Here it comes–a carbon tax

To Davidmhoffer,
Please! I provided an explanation that RC requested in support of a claim I had made and then I did the same to him. Like you probably, I then wondered how he could support his claim – I thought it would be very difficult to do and, indeed, did wonder how he would respond to is one. Have you just provided the answer to that question? That is, by asking the mods (as you and RC have before) to essentially kick me out of WUWT so that he will not have to answer the question he now has on his table.?
Please have another look at the question I have posed to RC. It constitutes very basic and important science. Are you not interested in learning from RC why the air within the branches of a tree would be expected to represent the background level of CO2 that is present in the air about one mile and more above the forest?
Why are you trying to shut down this discussion of the central scientific question concerning the meaning of stomata measurements?
You might recall that a few months ago RC twice asked the mods on the Inhofe thread to kick me out immediately upon my arrival. It was our good fortune to have an excellent mod working that day who refused to accommodate RC’s wish. That mod went by the nickname, “Rep”, as I recall. In view of your own unfair and unwise request, it will be interesting to see if Rep’s preference for fairness is still alive and well at WUWT. Other than seeing your recommendation above, I have no reason to suspect that it is not.
REPLY: The mod you refer to was Robert E. Phelan, aka “REP” who died while on the job here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/10/announcement-robert-phelan-wuwt-moderator-has-died/
The WUWT community paid for his funeral expenses:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/11/update-on-bob-phelan-please-read/
Apparently you are too caught up in your own self important arguments to remember this, though you commented on the first thread. I don’t really want to get into an argument with you (or waste time moderating this tiff) especially this week, so take a few days off until I get the webcast/broadcast done on Thursday night, then you can rant here to your heart’s content- Anthony

richardscourtney;
How can I achieve communication with ericgrimsrud and – if there are any
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Alas, I don’t think there are. I’m a salesman, I’m in the “persuasion” business. One of the things you learn in sales is to recognize the battles you cannot win. Sometimes customers get ideas in their heads that just defy logic and wind up costing their organizations millions upon millions of dollars. I’ve even been in situations where I’ve told the customer that my product would not solve his problem, and have him insist on buying it anyway. You would think that when the guy who sells the product says it won’t work for some specific purpose, the buyer would simply accept that. But I know from experience it doesn’t always work that way.
I tell a story once in a while about a dear old lady I met at a family reunion. She was adamant that man had never walked on the moon and said she could prove it. How, I asked? Mosquitoes! she shouted. Mosquitoes? Yes! She said. If they can’t even get rid of mosquitoes, tiny little mosquitoes, how could they possibly go to the moon?
The logic in her mind was unassailable. There was no value to her or to me to argue the point.
So how to handle ericgrimsrud? In sales, you walk away from the battles you cannot win. Better to move on to those that you can win. The higher the stakes though, the harder it is to walk away. Giving up on a $1,000 commission? I do it all the time. Give up on a $100,000 commission when I know I’ve got the best solution for the customer, I just can’t find a way to convince him? Not so easy.
As you know, I’ve tried quite a few different tactics with this guy. I’m genuinely convinced that there’s no more value in finding persuasive arguments that will get through to him than there is in arguing about mosquitoes and moon landings with charming old ladies. The problem is that the little old lady was unlikely to convince anyone else and no harm was likely to come from dropping the matter. Not so in the climate debate.

stefan,
Calling people “skunks” who probably agree with a lot of what you say does your cause no good at all. It’s stupid, really. You ought to read How To Win Friends And Influence People by Dale Carnegie. Note that ‘winning friends’ and ‘influencing people’ go hand in hand.

D Böehm says: ”stefan, Calling people “skunks” who probably agree with a lot of what you say does your cause no good at all. It’s stupid”
Mate, Freud said that: fanatic cannot be influenced. Well, maybe by electric shock treatments; I will never try to convince / influence Courtney &Co; BUT,for me is important, the people with open mind – people that wouldn’t waste their life in reciting old unsubstantiated crap – people that visit occasionally the blogosphere – AND the 90% of the people on the street.
Australians are paying the highest carbon tax; not because Karoly, Hansen have any legitimate proof – cannot be legitimate proofs; because is no such a thing as GLOBAL warming. They are paying it, because of Plimer & Joanne Nova!!! Reciting constantly old pagan fairy-tales.
When Plimer was printing his book – in Australia, Julia Gillard back-stubbed the elected prime minister – because he was for carbon tax… === after the apparatchiks analyzed Plimer’s book – they realized that: he is making zombies of people that suppose to oppose them – he is the Warmist best Christmas present -> Gillard reintroduced the tax. Everyone of Plimer’s zomby is saving Gotham City; by regurgitating Plimer’s crap. If you can only imagine the crimes in progress; you would have realized why the people on the street needs to be informed as soon as possible: not to rely on fanatics from both sides. For them to start demanding: Warmist in jail / Fakes on loony-farm. When for somebody EGO and cult believes is everything… trying to convince that the laws of physics were the same for millions of years; doesn’t work, I’ve tried, trust me – that’s why I’ve run out of red carpet for ideology fanatics. The planet wasn’t warming – planet is not cooling!!

To all interested in the historical measurements of Beck concerning CO2 background levels.
OK, so apparently the measurements by Beck of the type I had been looking for do not exist. So let’s then go with what have we do have – that is, the references DBoehm provided above concerning the work of Beck.
So if you look at those graphs showing Beck’s reconstructions of CO2’s background levels, there is a huge peak in CO2 around 1943. And it is a very fast one rising from the base line in 1936 at around 330 ppm to 430 ppm in 1943. That is 100 ppm in only 7 years time! And then the same thing occurs back the other way – back down to the baseline of 330 ppm in 1953, again 100 ppm in only 10 years time! That is a huge amount of CO2 which must come and go from and to other reservoirs of carbon somewhere on our planet. At the same time, note that such huge changes have not been subsequently seen in the many years of the Keeling et all measurements from 1958 to the present at Mount Mauna Loa. Nor have they been seen in the dozen or so other modern monitoring stations that have been set up since 1958 at remote locations throughout the world .
I suppose that the release of 210 gton carbon (equivalent to 100 ppm) in 7 years time just prior to 1943 is theoretically possible – as result of a huge release from volcanoes, undersea vents, meteorite impacts, or the burning about 1/3 of all vegetation on earth, even though we are not aware of that something like that happened during that period. Concerning the opposite change after 1943 – that 210 gtons C were absorbed in ten years time, by either by vegetation or oceans, seems downright impossible . To my knowledge there simply is no process in the natural world which can absorb such a huge quantity of CO2 in such a short time. Also note that this assumes that all of that emitted carbon stayed in the atmosphere. Since we think that only about half of it does on this time scale, if correct, that would mean that the amount emitted just prior to 1943 would be about twice as great or about 400 gtons.
We also have other sources of CO2 measurements or proxies which, if reliable, should also suggest CO2 variations around 1943, if they occurred. But none of these show that specific variability around 1943, which should be present if the atmospheric CO2 content increased and decreased about 30% in such a short period. These other method include both the ice core and stomata record. While we might expect the stomata record to produce somewhat higher than background measurements -due to ground level canopy effects – we would nevertheless expect them to reflect the 30% increase claimed by Beck, if such an event occurred in around 1943 and if the stomata reflect background CO2 levels. They don’t, however. So either Beck’s data or both the ice core and stomata data are wrong. In addition, I would have expected that this huge burst of CO2 would have been expected to detectably increase the acidity of the oceans between ’36 and ’43 with a return to normal the following seven years. To my knowledge no such changes in the pH of the oceans have been reported over that period.
In summary, Beck’s conclusions do not seem reasonable to me. Perhaps one of you who does believe in the validity of Beck’s reconstructions can unravel some of the mysteries I have related here. I and all scientist, I should think, tend to hold the notion that measurements should make physical sense and when they do not appear to we should try to understand the basis of apparent discrepancies.

Spector,
Spot on comment. Thanks.
As I specifically stated would happen, ericgrimsrud now complains that the ever increasing amount of information that I post is never enough. He constantly moves the goal posts, in his deliberate and thoroughly dishonest attempt to avoid admitting the truth. His belief system is being destroyed before our eyes.
Dr. Ernst Georg Beck collated more than 90,000 individual CO2 measurements by dozens of eminent, internationally esteemed scientists, including many Nobel laureates — at a time when that award meant something.
Those 90,000+ CO2 titration measurements were taken in isolated locations such as unpopulated mountaintops, the desolate Ayershire coast, the windward sides of ships transiting the Atlantic, the Pacific, Arctic and Antarctic oceans, the Bearing Sea, the Sea of Otkhosk, the South Pacific, and many other isolated locations free from any human CO2 emissions.
Those titration methods, made by honest scientists who cared very much about their reputations among their peers have been replicated, and show an accuracy within ±3% — only about 12 ppm @ur momisugly 400 ppmv CO2. Dr. Beck’s meticulous research proves beyond any doubt that atmospheric CO2 levels have routinely exceeded 400 ppmv as recently as the 1940’s, and going back to the early 1800’s.
Thus, it has been proven beyond any doubt that CO2 levels regularly exceed 400 ppmv. Grimsrud’s false assertion that CO2 was always below 280 ppmv has no basis in reality. Therefore, the CO2=CAGW conjecture has been thoroughly deconstructed. It is simply not true, as proven beyond doubt by repeated empirical experiments. Any claims to the contrary are nonsense, as is the false claim that CO2 is harmful.

As ‘dahun’ says on another thread:
“The entire global warming scenario consists of assuming a desired answer and going to any extreme and dishonest convolutions to try and prove the answer correct, completely disregarding and bastardizing science along the way.”
That is exactly the same reprehensible tactic that the flaming troll uses here: he assumes that AGW is causing global warming.
The complete lack of empirical evidence shows that is nonsense. An honest person would look at the evidence and draw his conclusions. But not grimsrud, whose mind is already made up and closed tight.
This site is one of very few that allows everyone to post their point of view, and let the market of ideas sift the truth from the chaff. But grimsrud has been consistently proven wrong, yet he continues to flame the threads. It is indicative of his mental incapacity.
My sympathies for grimsrud’s mental illness, but the mods should really put a stop to grimsrud’s flaming, incessant, anti-science trollery. That kind of insanity should be reserved for Tamino and similar nutty alarmist blogs, where grimsrud and David Appell are like-minded crazies. At some point mentally ill like grimsrud need to get the boot, for the good of the discussion by everyone else. Grimsrud’s On/Off switch has been wired around, and he cannot be shut off; the end result of his incurable cognitive dissonance.

grimsrud,
As I specifically predicted, no matter how much information I provide, you will never be satisfied. You are simply trolling, as usual. You cannot be unaware that I have never mentioned the word ‘stomata’. Therefore, your entire comment is a complete strawman, as usual.
You are arguing over what someone else said because you have zero credible facts to support your nonsense. The planet is not behaving as was widely predicted by your anti-science clique. That fact would be sufficient for every honest scientist to reassess their conjecture. But of course, there is no honesty in you.

grimsrud says:
“But you do know about the stomata measurements…”
No, I don’t. As I explained, that is not my specialty. And from your comments you are ignorant of the subject, too. But like a child you keep trying to corner me with your lame arguments. You are not intelligent enough to do that.
Why do you constantly set up your strawman arguments, instead of addressing what I posted? Of course it is because you cannot refute Dr. Beck’s collation of more than 90,000 accurate measurements, showing that CO2 was much higher at times than what you claimed. When you are wrong, as you are here, you should admit it. That is how honest science works. But you are mentally ill, and cannot ever admit that facts falsify your beliefs. You suffer from incurable cognitive dissonance, as Leon Festinger diagnosed it.
I do not know about how plant stomata respond to changes in CO2. But it appears that you believe they actively vary their stomata size, like animals dilate their pupils. That seems wrong to me. The simplest answer is natural selection. Stomata are selected in succeeding generations based on atmospheric CO2 levels. Therefore, there is no contradiction. There never is when science is involved.
The fact remains that numerous highly esteemed scientists took more than 90,000 CO2 measurements in isolated locations from the 1800’s to the 1950’s, with verifiable, replicable accuracy of ±3%, and they recorded thousands of CO2 measurements up to ≈450 ppmv, and even higher. Thus, your entire premise is falsified. CO2 routinely rises far above 280 ppmv, with no resulting temperature spikes. And AGW still has as little empirical evidence as Mrs. Keech had for her flying saucer.
An honest person would acknowledge that his conjecture claiming that CO2 levels always remained under 280 ppm for the past 800K years has been proven to be wrong, falsified by an enormous volume of empirical evidence. But not you. Like Mrs. Keech’s Seekers, when the flying saucer didn’t appear as predicted, it did not mean there was no flying saucer, it just meant that it was delayed. In your case, you will never give up your falsified belief system either. For you, the flying saucer is just late. But it is still coming.