This has been a weird week with my appearance on PBS Newshour. As Noel Sheppard at Newsbusters documents, the alarmosphere has gone beserk over my appearance on PBS.
Watching it, it becomes clear they are in a panic. Even Ralph Nader says Washington is running away from the issue. So, like anyone who’s panicked, Nuccitelli makes an epic fail in his haste to discredit me. He’s upset that I was allowed to speak at PBS and I was just one of a balanced panel of people on that program. It must have been the horrible things I said like:
SPENCER MICHELS: His conclusion though is that basically global warming exists and that the scientists, no matter what the problems were, were pretty much right on.
ANTHONY WATTS: I agree with him that global warming exists. However, the ability to attribute the percentage of global warming to CO2 versus other man-made influences is still an open question.
or this:
ANTHONY WATTS: I’m saying that the data might be biased by these influences to a percentage. Yes, we have some global warming, it’s clear the temperature has gone up in the last 100 years. But what percentage of that is from carbon dioxide? And what percentage of that is from changes in the local and measurement environment?
So to counter those terrible opinions on percentages, Nuccitelli goes on the emotional offensive in a rant at Romm’s romper room, and in the process, makes an epic failure of the most basic rule of percentages:
A Deeper Look At False Balance On PBS News Hour | ThinkProgress
…the amount of warming caused by human greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is known to a high degree of certainty, and these same studies have all found that GHGs are responsible for over 100% of the observed warming over this timeframe.
Gosh. GHG’s are responsible for over 100% of the observed warming? That’s an epic fail if I’ve ever seen one. Even Nuccitelli’s buddy, Stephan Lewadowsky’s statistical blundering on his “skeptics deny the moon landing” paper isn’t that bad. Tamino will not be impressed.
No wonder Noel Sheppard said “If you had any doubts about the level of zealotry involved in today’s global warming movement, they likely will be erased by the goings on at PBS the past few days.”
But when you see the sort of things the people at Skeptical Science write, you start to understand that this isn’t about science, but about pure unmitigated hate against people that have differing views about climate science. For example, this came from the SkS secret web forum where all of the moderators and authors (including Nuccitelli) get together to talk about what they are going to do about the climate skeptics.
Here is Glenn Tamblyn (Skeptical Science author/moderator) secretly conversing with his SkS pals on their off limits forum and saying “we need a conspiracy to save humanity”. The Viet Cong comparison is a nice touch too. There’s talk of convening a “war council” too.
And this isn’t about science or personal careers and reputations any more. This is a fight for survival. Our civilisations survival. .. We need our own anonymous (or not so anonymous) donors, our own think tanks…. Our Monckton’s … Our assassins.
Anyone got Bill Gates’ private number, Warren Buffett, Richard Branson? Our ‘side’ has got to get professional, ASAP. We don’t need to blog. We need to network. Every single blog, organisation, movement is like a platoon in an army. ..This has a lot of similarities to the Vietnam War….And the skeptics are the Viet Cong… Not fighting like ‘Gentlemen’ at all. And the mainstream guys like Gleick don’t know how to deal with this. Queensberry Rules rather than biting and gouging.
..So, either Mother Nature deigns to give the world a terrifying wake up call. Or people like us have to build the greatest guerilla force in human history. Now. Because time is up…Someone needs to convene a council of war of the major environmental movements, blogs, institutes etc. In a smoke filled room (OK, an incense filled room) we need a conspiracy to save humanity.
[As quoted by Geoff Chambers in this Bishop Hill thread. http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/3/26/opengate-josh-158.html?currentPage=2#comments ]
Yet climate skeptics are being painted as conspiracy theory nutters by the very same people who say “a conspiracy to save humanity” is needed.
More here. Dana Nuccitelli’s email response to me on 9/14/2012 when I asked him if he had any remorse about this?
“No.”
I have to wonder, does Dana put tinfoil under that helmet to protect him from skeptical climate thoughts of the general populace when he rides his scooter around in Sacramento?
One final note, Nuccitelli says this in his rant at Romm’s romper room:
Not only has the accuracy of the surface temperature record been confirmed by BEST and Watts’ own Fall et al. (2011), but also by a number of other peer-reviewed papers such as Peterson et al. (2003) and Menne et al. (2010). If Watts believes these studies are flawed, he should attempt to demonstrate it in a peer-reviewed paper. Until he has accomplished this, by his own standards his argument is invalid.
Apparently it was just too much for him to link to the Watts et al 2012 paper, even though he’s written about it before (or to mention that the BEST paper failed peer review).
Oh and for the record Dana, I have two peer reviewed papers in which I am an author, not one. See here, you might want to fix your article. And, there’s more to come, not that it matters to people like Dana whether it is peer reviewed or not, they’ll diss it just the same because we need a conspiracy to save humanity.
*He’s on a mission from clods.
u.k.(us)
And the paragraph that precedes the one you cherry picked says?
Actually, no he does not. His exact quote is: ” I agree with him that global warming exists. However, the ability to attribute the percentage of global warming to CO2 versus other man-made influences is still an open question.”
He says “global warming”, not AGW. And he clearly states that any percentages are still an “open question”. In other words, he says we do not know. He does not say “do cause”.
It seems you have it backwards. Dana did the attacking. Anthony did the ridiculing based upon the histrionics of Dana.
Anthony, it is good news that your site is drawing more advertisers and more power to you for it. From a personal perspective I become annoyed with sites where the advertising has become so “in your face” that it interferes with what I am trying read. But I suspect that even the most extreme forms of advertising will not deter your regular readers and I am one of them.
Morph says:
September 19, 2012 at 1:17 pm
I presume his scooter runs on Unicorn gas only ?
you didn’t see the hose set up to catch methane?
/sarc
Reblogged this on Climate Ponderings.
The skeptics are the “VietCong”?
They must know they are losing.
– – – – –
John Brookes,
A question for you. Can you not perceive that your comment (implying the existence of evil skeptics organizing conspiracies against the good guys who are planet saving CAGWists) clearly helps confirm that John Cook merely runs an ideological website based on him and his squadrons absolutely believing that there exists a systemically programmed anti-CAGW conspiracy run by skeptics? Can you not perceive your comment confirms JC as being fundamentally conspiracy driven?
That he and his squadrons appear to rigidly sustain that myopic & paranoid conspiracy belief is the reason I call John Cook’s site ‘Conspiracy Paranoiaville’ instead of its official intellectually / scientifically duplicitous title ‘Skeptical Science’.
To the extent that John Cook’s strategy continues to irrationally focus on mythical conspiracies he will accelerate the public’s distrust of what he claims is ‘settled’ science. He defeats himself.
The skeptical scientific position has the strongest possible base that can exist in a free society. It has a self volunteered and freely associated collaboration of independent thinkers / scientists /intellects. For John Cook to prevail in his dialog against that open and transparent skeptical base they (the skeptics) NEED TO BE MUCH LESS FREE TO PURSUE AN OPEN, TRANSPARENT & PUBLIC DIALOG. I think JC is not naive and knows that he cannot win against skeptics in a free, open, independent and non-authoritarian dialog.
John
John Brookes,
Dana Nuccitelli is not “the enemy”. He’s simply someone who believes he can distinguish what is fact and what is fiction better than most people. He is someone who apparently believes he is also far more capable of determining how humans should behave than they themselves do. Finally, when posting on the web he’s an arrogant, ill-mannered, yipping little attack puppy. And while that may not be his mode of behavior in person, it is what we see from him at almost every turn.
One of the wonders of the Internet is it’s ability for allowing people to make fools and asses of themselves. Dana takes full advantage of that trait on a regular basis.
Dear Mods,
My very recent comment did not go into waiting moderation as a comment normally does. Can you look for it in the WPnether regions? NOTE: it did contain the ‘C’ word, that may be why WP got it.
Thanks.
John
[nowhere to be found, sorry . . mod]
Gee I wonder if the enforcer warmist hate groups will be added to any watch lists at FBI, DoJ, or the Southern Poverty Center? I think not
Anthony.
“Here is Glenn Tamblyn (Skeptical Science author/moderator) secretly conversing with his SkS pals on their off limits forum and saying “we need a conspiracy to save humanity”
Thanks for the pplug Anthony. However I am a little confused as to why you only published an edited version of what I said. Way too many ellipses in there Anthony.
For the benefit of your readers, here is the full quote:
On a broader level, and it might be worth raising with people like the Rapid Response Team and to disseminate broadly within the scientific community. ‘Don’t go solo’. There is support out there if we all work together. If Peter had contacted others and networked this their might have been a very different outcome. We in the blogging community need to reach out to the scientists – not just the few engaged ones – and let them know that if needed, we have your back. Just like the security guards around a military research facility, our community might understand the enemy better than you do. And no individual can trust their judgement alone. The discussions here can be robust and we don’t always get it right, but get the balance of judgement thing right better than we ever could as individuals.
The Science guys need help from people like us – and if anyone can come up with some serious money, a few PR firms. The closed collegiate nature of science is their greatest weakness.
And this isn’t about science or personal careers and reputations any more. This is a fight for survival. Our civilisations survival.
As a small example of what is going wrong. DeSmogBlog should not have gone with this without consulting and sanity checking with others. Strategy checking.
Unfortunately this has utterly outgrown the ‘blog’ model. We need our own anonymous (or not so anonymous) donors, our own think tanks. Not dedicated to coming up with plans for zero carbon economies, valid as that is. Our version of the HI and all the rest of the network. Our Monckton’s, our James Taylor’s, our Fox News. Our assassins.
Anyone got Bill Gates’ private number, Warren Buffett, Richard Branson? Our ‘side’ has got to get professional, ASAP. We don’t need to blog. We need to network. Every single blog, organisation, movement is like a platoon in an army. But the platoons don’t work under a commmon command structure.
Everyone here at SkS for example should have a full time job communicating. Not snouts in the trough but paid to work full time on this. With budgets for marketting, etc.
This has a lot of similarities to the Vietnam War. The French then America came in thinking they could apply major power military tactics and the Viet Mhin then later the Viet Cong ran rings around them. The conventional Scientific/IPCC/UN/Governmental structures are like the Americans. And the skeptics are the Viet Cong. Low budget but really focused, probing for weaknesses und vulnerabilities. Not fighting like ‘Gentlemen’ at all. And the mainstream guys like Gleick don’t know how to deal with this. Queensberry Rules rather than biting and gouging.
Unfortunately the think tanks/institutes etc arguing our side are still stuck in the mould of arguing to Government, Academia etc rather than seeing themselves as the ones who are going to confront the Viet Cong. Every time a VC tries to set a trap to kill a GI, the VC gets killed by the trap we have set. We don’t just fight this war on bicycles. We fight it on roller skates, with caltrops to puncture the bicycles tires.
Government won’t find a way through this. Academia won’t find a way through it. Business will blow with the winds of profit. And the masses will keep sucking on the tit of consumer society analgesia.
So, either Mother Nature deigns to give the world a terrifying wake up call. Or people like us have to build the greatest guerilla force in human history. Now. Because time is up.
Stop blogging, start networking. Not just communicating. Building the network that with one voice and one plan acts. First build the tool, only then use it.
Someone needs to convene a council of war of the major environmental movements, blogs, institutes etc. In a smoke filled room (OK, an incense filled room) we need a conspiracy to save humanity.
The black hats think there is an agenda, an ideology. Lets give em one!
Exactly what were the reasons you chose for picking the bits you included and excluded Anthony?
From Glenn Tamblyn September 21, 2012 at 4:42 am:
Gee Glenn, sorry to hear about your reading comprehension problem.
As Anthony said above:
Exactly the same as he said on the ‘we need a conspiracy’ thread linked above:
So Geoff Chambers chose those bits, not Anthony. Why are you blaming Anthony?
Now Anthony did choose what bits to highlight in bold. Do you want to ask why he chose those bits?
Kadaka
Actually I did but Anthony hasn’t replied. Think about it. Another blog carries a copy of comments purporting to be by me, obtained by an at least dishonest if not illegal hack. Those comments are then put up at BH – filled by ellipses. If one were being careful, just in the simple journalistic sense, those ellipses would be setting off alarm bells. Surely he would have wanted to check the primary source to ensure that the words missing, hidden by those ellipses, didn’t actually convey a diffferent meaning.from what I had actually written. So my original question to Anthony was why he had left of a fair portion of what I said.
So you suggest that Anthony didn’t check the original source but even worse, just copy and pasted what someone else said. Didn’t do any checking of his own to verify that the text he copied and pasted was an actual reflection of my words. Just ‘Gee Whiz, I like that, think I’ll copy it to my blog.’ Maybe the words on BH where a total fabrication, maybe the truncated text was a very accurate reflection of what I said, may be it was somewhere in between.
By your statement, Anthony just didn’t care. I don’t know whether Anthony did or didn’t do any checking, but it seems you don’t care whether he followed the sort of standards one would expect in basic journalism. If that is all you expect of a blog like this, it seems you are setting the bar pretty low. Confirmation Bias! Bias hardly seems like a strong enough word for it Kadaka
My question to Anthony still stands.
Your reply is noted, and appreciated.
From Glenn Tamblyn on September 22, 2012 at 3:30 pm:
And right at that point I realize you and the truth will only have a passing relationship as best, as it was clearly stated on the ‘we need a conspiracy’ post:
So John Cook himself says the most likely reason for those comments being available was that he himself screwed up.
So naturally you lead your latest comment by stating unequivocally it was “…an at least dishonest if not illegal hack.”
BTW, if you’re going to complain about material obtained by dishonest if not illegal means, then issue here your condemnation of Peter Gleick for his obtaining of Heartland Institute documents by dishonest and illegal means. Otherwise you’re just a flaming hypocrite.
While the events of the last few weeks (the Lew Circus, SkS, PBS, Nuccitelli, etc, oh – and of course the Gleick thing) have certainly been entertaining, I think we need to be careful not to exaggerate their importance, and especially, to not inadvertantly raise the profile of their authors. They are doing a fine job of self-marginilization – who are we to interfere? My best guess is that ten years from now all of this will be relegated to footnote status.
The “conspiracy to save the world” memos read exactly like what they are: The circle-jerking of a small group of ineffectual nutters puffing themselves up among themselves. I had a brief flirtation with leftist political activism in my undergrad days of the ’70s, and the tone of these “confidential internal memos” are remarkably similar to ones I used to see then. Same as it ever was.
The events of the last few weeks – the Lew Circus, SkS, PBS, Nuccitelli, etc (oh, and of course l’affaire Gleique) – have certainly been entertaining, but I think it would be unwise to make too much of them and perhaps inadvertently raise their authors’ profiles. They are all doing a fine job of self-marginalization – who are we to interfere? Best guess is that in ten years these teacup tornadoes and their authors will have been relegated to footnote status.
The “Conspiracy to Save The World™” memos read exactly like what the are: Circle-jerking puffery by a small group of inconsequential nutters. I had a brief flirtation with leftist political activism in my undergrad days of the ‘70s, and it is remarkable how similar in tone these recent “confidential internal memos” are to the memos (and manifestos; oh God, the student manifestos du jour!) that floated around back then. Same as it ever was.
Anthony or Mod: Something strange is happening here:
+ Very difficult to compose & edit in WordPress – cursor disappears & skips around a lot.
+ Comments don’t “take” on the first try.
I comment only occasionally, and so usually don’t remember to do my composing in another text editor & paste in, with the result that I usually lose my first draft & have to reconstruct it from memory (in a different text editor, of course!)
But here’s the really strange thing: As per above, I just lost & reconstructed a comment. The second version would of course be substantially the same, but with noticeable differences. So I compose the second version & paste-in WP, but when the comment finally appears – it’s the original disappeared one!
Suggestions (anyone)?
Kadaka
Just because there may have been a security hole at SkS doesn’t mean that it wasn’t a hack. 99.999% of people wouldn’t know how to take advantage of such a security hole – a hacker would.
Imagine, something goes wrong with my mail delivery and it gets sent to my neighbour. If he sees a letter in his mailbox addressed to me and passes it on to me, perhaps while commenting that the post office may have messed up – fine.
Instead my mail goes to him by mistake. He sees that it is addressed to me. He opens it anyway. He sends it off to a whole lot of people. and they in turn post my mail up on a whole lot of lampposts, perhaps with comments attached. Perhaps missing pages from that mail.
Exactly how are you comparing Apples & Oranges?
From Glenn Tamblyn on September 25, 2012 at 5:32 am:
Two days later, and that’s the best you got? The forum was left open access, thus should have had no more vulnerability than millions of other open access sites across the internet. If a hacker got in any farther than that, that tells me you people were lazy and arrogant and outright stupid. Didn’t your “secret forum” have layered access?
Even calling that a “security hole” is disingenuous. The door wasn’t left with the key in the hole. Nor was it left unlocked. You guys left the door wide open. And now you’re trying to tell me that not only was it a squirrel that must have been what was chewing on your nuts, it had to have been a specially trained ninja squirrel.
Please review the definition of “analogy” and the proper construction of them, as your attempts aren’t even close.
What was done is you left a steamy love letter laying in the open on a table at a sidewalk cafe. Now you’re griping that people not only didn’t respect your privacy by declining to read, but the juicy bits are making the rounds on Penthouse and numerous well-trafficked internet sites.
What’s next? You’ll complain that Google Street View has shots of you laying in your buddy’s backyard, stretched out in your full glory, after the gate was left wide open and anyone passing by could look right in and see if there was any little thing worth noting?
The “percentage” language is misleading, but if you stick to it “more than 100%” is quite reasonable. Anthony raises the question of “how much of the observed warming” is due to greenhouse gases. This implies an answer in percentage or fractional terms. There is no reason that the fraction cannot be greater than 100%.
Consider a business with two product lines; product A has a net profit of a million dollars and product B has a net loss of a quarter million. Now if Anthony asks “what percentage of the $750 K profit of the company is attributable to product A”, what answer is sensible? There is only one meaningful answer: 133.33% of the profit is due to product A (while -33.3% is due to B).
There is historical confusion over this tracing back to the attribution controversy of the 90’s. When y’all skeptics demanded observational evidence, IPCC dutifully went back over the record and expressed increasing confidence that “at least some fraction” of the warming was attributable to anthropogenic greenhouse forcing. That does not preclude the conclusion that “more than all of it” is due to anthropogenic greenhouse forcing.
Indeed, at present the natural forcings are small and the background preindustrial trend was small. So the forcings are dominated by anthropogenic ones; the greenhouse forcing is well characterized while the various aerosol components and albedo components are less so. However it is far more likely than not that the forcings absent greenhouse forcing are toward cooling.
The confusion traces back to the distinction between Bayesian and frequentist reasoning styles. A 100% of the warming is due to greenhouse gases (the Bayesian analysis: the “best estimate” part).
It’s certainly the sort of thing that is mockable because it sounds silly. But it nevertheless is NOT silly. It is in fact a reasonable representation of the evidence at hand, and if you take the time to think about it clarifies the practical difference between the two main threads of statistical reasoning.
Some of my text seems to have been chopped. I’m pretty sure my second to last paragraph has been garbled somehow. The frequentist part says we are 95 % sure that some of the warming is anthropogenic. The Bayesian part says that it is more likely than not that 100% or more of the warming is anthropogenic.
From mtobis (@mtobis) on September 27, 2012 at 9:35 am:
Now that just sounds daft. The answer is “all of it”, or 100%, as only product A is generating profit. You cannot claim product B is generating negative profit, it is being sold at a loss, nothing more.
Let’s say that with the greenhouse gasses there has been 1°C of warming over the past century. Without any greenhouse gasses the planet would be 30°C cooler. With “more than 100%” considered acceptable, can’t it be stated that the presence of greenhouse gasses is responsible for 3100% of the warming of the past century?
By limiting yourself to 100%, you are following the reasoning style that leads to “100% of the profit” after deriding it.
What can be mocked, and is silly, is resorting to such circumlocutions defending a fellow warmist that you state as a “meaningful answer” something even more ridiculous that the statement being defended, and waiting two days after the last comment and after everyone else has moved on to try to slip in your “last word”. If it wasn’t for the “Recent Comments” block I would have missed it.
Now then, I’ve been writing this while cooking, I have a chicken to stuff, and I invite you to get the same experience.
There wasn’t anything tactical about the “waiting two days”; I just happened across this article today, and I thought I had something useful to add. I am not a “warmist”, I am a “truthist”. Since you understood my point I feel I succeeded in some measure.
“More than 100%” is an awkward way of putting it, I admit, but there is a genuine and important point to be made.
We are HIGHLY CONFIDENT that SOME of the warming is anthropogenic, but the BEST ESTIMATE is that ALL of it is AND THEN SOME. Were it not for the anthropogenic greenhouse effect, the old anthropogenic ice age scare that a few people were trumpeting in the 70s would be a realistic concern. This is an important fact. If you find some better way to state it, please let me know, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t something important to communicate here.