Bill Clinton Praises His New Climate Change Hero
Excerpt:
I happened to be sitting next to Dr. Muller last week, and although he was whisked backstage by some big secret service staffers after Clinton’s speech, he agreed to answer a few Fresh Dialogues questions by email about his research and how he feels about hero worship by number 42.
You might be surprised to learn three things about Dr. Muller:
1. He says Hurricane Sandy cannot be attributed to climate change.
2. He suggests individually reducing our carbon footprint is pointless — we need to “think globally and act globally,” by encouraging the switch from coal to gas power in China and developing nations. He’s a fan of “clean fracking.”
3. He says climate skeptics deserve our respect, not our ridicule.
Muller said he hopes that Berkeley Earth will be able to coordinate with the Clinton Foundation on their mutual goal of mitigating global warming.
h/t to Marc Morano. Full story here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/blackberry/p.html?id=2278509
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I can’t say I disagree with his points. While we’ve had our issues, it is nice to see #3 pointed out. – Anthony
AD Everard is right on. The carbon tax/market pushers are well at work behind our backs. And since mother nature does not cooperate, they might become more desperate and thus more dangerous: the Doha Diktat adopted by a single angry old man is proof, reason had left the building a long time ago.
It is funny to notice how they push the agenda. For instance, in green dominated Vancouver, BC Canada, a handle of academics from SFU, UBC and UVic (among them Weaver) are fearmongering with meters of sea level rise supposed to happen in the next 50 to 100 years or early: http://www.vancouversun.com/business/West+Coast+contemplates+calm+before+storm/7671558/story.html#ixzz2EWxwie2B
BC Ministry released a report last year and although the real data show virtually no sea level rise 1.2 in +/- 1 in over the past “unprecedented” warming, projections are for one meter minimum, once they fit the IPCC models, a la hockey stick…
So academics, some of them funded by Willburforce and Bullitt US Foundations (the anti oil sands campaigns), are peddling alarmism to politicians in power who in turn are agitating billions of public contracts in front of the development & building industry using the climate change issue as a pretext for trying to get support and favorable green media (Postmedia/CBC/ Globemedia) coverage before next year’s elections…
Should this happen, following the money and the rewards will be exciting…
Rob Dawg says:
December 11, 2012 at 5:51 pm
What part of pulling another BEST practices double cross isn’t blindingly obvious in this latest “outreach?”
Touche
Werner, are you saying that GISS is at 0.68 for November, but RSS is only showing 0.195???? That’s one heck of a discrepancy if so.
John R T says:
December 11, 2012 at 5:39 pm
Either, “Truth to power,” or his daughter’s business is in for big money.
____________________________
Well his daughter has a Shell VP on board ….
Probably different baselines.
On another subject, there are a number of inappropriate ad hominem attacks on Dr. Muller in this thread. Sad. He appears to be one of the more responsible alarmist voices and this many here do not appreciate how important his voice is.
It would be nice if some of the $2,000,000,000 Clinton collected for Haiti would be spend on something in Haiti, EG clean water
“On another subject, there are a number of inappropriate ad hominem attacks on Dr. Muller in this thread. Sad. He appears to be one of the more responsible alarmist voices and this many here do not appreciate how important his voice is.”
Keyword: ‘appears.’ [!!!]
XD
Muller recently lied in his WSJ article about being a “former skeptic.” He never was a skeptic.
When billions of dollars are involved, all kinds of subversive actions are being used and paid for, including using stool pigeons pretending “not to be skeptic’s enemies.”
I think Muller is a Green Totalitarians’ stool pigeon. Whatever he says to appear being your friend, he says with the objective to betray you.
He still continues to pronounce the bad business of the devil’s molecule, though, as from her interview, “However, we have closely examined the evidence for temperature rise, and there are several conclusions that are now strongly based on science. The temperature of the Earth has been rising in a way that closely matches the rise in carbon dioxide. The history of solar activity does not match the data at all. Based on this, the human cause for this warming is strongly indicated.”
As a follow up to my initial comment, check how the Vancouver Sun reporter is stringing the subject for a series of 3 articles:
http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Water+damage+claims+surpass+fire+claims/7679979/story.html
The articles come from a single source/viewpoint and feature the SAME academics prominently: Deborah Harford from SFU, whose ACT Institute is sponsored by Willburforce and Bullitt Foundations (of course not a word on that from the writer Tracy Sherlock) and Stephen Sheppard
professor in landscape architecture and forest resources management at UBC, who is insuring work for himself and his students, peddling glossy green residential planning reports based on fantasy climatology.
As usual, the reporter gobbles the well rehearsed alarmism especially when Gordon McBean is involved. Clearly, this series should be considered like “paid advertisement” not information.
Then another reporter Larry Pynn hammers the nail: “METRO VANCOUVER – Combating rising sea levels due to global warming could cost $9.5 billion in flood-protection improvements in Metro Vancouver”
http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Metro+Vancouver+dike+improvements+could+cost+billion+2100+report/7682197/story.html#ixzz2EoDCZOK7
Not ONE word that sea level rose 1.2 in in 100 y in Vancouver…
These articles are brainwashing and once again, follow the money to figure out who is launching this campaign and who will benefit from it.
RobertInAz says:
December 11, 2012 at 7:55 pm
Come again? Would you enthusiastically pick up a rattlesnake just because it happened to have one less rattle than the rest?
An alarmist is an alarmist, regardless of how “responsible” his alarmism. (A serious contradiction in terms, Robert; besides, deceptive alarmism is the most dangerous kind.)
Robertin Ariz, “responsible alarmist voice”? How do you reconcile these words… LOL
Michael J Alexander says:
December 11, 2012 at 7:31 pm
Werner, are you saying that GISS is at 0.68 for November, but RSS is only showing 0.195???? That’s one heck of a discrepancy if so.
Yes, different base lines as Robert said. Now I know that satellites and ground based data are different. However I still found the discrepancy between RSS and GISS odd over the last three months. For GISS: 0.62 + 0.68 + 0.68; for RSS: 0.383 + 0.294 + 0.195.
For GISS: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v3/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt
For RSS: ftp://ftp.ssmi.com/msu/monthly_time_series/rss_monthly_msu_amsu_channel_tlt_anomalies_land_and_ocean_v03_3.txt
For UAH: http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt
For Hadcrut3: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/hadcrut3gl.txt
For Hadcrut4: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcrut4/data/current/time_series/HadCRUT.4.1.1.0.monthly_ns_avg.txt
For Hadsst2: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcrut4/data/current/time_series/HadCRUT.4.1.1.0.monthly_ns_avg.txt
If WFT works, it will also give all information but it is down now. http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot
While I am at it, I am NOT impressed with the graph for the ENSO meter. The graph itself went from 0.30 to 0 as of yesterday. But when the actual value came out today, it increased from 0.30 to 0.37 and a few people, including myself, made comments on the assumption the graph was correct.
TomRude says: December 11, 2012 at 8:34 pm
As a follow up to my initial comment, check how the Vancouver Sun reporter is stringing the subject for a series of 3 articles:…
————–
In the Dec 8 paper I found these gems:
” “If things go really badly, and our emissions really take off – which quite honestly, they are taking off; we’re way above the worst-case scenarios that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change based all of its projections on – (the 1.2-metre sea level rise) could happen in 50 years,” Harford said.
“In the very worst-case scenario it could happen in 20 years.”
Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/business/West+Coast+contemplates+calm+before+storm/7671558/story.html#ixzz2EoLc1TaF “
Um, I think I’ve shown that the Stratosphere response to added CO2 is cooling, but the Troposphere is unaffected by CO2. Only the water cycle matters to the Troposphere.
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2012/12/12/tropopause-rules/
In other words, the AGW notion that Stratosphere and Troposphere are inversely coupled is wrong. They are DE coupled. The stratosphere changes have no meaning at all to what CO2 does in the troposphere.
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2012/12/12/tropopause-rules/tropobands-cell1/
In other words, the CO2 band in the troposphere does nothing while the CO2 band in the stratosphere is radiating like crazy. More CO2 raises stratospheric cooling, but doesn’t change tropospheric temperatures (as they are water dominated).
So CO2 is a ‘do nothing’ for surface temperatures.
Per Muller:
I never trust someone who has made false representations (a skeptic? Yeah, right…) or doing a deception (bait and switch on “BEST”…)
Thank him kindly for the nice words, check your wallet, smile politely and ask if there might be funding for research available, check your wallet, check your watch, say ‘Oh, look at the time, must go!’, check your wallet. Shake hands, check your watch, step back THEN turn and leave, check your wallet, watch, and anything else of value….
He may be the nicest guy on the Warmers side, but he is a skilled politician. Need I say more?
Be polite. Be understanding. Do not ever “trust”. First, verify, then evaluate…
Muller’s problem is that with the BEST project and its conclusions, he fell into the “correlation is causation” trap. The question I have is whether he actually believes that the science supports that conclusion. I’m guessing that he doesn’t. That he’s just pleasing one side of the debate one year and the other side the next.
With this interview we are clearly into the “next” year.
The post says;”Muller said he hopes that Berkeley Earth will be able to coordinate with the Clinton Foundation on their mutual goal of mitigating global warming.”
Sounds as if Muller is in need of a fat grant from the Clinton Foundation, or has already been “hired”. pg
Every place usually has something they enjoy making fun of. Arkansas had one person with a shrill voice they wanted to get rid of and they did… and her husband too. I’m surprised she gave Uncle Bubba permission to do that.
George Washington never told a lie… Richard Nixon never told the truth… and Bill Clinton cannot tell the difference.
So I wouldn’t read too much into it.
Dr Mullers point of view on climate is properly nuanced. I watched the entirety of an interview he gave not so long ago and there was very little in there a skeptic would disagree with. The only thing I think he has not sufficiently thought through is the area of attribution. It made for pretty funny viewing as the alarmist interviewer squirmed somewhat.
This is a guy who we could and should court as a ‘voice of reason’, whilst trying to get him to think about attribution a bit more fully. It’s irritating to read how he is ‘converted’ from skepticism, but the reality is he as broadly nuanced in his views as most skeptics or as a rational scientist aware of the issues such as Judith Curry. The only thing he has been ‘convinced’ of is that there has been global warming and that the temperature record such as HADCRUT 3 is basically correct, which isn’t something skeptics seriously challenge other than the extent of the warming due to measurement and selection bias.
I think he is a good guy, we ought to see him as a rational voice despite a few missteps.
RobertInAz says:
On another subject, there are a number of inappropriate ad hominem attacks on Dr. Muller in this thread.
There aren’t any ad hominem attacks on Muller above. There are some insightful comments on his lack of character, and a few insults. All are appropriate.
He appears to be one of the more responsible alarmist voices and this many here do not appreciate how important his voice is.
Muller is a liar. He is a self promoting charlatan who is playing politics with science to further his personal political and financial agendas. There is nothing responsible about his stalking horse tactics and his ‘respect for skeptics’ is exactly as real as his own ‘former skepticism’. Stories told to achieve an end.
3. He says climate skeptics deserve our respect, not our ridicule.
So he’s saying he used to deserve respect, even from himself, and now?
2. He suggests individually reducing our carbon footprint is pointless — we need to “think globally and act globally,” by encouraging the switch from coal to gas power in China and developing nations. He’s a fan of “clean fracking.”
I added the “clean fracking” link from the original, which goes to a paywalled WSJ opinion piece. Been searching for what he means by “clean fracking”. Is that like “clean coal”?
Finally found this August 2012 blog post allegedly quoting Muller from an interview with Rachael Madcow:
Go talk to BP, by that standard they’ve achieved “clean crude” in the Gulf of Mexico.
So the relatively straightforward way to encourage a better kind of affordable energy, is to threaten to wipe out ten or more years of a company’s profits if they should earn the displeasure of a (former?) environmental activist turned “environmental protection” government bureaucrat?
1. He says Hurricane Sandy cannot be attributed to climate change.
Directly attributed? Nah, that’s ascribing a single event to a general trend, science doesn’t support it. Can’t say it wouldn’t have happened without climate change. Indirectly attributed? Too much of a stretch.
Climate change exacerbated Hurricane Sandy, making it larger, stronger, more damaging, more lethal? Maybe climate change caused and/or influenced those whacky weather patterns that hooked together to make it such a terrible Megastorm? Caused it to make landfall at all, instead of being another “fish storm” following the coast?
Let me know when he rejects that nonsense, okay?
BTW, Muller is getting some interesting “Climate Wars” flack. Muller supports “clean fracking”, BEST had Koch Brothers financing, Koch does oil and natural gas… So Muller is really a climate denialist hack paid for by the evil fossil fuel industry! He’s just another lying shill pretending like he cares about saving the planet from global warming!
Or at least that’s what the stuff I found looking for “clean fracking” was saying. YMMV.
I’m not a scientist, I’m a writer. My strength is that I study people, I recognize people, their motives, their ploys. In the past I’ve also come up against manipulation frequently enough to now spot it a mile off. Muller is not being honest. The turn around is too sudden and has no cause.
What we’re looking at here is a shift in the Alarmist stance. Some of the smarter Alarmists have recognized that their message is not being received by the general public as readily as it once was, especially when delivered with extreme aggression. The order has gone out, perhaps from the IPCC (because it seems to have shown up there first, but I could be wrong on that), to calm it down a bit so they can get their BS back under the radar where it once worked so effectively.
They recognize that we are being heard and our views are beginning to get accepted as scientific, logical, reasonable. They’ve tried shouting us down. That backfired. More and more people are looking our way to see what’s happening here and to learn why the guys with the money, the spotlight and the microphone are so worried about us way out in the shadows. They recognize that polititcians are beginning to think twice about the so-called “solutions” being rammed down their throats – especially when there are clearly better solutions to hand. They recognize that people are getting angry about the number of people dying in the snow year after year and the taxes going to a non-problem. The Alarmists are getting frightened because the ordinary citizen is looking around for something better than the Greens/Reds and the destruction of economies and other needless sacrifices around the world.
So now they’re coming in with the soothing tones and the “let’s be reasonable” voice. They still have the money, the spotlights and the microphone. They’re just looking at another way to harpoon us because, collectively, we’re getting to be a nuisance and we’re spoiling their party.
Do not doubt for a moment that the Alarmist still see us as the enemy. This isn’t Muller on his own. You will see it’s an orchestrated move to downplay our objections. They are simply trying not to shoot themselves in the foot anymore.
Maybe we can take advantage of this and publically call for that reasonable open debate. If they are so reasonable, will it be granted – reasonably? No, it won’t, but it could be worth the attempt to see how they squirm out of it “reasonably”.
” 2. He suggests individually reducing our carbon footprint is pointless — we need to “think globally and act globally,” by encouraging the switch from coal to gas power in China and developing nations. He’s a fan of “clean fracking.”
I can’t say I disagree with his points. While we’ve had our issues, it is nice to see #3 pointed out. – Anthony ”
And what about point 2? Think globally and act globally? This sure smells like a UN-minded ‘solution’ with still blaming only CO2 for the mild warming we have witnessed. This is the AGW-doctrine in a new coat, but with the same objective (climate justice etc.) and the same mistake about the role of CO2: CO2 follows warming, it doesn’t cause it!
CO2 in my opinion is a harmless trace gas, yet essential and necessary for life on earth. Anyone trying to lower the 0,039% of CO2 in the atmosphere is an enemy of life. We need more of it to feed the world, not less.
[My bold]
The reason why the cause of the melting streetlights was quickly found is because some people were sceptical. It is a cornerstone of science.
Mr. Muller might one day regret his ‘alleged’ conversion to CAGW in light of the stalled global mean temps.
Some point out that this is nonsense.
I have never read any sceptic stating doubts that the world has warmed since the end of the Little Ice Age. I have never read any sceptic who doubts the world warmed for a short period prior to 16 years ago. His alleged conversion is what’s “ridiculous”.
The comments at HuffPo are pretty funny….let’s just say that the Koch brothers make an appearance….as does Prof Curry (in a curious comment)
In the article Muller also says open up Yucca and let’s go nuke…and let’s get China to stop with the CO2. I.e. lib heads Explode…but i just went there so you wouldn’t have to. There’s very little interest in the story…just a few comments
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alison-van-diggelen/why-is-former-climate-ske_b_2278509.html?utm_hp_ref=green#comments