I have some important work to do today, and so I’m going to put my interaction with WUWT on hold for a bit. However, I see here an opportunity to ask a question I have been pondering for quite some time. Please help me out by answering the question and discussing it. Of course other things within site policy are fair game too.
As of late, we have seen climate skepticism portrayed in many derogatory ways. The juvenile sliming by Stephan Lewandowsky, Mike Marriott, and John Cook is a good example: they tried to use science as a bully pulpit to paint climate skeptics as crazy people, much like what happened with politcal dissent in Soviet Russia. In the Soviet Union, a systematic political abuse of psychiatry took place and was based on the interpretation of political dissent as a psychiatric problem.
Except, Lew and company were caught out, and called out by Frontiers.
Why did this happen? Well, I think part of it has to do with the loose-knit nature of climate skepticism. While the climate debate is often along political lines, climate skepticism is something that crosses those lines. I find that skepticism can be just as strong with some people on the left side of the political spectrum once they allow themselves to be open to the facts, rather than just accepting agitprop fed to them.
There’s no official position or representative body for climate skepticism. While players like Dr. Mann and the criminal actor Peter Glieck would like to argue that the Heartland Institute, “Big Oil, Big Coal”, and the #Kochmachine are the unifying forces behind climate skepticsm, nothing could be further from the truth. Mostly, climate skepticism is about a personal journey, not one that came from an organization.
I’m a good example. I used to be fully engaged with the idea that we had to do something about CO2, and Dr. James Hansen in 1988 was the impetus for that. I remember vividly watching his testimony on the sat feed at the TV station and thinking to myself that this really is serious. It wasn’t until later that I realized his science was so weak he and his sponsor had to resort to stagecraft by turning off the air conditioner and opening windows to make people sweat. It was the original sin of noble cause corruption. Now with my own work on the surfacestations project and what I’ve learned about climate sensitivity via the WUWT experience, and witnessing the IPPC and its foibles and how Climategate showed dissension behind the scenes, I no longer see climate change as the threat I once did back in 1988.
But, that’s my journey, others may differ.
People like Lewandowsky were able to make their claims stick because with climate skepticsm, it is all about that personal journey, there’s no organization, no policy statement, no cohesiveness of opinion that anyone can point to and say “this is what climate skeptics endorse”. While there’s strength in that heterogeneity, there’s also a weakness in that it allows people like Lewandowsky to brand climate skeptics as he sees fit.
So after some years of thinking about this, I’d like to ask this simple question:
Is it time for an “official” climate skeptics organization, one that produces a policy statement, issues press releases, and provides educational guidance?
In the UK, The Global Warming Policy Foundation provides much of that, and they have been successful in those areas, but it is UK centric.
So please answer the poll and let me know.
lsvalgaard, is not WUWT organized promotion of scepticism? If Warmists are wrong about global surface temperature projections for the rest of this century then organized promotion of AGW scepticism has to be good. If we followed your advise decades ago we would be driving solar powered trucks and living in caves.
“Our best science indicates” that they don’t know or have a best guess. 1C and 6C per doubling is no use for any policy maker. Have you had a good think about that statement of yours? If I were a policy maker I would see this as akin to telling me that tomorrow will either be a heatwave or bloody freezing. Utter, useless garbage. If they don’t know then they should shut up and tell us that things will be bad anyway. GIGO.
Jimbo
““Our best science indicates” that they don’t know or have a best guess.
1. That has been true for many scientifically difficult questions. Look at the history of measuring the speed of light.
2. The science actually DOES indicate a median value. They refused to state it.
3. You are defining what can be known by refering to the shortcomings of others. you do not seek knowledge, you seek to score points.
“1C and 6C per doubling is no use for any policy maker. ”
1. you dont know that.
2. Its immaterial to the truth of the statement. Take the example of earthquakes. We have little clue
when they will hit or how big they are. A broad estimate can be useful.
3. You dont get to decide what policy makers find useful. For example, If I were a policy maker a
range of 1 to 6 would be very useful. How? simple. As a policy maker I have to make decisions
under uncertainty. Yup. I get to decide as a policy maker. I can decide to plan for 3C. I dont
need science to tell me this is the truth. I get to decide along with other policy makers. Note
we make decisions ALL THE TIME based on shakier knowledge. This war planning
“Have you had a good think about that statement of yours? If I were a policy maker I would see this as akin to telling me that tomorrow will either be a heatwave or bloody freezing. Utter, useless garbage. If they don’t know then they should shut up and tell us that things will be bad anyway. GIGO.”
Yes I have had a good think about it. In fact, policy makers rather like the formulation. The difference between 1C and 6C is not the difference between freezing and boiling. Most policy folks will hear 1-6 and focus on the upper end. Guess what? they absolutely get to do that and they dont need any justification.
Others focus on the lower end and they too get to that. Guess what? Jimbo… they dont listen to you.
They dont read your work or ask you questions. Why? because you are a know nothing. Sorry
While the frayed rope is still open, I thought I’d give a Tesla update; almost two hours old now.
I had previously reported that the model S uses a single electric motor, plus a rotary three phase AC inverter.
Just discovered that is NOT the case. The three phase AC inversion is in fact all solid state; it is just packaged in a cylindrical can that is the same size and shape as the single three phase AC motor. Variable frequency of course, with up to 20,000 electric RPMs, and a 9.xx:1 step down via spur gear and mechanical differential.
So 85 KWh is the top model and they claim a 260 mile EPA range.
Also claim they have 85 fast charging stations (30 min) in the USA.
I told the guy, I have 85 fast charging gas stations right here in Sunnyvale.
So it looks like they are moving along, of course on taxpayer greased skids.
I told the guy, that since they had SS AC inverters, I would not buy their car, until they get rid of the mechanical differential, and put in two electric motors, and two AC inverters, so they could have automatic wheel torque balancing, including anti-skid. And if they get rid of the differential housing, they get plenty of space to put the rear brakes inboard, and get them off the rear wheels for better ride.
Now the battery coolant system, I had seen before as a simple liquid cooled radiator dump, system, that seemed to have a vulnerable radiator location; is more complex. I think it may be integrated with the air conditioning system, so it is a real refrigerator system, not a passive radiator. Well why ?? are the batteries that inefficient, that they generate a lot of heat ?
Well NO, and YES.
The gas station rapid charger, clearly charges the battery, at a very high charging current rate; in fact it is likely limited by the permissible Temperature rise; so that fancy refrigerator, really works full bore during rapid charge, when presumably the car is not moving. And underway, the battery heat is modest under power or under regenerative braking, so it can be used for air conditioning.
Actually, it is seeming an even better design, the more I learn about it.
I hope they fired that guy who told me earlier that it has a rotary inverter. Made no sense whatever then, and even less now.
So I should save all my pennies, for when they 86 the differential, and go to two motors and alternators.
An all wheel drive version is coming. Even more reason to dump the differential, and go to four wheel inboard disk brakes as well (in AWD models.
Hey they are doing regenerative braking anyway, so they only need mechanical brakes for dead stop and panic stop situations, so they can use more compact brakes, and put them inboard to further reduce the unsprung weight.
There is a general opinion blog in Prince George British Columbia called Opinion 250. I referenced a link to WUWT and a commenter called Gus considered WUWT funny. This coming Friday is called Friday Free For All, anyone want to join me to answer Gus.
Jimbo says:
April 20, 2014 at 3:42 pm
lsvalgaard, is not WUWT organized promotion of scepticism?
WUWT is a disorganized [as it should be], loose meeting place. Many of the comments here should itself be met with utmost skepticism [planets causing sunspots, lunar nutation causing oceans to slosh causing climate change, solar magnetic fields causing flows in the Earth’s core, mysterious solar cycle interruptions, claims of prediction thousands of years ahead, etc, etc] dwarfing even the wildest AGW claims. So, WUWT is a good training ground for honing your skepticism.
I’m opposed to to an organization for a simple reason.
If you read this site, you were once a young child. You may now have children, but, regardless, the first question out of your mouth as a child was probably ‘WHY?’ It’s natural, it’s innate, it’s hard-wired into our being. The CAGW crowd has missed that basic fact and it it condemns them to eventual failure. They are trying to ban the questions from being asked, the germination of the natural inquisitiveness, the search for knowledge.
We may all have different reasons for being opposed to the CAGW crowd. I don’t need to belong to a group to ask ‘WHY?’. We are in the skeptics camp because of our questioning, not because of the flavor of skepticism that we’ve come to accept. Instead we’ve adopted an on-going search for knowledge, either because we are truly undecided or do not believe the CAGW crowd.
I was asked by a student who was graduating a basic question for the future. “How do you know who to believe?” I told him to:
1. Don’t ever believe anything you hear, including from me. Instead look and study for yourself.
2. Follow the money. Money doesn’t follow the truth, it follows the power. That will give you an idea of where the vested interests are, then you can decide for yourself if those in power are trustworthy or corrupt.
Well aren’t we all getting testy.
No way I have time to read most of the comments. But I checked out a few, and this one caught my eye:
Terry Oldberg says:
April 19, 2014 at 10:53 am
The need is for a grass roots political organization that lobbies for creation of a logical and scientific basis for policy making on CO2 emissions replacing the illogical and pseudo-scientific basis that now exists..
I agree, and I think that there is one thing that nearly all skeptics agree on, and that is that the policy making process is completely screwed up.
I voted yes, because I think the organization could work if it focused on this issue. The policy statement would be heavy on promotion of things like the depoliticization of government organizations such as NOAA and NASA. Press releases and educational guidance would also focus on such things. Discussion of science in the latter two would be entirely appropriate, but would mostly be about pointing out flaws in the science produced by the politicized processes, rather than promoting any particular brand of climate skepticism.
To the extent WUWT continues to inspire an extremely argumentative joy de vive it is the perfect organization of intellects. I hereby name it Universitas Scepticus Antonius.
Argue on . . .
John
Personally, I don’t think it’s such a good idea to play into their tactics.
RULE 12: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.)
Rules for Radicals → Saul D. Alinsky
Isn’t the NIPCC of Fred Singer organized in 2003 for this purpose?
Why make it easy for the warmists by giving them one target to attack and discredit?
Climate skeptics are not a monolithic block. While most appear to be on the conservative side politically, not all are, and many would be alienated by an organization with mostly conservative leadership.
A clearinghouse of information would be somewhat beneficial, I think. It would allow skeptics to cite current and accurate information on the subject. This would aid in countering the claims of the warmists, but might in the end have little impact. It has been my experience that, when faced with irrefutable data, warmists will simply call you a liar and storm off. It was never the data that was important to them and they don’t want to be confused. AGW has become a religion, and the only way to purge it is to supplant it with another religion.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
Mahatma Gandhi
CAGW is at the beginning of the end stage of its absurd existence. After ignoring and laughing at skeptics for decades, the empirical evidence against the CAGW hypothesis has become so overwhelming, the warmunists are now desperately fighting skeptics to keep their silly scam going for a few more years.
The warmunists will get a 2-year break during the next El Nino cycle starting later this year, but once it’s followed by a La Nina event, the flat/falling global temp trend will be into its 22nd year, at which point, any further assertion that CAGW is a viable hypothesis will be untenable.
According to a recent Gallop poll, only 31% (down from 43% in 2007) of Americans think CAGW is serious threat and within 4 years, this number could easily fall to below 25%. At such a low and falling level of support, politicians will eventually view CAGW as a political liability and will be forced to abandon it and find another crisis to propagandize.
My opinion is that leftist will devote all their time and energy to ye ol’ tried and true tactic of class warfare propaganda. Perhaps on purpose, governments’ CAGW policies have destroyed the Western industrial sector, which has created a growing number of poor, which they can easily exploit.
Since this is an open thread I just wanted to record the FIA’s judgement on Red Bull Racing’s Ricciardo’s disqualification at the Australian Grand Prix. You may remember that their fuel monitoring system failed so they had to show by other means that they had used no more than the allowed amount of fuel. The FIA’s judgement was:
“It added that Red Bull’s attempt to prove they did not exceed 100kg/hour was insufficient and relied ‘on a software model’.”
Perhaps we should have the FIA pronounce judgement on the IPCC?
(details at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/motorsport/formulaone/10775982/Red-Bull-did-not-deliberately-cheat-during-Australian-Grand-Prix-says-FIA.html)
My answer is no. There is a huge spectrum of opinions amongst the ‘sceptics’. They are mostly independant thinkers who have come to a personal opinion based on ‘hand weighing’ pieces of evidence, arguments and intuitions. I would probably not feel represented by a one size fits all movement of ‘luke warmers’. My personal view is relatively extreme it seems.
I seriously doubt the existence of gradual ‘warming’ since the industrial revolution. The only reliable measurements we have are from satellites since 1979. From these measurements we see current temperatures being higher than the ones measured in 1979 but there is no clear trend. There seem to be step changes in 1998 or thereabouts. Could be some error, year 2000 correction perhaps? Furthermore the variability on a month by month basis is enormous. Altogether, also given the short time span, inconclusive in my opinion. The measurements on land (and on sea) are notoriously unreliable, biased by urbanisation effects, hopelessly incomplete and seemingly tampered with by NOA, CRU and similar organisations.
The only phenomenon I am inclined to accept is the steady rise of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, probably due to human emissions. Whether this rise has a descernable upward effect on temperature I seriously doubt. Arrhenius retracted his findings in this respect and concluded he had not measured CO2 effects but the effect of water vapour. Furthermore I would argue the super tiny theoretical temperature effect of CO2 would be dwarfed by convection, water vapour condensation, etc. very much like the mechanisms as proposed by Eschenbach. The theory of run away heating through positive feedback of this tiny theoretical CO2 effect on water vapour etc. I consider a laughable highly improbable long shot.
There is nothing measureably out of the ordinary going on at all in my opinion. We have no reliable long term data. We simply don’t know.
Just because your enemy uses tanks and poison gas doesn’t mean you should.
The only way the vast majority of that sections of the public that is still able to think independently is going to come to a sceptical viewpoint is by explaining the issues.
There are plenty of places where the issues are explained.
Creating a propaganda unit like an Anti-Greenpeace of whatever to directly lobby government lays you open to the charge of being more interested in winning arguments and bending policy, than the truth, and funded by [whoever is funding you].
The strength of the ‘sceptic’ movement’ is that it is dispersed, it has no centre, its has nothing that CAN be attacked beyond smearing its diverse members with the ‘denier’ term and claiming they are all paid for by Big Oil..
Sceptics dont want to affect government policy to make money. Sceptics want to stop people making money out of government policy.
Steven Mosher says:
April 20, 2014 at 11:51 am
“Anthony would benefit from making clear what he believes”
—————————————————————————-
Anthony keeps an open mind.
In that he has demonstrated one very important thing.
He is smarter than you are Steven 😉
I regard Climatechangeology as a religion like Scientology or a secular religion like Communism or Environmentalism. People who believe in such things cannot have their minds changed by valid reasoning so any organization to combat such beliefs would be a waste of time and effort. An intervention may be needed but Mother Nature is the only one who can provide it.
Come on, Mosh and Anthony are both very smart.
Besides, some of the worst of the alarmists could eat me for breakfast. Sometimes high intelligence is an actual drawback. The really high IQ crowd just loves the counterintuitive, and that all too often leads them badly astray. Q.E.D. They often eschew the practical. (Carter vs. Reagan springs forcibly to mind.)
Every now and then you get a startling exception to the rule and you get all kinds of practical brilliance. (Feynman and Herman Kahn being excellent examples.)
Regular good intelligence combined with a grounding in common sense make excellent bedfellows. Especially in combination with scientific discipline.
Steven Mosher says:
April 20, 2014 at 4:28 pm
You don’t actually believe that, you’re just posting fantastic nonsense to score points in some bizarre game you play here.
Pithy! I wonder if the person who wrote this actually reads what he writes before he hits “Post Comment”. He might try it once in a while.
I voted “yes” because what scepticism lacks is branding. Alarmists don’t argue with facts, they argue with glossy sound bites.
The sceptic message is thick on facts, thin on re-tweetables.
Well, I have another idea of what to call this venue of Anthony’s.
The Academe of Individual Skeptical Reasoning AISR
Actually, it already does exist so it is formal/official no matter what it is named.
John
The conflict between climate activism and climate skepticism is unresolvable.
On one side are the politicians – those who use Rhetoric (in the classic Greek sense) and emotion to persuade people lacking in critical thinking skills in an effort to accept their premise and their promise of a solution (if you just hand over control to *us*) and thus increase their own self-esteem, personal assets and control over others.
On the other side are the honest scientists – those who use the scientific method and Logic (also in the classic Greek sense) to test assertions against reproducible empirical evidence and, using critical thinking, to determine the truth or falsity of propositions regarding the observable universe in ways that will lead to improved understanding of the universe through demonstrable hypotheses and theories.
The hope for the Future lies in the accumulation of good data and the erosion of bad hypotheses by their own failures to describe the universe.
tadchem says:
April 21, 2014 at 11:27 am
– – – – – – – –
A well constructed statement.
Thanks you.
John