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
“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.”
Yeah, he’s a real Mr. nice guy 100% focused on a global carbon treaty. A true and honorable Green Totalitarian. Nothing more nothing less.
http://green-agenda.com
Oops, I don’t mean Prof Curry makes an appearance herself….a commenter refers to her off-handedly….sorry
Which of his many faces was he talking out of ??
Mr. Muller might one day regret his ‘alleged’ conversion to CAGW in light of the stalled global mean temps.
He was ever thus.
So far, we haven’t examined whether Berkeley Earth’s methodology is sound.
Their scapel method of treating discontinuities identified by their automatic algorithm, scapels/splits the 7,400 GHCN stations into 44,380 new effective stations. This is what their methodology paper says.
There is no way, this method did not introduce even more spurious errors into the trend.
Let’s say a little more than half of the discontinuities identified and scapeled out, were when temperatures at some station were falling. Now let’s say one-third of those were actually real and not just station moves or equipment changes. Well, now the methodology has just pulled out a bunch of real drops in temperature.
They have to show us the number of flagged “down” discontinuities is balanced out by the number of “up” discontinuities. They have to show us that this balances out over time as well. Not that the balance of down discontinuities is at the beginning or end of the record. They have not done this that I can find.
And neither has the NCDC done this for their break-point/discontinuity pairwise algorithm. Both methodologies could suffer from the same problem.
The methodologies sound good on paper until you start to think about what they are really doing. Like eliminating Reykavik’s “real” drop in temperatures in the 1960s. The Iceland meteorological office insists it was a real decline and there was no station or equipment changes. The algorithms, however, insist that it is a clearly a discontinuity and has to be removed. The drop is taken out and the overall trend is just re-adjusted higher. Now multiply that situation over 7,400 stations over 1400 months and we just have a bunch of spurious errors introduced into what is supposed to be an homogenized record. Hopefully, people will understand what is posted here. Its hard to describe.
I think I’m getting a feeling of deja-vu Anthony. Best to beware.
Muller is talking sense. Why are so may on here talking rubbish? Nearly everything he says is reasonable. Maybe he still sticks to the conventions of ‘global warming’ but, surely, most so-called ‘sceptics’ would agree that the world has warmed. And some of that is due to human causes. And some of that is due to increases in CO2? Bloody hell, cut the man some slack.
Having read the comments here, I can only conclude most did not read the original article.
Most of what Muller said was completely rational, he even used the expression: “Yet that is also true of the alarmists.”
What’s wrong with supporting fracking and nuclear energy?
What’s wrong with pointing out that China, India and the Developing World are far more important than the Western World in their growing output of CO2 and therefore anything we do is almost irrelevant?
What’s wrong with any of the three points made by Anthony?
What’s wrong with taking a swipe at dodgy ‘science’, as practiced by Mann et alia?
The only statement I could find I strongly disagreed with was: “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.”
Whatever his motives or prior statements, Muller sounded reasonable and rational here.
Muller is still not being scientific in his comments. For example, it is illogical to believe that billions of individuals ‘reducing’ their carbon footprint is pointless (unless of course, you don;t believe in CO2 as a major warming contributor?). If everyone managed a 10% reduction in power use, that would be a significant saving of fossil fuels. So,. IMHO that comment is clearly politically based and not scientifically based.
On point 2 – again, if he is accepting that clean fracking is ok – then he obviously doesn’t consider the CO2 meme to be catastrophic?
as for the respect for skeptics – I dunno, just seems a bit tongue in cheek to me….
Overall, adding these points together would indicate a slight shift in his perceived position, (certainly a change from a hyped up attacking stance to a more controlled defensive stance?) – and if so, we have to ask why?
His daughter peddles a “product” called “GreenGovt”, so no wonder he’s cosying up to the Clintons. He’s got his eyes set on keeping the scare alive; but he’s smart enough to understand that pretending Super Frankenstorm Sandy is caused by CO2 is not credible.
One of the smarter snakeoil salesmen.
IF he were a genuinely honest scientist he would HAVE TO declare observed climate change as perfectly normal and within expected range. The fact that he does NOT proclaim that shows that he’s got some bridges to sell.
Michael Tobis says:
December 11, 2012 at 6:14 pm
““He says climate skeptics deserve our respect, not our ridicule.”
Sure, respect when you’re being genuinely skeptical, and not when you are being ridiculous.”
Michael Tobis, we don’t care what a rent seeker like Muller declares about us. We are watching him; and not for his science.
Not sure I would trust this man. He seems to play to whatever audience he is addressing.
Werner Brozek says:
December 11, 2012 at 8:46 pm
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.
GISS are out to make 2012 the hottest year evah (using ‘adjustments’ where necessary).
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2012/12/11/hansen-caught-cheating-again/
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2012/11/18/warming-the-present-at-giss/
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2012/11/18/cooling-the-past-at-giss/
+ many more.
Fine. Let’s do a swap. But he shouldn’t expect a favorable exchange-rate.
I think many skeptics would agree with Muller. Extra CO2 will produce ‘some’ warming. I suspect that even James Hansen would agree that catastrophic warming requires a tipping point or positive feedbacks.
The only thing I disagree with, about the above statement, is the need to act.
The official climb-down on CAGW is continuing. There is a leaked version of the next IPCC report circulating. There was a story on Slashdot. It came from a story on ABC. link They are predicting some warming and some sea level rise but nothing catastrophic. Nothing dramatic and nothing worth ruining our economy to prevent. The mainstream is moving. Now all we have to do is convince them that more CO2 is a very good thing and some warming is beneficial. Dipping back into Little Ice Age conditions should do that. 🙂
I’m not greatly impressed by Muller’s grasp of climate science, but I agree he too deserves respect rather than ridicule, as he at least shows flickers of open-mindedness.
Has BEST actual mangled to get anything through peer review and published yet , or is it still ‘science by press release ?
Hi Michael Tobis,
Hey, glad to have you here to engage. Maybe you can help with a question I’m having. Why is it that some climate researchers baseline climate and CO2 concentrations on the Biblical/historical era (circa 5000 BC to present) rather than geological/evolutionary timespans ranging back through the various ice ages? I mean, when we can see in the ice core and fossil records that atmospheric CO2 has been vastly higher in the past, and that coral existed, plants thrived (with better adapted stomata, etc) and mega-fauna flourished — why is the CO2 increase of Fulton and Edison decades over empires since Pharoh and Caeser — in the direction of the more distant, biologically more robust past — considered a problem? By you, at least. What is this apparent bias against geology?
Muller is not to be trusted. These comments are made for political reasons and will only be noticed by Muller-Watchers. He is still a snake.
@ur momisugly RayG
Blind trusts aren’t so blind.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/mitt-romneys-blind-trust-blind/story?id=15188063#.UMh2bKWfYQI
Bill Illis (December 12, 2012 at 1:20 am) wrote:
“The methodologies sound good on paper until you start to think about what they are really doing. Like eliminating Reykavik’s “real” drop in temperatures in the 1960s. The Iceland meteorological office insists it was a real decline and there was no station or equipment changes. The algorithms, however, insist that it is a clearly a discontinuity and has to be removed. The drop is taken out and the overall trend is just re-adjusted higher. Now multiply that situation over 7,400 stations over 1400 months and we just have a bunch of spurious errors introduced into what is supposed to be an homogenized record. Hopefully, people will understand what is posted here. Its hard to describe.”
The dealbreaking problem is that such algorithms simply & plainly canNOT differentiate natural changepoints from artificial ones. Parties advocating the use of such adjustments are making clear their lack of desire & patience to carefully appreciate and understand nature. They’re making it clear that understanding nature is not a priority for them. This is offensive. Bulldozing records of natural variability is part of their strategy. This eliminates trust.
Muller said he hopes that Berkeley Earth will be able to coordinate with the Clinton Foundation on their mutual goal of mitigating global warming.
…
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 I can’t say I agree with his last statement.
“Mitigating global warming” implies there is something we can do about it which in turn implies we are contributing to it in a significant manner.
Statement 2 implies that humanity should reduce its “carbon footprint”. No need to even consider doing this unless it can be clearly shown that the effects of our “footprint” are more negative than positive.
I would share anyone’s goal of preparing for global warming although I’m more concerned about preparing for global cooling.
Convert coal power to methane? What for? They both produce CO2. Clean coal technology is not new. The anti coal agenda is driven by the oil companies who provide funding to the Sierra Club crowd to lobby against coal. Pretty simple hypocrisy on the part of the anti CO2 CAGW’ers.
@ur momisugly all those defending Muller:
He’s discounting solar activity as a climate change driver even though we reached temperature maximum and solar activity maximum congruently. Either he’s woefully misinformed or purposely dishonest. Either way he’s dangerous.
@ur momisugly E.M Smith:
I agree that convection and evaporation dominates heat transport in the troposphere. I also agree that clouds and water vapor dominate the GHE (as I’ve said on numerous occasions they’re the king and queen of the GHE). But to say that CO2 has no effect in the troposphere is a bridge too far for me. Just because it doesn’t dominate doesn’t mean it has no influence at all. The influence may, however, be so infinitesimal that it can be ignored for all practical purposes.
BTW: I read the links you provided; very, very good stuff. We’re basically in 100% agreement if I insert something like [most likely negligible] wherever you have something like [no effect].
The fear of UN as a world government (via climate policies) expressed by some, is unwarranted, based on ideology rather than understanding.. The UN is an organisatiosn that lobbies can take over (and the Greens and climate research have done so but this is no ordained and happened by default). The Un and most of its agencies remains weak in practice as long as its membersbers refuse to act and pay jointly. The climate scare has provided the World Bank with income and influence, and this what bureaucracies want, but they need not get it , if…..