing.
None of them want to testify under oath unless they control the questions.
Smokey says:
August 1, 2012 at 4:36 pm
. “There is not a shred of testable, verifiable scientific evidence showing that CO2=AGW. None.”
Try this one.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v484/n7392/full/nature10929.html
Did he testify under oath or merely held a presentation for entertainment purposes? There is a difference, at least there used to be one in pre-postnormal times.
Entropic,
BZZ-Z-Z-ZT!! WRONG!
From your own link, the PETM triggered rising CO2:
Nice try, thanx for playing. And Vanna has some lovely parting gifts for you on your way out…
Whenever I read Joshua I feel the life draining from me. The guy is just numbing, predictable, and dull as a re-run. Which is applicable to just about everything he ever says. He is someone who will never have a light go on and there is no point in taking his bait and debating him. His entire purpose is to blunt the conversation – to drive away audiences. It works.
Isn’t it a criminal offense to lie in your testimony to congress? When can we expect an arrest? Will Stanford revoke Christopher Field’s tenure? Lets write both the presidents of Stanford and of their alumni association to find out what they think and plan to do. Do they plan to change the code of conduct for students to allow them to cheat as well, or is this a privilege reserved for staff only? This reflects very poorly on Stanford as an academic institution. If they do not act promptly then they rank down there with Penn State in the ethics department.
Entropic Man: “Try this one.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v484/n7392/full/nature10929.html”
Eh? Why that one and not the paper blaming dinosaur flatulence? Both are larded up with ‘cans’ and ‘coulds’. And both are as equally testable and replicable. But only the one that intersects Central American Cuisine with Sauropods gets the hook right for climate catastrophe caused by fauna.
Pielke and Cristy do a Tag Team Double Slam Down.
One attacks the messanger, the other the message. Blam! Ow! Splat!
D. J. Hawkins says:
August 1, 2012 at 2:15 pm
ob says:
August 1, 2012 at 12:59 pm
I recommend to read the comments by A on RPJr’s post. Or even better, take the transcript and the SREX and compare them yourself. Field could have done better, but he neither lies (Re: DaveG) nor “unambiguously misrepresent”s.
‘“A trolling we will go, a trolling we will go…”
Yes, please read the nearly incomprehensible “A” and Dr. Pielke’s replies. “A’s” comment on point 1 is particularly tortured, trying to suggest Field is talking about climate changes and extreme weather, not losses. I wonder what the phrase “14 billion-dollar climate-related disasters” refers to if not economic losses. Dr. Pielke’s response is directly on point. “A” doesn’t fair much better on the subsequent issues.’
ob, did you just get your head handed to you? You can learn a lesson from this. On WUWT, if you post a false claim then you will find that your claim is quickly and graphically revealed for the falsehood that it is. This environment is toxic for trolls. Of course, some trolls are so far out that they are ignored by all.
Smokey says:
August 1, 2012 at 4:36 pm
Wow! Smokey smokes someone. Hats off to you, Smokey.