Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
In discussing President Obama’s latest boondoggle, the one billion (with a “b) dollar Climate Resilience Plan, The US Under-Assistant Minister of Scientific Silly Walks, John Holdren, wandered way off of the party line. The party line in question, of course, is …
“Although we can’t ascribe any given weather event to climate change, we still insist that blah blah blah …”
Perhaps Holdren’s teleprompter was broken, but anyhow, here’s what he said (emphasis mine):
During a call with reporters on Thursday evening, the assistant to the president on science and technology, John Holdren, said, without any doubt, the severe drought plaguing California and a number of other states across the country is tied to climate change.
Now, that quote was bad enough, since everyone from the IPCC to my cat agrees that
• There is no link between historical post-Little-Ice-Age warming and extreme weather, and
• Droughts are more common in colder times than in warmer times, and
• For the last decade and a half there’s been no statistically significant warming, certainly not enough to cause increased extreme weather.
• We have neither the understanding nor the information necessary to ascribe ANY single weather event to climate change, and we’re a long ways from having either one.
But despite Holdren going way off piste in his comment, it wasn’t truly of the quality needed for a quote of the week. It wasn’t concise enough for an epigram … or for an epitaph, for that matter.
However, just when it all looked hopeless, Holdren rallied, came back and captured the gold by uttering the deathless words that will ring forever in the halls of climate academe:
Weather practically everywhere is being caused by climate change.
There you have it, folks, Holdren’s Law of Climate Causation, all you need to know about droughts and such … weather practically everywhere is being caused by climate change.
…
… and people wonder why the alarmists are having trouble these days peddling their nostrums? Well, mostly it’s not a communications failure. Mostly, it’s because we’ve been lied to before by these same folks (including Holdren), and Holdren’s current pathetic shilling for the Obamaclimate program is just more of the same.
The issue is not how the science is being communicated, as Judith Curry and many others seem to think.
The issue is that what is being communicated is so obviously not science, but merely poorly framed and scientifically absurd scare tactics, that as in this case, the communication just makes people point and laugh …
Regards to all,
w.
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I haven’t been able to read all the comments. Maybe someone had already asked this. I sincerely hope a reporter asks him. Given that by “climate change” he means Man caused it via coal power plants and other “fossil fuels”, just exactly where does he believe that “the weather” is NOT being caused by Mann?
“The world wonders”
Willis Eschenbach says:
February 14, 2014 at 10:06 pm
That’s an important point, Willis. Of course changes in climate aren’t generally evident in individual weather events. The influence may be small and only observed in the overall average over a period of time. That’s why you can’t say that this storm or this drought or this heat or cold is specifically due to climate change.
A similar and non-controversial example in a different setting would be a hypothetical situation of air pollution. Imagine a long term study showed that over a ten year period, in cities where the air pollution exceeded a certain value X for a period of time, there was on average an increase of 2% in respiratory deaths, after accounting for all other differences. Even though the result could be well-established statistically it might not be obvious to the everyday citizen.
Consider an example week in a city where on a low-smog week there were 100 deaths from respiratory illness. The following year it is very smoggy and there are 102 deaths. Such a result would be in line with expectations. But if you looked at one specific individual among the 102, can you say their death was due to smog? No? And if it was your own Uncle Harry, could you blame his untimely death on the smog? Not at all. There’s no way to know.
Furthermore you couldn’t have the relatives of all 102 people blaming the death of their loved one on air pollution. There were two indeed two additional deaths, but not any particular two.
The way I see it it is similar with storms or droughts. If statistically over a long enough period of time there is even a slight change in the number of storms or droughts or heat waves etc. you’d never be able to pick out just one and say that it was or wasn’t due to factors influencing the long term climate. That wouldn’t however mean that there is no influence.
The real question then is the study over an extended period of time of changes in the number, duration or intensity of various weather events, regionally and globally. And that will take a long time to sort out.
Good comments, both of you. my thanks.
Now, making the “assumption” of even one storm (of any variation: hotter, colder, drier, wetter, foggier or furrier, snowier or dustier) even more or less than it would have been otherwise, much less having been specifically affected by “climate change” that has been caused in turn by the addition of “man-released” CO2 “poluttion” is bluntly, impossible to any but a CAGW fanatic.
See, CO2 has been increasing steadily since about 1950.
Fine.
Temperatures -assuming they would affect a specific storms as you just described, have NOT increased for 17 years.
Thus, you have to show that the feared “change” in storm intensity or duration (or the absence of a storm because of temperature)that those 2 extra deaths DID occur due to a change in temperature that was caused by a change in CO2 levels, even though that change in temperature did NOT occur!
And the spokesman propagandizing those CAGW-caused 2 extra deaths (102 instead of 100) would also need to establish that those 2 deaths DID occur during this particular storm – that happened despite no change in temperature! – at this particular time, NOT any other time in the past 17 years of constant temperatures.
BUT … it can happen if the news media only report what they believe, and what they are told is what they already believe, and what they are told reinforces what they WANT to believe.
I will be willing to donate $1000.00 TO THE WUWT tip fund fund if somebody could find a any survey of US news reporters showing a majority know that global temperatures have NOT risen dramatically and disastrously the past 17 years. 97% will not know that simple fact.
So a temperature “hiatus”, “plateau”, “no upward trend”, “no statistically-significant global warming” [agreed by Dr. Phil Jones who said “Yes…”], “global temperature has been flat for a decade” [Dr. James Hansen] etc. is warming??? I think you meant to say warm not warming.
Here are the many temperature standstill quotes from the climate scientists who beg to differ with Nick Stokes the climate modeller, fighting for his survival and career.
Two major problems at work here. First… this administration is banking on the sheeple not doing their homework/research. And with the internet, that is unconscionable.
The second problem… this administration is filled with self-serving liars across the board and at all levels. I will leave it to the reader to form their own opinion as to why the lies.
This drought is nothing more than another opportunity for his administration to take the sheeple for another shearing.
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Scientists: Past California droughts have lasted 200 years
http://news.msn.com/in-depth/scientists-past-california-droughts-have-lasted-200-years
Through studies of tree rings, sediment and other natural evidence, researchers have documented multiple droughts in California that lasted 10 or 20 years in a row during the past 1,000 years — compared to the mere three-year duration of the current dry spell. The two most severe megadroughts make the Dust Bowl of the 1930s look tame: a 240-year-long drought that started in 850 and, 50 years after the conclusion of that one, another that stretched at least 180 years.
“We continue to run California as if the longest drought we are ever going to encounter is about seven years,” said Scott Stine, a professor of geography and environmental studies at Cal State East Bay. “We’re living in a dream world.”
Friends:
I notice that sophists – notably Nick Stokes – are trying to change the definition of “warming” that was used by climastrology until global warming stopped.
I objected to the ‘goal post moving’ on an earlier WUWT thread at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/02/07/statistical-flaws-in-science-p-values-and-false-positives/
And this was one post I there made
Richard
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richardscourtney says:
February 8, 2014 at 2:33 am
Nick Stokes:
I am replying to your post at February 8, 2014 at 1:01 am which is here and is in reply to my post at February 7, 2014 at 11:15 pm which is here.
In my post I rightly said of your assertion
NO!
That is warmist sophistry which pretends the ‘pause’ is not happening.
I explained
Those conventions were used by climastrology to claim there was global warming. What matters is to use THOSE SAME conventions when assessing the ‘pause’. And it is sophistry to say that different conventions should be used when the result does not fit an agenda.
I stated that “There are good reasons to dispute each of these conventions” but, so what? The only pertinent fact is that those are the conventions used by climastrology. It is ‘moving the goal posts’ to now say those conventions should not be used because they are wrong.
Your reply which I am answering says
That is more sophistry!
Whatever the cause of the ‘pause’ is not pertinent to a determination of the existence of the pause.
The same conventions of climastrology used to determine that there was global warming were used to determine the start of the ‘pause’. And the conclusion of that analysis is as I said
The conventions adopted by climastrology may be mistaken (I think they are) but it is not “science” to choose when and when not to use conventions depending on the desired result.
Richard
philjourdan says: February 14, 2014 at 12:22 pm
“Well, he is right. Climate does cause weather. Without a climate, there would be no weather.”
I disagree, a discerned pattern of weather creates climate.
Kate Forney says:
February 14, 2014 at 1:10 pm
So without climate change there’d be no weather? What would that be like? When the weather report came on the radio, would there just be a kind of hissing sound,
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I tell you Kate that gave me a huge belly laugh – I mean it. That and Mr Holdren – what a FW.
In this case, Influenced seems correct. Around 2:50 is holdren on the audio clip
http://kvpr.org/post/obama-announce-federal-drought-relief-fresno-trip
Steven Mosher says:
February 14, 2014 at 1:23 pm
“Climate change cannot cause weather.
Climate is a construct. Long term weather statistics where we bicker about what counts as long term.
Climate Change doesnt cause weather, its the other way around. When the weather changes in significant detectable ways we call this climate change. changes in weather DEFINE climate change they are not caused by it”
Ahh…. the infamous Mosher.
Posts absolute bollux most of the time and then runs away, not to be seen in the thread again.
He and his fellow travellers ( though he would like you not to notice and would like to say he wasn’t one).used to say…………… in the last century, that it was the increasing temperatures (increased heat energy in the Troposphere) that would cause weather changes on the Earth.
Fair enough, I can see the rationale behind that.
Now, in the 21st century, when temperatures have not increased at all, he wants to tell us that we don’t need the intermediate step of temperatures actually increasing, we can just leap to the proposition that increasing CO2 in the atmosphere leads to different weather even when the temperature of the Earth remains the same.
The Troposphere, where we live and where weather mainly happens, doesn’t have any measurable heat energy change but apparently reacts very violently, in weather terms, to a change in CO2, a trace gas, which has not had any measurable impact on the heat energy content of the Troposphere in the period under question.
Amazing! Why don’t you publish a paper on this incredible concept Mosher? You will no doubt win a Nobel prize for your amazing insight!
That is on the assumption you can assign some sort of physics to this phenomenon.
Mosher, you surely can……… can’t you?
Alan
Idiots are caused by idiocy
Dec 05, 2009
Climategate: Obama’s Science Adviser Confirms the Scandal – Unintentionally
By Myron Ebell, CEI on Pajamas Media
When the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming held a hearing on the state of climate science on December 2, the Republicans were ready to focus it on the Climategate fraud scandal. And the first witness, President Obama’s science adviser, Dr. John P. Holdren, was ready to respond.
Instead of summarizing his written testimony in his oral remarks, Holdren read a prepared statement on Climategate. He said that the controversy involved a “small group of scientists” and was primarily about one temperature dataset. He said that such controversies were not unusual in all branches of science and that they got sorted out through the peer review process and continuing scrutiny. Holdren also said that openness and sharing of data was important, which is why the Obama administration is strongly committed to openness. In the case of the disputed dataset (the “hockey stick” graph), the National Academies of Science (NAS) undertook a thorough review of it and all other similar datasets and concluded that the preponderance of evidence supported the principal conclusion of the research. Holdren concluded by predicting that when the dust settles on this controversy, a very strong scientific consensus on global warming will remain.
Well, that sounds pretty plausible, but anyone who has followed Dr. Holdren’s amazing career knows that he is a master of plausible buncombe that disguises his “outlandish scientific assertions, consistently wrong predictions, and dangerous public policy choices,” as my CEI colleague William Yeatman has put it. Everything that Holdren said in his opening statement is incomplete and misleading. But explaining that is a job for another day. The point is that the alarmist establishment and environmental pressure groups have settled on these talking points in order to try to contain and sanitize the scandal.
When Representative James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.) and other Republicans on the committee challenged Holdren’s analysis of Climategate, the president’s science adviser responded by repeating that it was just a small group of scientists engaged in some narrow research. Any mistakes or misdeeds on their part couldn’t possibly compromise the scientific consensus, which is as strong as it is vast.
But when asked about some of his own extreme statements and predictions, Holdren replied that scientific research had moved on from the latest UN assessment report in 2007. The most up-to-date scientific research was contained in a report written by some of the world’s leading climate scientists and released last summer. Holdren mentioned and referred to this report, Copenhagen Diagnosis, several times during the course of the hearing.
I remember when Copenhagen Diagnosis came out because nearly every major paper ran a story on it. Global warming is happening even faster than predicted, the impacts are even worse than feared, and that sort of thing. I also remembered that the authors of Copenhagen Diagnosis included many of the usual conmen who are at the center of the alarmist scare. So I asked my CEI colleague Julie Walsh to compare the list of authors of Copenhagen Diagnosis with the scientists involved in Climategate.
I’m sure it will come as a shock that the two groups largely overlap. The “small group of scientists” up to their necks in Climategate include 12 of the 26 esteemed scientists who wrote the Copenhagen Diagnosis. Who would have ever guessed that forty-six percent of the authors of Copenhagen Diagnosis belong to the Climategate gang? Small world, isn’t it?
Here’s the list of tippity-top scientists who both wrote the authoritative report that Holdren relied on to support his statements and belong to the “small group of scientists” who are now suspected of scientific fraud:
Nathan Bindoff, also a lead author of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2007 Fourth Assessment Report (hereafter LA-IPCC FAR)
Peter Cox, also LA-IPCC FAR
David Karoly, also LA-IPCC FAR and the Third Assessment Report (TAR)
Georg Kaser, also LA-IPCC FAR
Michael E. Mann, also LA-IPCC TAR (the hockey stick scandal made him too radioactive to participate in writing FAR)
Stefan Rahmstorf, also LA-IPCC FAR
Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, merely “a longstanding member of the IPCC.”
Stephen Schneider, also LA-IPCC FAR, TAR, and the First and Second Assessment Reports (SAR) plus two of the IPCC’s synthesis reports
Steven Sherwood, only a contributing author to IPCC-FAR
Richard C. J. Somerville, co-ordinating LA-PCC FAR
Eric J. Steig, no connection to IPCC listed
Andrew Weaver, also LA-IPCC FAR, TAR, and SAR (and Chief Editor, Journal of Climate, AMS)
In the interests of space, I’ve left out all of their distinguished positions as professors, editors of academic journals, and heads of institutes. You can search for their Climategate emails here.
Then there are those Climategate figures who didn’t help write Climate Diagnosis, but who have been involved in the IPCC assessment reports. Here are three that come to mind:
Phil Jones, contributing author IPCC TAR
Kevin Trenberth, co-ordinating LA-IPCC FAR and SAR, LA-IPCC TAR, and an author of the summaries for policymakers for FAR, TAR, and SAR
Ben Santer, convening LA-IPCC First Assessment Report
Now, I wouldn’t want to jump to any conclusions here, but it kind of looks to me like the “small group of scientists” caught out by Climategate are pretty much the same people who make up the vast and strong scientific consensus on global warming and write the official reports that the U.S. and other governments rely on to inform their policy decisions. I’m sure Dr. John P. Holdren, President Obama’s science adviser, has a plausible alternative explanation. He always does.
See post here.
P.S. to my post of 6:01am
Note Holdren’s bold lie about the “creampuff” NAS report is telling – Holdren conveniently neglects to mention the more credible Wegman report to Congress, which savages Mann’s “hockey stick” and Mann’s cabal of co-authors.
More Holdren stuff – hard to believe…
John Holdren, Obama’s Science Czar, says: Forced abortions and mass sterilization needed to save the planet
Book he authored in 1977 advocates for extreme totalitarian measures to control the population
Forced abortions. Mass sterilization. A “Planetary Regime” with the power of life and death over American citizens.
The tyrannical fantasies of a madman? Or merely the opinions of the person now in control of science policy in the United States? Or both?
These ideas (among many other equally horrifying recommendations) were put forth by John Holdren, whom Barack Obama has recently appointed Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, and Co-Chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology — informally known as the United States’ Science Czar. In a book Holdren co-authored in 1977, the man now firmly in control of science policy in this country wrote that:
• Women could be forced to abort their pregnancies, whether they wanted to or not;
• The population at large could be sterilized by infertility drugs intentionally put into the nation’s drinking water or in food;
• Single mothers and teen mothers should have their babies seized from them against their will and given away to other couples to raise;
• People who “contribute to social deterioration” (i.e. undesirables) “can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility” — in other words, be compelled to have abortions or be sterilized.
• A transnational “Planetary Regime” should assume control of the global economy and also dictate the most intimate details of Americans’ lives — using an armed international police force.
Impossible, you say? That must be an exaggeration or a hoax. No one in their right mind would say such things.
Well, I hate to break the news to you, but it is no hoax, no exaggeration. John Holdren really did say those things, and this report contains the proof. Below you will find photographs, scans, and transcriptions of pages in the book Ecoscience, co-authored in 1977 by John Holdren and his close colleagues Paul Ehrlich and Anne Ehrlich. The scans and photos are provided to supply conclusive evidence that the words attributed to Holdren are unaltered and accurately transcribed.
More at http://zombietime.com/john_holdren/
Book at http://www.amazon.com/Ecoscience-Population-Environment-Paul-Ehrlich/dp/0716700298
Some nice DC and NE pix of extreme winter unprecedented snow.
http://www.weatherbook.com/blizzard.html
cn
I’m starting to get it now — Climate causes weather. I never understood this before. Now I see the light.
From Wikipedia: [Holdren] along with two other scientists helped Paul R. Ehrlich establish the bet with Julian Simon, in which they bet that the price of five key metals would be higher in 1990. The bet was centred around a disagreement concerning the future scarcity of resources in an increasingly polluted and heavily populated world. Ehrlich and Holdren lost the bet, when the price of metals had decreased by 1990.
Holdren’s theory sounded plausible in 1980. His ideas sound plausible today. But he is betting our money now.
the very first comment here requires remarkable IGNORANCE to author, the climate in NO WAY exerts any control over the weather……the climate is ONLY the average WEATHER of the previous 30 years….and again has NO control over the weather….
Holdren’s 1972 book forecast many things about the economy and energy sector, almost all of which were wrong obviously by 1980.
Reference for my 5:01am post
http://pjmedia.com/blog/climategate-obamas-science-adviser-confirms-the-scandal-%E2%80%94-unintentionally/
dayday says:
February 14, 2014 at 12:29 pm
The same propaganda is being preached here in the UK.
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Good clip. Great example of MSM pushing a message (climate change) onto people who are already traumatised by the bad weather, or know someone who is. Really cynical, nasty piece of national mind control.
They just had to do it,didn’t they. First the PM, then the Met Office then dutifully folllowed through by the corporate lapdog media (Channel 4 News Science Editor, no less). They are milking this crisis to support their climate change cause (agenda), which is pretty sickening really.
As Rahm Emmanuel said “you never want a serious crisis to go to waste”:
as Judith Curry and many others seem to think.
Didn’t need to add that, willis.
James Strom says:
“Reference Pages”/”Climatic Phenomena”. It’s quite helpful if you’re involved in a discussion and want to scan historical trends quickly. Thanks, Anthony
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I didn’t know that page was there. It’s excellent and really comprehensive.
Excellent job WUWT. Graphs will be getting pinned to notice boards…. and my mate (whose 15 year old daughter was recently subjected to Al Gore’s movie of lies at a Scottish school) will be getting the link as well.
Kevin Kilty says on February 15, 2014 at 9:50 am
Holdren’s 1972 book forecast many things about the economy and energy sector, almost all of which were wrong obviously by 1980.
____________
Correct Kevin.
What the politicians, the public and the press studiously ignore is that NONE of these alarmists have a credible predictive track record.
All their scary predictions have failed to materialize, and that means they are proven incompetents, and that means that no intelligent person should listen to them.
One has to wonder how so thoroughly EVIL an individual as Holdren could gain the influence he has. The villain he calls to mind is one Julius Streicher, well known as the ultimate sadist among the Nazis.
Somehow, the word must be got out to the public concerning this man’s genocidal intentions.