Quite a performance yesterday. Steve Milloy is calling it the “Zapruder film” implying it was the day the AGW agenda got shot down. While that might not be a good choice of words, you have to admit they did a fantastic job of shooting down some of the ridiculous claims made by panelists prior to them. While this may not be a Zapruder moment, I’d say that it represented a major turning point.
Give props to both Roger and Roy.
Marc Morano reported:
‘Senate global warming hearing backfires on Democrats’ — Boxer’s Own Experts Contradict Obama! — ‘Skeptics & Roger Pielke Jr. totally dismantled warmism (scientifically, economically, rhetorically) — Climate Depot Round Up
‘Sen. Boxer’s Own Experts Contradict Obama on Climate Change’ — Warmists Asked: ‘Can any witnesses say they agree with Obama’s statement that warming has accelerated during the past 10 years?’ For several seconds, nobody said a word. Sitting just a few rows behind the expert witnesses, I thought I might have heard a few crickets chirping’
Video link and links to PDF of testimonies follow.
Here is the video link, in full HD:
http://www.senate.gov/isvp/?type=live&comm=epw&filename=epw071813
Dr. Spencer writes about his experience here and flips the title back at them:
The PDF’s of each person’s testimony can be accessed by click on their names below:
Panel 1
| Dr. Heidi Cullen
Chief Climatologist Climate Central |
| Mr. Frank Nutter
President Reinsurance Association of America |
| Mr. KC Golden
Policy Director Climate Solutions |
| Ms. Diana Furchtgott-Roth
Senior Fellow Manhattan Institute for Policy Research |
| Dr. Robert P. Murphy
Senior Economist Institute for Energy Research |
Panel 2
| Dr. Jennifer Francis
Research Professor Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences, Rutgers University |
| Dr. Scott Doney
Director, Ocean and Climate Change Institute Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution |
| Dr. Margaret Leinin
Executive Director, Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute Florida Atlantic University |
| Dr. Roger Pielke, Jr.
Professor, Center for Science and Technology Policy Research University of Colorado |
| Dr. Roy Spencer
Principal Research Scientist IV University of Alabama, Huntsville |
William Astley says:
July 19, 2013 at 6:49 pm
The abrupt change to the solar magnetic cycle is causing the cooling due to modulation of planetary clouds. There is 20 years of research supporting that assertion.
A review of the evidence over the past 30 years finds that there is no good support for that assertion: http://www.leif.org/EOS/swsc120049-Cosmic-Rays-Climate.pdf or http://www.leif.org/EOS/palo20005-D-O-Explanation.pdf
Mark Bofill – Roy answered a personal question on the witness stand/table. As an expert technical witness he should not have answered a personal question. Any witness preparation person would have made that point to him in spades. He should have taken advantage of the Dean of the Law School in Tuscaloosa to provide him with some guiding principles.
Hey gents, and let me preface this by saying I am a devout atheist of over 30 years – Dr. Spencer has a point when he says evolution all by itself doesn’t plausibly explain everything. This has never fazed me; I never expected evolution to, and I’m sure there are other organizational mechanisms we are as yet unaware of that fill in the blanks, so to speak, without forcing us to the extreme position of having to invoke a Creator to explain the complexity of mechanisms of living organisms. My point is just this – don’t be too quick to bash what he actually said, it wasn’t unreasonable and Spencer very probably could make his case.
The testimony of Ms. Diana Furchtgott-Roth (Manhattan Institute) is also worth reading.
JFD – I personally agree with you. Were I in his shoes, I would have said something like ‘I am not an expert in biology and evolution. On the other hand, I ~do~ hold expertise pertinent to the subject of this hearing, to return to that…’
Still, who am I to second guess Dr. Spencer. ~shrug~
Why do people trust insurance adjusters on this topic? Their livelihood doesn’t depend on getting the future *right*, their livelihood depends on taking in more money than they pay out. That means it’s in their best interest to have a justification for increasing rates. Of course another company might not increase rates and take their customers, so their interests also include convincing other companies that they should raise their rates as well. One way to look at it would be that insurance companies sending people out to advocate the idea of future warming disasters is somewhat like cartel price rigging, but without the illegal direct collaboration. I’m not saying that I know or believe that’s what’s happening, but it’s just surprising to me that people don’t see the interest insurance companies have in predicting increasing disasters even if they didn’t actually think that they would happen. What circumstances would make an insurance company go out and say they think disasters are going to slow down? They’d be essentially saying they have an obligation to cut their customers’ rates. Why would they do that?
What’s with using creationism to bash Christians or others that believe in God? There are many Christians who believe in evolution. Lots of religious people recognize evolution as having actually occurred. For that matter, God did not write the bible or any other holy books; people did. Just because the book of Genesis seems to most scientists to not say the beginnings well, is not much evidence that there is no God.
For that matter, it seems to me that Spencer believes Earth is older than most creationists believe. And he appears to me to understand the atmosphere and oceans a lot better than IPCC does.
Ha, as Dr. Roy discloses on his post,,,, he does not know the who or what the “coke” bothers are about. Obviously, they are a path for complaint by those who look for something to, well,,, complain about and attempt to discredit by association.
To clear things up,,,,, here is just one example of what the Koch brother folks spend money on.
Judge for yourself how horrible their support for science and environment is.
Just sayin, watch the initial credits at just less than 3 minutes in.
Oh Nova! 😉
I tend to focus solely on the data, and right now that shows the “Global Warming” meme down and out for the count.
Anybody else get that feeling?
I mean, if you’re counting points based on political activism, you might give the AGW (or CAGW) crowd a few points. For enthusiasm, or downright nastiness, if nothing else.
But use logic, data, and the scientific method, and it doesn’t look good for the government’s official position on climate.
Getting back to the PR thing, I think I disagree.
Was Schneider fundamentally correct when he pointed to the distinction between being honest and being effective? That’s not exactly the right question, but it’s late and I can’t quite nail it right now.
Is it that we should use PR to manipulate people, and the only question is whether the PR is for a cause you believe is right? I don’t think so. The more practical and obvious problem with this is that you’d lose on these terms; your opponents are masters of the art of manipulating via PR. If this is your strategy, you’re attacking where your enemy is strong and … in my view that’s a good recipe for getting one’s butt whupped.
The more principled problem is that the ends do not justify the means, and that the issue isn’t merely that the alarmists are incorrect regarding the science. The deeper issue is that they distort, exaggerate, mislead, intimidate, etc.- they play politics and do PR rather than relying on stating the simple truth.
Like I said, it’s late. I haven’t really thought this through in these terms before, might be I’ll realize I’m full of it come morning. But right this minute, I have to say I don’t think so regarding the PR question.
Regards,
Mark Bofill says:
July 19, 2013 at 8:00 pm
The fight to stop cap & tax, windmill subsidies, the unconstitutional, administrative end runs around Congress by the EPA, Obama’s “climate change” agenda & the other dangerous effects of the watermelon crusade surely must be fought as a PR & electoral war. But the marketplace of ideas is rigged against skeptics.
IMO most of the 46% of the US adult population who consider themselves creationists (Gallup, 2012) are probably already skeptics. If you’re skeptical of real science like evolution, then you’re likely to be against phony science. Propagandists like Romm, McKibben, Lewandowsky, Johnson, et al make hay among their liberal audiences by tarring all “climate change” skeptics as part of a “war on science” (while conveniently overlooking anti-GM food & anti-vaccine activists, often Left wing). Spencer is one of their favorite whipping boys.
So, at the very least, he should have been ready for the attack on his religious views, which he has allowed to affect his science, outside of climatology, & handled them better. Better yet, IMO, would have been for GOP members of the committee to find another spokesman, much as I respect Spencer’s work on the atmosphere. He has made honest mistakes, but owned up to & fixed them, unlike the outright lies told by “consensus” champions like Mann & never retracted.
I’m moderate to conservative politically, but agree with Pokerguy that the persuadable but not yet won-over segments of the population are among voters who are convinced of the validity of evolution, whether liberal, moderate or conservative. This is especially true of opinion-making elites in the mainstream media, judicial & political realms. When Mitt Romney, who tried to have it both ways on the issue in 2012, or officials like federal Judge Jones, for instance, the PA Lutheran, country-club Republican Bush-appointee who ruled based upon overwhelming evidence that Intelligent Design is religion, not science, become convinced that catastrophic man-made climate change is bogus, then real science will be on the road to victory in the PR war.
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“To whom did Dr. Spencer come off as a “lunatic?” ”
People under 30.
Janice Moore says (July 19, 2013 at 7:18 pm): “To whom did Spencer come off as not credible?”
Gallup: “In U.S., 46% Hold Creationist View of Human Origins”.
Of course using a witness’s views on one subject to discredit his views on another, unrelated subject, is a logical fallacy known as “poisoning the well”. It would be equally fallacious for his fellow believers to assume his religious views increase his credibility on climate science issues. Logically, his climate science stands on its own merits.
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Speaking of hijacking the thread, I got the impression that Sen. Sessions was called away and Whitehouse used Session’s time to open Spencer’s testimony with the attempted “threadjack” question. As I said under another post to our pal “Ryan”, if Dr. Spencer has an expert understanding and knowledge of the natural laws in his field, (and is honest with it) what difference does it make what he believes about the origin of those natural laws?
(PS Gail, I also thank you.)
Scientists who are Christians have to accommodate evolution. Most have no trouble doing this. Evidence of evolution is clear in every antibiotic we use routinely. The bacteria change and evolve rapidly. The earth is about 4.5 billion years old, not 270,000 years old. Wells are drilled 30,000 feet deep in water that is 7000 feet deep and cost $100 million on the basis of the earth being 4.5 billions year old. The universe is still expanding. For all of these reasons, scientists who wish to testify should adhere to the principle of not answering personal questions on the witness stand when the topic is science. Religion is not a matter of science but theology. Roy screwed up. We need to learn from this episode. Other hearing will be held.
First of all Boxer is a nut job.
But who keeps voting her in time after time.
She is in good company:
Sheila Jackson Lee
Elizabeth Warren
Nancy Pelosi
Maxine Waters
Debbie Wasserman-Schultz
What are you guys thinking?
Secondly, Whitehouse’s question was totally out of order and it is an ‘Inflation Of Conflict’ to try to invalidate his view on global warming (Climate change is just a red herring) because of his personal views on evolution.
Must agree that Dr Spencer should not have gone down the path of debating his religious beliefs – although, it may have won him a few points among devout Christians. He should have just said that his religious beliefs are irrelevant to the science surrounding climate change, and perhaps asked why no other witness was questioned on that topic; surely the only answer would be that grilling every witness about their religion in this context would be grossly offensive (as it was in his case).
Anyway, while Pielke Jr’s testimony didn’t deliver what many readers here would have liked, his written submission is a devastating, fully referenced critique of a big chunk of alarmist lies, and is well worth keeping at hand for whenever anyone raises the “extreme weather” issue.
John Tillman says:
July 19, 2013 at 8:31 pm
Look guys, I’m both not interested in hijacking the thread and not prepared to argue this point (literally, because I haven’t looked at the material pertinent to this for some years now), so I’m going to try to make my position clear and shut my mouth after this:
I was raised among educated religious people who believed in God and creation and had no more issue with the fact of evolution than any secular thinker. I strongly question that Dr. Spencer has any issue with the obvious truth of evolution either.
There is a case to be made (and I’m not competent to make it, it’s been way too long and I never cared all that much about it anyway, frankly), that evolution does not explain everything. I do not think this justifies invoking an intelligent designer (possibly Dr. Spencer and I part company at this point). Let me repeat this point – evolution is obvious and incontrovertible, but it almost certainly does not embody every mechanism which caused all of the complex features inherent in living organisms. It does not trouble me that we do not understand every mechanism which contributes to the complexity of life; it would astonish me if we DID. I see no reason to rely on an Intelligent Designer to explain this, Occam’s razor shreds this in my view. STILL – perhaps I misunderstood Dr. Spencer’s point, but I understood him to be saying something quite similar to what I’m saying here, that evolution is not the complete answer. Perhaps he believes a Creator supplies the rest where I do not, that’s neither here nor there with respect to the question IMO.
Thanks, I’ll shup now.
Hey you guys. Ease off on Senator (Box of Rocks) Boxer. If you’re a skeptic, she’s better than a mole in the enemy camp. A mole may eventually be discovered and discredited. “Don’t call me ma’am” Boxer can’t be “discovered” because she genuinely supports the AGW cause. She’s the most effective weapon we skeptics have in the enemy camp. I say promote her to be head of the entire movement.
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So her movement would be called the BM? (Sorry)
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Hey, Bob Murphy is on the panel. It’s good to see an anarcho-capitalist on a senate committee hearing.
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