Keith Olbermann: Current TV Co-Founder And Former VP Al Gore Was a ‘Clod’ – TVNewser
“When you’re working for somebody whom you admired politically, who turns out to be a clod,” says Olbermann, referring to Gore, “the scales fall from your eyes. Sorry. Al underdelivered. I mean that’s just simply the case. I don’t want to dwell on it, but it’s true.”
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Speaking of clods, Ahnold channels my own local California haranguer Sherri Quammen
Schwarzenegger got off some good gibes to win the crowd over.
Speaking of greenhouse gas deniers: “Strap some conservative-thinking people to a tailpipe for an hour and then they will agree it’s a pollutant!”
And naturally, there was this quip: “Use your Hummer, but have an electric engine.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-bradley/national-clean-energy-sum_b_3757805.html
Luboš Motl says it’s a gas chamber analogy: http://motls.blogspot.com/2013/08/arnold-schwarzenegger-orders-gas.html
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More heat than light? Climate catastrophe and the Hiroshima bomb
There has been some discussion on Twitter today (14 August) about the wisdom or otherwise of measuring the heat being retained by the Earth in terms of Hiroshima bombs. The analogy is presented by John Cook and Dana Nuccitelli on their Skeptical Science blog, drawing on an academic paper by Church et al to describe the heat retained as equivalent to four Hiroshima bombs per second.
I have no reason to doubt this. However, choosing the most effective metaphor involves more than simply finding an analogy that accurately conveys a specific energy equivalence. The very purpose of a metaphor is to help make the incomprehensible familiar in order to make a point. Asking whether it is accurate or not is not enough.
More heat than light? Climate catastrophe and the Hiroshima bomb
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Another Paper Supports Svensmark’s Cosmic Ray Theory
Another Paper Supports Svensmark’s Cosmic Ray Theory
In recent weeks there has been even further developments in support of Svensmark’s Cosmic Ray Theory of cosmoclimatology. Via The Hockey Schtick is this article: …
http://climateobserver.blogspot.com/2013/04/another-paper-supports-svensmarks.html
h/t to Mark Bofill
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Mumble McGuirk says:
Well the American Meteorological Society has posted the slate of candidates for next President and Councilors:
http://www.ametsoc.org/elections/2013candidates.pdf
It may be a Hobson’s Choice, but I urge any AMS members to vote for .NOT. Heidi Cullen.
I don’t disagree. Cullen is not only an activist, but as we saw in her recent congressional testimony, not particularly cognizant. I’d vote for the Air Force guy. – Anthony
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Climate change may be speeding coast redwood, giant sequoia growth.
By Bettina Boxall
Per the article: Finally, some good news about the effects of climate change. It may have triggered a growth spurt in two of California’s iconic tree species: coast redwoods and giant sequoias.
Since the 1970s, some coast redwoods have grown at the fastest rate ever, according to scientists who studied corings from trees more than 1,000 years old.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-redwoods-climate-20130814,0,3829911.story
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Paging Brad Johnson of ‘Forecast the Facts’. New peer-reviewed paper: “Our findings contradict the view that a warming world will automatically be one of more overall climatic variation.”
Evidence from Greenland ice cores shows that year-to-year temperature variability was probably higher in some past cold periods…Many climate models predict that total variability will ultimately decrease under high greenhouse gas concentrations, possibly associated with reductions in sea-ice cover. Our findings contradict the view that a warming world will automatically be one of more overall climatic variation.
h/t to Tom Nelson
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Die Klimazwiebel: Science for a good cause?
Imagine the following scenario. An atmospheric scientist makes a discovery that seems to challenge a particular model of sea level increase due to global warming. She expects her discovery will be refined through further research, and that, in the end, it will not refute the mainstream view. In the meantime, she wants to avoid giving ammunition to climate skeptics, so she postpones publication. But an ambitious postdoc surreptitiously informs the media about the discovery. The media accuse the scientist of a cover-up and report that key evidence for anthropogenic climate change has been refuted.
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The Editor, Richmond Times-Dispatch, August 15, 2013.
Sir,
Charles Battig did a great service to your readers by spreading truth about the now-collapsed climate scare. Michael Mann’s criticisms of him (August 5) were ill-founded. Attorney General Cuccinelli investigated Mr Mann under the Fraud Against Taxpayers Act 2000 because of what I shall delicately call the statistical peculiarities evident in Mr Mann’s “hockey stick” graph that had purported to abolish the medieval warm period and to show – falsely – that today’s quite normal global temperatures were unprecedented in 1300 years.
Mr Mann’s graph relied heavily upon the widths of tree-rings from bristlecone pines as a basis for estimating temperatures before we had thermometers, although these pines are unreliable proxies because the tree-rings widen not only when the weather is warmer but also when it is wetter and when there is more CO2 in the air. That kinda musses things up.
According to real scientists, the graph also gave extreme weighting to datasets that showed unusual 20th-century warming at the expense of those that did not. And the program that Mr Mann created to draw the graph would have shown the 20th century as unusually warm even if random red noise rather than real-world data were fed in. There were numerous other statistical curiosities. Mr Mann’s graph is perhaps the most laughable and widely-discredited object in the history of bad science supporting worse politics.
Most learned papers based on real-world data show that the medieval warm period was real, global, and warmer than the present. A spate of papers by computer modelers apparently confirming Mr Mann’s contrarian conclusion appeared with interesting suddenness after his paper was scientifically discredited. Many of the authors, according to an independent statistical report for the House Energy & Commerce Committee in 2006, were linked to Mr Mann by previous co-authorship. Hmmm.
Mr Battig did not criticize Mr Mann for his bad personality, though Mr Mann’s characteristically malevolent description of his opponents as “deniers” and “denialists” several times in his letter of reply would be illegal in Europe as being anti-Jewish, racialist hate-speech disrespectful of Holocaust victims. Certainly no real scientist would use such language. Mr Battig criticized Mr Mann for his flagrantly bad science, not his flagrantly bad manners. Science is not about personalities. It is about seeking truth. Mr Mann’s graph was not true. It was not science. It deserved criticism. It got it.
Besides, according to the satellites, notwithstanding record increases in CO2 concentration there has been no global warming at all for 16 years 8 months – and counting. That is 200 months without so much as a flicker of global warming. The game is up and the scare is over.
Yours faithfully,
Monckton of Brenchley
http://sppiblog.org/news/monckton-to-mann-forget-personalities-science-is-about-truth
With regards to equivalencies, I wrote a letter to the local paper admonishing the outrageous statements that an offshore wind farm could easily double the energy requirement for South Carolina. I used the equivalency of a typical household energy consumption with AA batteries (I think it was several million a month).
A Clemson University bod (graduate?professor?postgrad? not sure, but they were involved in wind farm studies and advocacy) was a bit miffed at such a ‘ludicrous’ statement. The irony amused me for several months and does so to this day.
I tried to figure out how much energy was released due to the end products of eating one of my favorite local burrito’s, and I think if I totaled those effects up over the course of an average lifetime, the total energy released would be roughly the equivalent of the Hiroshima bomb.
WELL THAT’S WHAT MY WIFE SAID!
Tie Schwartzenegger to a tail pipe for an hour and maybe he’ll understand the difference between TOXIC carbon monoixde and harmless CO2.
Didn’t know we thought CO wasn’t dangerous.
At this rate, I’ll never keep up with what I supposedly believe. :/
Thanks to all commenters above with regards to scuba tanks. In the past I have been rather haphazard with regards to pressurized vessels. I may have been lucky back in the 1980’s scuba diving forays using outdated tanks/inspections
That freon tank I have been using for portable air will be retired today..
I’m glad Arnie distinguished himself from conservative-thinking people.
Mike McMillan says:
August 15, 2013 at 1:10 am
“Someone once said he admired the Austrians, for they had convinced the world that Beethoven was Austrian and that Hitler was German.”
To their honour, von Mises WAS an Austrian and Karl Marx WAS a German.
Looks like Arnie doesn’t understand that concentration makes the poison.
I could repeat his example by comparing being in a room with humid air, vs. being underwater.
My guess is that most technically minded males fall on the Autist spectrum. Now-a-days we’re politically correct to correlate IQ.
Justa Joe says:
August 15, 2013 at 6:31 am
I’m glad Arnie distinguished himself from conservative-thinking people.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>..
Yes and the Huff n’ Puff made it very clear they are only interested in being an echo chamber.
4 comments and only the last one pointing out Bush got Maurice Strong the Chairmanship at Kyoto made it through. (Normally my comments are even handed and factual enough to pass monitoring.)
Guess William Bradley, the author, didn’t like it pointed out that the Nazi comparison started with ‘Deniers’ and the comment politicians should not make ‘Jokes’ about killing the rank and file of the ‘Opposition’
That should, of course, include a big NOT!
eyesonu says:
August 15, 2013 at 6:31 am
Thanks to all commenters above with regards to scuba tanks….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I jump all over stores who do not have their helium tanks properly secured to a wall. (I have see what a tank can do when it blows)
“restlessoutlaw says:
August 15, 2013 at 6:24 am
Didn’t know we thought CO wasn’t dangerous.
At this rate, I’ll never keep up with what I supposedly believe. :/”
Because of the AGW scam, I was forced to reevaluate everything that I was taught. Since history is written by the winners, and even written in stone can be altered [note the Egyptian removal/overwriting of the stone hieroglyphs], I found it was easier to assume everything that I was taught was WRONG. I was forced to research and relearn everything about history, science, medicine, foods, etc.
My latest analysis is simple: it is easier to start over than to try to make sense of the chaos.
One more example, for at least 40 years the astronomers/physicists have suppressed that fact the galaxies don’t have enough mass for the observed rotational speed of the spiral arms. There is a conflict between Newton’s Law of Gravity and reality. They don’t know the answer, but we now have “dark mass/dark energy”.
One must learn enough to find his/her own truth! And, I suppose, make a consensus and vote for what is “true”. Curiously, the internet has made the “secret cover-ups” open information; without it, we would all be in the dark.
I respond to Philip Bradley, re “declining education standards”:
I think not. The new Common Core State Standards are far from being a decline in standards. They are a reversal of declining standards. So too are the many states who have changed from a seat-time high school diploma to a tested-out high school diploma. Yes there are some loopholes in the diploma change, but the CCSS are very rigorous and require a demanding and sustained performance of those standards. Many elementary teachers will have to up their game in the classroom setting, adopting methods of teaching that are no where near the set-n-get of yesterday’s classroom. They (as well as administrators who are currently insisting on fidelity to curriculum protocols) will also eventually come to the understanding that the scripted recipe approach found in old and new curriculum will not suffice to get these students to a passing level under the new standards.
I for one, am excited about these new standards. As written, they could result in students who are able to observe an every-day condition, describe a problem, develop its parameters and missing links, persevere to close the missing link gaps, and solve the problem in several ways. A process that could take days to complete. And this is at the elementary level folks! That is a sea-change from the current kind of (yawn) problem solving tasks students are given on a 30-minute end-of-chapter test.
So please, before we follow the crowd and ascribe every ill of the global warming scare to “declining education standards”, take a look at what is actually happening in education. Me thinks the scare has way more to do with adults wanting cold hard cash and power, than it is due to being stupid.
Keith Olbermann complaining that someone underdelivered is like the Pope complaining someone is too Catholic.
Gail Combs says:
August 15, 2013 at 6:02 am
“The ‘Contains no Chemicals’ Label on items also has me run screaming.”
Too funny! What exactly are you selling me? A vacume?
Maybe we should suggest Arne’s head be stuffed into a bucket of water for an hour and see how he likes it. Based on his silly analogy that must mean H2O is a dangerous element and should be banned by governments around the world.
This will separate the idiots from thinking people. During a panic attack when rapid breathing results in lack of oxygen, what does one do to bring the respiratory system back into balance? Give more oxygen or give more CO2?
@Pamela – the correct answer is give more Co2 (hence why they have you breathe into a paper bag). Which sounds counter intuitive, so I have to ask how that separates people? Unless you know, the logical response would be to give more oxygen to someone who is oxygen starved.
Per the article: Finally, some good news about the effects of climate change. It may have triggered a growth spurt in two of California’s iconic tree species: coast redwoods and giant sequoias.
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News Flash…..in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary…….global warming believers insist that CO2 is a poison and 250-280 ppm is “normal”
philjourdan says:
August 15, 2013 at 4:42 am
Two OT:
Bart Hinkle and I have exchanged emails re climate change. [He is on RT-D editorial staff.] I, also, am glad to see my hometown paper accept Monckton’s thoughts.
I clicked on your name: check with WordPress – your blog may be up for sale.
Warmest regards, from 2020 carbon-neutral Costa Rica, John
@John R T
Thanks for the information. But my blog is over at a place called joeuser.com. I guess I should watch what the automatic entries are when I post. I will have to change that.
Except, it’s much harder nowadays to get killed by carbon monoxide in auto exhaust. Note the date:
I will freely assume subsequent efficiency improvements, resulting in less partially burned fuel, have likely reduced CO emissions even further.
But while those most likely to be quickly rehabilitated back to hardworking taxpayer status are being saved, the other end is also being attended to. This popped up as a “Related article”:
Costs of safer energy have soared, and with less funds available there is naturally less preventative maintenance of heating equipment, burners and chimneys cleaned less often, etc. Fireplaces are used, for the first time in decades, with no money available for an expert to check them first. In summer, people may be cooking with a charcoal grill, in the attached garage, with the doors closed as it’s raining, etc.
Of course people that poor must be getting some sort of government assistance. They’re taking from, not willfully donating to, the general welfare through their democratic government. So, eh, who cares?
Monckton mocks and rocks!
Mann?–not so much.
If you admire Al Gore for anything other than being a charlatan, eventual disappointment seems rather certain.
Is Arnold really that stupid?
Was his support and advocacy for the authoritarian social-engineering exercise known as AB32 and other climate-nonsense based on his inability to comprehend the difference between CO and CO2?
Or is this a ‘let them eat cake’ sort of remark from a guy who’s given up any pretense at intellectual honesty and will tell any crowd he’s facing what they want to hear?
Either way, it’s just embarrassing.
Regarding the Redwoods and Sequoias article, I did find it amusing that the researchers considered everything EXCEPT the direct CO2 fertilization effect.