Ah, politics, the stench of spin is strong here. Note the picture below. Left to right are Dr. John Christy, Dr. David Titley, and Dr. Roger Pielke Jr..
In the text, Christy and Pielke don’t even exist, because, well, this was “A Factual Look at the Relationship between Climate and Weather.” and we can’t have factual testimony we don’t like in the press release, can we?
Really, if you are going to disappear people in your press releases, at least be savvy enough to use a photo only showing your man giving testimony. Idiots.
From the House Committee on Science Space, and Technology
Subcommittee Discusses Climate Change Impacts on Severe Weather
(Washington, DC) – Today, the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology Subcommittee on Environment held a hearing entitled “A Factual Look at the Relationship between Climate and Weather.” The stated purpose of the hearing was to examine the relationship between climate change and extreme weather events.
Members emphasized the prevailing scientific consensus that anthropogenic climate change is real, and discussed the need to better understand the relationship between severe weather events and climate to better manage the risks associated with a changing climate.
Ranking Member Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR) said in her opening statement, “The lesson of this hearing cannot be that a potential link between climate change and severe weather is too difficult to determine or understand, and therefore we should stop trying. It should not be controversial to examine if the weather will change as a consequence of global warming. Scientific projections from the IPCC make it apparent that we will live in a hotter world–we already have a warmer world than that of our grandparents. In many of our districts, residents will experience drier environments with more drought. Those of us who represent particularly wet areas may find that precipitation arriving in more intense storms. The oceans will be warmer and that may well produce stronger or more frequent tropical storms. To focus only on the question of whether there will be more extreme events misses the point that by the end of this century much of the world as we know it, in our districts and states, will be considerably altered by the weather effects of climate change.”
Minority witness Dr. David Titley (USN Rear Admiral, retired) said in his testimony, “Our country is dealing with a significant change in the world’s climate; it is a large challenge. Saying we don’t know today the impact of climate change on [weather] phenomena is very different than stating that climate change has no impact on typhoons and hurricanes. What we do know is that these storms are forming in a warmer, moister environment and above a warmer ocean. We also know that current research indicates our future may include more intense, and possibly more frequent, storms. That is a risk not to be summarily discounted.”
Earlier this week, the Reinsurance Association of America sent a letter to the committee stating their support for close examination of the critical issues of extreme weather and climate. “As the scientific community’s knowledge of changes in our climate and the resulting weather continue to develop, it is important for our communities to incorporate that information into the exposure and risk assessment process, and that it be conveyed to stakeholders, policyholders, the public and public officials that can, or should, address adaptation and mitigation alternatives. Developing an understanding about climate and its impacts on droughts, heat waves, the frequency and intensity of tropical hurricanes, thunderstorms and convective events, rising sea levels and storm surge, more extreme precipitation events and flooding is critical to our role in translating the interdependencies of weather, climate risk assessment and pricing.” The full letter can be found here.
In Response to a question by Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA) regarding the claims made that incidents of extreme weather are not increasing, Dr. Titley responded, “One of the main definitions of ‘extreme’ is ‘away from the center.’ Again, just take the basic data. We have had for the last 36 years above normal temperatures, that is away from the center, and they are getting further and further away. A record like that is equivalent to flipping a coin and getting ‘heads’ 36 consecutive times. The chances of that happening with an un-weighted coin: 1 in 68 billion. Put another way, you are almost 400 times more likely to win the Powerball jackpot than you are to see this temperature record if the climate was not changing. I would say that is extreme. And the ice in the Arctic, that is extreme. We have seen geologic changes in less than 10 years.”
Dr. Titley’s presentation slides can be seen here.
Downloads
==============================================================
Source: http://democrats.science.house.gov/press-release/subcommittee-discusses-climate-change-impacts-severe-weather
You can read Pielke’s take on the event here and you can be sure he doesn’t leave out anybody. His written testimony can be downloaded here
Video of the hearing is here:
http://science.edgeboss.net/wmedia/science/sst2013/EV121113.wvx
Yeah, but… keep in mind that the USA has the finest Congress money can buy. What you see here is someone getting their money’s worth.
More evidence that climate alarmists have been the true science deniers all along.
2.5 years ago (it seems like yesterday), in a guest thread, Steve Goddard rebutted the coin flip analogy thusly:
Alan the Brit says:
December 13, 2013 at 1:54 am
The madness starts when the lies are believed, & the lies are perpetuated to the point of religious fervour, when the “Emperor’s new clothes” become the norm. Truly we live in an insane mad world! Maybe Man is destined to “die-off” sooner rather than later?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
“Why doesn’t that man have clothes on?” asked the child.
I encouraged all my nieces and nephews to be skeptics in all things when they were growing up.
That is nine adults who know how to smell BS from miles away.
What this is analogous to is as follows:
Let’s say a revered political leader dies. They organise a big state memorial for this person. Then just as everyone is about to go on, the head honcho notices that the sign-language person looks politically incorrect (shall we say). So they tell him to get lost and if he ever speaks about it or if his employer, the disability services agency, does, it will go very bad for them and everyone they know, including family. Very bad, let us not be mistaken about that. Now. Problem. No sign-language person. So at the last minute a politically correct government party hack is organised to get up on stage and pretend he can do the job.
Just saying…but hey do a selfie.
Is there somewhere we can write to castigate them for their deception?
Chicken Little says “IPOCC, POCC, POCC . . . .”
(IPOCC = Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change)
Ok, it gets worse. At http://science.house.gov/hearing/subcommittee-environment-hearing-factual-look-relationship-between-climate-and-weather, it has the testimonies of:
Dr. John R. Christy, Professor and Director, Earth System Science Center, NSSTC, University of Alabama in Huntsville
Dr. David Titley, Director, Center for Solutions to Weather and Climate Risk, Pennsylvania State University
Dr. Roger Pielke Jr., Professor and Director, Center for Science and Technology Policy Research, University of Colorado
What is Suzanne Bonamici up to?
I think the most surprising thing in this press release is that it favours the views of Suzanne Bonamici (a ‘Ranking member’) over that of the Chairman, given that he gave a much more sceptic opening view that she did. Spin indeed!
Mann and his ilk can be understood why they perpetuate the myth. Their income relies on it. But the democrats? They are not getting paid to lie. So why do they?
“Never let a crises go to waste”. They are still trying to milk the non-crises.
If any of you would like to see the real world, on the ground effects of democrat governance, search the Internet for details of Vallejo, California. This area of California is arguably the very best land and climate in North America. It has tremendous natural resources and great proximity to high paying jobs in the silicon valley.
Despite all of the advantages that should make the management of a small town (Vallejo) a relatively easy task, the democrats here have driven the town into bankruptcy. Their management ability and their public policy making is so foolish and so corrupt that the town will very likely enter into a second bankruptcy within the same decade.
The good people of Vallejo both democrats and republicans have endured this kind of abysmal management for decades. Hard working democrat families 50 years ago would be equally stunned by the poor decision making that modern progressive and far left liberal democrats are making in today’s political world.
As you all watch the dealings of the progressive democrats at the national level just remember, what you see is incompetence today but I’m afraid to tell you that it can become much worse. These people are capable of destroying economies on a massive scale and it looks like that is what they are trying to do to the United States and other countries around the world.
If you don’t like your testimony, you can delete your testimony.
[cut that kind of language out. Mod]
Reblogged this on gottadobetterthanthis and commented:
Interesting to note that the ranking minority Rep, Bonamici, gives an opening statement that essentially states that the meeting’s outcome cannot be different from the predetermined agenda. She states that the meeting is to prove the world is getting worse because of global warming, and the outcome cannot be to conclude that we don’t need to do anything about it. Quoting, “The lesson of this hearing cannot be that a potential link between climate change and severe weather is too difficult to determine or understand…”
It is sad that so many politicians are bowing down at the alter of scientism and progressivism. It is sad that they refuse to acknowledge that their proposed cure is far more damaging and costly than their feared purported disease.
Mission accomplished
> Downloads
> Nutter Letter on Weather and Climate to Congresswoman Bonamici.pdf »
Oh, a letter from Frank Nutter. I was thinking it was a letter from some nutter. (Frank is from the Reinsurance Association of America and benefits from the perception that storms are more severe.)
Pathetic doesn’t even begin to describe this chestnut in Rear Admiral Tetley’s testimony. He should know that global temperatures being annually above or below a specific starting point does not behave like a sequence of independent coin tosses since the starting point of next year’s temperatures is the end point of the previous year’s. A more apt analogy would be to compare the temperatures to the cumulative total of heads in a sequence of tosses. In an unchanging climate, the coin tosses are then represented by whether the changes in temperature move up or down from year to year.
Using the latest 37 years of GISS temperatures, there were 21 increases (Heads) and 15 decreases (Tails). A simple calculation using a binomial distribution shows the the probability of getting 21 or more heads in 36 tosses is a not so impressive 0.203 or a 1 in 5 chance, a far cry from the specious “1 in 68 billion” touted by the admiral. But unfortunately his numbers are now out there to to be bandied about by this group of clueless politicians, small children and AGW activists whose sole scientific training is limited to public relations.
1) The lesson of the hearing IS “that a potential link between climate change and severe weather is too difficult to determine or understand, and therefore we should” keep trying.
2) We are on the whole living longer than our grandparents. On the whole we have a better standard of living than our grandparents.
3) Why shouldn’t global warming mean fewer stronger storms? The peer reviewed lessons can be found HERE.
Here are some lessons the hearing should have heard about.
I am still waiting for research on what, exactly, the ideal climate is. Before we go off and spend trillions of borrowed dollars and destroy personal liberty, we should know if our climate is presently below the ideal or above it.
“The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.”
Isn’t that like asking someone to prove a negative?
What do we see since 1950?
But we just came out of the “hottest decade on the record!” and yet the good solder says “our future may include more intense, and possibly more frequent, storms.” Did you see that? You have to ask why we don’t see the extremes (caused by man-made global warming) now?
Using a picture of people you “disappeared” isn’t idiocy. It’s saying “expletive you.” Same as parading around amongst limited government types with the Affordable Care Act that the only parts they were aware of were the purposely punitive parts for their ideological opponents such as Catholics and pro-lifers.
The word is out that the “warming” we were all worried about amounted to 70 degree days turning into 73 degree days over the course of 100 years. Add that to growing ice fields, record-low cyclone land-falls, and slow moving sea-level rise and the scramble is on to find something for people to be scared of.
re: pat says December 13, 2013 at 12:10 am
Total smack-down by Morano … the usual idiocy “The science is settled right now … the cleanest way and the cheapest way is solar and wind … We have solutions right now to climate change that are cheaper than gas, cheaper than coal, cheaper than oil” by the suit-wearing Sierra Club (Brune) guy!
.