In a hilarious claim, Gleick proves once again his genius label is eclipsed by his own dogma.
A couple of days ago I got pulled into the Twitter feed of Dr. Peter Gleick, we’ll get to that shortly. You know him, he’s the guy from the Pacific Institute who posed as a board member for Heartland so he could steal documents. The plan was so badly conceived that it quickly unraveled, partly because of a ridiculous fake document that many say Gleick authored to get the media interested in the story of what he found. But, it was laughably transparent, and Gleick’s tendentious forgery was characterized by Megan McArdle of the Atlantic as reading “like it was written from the secret villain lair in a Batman comic. By an intern.”
One of the things I dislike about Dr. Peter Gleick (besides the fact that he’s a thief) is his condescending attitude towards others that he considers intellectually inferior. Part of this has to do with him being labeled a ‘genius’ with a MacArthur Fellow “Genius Award” in 2003. One of the problems of being labeled a genius is the ego boost that it conveys, and that ego boost tends to set the stage for epic cartoon like failures much like we used to see in the classic Warner Brothers cartoon where Wile. E. Coyote presents his card:
![Wile-E-Coyotes-card1[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/wile-e-coyotes-card11.jpg)
This week, we had another episode where Peter H. Gleick, GENIUS was on display in full public view. This is what got it started:
The picture linked in his tweet is from this Mother Nature News article:
I took one look at that photo and the 110°F temperature, and my bullshit detector alarm went off. My next thought was “how could Gleick be so dumb as to fall for this?”. I mean GMAFB, if it was air temperature doing it, all parts of the stoplight would show a nearly equal melting effect, and not be lopsided. Surely geniuses like Gleick understand the basic of thermodynamics enough to get this? Apparently not.
I immediately replied to Gleick and explained how this just wasn’t possible:
And after waiting, I got no reply from Gleick…
I suppose that’s normal, after all, we can’t have a ‘stupid denier’ schooling a ‘genius’ on how the physical world works, can we?
This isn’t the first time a global warming activist has fallen for a photo of something melting in the street, and immediately pouncing on “global warming” as the cause. Last year it was Al Gore and Bill McKibben:
Note the street lamps are only melted on one side. Why? Because it was a dumpster fire that did the work, not the natural air temperature.
From: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/02/alarmist-fact-checking-street-lights-dont-melt-at-115f/
Picture provided by KFOR-TV via Inhofe’s Press Office you can see the street lamp next to the burning dumpster:
Senator Inhofe had a field day with this witless assertion by Gore and McKibben, and you can read it about it here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/02/inhofe-exposes-another-epic-fail-by-global-warming-alarmists-thursday/
So when I saw Gleick was pushing a similar photo from Kuwait, it was deja vu all over again.
I noted in my tweets back to Gleick that either solar reflection or fire might be at work due to the lopsidedness of the melting. That explanation apparently flew right over Gleck’s head, and I wasn’t going to waste any more time with him waiting for him to acknowledge me.
Sure enough, later I learned it was just as I posited. Barry Woods found a news article on the incident and left a comment on the MNN story, the only comment, and a comment that apparently they have not heeded since the ridiculous story is still there.
Barry Woods wrote:
Here’s the story from 248AM.com
Jo Nova found this photo:
Yep, just like last year with Gore and McKibben, a fire, not global warming, melted a street fixture. We can forgive Al and Bill, because they’ve demonstrated time and again that they are dumber than lampposts when it comes to understanding how the physical world actually works.
But a McArthur “genius” like Gleick should know better. He should have been able to pick up on the same physical clues us “stupid deniers” did.
But alas, just like our Wile E. Coyote, Genius, his intellect is eclipsed by his dogma, and he gets run over by physical reality.
The committee who awarded Gleick a genius award were probably helpless on laughing gas at the time.
The absurdity of all this is ridiculous. Even their precious CFLs get about 110 F…just try touching one after it’s been on for a few minutes. Even my new Cree LEDs (which I really like) get warm to the touch…almost assuredly 110 F or warmer–and the cooling fins get much hotter. So I wouldn’t be surprised if the local temperature of stop lights using traditional incandescent bulbs gets well over 110 F even in 70 F weather. Even LED stop light bulbs would be significantly warmer than air temperature unless the AC/DC conversion was done away from the light itself. At least for the incandescent bulbs, the temperature of the closest plastic to the bulb is probably not terribly dependent on the air temperature. Heck, the wind velocity might have as much if not more of an effect on its temperature than the air temp.
-Scott
Can we expect to read about Manns Paleo-traffic light reconstruction?
GLEICK IS A GENIUS…among his peers, that is. Look at him, think what the average IQ of an alarmist has to be… 😉
“AB says:
July 3, 2013 at 10:07 pm”
From the article you link to;
“From 1971 to 2010, global temperatures rose by an average rate of 0.17 degrees Celsius per decade. But going back to 1880, the average increase was .062 per cent degrees Celsius per decade.”
A rise of .062 per cent degrees Celsius per decade since 1880?? Ok, lets assume they actually mean .062C per decade, that’s .0062C per year. An annual global average with an accuracy to 2 10 thousands of a degree? Really? Laughable!
Lew Skannon at 10:59PM — LOL.
I hope we will be reading before long about Plaintiff Mann’s LOSING the argument against the defense’s Motion to Dismiss (a Civil Rule 12(b)(6) motion) in his utterly frivolous lawsuit against N.R.O., Mark Steyn, et. al.. [Even if Mann wins on that (so case not dismissed), he will certainly LOSE AT TRIAL, that rotten, lying, piece of slug bait).]
Makes you wonder just what he would do for a Klondike bar… doesn’t it..
HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY, EVERYONE!
God, bless America, my home sweet home.
THANK YOU, ANTHONY WATTS, TRUTH-IN-SCIENCE HERO, FOR ALL YOU DO FOR THE CAUSE OF FREEDOM!
The pro-AGW crowd should beware of Gleiks bearing gifts.
There always seems to be a downside to accepting anything he offers.
omnologos says:
July 3, 2013 at 11:00 pm
GLEICK IS A GENIUS…among his peers, that is. Look at him, think what the average IQ of an alarmist has to be… 😉
================================
GENIUS + 110
is my guess
Bill H., LOL, ….. Steal it, of course! #[:)]
A naturally skeptical and intelligent person would ask the following questions:
What type of material was the traffic signal housing made of? Typically they are either aluminum or polycarbonate. What is the melting point of each of those materials? Aluminum: about 1200 degrees F. Polycarbonate: 300 degrees F. (working temperature -40 F to 240 F). Hello, McFly!
“A few compliant third-rate scientists were catapulted blinking mole-like out of obscurity and up into that media firmament of stardom. ”
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2013/06/28/know-your-enemy-the-alarmist-scientist/
Gleick aspires to 3rd rate …
Pointman
It really is mind blowing that some alarmists fall for this kind of stuff. Well maybe it shouldn’t be surprising since it fits their beliefs and therefore they *want* it to be true.
But it would be incredibly silly and quite dumb of the Kuwait government to install traffic lights that melt at 110F when the temperature can reach 120F+ (50C) according to the Kuwait government website.
And they wonder why they have a credibility problem…
StuartMcL says:
July 3, 2013 at 10:22 pm
AB says:
July 3, 2013 at 10:07 pm
Needs your vote – bottom right of page.
==========================================
Classic warmist propaganda poll. Split the NO votes into two options so that they can claim YES gets the most votes – when the majority vote NO.
==========================================
Exactly, keep voting folks!
As for the article, What Patrick says is right on the money.
What’s the fuss? Meltdown was still caused by burning fossil fuels (along with car), was not it?
/sarc off
Could not agree more – some of my friends drive graders and direct traffic and even they know that the melting point of the plastics used in traffic lights is considerably greater than any possible natural ambient temperature – at least here on earth. Not least because they need to be able to withstand the heat generated by the globes (bulbs).
This sort of arrant nonsense severely discredits the AGW cause.
Genius indeed, but hey how did the dumpster and car burst into flames. Maybe that was because of Global Warming!
I wonder what model they used to conclude Gleick is a genius?
Giving the guy his due, Peter Gleick is something of a comedic genius…
Note how the thermal damage is more to one side than the other. This is clearly a consequence of a badly sited traffic-light.
We shouldn’t be too harsh on Prof Gleick; he’s not the first academic to be fooled by the UHI (Urban Hazard Indicator) effect!
And remember…genius spelled backwards is jackass.
I am still confused as to how the alarmist crowd can get away with continually ‘denying’ evolution.
More particularly the one part of Darwin’s theory that is (almost) universally accepted and completely non-controversial. I refer of course to Natural Selection which we can see all around us.
Natural Selection is how a species adapts (or doesn’t) to thrive in an ecological niche – some of which are so extreme that a plant removed from one (say a cactus) is swapped with one from another (a Mangrove Tree), neither will survive.
It appears to be incontrovertible that plants thrive with much higher Co2 rates than have been naturally present for many years and also animals and humans also.
So for them to say higher amounts are harmful, while most plants are still limited by Co2 much lower than optimum is their Achilles Heel, yet nobody seems to be making much noise about it.
This was the most hilariously written article that I’be had the pleasure reading! Love the relation to the most idiot of cartoon characters. It usually just gets me madder than hell that these self-proclaimed “geniuses” think were so stupid – to beleive their own nonsense, no bullcrap! Like the rest of the Gov. thinks we don’t stuff and Snowden spilled all the beans! REALLY? If it weren’t so serious for this poor Guy, it would be laughable. Geez.
I think the point is that although Gleick is clearly a buffoon, he is also a dangerous buffoon – and a very useful idiot for the climate evangelists – a man who finds himself (despite himself) lauded and celebrated within their incestuous, self-congratulatory cliques. This gives him license to strut and preen before policy-makers and thus permits bad law based on falsehood, shonky science and political agenda to be enacted on the ‘advice’ of individuals such as Gleick and his ilk.
The man is a public menace, but like so many of his CAGW fellow-travelers, all with their snouts in the trough of public finance, he will continue to be rewarded for his bad behaviour until the vicious circle of wilful pro-CAGW disinformation and spin is finally broken.