Finally, one of Gore's trained presenters debates a climate skeptic

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Finally … finally! … a person trained by Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project agreed to face off in a public debate on global warming.  As WUWT readers may know, trying to get one of these folks to debate a skeptic has been an impossible task…until now. Full video follows, running about 59 minutes.

While I don’t know the details, I suspect the video quality has to do with an apparent long standing policy of Gore’s presenters refusing to allow their presentations to be video taped. My impression is that this appears to be a clandestine recording made by an audience member.

From an email I received:

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Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project squared off against The Heartland Institute in a global warming debate January 8 in Tallahassee, Florida. More than 260 people attended the hour-long debate, which resulted in standing room only at the Tallahassee Elks Club Lodge, which hosted the debate.

Ray Bellamy, a Florida State University faculty member who gives public presentations on behalf of Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project, argued humans are causing a global warming crisis. Taylor countered that global warming activists have proven none of four important factors they need to show in order to demonstrate a human-induced global warming crisis.

“I am very happy that this debate is now available on the Internet so people can see the for themselves, without having to wade through media filters, who possesses and presents the best evidence in a fair and balanced debate,” said Taylor.

“I encourage people to watch the debate and then share it with friends, family and acquaintances. So long as people have access to the truth, I believe the truth will always prevail,” said Taylor.

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Source: Alyssa Carducci

The YouTube page says:

Heartland Institute Senior Fellow James Taylor debates Ray Bellamy, M.D., a Tallahassee Orthopedic Surgeon at the Elks Club Lodge at 276 North Magnolia Drive in Tallahassee, Florida on Jan. 8, 2013.

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john robertson
January 12, 2013 10:09 am

John Bell I read that same comment over at Digging in the Clay, a while back, by now you might have some fresh insight, into people caught up in self loathing and fear of everything around them.
Best call I can give you is , secular anti-humanism. Combined with teenage rebellion to being brought up saturated in white liberal guilt.
So found any unique shapes to the hypocrisy of true believers?
Or of the folks who milk them?

David, UK
January 12, 2013 10:18 am

mbw says:
January 12, 2013 at 5:54 am
You have out gleicked Gleick. Congratulations.

Tell us where the forgery is. Where the deception is. Where the need for confidentiality is. You think secretly filming a debate that was held before an audience, and releasing it unedited, is “out-Gleicking Gleick?” I’d love to hear the – ahem – logic, behind your statement.

Ed_B
January 12, 2013 11:09 am

“I find the audience reaction generally disgusting. This is what we’re up against, ignorance, anger, and closed minds.”
I agree with that comment, plus more, as it is a religion/power game now.
I was recently speaking to a paid Catholic church “activist” who had spent his time in South America mobilizing the poor(as an activist priest), and now was making his mark in his native Canada being an activist against the Oil Sands, and fighting for “”equity” for the worlds “poor”.
Global Warming was his offensive weapon. Literature to be presented at the pulpit was his ammo.
When provided with the data by me, ie, that the warming is not happening as predicted, and that 100% of the IPCC models have been falsified.. he cared not a hoot. He in fact was derisive of my view that he should be aware of the facts about what he was preaching.
My takeaway was that normal “science” has lost control of the discussion, as it is all just power politics for the left. They preach to the masses of poor, to “mobilize” them. The scary “”sciencey” stuff scares them, and the demoniziing of opponents works. I am surprised that we have not had terrorist type events happening from some looney leftists. Perhaps the events of 911 made the anit-terror measures so effective that the weather underground types are no longer able to do their thing. (thankfully)

John M
January 12, 2013 11:20 am

Russell Cook (@questionAGW) says:
January 12, 2013 at 9:21 am

Not the first time an AGW person threw in an ad hominem zinger at the very end of a debate.

Indeed, but these guys are really pikers compared to this frustrated intellectual.

(Go to the very, very end)

Matt
January 12, 2013 11:25 am

I wonder what Singer really said re. cigarettes 🙂

Lars P.
January 12, 2013 11:37 am

Charles.U.Farley says:
January 12, 2013 at 2:57 am
Sceptic- “Wheres the proof?.
Warmist, “ummm, ahh, urm, uh, deniers,big oil urm, urh, erm.”

Brilliant short summary.
Embarassing CAGW presentation and typical activists ad-hominem in the end, good arguments well presented by James Taylor, thank you!
With all data, it looks like, the longer the time is, the more precise the measurements are, the better the skeptic case looks.

TomRude
January 12, 2013 11:42 am

Seth Borenstein reports about this mammuth new report:
http://news.yahoo.com/report-says-warming-changing-us-daily-life-232742530.html
The National Climate Assessment: http://ncadac.globalchange.gov.
“There is so much that is already happening today,” said study co-author Katharine Hayhoe, director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University. “This is no longer a future issue. It’s an issue that is staring us in the face today”
This version of the report is far more blunt and confident in its assessments than previous ones, Hayhoe said: “The bluntness reflects the increasing confidence we have” in the science and day-to-day realities of climate change.
The report emphasizes that man-made global warming is doing more than just altering the environment we live in, it’s a threat to our bodies, homes, offices, roads, airports, power plants, water systems and farms.”
==
The cream of the cream…

Bruce Cobb
January 12, 2013 11:52 am

Bellamy merely spewed the usual Alarmist talking points, propaganda, and ad hominems. A trained chimp might have done better. Taylor, to the dismay and complete disaproval of the apparently brain-dead audience offered facts and cogent arguments.
I’d hardly call that a debate. More of a romp, really. They should have stuck with their “the debate is over” meme.

pokerguy
January 12, 2013 11:55 am

“I think you misunderstand Steve McIntyre’s position. He’s stated, more than once, that he tends to accept the IPCC’s position on global warming.”
SOmehow I find it hard to believe he swallows the IPCC’s avowed 95 percent confidence level.

MrE
January 12, 2013 11:58 am

When Michael Crichton and co. beat Gavin and co. in the debate a few years ago was a good debate also. Also, it was probably the one that made them decide they couldn’t win.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=638_1324942194

Barrowice
January 12, 2013 11:58 am

At last, a better speaker on the Skeptic side than on the Warmist side… Brilliant!

Otter
January 12, 2013 12:08 pm

Say, does gore have a website where one can view the ratings for these guys? I’d like to see where bellamy stands with him right now.

Stephen Richards
January 12, 2013 12:16 pm

It isn’t the players that are being showcased as much as the argument. While it would be instructive to see your list of combatants face off, the scientific arguments are what really matter. An appeal to popularity is no more valid than an appeal to authority, which is one of the few ploys they have left, and according to public polls, is failing.
That is only true if you want to inform sceptics. For those they put their fingers in theirs ears and sing la la la only the destruction of the idols will suffice and even that may not be enough.

Kevin Kilty
January 12, 2013 12:19 pm

halftiderock says:
January 12, 2013 at 7:31 am
What is the motivation? I don’t know what it is now but in the 1970′s the political science majors had to take a science course and the most popular course was Nat Sci 10 given by Stephen Gould….

Gould was highly loved, but I have to think he was also hugely over-rated and owed much to a puzzling celebrity status. He actually tried to argue that science could be informed, favorably by Marxism. LOL.

Stephen Richards
January 12, 2013 12:20 pm

I think you misunderstand Steve McIntyre’s position. He’s stated, more than once, that he tends to accept the IPCC’s position on global warming.
No I don’t Jeff. Steve Mc, many years ago, demanded that the AGW team bring forth an engineering quality proof of agw CO² warming.
http://climateaudit.org/2008/01/02/james-annan-on-25-deg-c/

DesertYote
January 12, 2013 12:22 pm

Lightning strike before a football game … in Florida? What are the chances of that?

Green Sand
January 12, 2013 12:26 pm

ssat, nothing was being “buried” here! The decadal forecast is updated every December, and goes on our science pages as it’s ongoing research and not intended to be a forecast for public use (it’s not yet been shown to be useful to anyone, although we hope it will be when we’ve developed the technique further). It’s not particularly relevant to global warming as it’s about near-term natural variability rather than the long-term trend.
Jan 10, 2013 at 11:19 PM Richard Betts

Eric H.
January 12, 2013 12:30 pm

“Lintzen and Gaven might be a lot more fun, or Lintzen and Betts (although I suspect that they would find plenty to agree on).”
They sparred back in 07 at the IQ2 debate in New York.

Lindzen and company won the debate hands down.

Eric H.
January 12, 2013 12:35 pm

As James mentioned the audience was obviously stacked against him but he was the better versed and presented a much better argument. No contest as to who the winner was. Thanks James for doing this and thanks Anthony for posting it. Maybe there were some in the audience that actually listened to James and opened their minds to the data.

Gail Combs
January 12, 2013 12:40 pm

milodonharlani says:
January 12, 2013 at 4:52 am
….Some other crops do suffer as much as 10-15% loss in protein content under a doubling of recent levels (700-800 ppm)…..
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
That is the usual lies wrapped in truth. First there are three types of plant photosynthesis, C3, most plants & trees. C4, grasses including corn and sugarcane, and CAM – cacti. Most human food is C3.
C3 responses the best to CO2. C4 evolved to deal with CO2 starvation – graph of response.
Second they never tell ALL the findings or they rig the experiment.
The Gorites use the this UC Davis studypress release: Rising CO2 levels threaten crops and food quality
In the peer reviewed article quoted below, it was found that in durum wheat the nitrogen level in the leaves decreased with higher CO2 but at the same time the nitrogen level in the stems and seeds increased. Both biomass and grain yields increased under all nutrient and water regimes where CO2 was higher. The UC Davis authors measured the leaf nitrogen content and found it lower with increased CO2. However, they failed to grow the plants to maturity and measure the nitrogen content in the seed. It appears that the plants in the higher CO2 regime are able to use less nitrogen to generate more leaf mass and then deposit the excess nitrogen in the seeds where it will be of benefit to the next generation.
The study the Gorites DON”T mention.

FROM: CO2 Science
Reference
Kaddour, A.A. and Fuller, M.P. 2004. The effect of elevated CO2 and drought on the vegetative growth and development of durum wheat (Triticum durum Desf.) cultivars. Cereal Research Communications 32: 225-232.
What was done
The authors grew three commercial cultivars of durum wheat (Triticum durum Desf.) registered in Syria (Cham 1, Cham 3 and Cham 5) from seed in 10-liter pots in different compartments of a phytotron, half of which compartments were maintained at an atmospheric CO2 concentration of approximately 400 ppm and half of which were maintained at a concentration of approximately 1000 ppm. Half of each of these treatments were further subdivided into two soil water treatments: well-watered, where available water content (AWC) was replenished to 90% of full capacity when it had dropped to 60%, and water-stressed, where AWC was replenished to 70% of full capacity when it had dropped to 45%.
What was learned
Averaged over the three cultivars, the extra 600 ppm of CO2 supplied to the CO2-enriched compartments led to total plant biomass increases of 62% in the well-watered treatment and 60% in the water-stressed treatment. Also of interest was the fact that the extra CO2 led to increases in the nitrogen concentrations of stems and ears. In the case of ears, nitrogen concentration was increased by 22% in the well-watered plants and by 16% in the water-stressed plants.
What it means
“These results,” according to Kaddour and Fuller, “have important implications for the production of durum wheat in the future.” They state, for example, that “yields can be expected to rise as atmospheric CO2 levels rise,” and that “this increase in yield can be expected under both water restricted and well irrigated conditions.” Hence, as they continue, “where water availability (irrigation) is a prime limiting economic resource, it can be distributed more effectively under higher CO2 conditions,” and “for countries such as Syria where average national production is well below the physiological maximum due largely to drought stress, the predicted rise in atmospheric CO2 could have a positive effect on production.”

The UC Davis study of wheat going only so far as nitrogen content of the leaves that is used by the CAGW crowd is borderline fraud if you ask me.
More on Plants and CO2
They never mention the problem with elevation and CO2 starvation….

…While [CO2] does not vary with elevation, CO2 partial pressure decreases in proportion to total atmospheric pressure. Under modern conditions, partial pressures of CO2 at high-elevation sites are 10–30% lower than at low-elevation sites, producing an even more conservative com-
parison between glacial and modern conditions….
PDF

Or that elevated CO2 makes crops more drought tolerant

…. Elevated CO2 mitigated the degree of change in all physiological factors under drought or heat stress and resulted in increases in A (162%) and RWC (19%) and a reduction in EL (21%) under the combined stress. These results suggest that elevated CO2 could improve tall fescue tolerance to drought and elevated temperature by enhancing plant water status, cellular membrane stability, and photosynthesis capacity and by suppressing gs for water loss and C consumption through lowering respiration rate…..
https://www.crops.org/publications/cs/abstracts/52/4/1848?access=0&view=pdf

It looks like An evolutionary transition from C3 to C4 was taking place because of carbon dioxide starvation probably combined with the droughts seen during cold periods.

… these wide grasslands are an extremely recent feature in the region’s history. There isn’t solid evidence of animals consuming C4 plants until a scanty 10 million years ago (mya), and grasslands did not become widespread until the late Pliocene and Pleistocene. This recent birth of what is now a dominant feature of the landscape brings to mind many important questions. Specifically, after C4 plants started to become a food source in the Oligocene, how long did it take different herbivore species to adapt to eating this new type of greenery? Which species were early adopters, and which made the most complete shift from C3 to C4 plants? The process of adapting to a new resource—the relatively young C4 plants—had profound effects on community ecology of eastern Africa, as it provided new ways for large herd animals to both exploit new food sources and partition resources in order to facilitate coexistence and/or higher densities….
http://www.scilogs.com/endless_forms/2011/04/07/im-going-to-take-a/

And the CAGW types never mention…

…About 85% of plant species are C3 plants. They include the cereal grains: wheat, rice, barley, oats. Peanuts, cotton, sugar beets, tobacco, spinach, soybeans, and most trees are C3 plants. Most lawn grasses such as rye and fescue are C3 plants…
Moore, et al. say that only about 0.4% of the 260,000 known species of plants are C4 plants…
Moore, et al. point to Flaveria (Asteraceae), Panicum (Poaceae) and Alternanthera (Amarantheceae) as genera that contain species that are intermediates between C3 and C4 photosynthesis. These plants have intermediate leaf anatomies that contain bundle sheath cells that are less distinct and developed than the C4 plants….
The drawback to C4 photosynthesis is the extra energy in the form of ATP that is used to pump the 4-carbon acids to the bundle sheath cell and the pumping of the 3-carbon compound back to the mesophyll cell for conversion to PEP. This loss to the system is why C3 plants will outperform C4 plants if there is a lot of water and sun.….
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/biology/phoc.html

Dr Burns
January 12, 2013 12:47 pm

Tomwys, Al Gore is not stupid, otherwise he wouldn’t have made so much money from the scam. He is not so stupid as to get into a losing debate like this.

January 12, 2013 12:53 pm

I just finished watching the debate.
As a compliment to this site, I didn’t hear one thing from either side I hadn’t already heard here.
Can that be said of the pro-CAGW sites? (I don’t frequent them so I personnally can’t say.)
I did notice that neither Hansen nor Mann were mentioned by Bellamy, even when Taylor talked of past warmer periods. I wonder why? Have even Gorephiles abandoned the “Hockey Stick”?

DirkH
January 12, 2013 1:17 pm

TomRude says:
January 12, 2013 at 11:42 am

“This version of the report is far more blunt and confident in its assessments than previous ones, Hayhoe said: “The bluntness reflects the increasing confidence we have” in the science and day-to-day realities of climate change.”

…and if you need a climate modeler to tell you how to adapt, you can always rent her:
http://atmosresearch.com/who_katharine.html
Her livelihood depends on alarmism. I hope she goes broke.

DirkH
January 12, 2013 1:19 pm

Barrowice says:
January 12, 2013 at 11:58 am
“At last, a better speaker on the Skeptic side than on the Warmist side… Brilliant!”
Did the warmist side ever have a good speaker? Well, maybe Steve Schneider. His “We have to choose between being honest and being efficient” is a real classic.

January 12, 2013 1:20 pm

Dr Burns says:
January 12, 2013 at 12:47 pm
Tomwys, Al Gore is not stupid, otherwise he wouldn’t have made so much money from the scam. He is not so stupid as to get into a losing debate like this.
=======================================================================
He just made $100,000,000 by selling out to “Big Oil”. Maybe he’s decided the “CAGW” well is running dry? I don’t measure “stupidity” or “ethics” by dollar signs. There are things much more valuable. I feel sorry for the guy. What has his just plain lack of honesty gotten him that’s worth having?