With apologies to Morris Albert.
Joe Duggan. A “science communicator”, writes on his blog:
What follows are the words of real scientists. Researchers that understand climate change.
Kevin Walsh
Associate Professor and Reader, School of Earth Sciences
University of Melbourne 
I wish that climate change were not real.
This seems like a strange thing for a climate scientist to say, but it’s true.
If climate change were not real, we would not have to be concerned about it. We wouldn’t have to worry about the future of our water resources, already strained by over population. We wouldn’t have to worry about sea level rise increasing the flooding of our coastal cities and of low–lying, densely–populated areas of poor countries. Above all, we wouldn’t have to worry about climate change being yet another source of conflict in an already tense world.
Life would be so much simpler if climate change didn’t exist. But as scientists, we don’t have the luxury of pretending.
Kevin Walsh
Associate Professor and Reader
School of Earth Sciences
University of Melbourne
Anthony Richardson
Climate Change Ecologist
The University of Queensland
How climate change makes me feel.
I feel a maelstrom of emotions
I am exasperated. Exasperated no one is listening.
I am frustrated. Frustrated we are not solving the problem.
I am anxious. Anxious that we start acting now.
I am perplexed. Perplexed that the urgency is not appreciated.
I am dumbfounded. Dumbfounded by our inaction.
I am distressed. Distressed we are changing our planet.
I am upset. Upset for what our inaction will mean for all life.
I am annoyed. Annoyed with the media’s portrayal of the science.
I am angry. Angry that vested interests bias the debate.
I am infuriated. Infuriated we are destroying our planet.
But most of all I am apprehensive. Apprehensive about our children’s future.
Associate Professor
Anthony J. Richardson
Climate Change Ecologist
Dr Ailie Gallant
School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment
Monash University
Dear Joe,
I feel nervous. I get worried and anxious, but also a little curious. The curiosity is a strange, paradoxical feeling that I sometimes feel guilty about. After all, this is the future of the people I love.
I get frustrated a lot; by the knowns, the unknowns, and the lack of action. I get angry at the invalid opinions that are all-pervasive in this age of indiscriminant information, where evidence seems to play second fiddle to whomever can shout the loudest. I often feel like shouting…
But would that really help? I feel like they don’t listen anyway. After all, we’ve been shouting for years.
I hate feeling helpless. I’m ashamed to say that, sometimes, my frustration leads to apathy. I hate feeling apathetic.
But sometimes I read things, or see things, from individuals, from communities like ‘1 million solar panels installed in Australian homes”, and optimism tickles.
I will keep doing my work. I will keep shouting in my own little way. I will be optimistic that we will do something about this, collectively. I live in hope that the climate changes on the graphs that I stare into every day wont be as bad as my data tells me, because we worked together to find a solution. All I can hope is that people share my optimism and convert it into Action.
Kind Regards,
Dr Ailie Gallant
School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment
Monash University.
Professor Andrew Pitman
Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science
Dear Jo,
You ask me how climate change makes me feel.
I do not have a single answer.
In equal measure, climate change makes me feel frustrates that my community cannot overcome ignorance and apathy. I feel scared that I cannot trigger action. I feel scared about what the future brings. But most of all, to be honest, I feel challenged by the science, I feel invigorated by how bright my group is and I feel very lucky that each day brings new challenges to confront and sometimes to overcome.
A.J. Pitman
Professor, Climate Science at UNSW.
Dr Sarah Perkins
Climate Scientist, Extreme Events Specialist
University of New South Wales.
My Dear Friend,
For sometime now I’ve been terribly worried. I wish I didn’t have to acknowledge it, but everything I have feared is happening. I used to think I was paranoid, but it’s true. She’s slipping away from us. She’s been showing signs of acute illness for quite a while, but no one has really done anything. Her increased erratic behaviour is something I’ve especially noticed. Certain behaviours that were only rare occurrences are starting to occur more often, and with heightened anger. I’ve tried to highlight these changes time and time again, as well as their speed of increase, but no one has paid attention.
It almost seems everyone has been ignoring me completely, and I’m not sure why. Is it easier to pretend there’s no illness, hoping it will go away? Or because they’ve never had to live without her, so the thought of death is impossible? perhaps they cannot see they’ve done this to her. We all have.
To me this is all false logic. How can you ignore the severe sickness of someone you are so intricately connected to and dependent upon. How can you let your selfishness and greed take control, and not protect and nurture those who need it most? How can anyone not feel an overwhelming sense of care and responsibility when those so dear to us are so desperately ill? How can you push all this to the back of your mind? This is something I will never understand. Perhaps I’m the odd one out, the anomaly of the human race. The one who cares enough, who has the compassion, to want to help make her better.
The thing is we can make her better!! If we work together, we can cure this terrible illness and restore her to her old self before we exploited her. But we must act quickly, we must act together. Time is ticking, and we need to act now.
Yours faithfully,
Dr Sarah Perkins
Climate Scientist, Extreme Events Specialist.
The University of New South Wales.
Emeritus Professor Tony McMichael
National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health
Australian National University, College of Medicine, Biology and Environment
Dear Joe
It’s hard to imagine that people are doing so much damage to the natural world. It’s sad when a society like ours can’t see further than its bank balance and stumbles blindly into a future when children won’t be able to enjoy the flowing rivers, mountain snow, coloured birds and bush animals. Don’t we have any responsibility for other creatures, forests and rivers? I’m rather ashamed of our behaviour.
It seems so silly to go on behaving like this – though, from hearing our politicians speak, it seems that making and consuming more and more is the point of life. Surely the dreadful heat we have suffered from in recent heatwaves, and the awful bushfires that have terrified rural communities in the past couple of years are telling us that something is going very wrong.
Scientist friends say it’s probably because we’re making the world hotter by adding ‘greenhouse gases’ into the air. So we are seriously harming the world around us and yet we understand how!
It’s really sad that some of our local children seem quite puzzled and worried by what they see on TV bout this and hearing what adults say. I hope my family and our community can try and help solve these frightening problems.
Sincerely,
Tony McMichael
Emeritus Professor, Australian National University
Climate Change Research Centre, University of New South Wales
Knowing how much is at stake, knowing that I am one of the few people who understand the magnitude of the consequences and then realizing that most of the people around me are oblivious. Some of the people are not only oblivious, they also do not want to understand. They have made up their mind, maybe based on the opinion of someone they trust, someone in their family, or a friend, maybe based on a political conviction, but certainly not based on facts.
It makes me feel sick. Looking at my children and realizing that they won’t have the same quality of life we had. Far from it. That they will live in a world facing severe water and food shortages, a world marked by wars caused by the consequences of climate change.
It makes me feel sad. And it scares me. It scares me more than anything else. I see a group of people sitting in a boat, happily waving, taking pictures on the way, not knowing that this boat is floating right into a powerful and deadly waterfall. It is still time to pull out of the stream. We might lose some boat equipment but we might be able to save the people in the boat. But no one acts.
Time is running out.
Associate Professor Katrin Meissner
ARC Future Fellow
Professor Lesley Hughes
Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University
Founding Member of the Australian Climate Council
I became a professional biologist because I just loved animals – watching them, catching them, studying them. I was the kid whose bedroom was full of jars and boxes of things that crawled and slithered and hopped. The notion that I could actually be paid for doing this, as an adult, was truly wonderful.
But where to for our species in the future? Our biodiversity is our life support system, each species a precious support system, each species a precious, irreplaceable heritage item. We have harvested and cleared and plundered and spoiled. Every year our natural capital declines a bit more as we squander our heritage and rob our descendants.
And now we have this new threat, likely to be the biggest one of all.
Climate change is likely to become the biggest species killer ever, impoverishing our planet and our race.
We have so much to lose.
Prof. Lesley Hughes
Dr Alex Sen Gupta
Climate Change Research Centre, University of New South Wales
How does it make me feel?
I feel frustrated. The scientific evidence is overwhelming. We know what’s going on, we know why it’s happening, we know how serious things are going to get and still after so many years, we are still doing practically nothing to stop it.I feel betrayed by our leaders who show no leadership and who place ideology above evidence, willing to say anything to peddle their agendas – leaders who are at best negligent and at worst complicit in allowing this to happen with full knowledge of likely consequences. I feel bemused. That scientists who have spent years or decades dedicated to understanding how it all works are given the same credibility as poleticians, [sic] media commentators and industry spokes people with obvious vested interests and whose only credential is their ability to read discredited blogs.I feel concerned that unmitigated our inaction will cause terrible suffering to those least able to cope with change and that within my lifetime many of the places that make this planet so special – the snows on Kilimanjaro, the Great Barrier Reef, even the ice covered Arctic will be degraded beyond recognition – our legacy to the next generation.I also feel a glimmer of hope. China and the USA are starting to move in the right direction and beginning to show some global leadership on this issue, even if Australia is backtracking again to a position of laggard and obstructionist.
Alex Sen Gupta
Senior Lecturer (Oceanography)
Climate Change Research Centre
University of New South Wales
Professor Brendan Mackey
Director Of Griffith Climate Change Response Program
I was unable to receive a hand written letter from Professor Mackey, but he kindly contributed the typed copy above.
Dear Earth,
Just a quick note to say thanks so much for the last 4 billion years or so. It’s been great! The planetary life support systems worked really well, the whole biological evolution thing was a nice surprise and meant that humans got to come into being and I got to exist!
I’m really sorry about the last couple of 100 years – we’ve really stuffed things up haven’t we! I though we climate scientist might be able to save the day but alas no one really took as seriously. Everyone wants to keep opening new coal mines and for some reason that escapes me are happy to ignore the fact that natural gas is a fossil fuel. Well, no one can say we didn’t try!
You’re probably quietly happy that “peak human” time has come and gone and it’s kind of all downhill got us now, though I guess you’re more than a bit miffed at what we’ve done to your lovely ecosystem (the forests and corals were a really nice touch by the way) and sorry again for the tigers, sharks etc.
In case you were wondering, our modeling suggests that your global biogeochemical cycles (especially the carbon one) should reach a new dynamic equilibrium in about 100,000 years or so. I guess it will be a bit of a rocky road until then but, oh well, no one said the universe was meant to be stable!
All the best and do try and maintain that “can do” attitude we love so much.
Prof Brendan G. Mackey, PhD
30 July 2014
===============================================================
Two things:
1. Logic (Science) and emotion (feelings) are polar opposites. Mixing the two is a sure recipe for logical disaster. Ref: fMRI reveals reciprocal inhibition between social and physical cognitive domains. NeuroImage, 2012; DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2012.10.061
2. I feel like I want to hurl.
(h/t to Maurizio Morabito)
-Anthony
Are these people all seeing the same psychiatrist?
I stopped reading at “Researchers that understand climate change”. No such animal exists.
Even if the question asked them to focus on their feelings it is still showing that these professionals are unbalanced and highly out of touch with reality. The misanthropic prejudice, the self-absorbed,self declared importance of how they see their work, the short term hysterical perspective they have on what climate is doing at this time. All their words illustrate while many of them are undoubtedly at an emotional level sincere, their work feeds their emotions, not their reason.
SDS – self delusional scientists.
“Dr Sarah Perkins
Climate Scientist, Extreme Events Specialist
University of New South Wales.
My Dear Friend,
For sometime now I’ve been terribly worried. I wish I didn’t have to acknowledge it, but everything I have feared is happening. I used to think I was paranoid, but it’s true. ”
I would love to bold everything twice. I so love this. Hey they couldn’t have gotten anyone more predestined for that job. She must be so fun to watch.
Oh Dear,
I do hope Santa replies.
My (sur)namesake, Prof Brendan Mackey is a modeller it seems. I make my living from programming computer systems, usually trading systems for bonds and options. I know very well how computers can so very easily spue rubbish. Anyone remember Long Term Capital Management?
@Prof Brendan, I would look at that for an example of very misplaced faith in models.
Some parts of Australian science aren’t what they used to be. I never regret that I dropped out of my PhD (at ANU) on modelling back in 1990.
Pity he didn’t ask them if they had any empirical evidence that the current climate change is not natural. If they did have some good empirical evidence then they would probably get they action that they desire.
Sniff, sniff…. sniffle…….. I feel so emotional. My fellow, educated Australians writing such heart rending insights into their humanity. As an an alumnus of USNW …. I so FEEEEL (sob sob) for these scientists now putting their hearts and souls into saving us from potential catastrophic and anthropogenically caused climate change…. NOT.
What an obviously orchestrated bit of utterly childish drivel. It shows the sniffling, self important little sook level at which these disgusting creeps are prepared to operate at to get their way and maintain their status and privilege..
Honestly, it is like listening to paedophile priests saying bring unto me the little childrem….
Dear Earth, I think it’s high time you had a clearout of your “friends” list. Stay cool bro. Love Tommy xxx.
I suppose when you have no understanding of thermodynamics, heat & mass transfer and fluid dynamics (which are engineering subjects and under pin analysis of climate and weather) and your job hinges on other peoples assumptions which could be shown to be incorrect (in fact can be proved to be incorrect) then you could be worried about the your future, you could be anxious. Not one of these so-called scientists has appropriate qualifications, experience or understanding. Those who live in Queensland could be in breach of the Professional Engineers Act (applies to everyone in Queensland including the Crown) and the Public Sector Ethics Act (applies to Universities, government organisations and contractors to government) which come under the criminal code. Under the Professional Engineers Act to provide an engineering service (which includes analysis of engineering data) one needs to be registered, to be competent in the area of your service and comply with a code of ethics.
There is a common reaction in the letters. They are frustrated no one believes them. The truth is they are ineffectual in making the case for their opinions to prevail. Appeal to authority positions are notorious for generating pushback yet they seem surprised by the reaction.
I feel like they are sincere, emotional, and wrong….. The fragile earth they have constructed is not the real earth, but the virtual earth made by computer. I also feel that anything that happens in the world is the fault of mans action in their minds, and that this self loathing has crippled their scientific point of view.
I feel happy to be a geologist with a longer perspective.
I feel concerned that mitigation efforts to prepare for the colder climate coming are not being done.
What a synchronised load of nonsense. And to think that this group of sad souls might be also wondering about their own livelihoods as the Government is shedding some of the wasteful fat that clings to the soft parts of the Australian Universities.
Why can’t these people just get together with Bob Geldof, do a We are the Climate Saviors rock tour, sell a few T-Shirts, feel all warm and fuzzy, be done with it and leave the rest of society out of their non-sense?
This post is the most embarrassing I’ve read on WUWT; all that chunder inducing waffle came from Australian academics?
How many mincers are we breeding in the lucky country today?
The only small comfort is that none of those sob stories were signed by professors from my old University; one of whom observed during a talkback show on a local outpost of ABC radio that anyone frightened of the reported rise in the atmospheric concentration of CO2 should panic when ever they opened a can of Coke in their longue room, at which point the call was disconnected because of ‘technical difficulties’ and the talking head from Greenpeace got started.
… real scientists. Researchers that understand climate change.
😀
Thanks for the mention Anthony. This sad story suggests a specific kind of individual is attracted to research climate change for a living. But hey, I am no Lewandosky, what do I know about psychology.
Furthermore it indicates science communicators are as effective and as attached to the world as community organizers, one of whom has been wreaking havoc the world over since promising change a few years ago. But again, what do I know the Nobel Peace Prize committee wouldn’t know already.
You almost want to feel sorry for the poor sadly deluded (read indoctrinated) “scientists” … until you realize that their favorite solution to their personal dilemma is to end or diminish YOUR existence in order to improve THEIR OWN.
This is wonderful. If these people are disappointed and frustrated that we are not stupid enough to fund and support solutions suggested by models that have lost all touch with reality, maybe there is still hope. Phillip K Dick defined reality for us, “Reality is everything that doesn’t go away when you stop believing in it”. Delusion is believing something to be true despite all evidence pointing to the contrary.
When science and facts don’t cut the mustard …. try emotion !!
cue tears
Based on existing real-life date, I believe that a hurricane could inflict immense physical damage and could result in many deaths. I feel very sad about the prospect of these things actually happening.
Could anyone tell me how these two things are incompatible: my belief about the destructive power of a hurricane (based on real life data) and my feelings as a result.
I don’t see why these people should not have the feelings they state. Do any of them state that their understanding of climate change is based on those feelings? Is it not that their feelings are based on their understanding of climate change?
So, by all means slate them for their understanding of climate change but let’s not criticise where criticism is not due.
This is why we have Schadenfraude
I feel sick.
Astounding, these people have doctorates? Really? Do these people really go home and cry into their pillow every night, wailing at the injustice of being ignored and ridiculed because their piss ass models refuse to work? THIS.IS.COMPLETELY.F’ING.INSANE!!
All jobsworths worried about keeping their sinecures.
“1 million solar panels installed in Australian homes”
Installed IN homes??? I suppose it will make them easier to clean. And, like in Spain, they will generate power after dark – just turn on the light, and hey presto!
I notice there are no geologists in this unhappy collection
Marose says:
August 21, 2014 at 3:52 am
Are these people all seeing the same psychiatrist?
Exactly! If they feel all those they should be a UK structural engineer! They have it easy me thinks!
“2. I feel like I want to hurl.”
The effects of hurling on “climate change” have yet to be quantified.
“I used to think I was paranoid, but it’s true. ”
It is true – you are paranoid. We have an accord.
Bizarre to read these weeping souls bemoaning that they are being completely ignored by everyone and politicians will do nothing, whereas a few minutes ago I was reading about how as an EU resident, from next month I cannot buy a vacuum cleaner with a motor more powerfull than 1600W, and that by 2017 I will be limited to 900W cleaners.
Isn’t this politicians “doing something”?
It is natural for a liberal mind to think and feel on the emotional level, and natural to believe that “feeling” makes them a better person than those who do not “feel”. Nothing new here
I often wake up from a Climate Change nightmare, usually involving trying to explain the science to someone. I used to worry about Climate Change, back when it was global cooling. Now my concern is that these charlatans will get away with this junk science. But I have a plan, and I just spent a chunk of money improving my computer hardware to increase my productivity on software development for my plans implementation.
P.S. You can participate in the feelings here :
http://isthishowyoufeel.weebly.com/how-do-you-feel.html
“I get worried and anxious, but also a little curious. The curiosity is a strange, paradoxical feeling that I sometimes feel guilty about. ”
That’s the problem right there. A scientist who feels guilty about feeling curious.
Intellectual curiosity is the foundation of science. It’s the source of all discoveries and inventions.( “I wonder why…? I wonder if…?”)
A scientist who has been brainwashed into feeling guilty about feeling curious isn’t practicing science, whatever else s/he might be doing. It might be scienc-y,with graphs and papers and conferences and stuff, but it’s not science.
If our Australian friends are a little embarrassed by this, I do have something complimentary to say about these esteemed researchers.
They do have good handwriting.
Australian academia should be proud of its achievements.
That last guy has beautiful handwriting; way ahead of the scribblers.
Wonderful additional example of straight up desperate bargaining stage of grief, as they project the ongoing collapse of their own world view out onto the whole planet and the culture that surrounds them. In this stage, prior to depression, they are indeed expected to double down on dumb, to grasp for anything they can to restore their former stages of first denial and then anger, and only after depression will they be able to accept that they enabled a scam to balloon into a madness of crowds self-organizing money pit which they cashed in on for both money and fame compared to having the same old boring careerist third rate scientific careers. It was Climategate and hide the decline and threats of data destruction done did it, pah, not apathy or denial or big oil money misinformation. At this late stage, every one of these people cannot deny being fully aware that nearly all the major headline claims turned out to be fraudulent, coming out of the central mafia like hockey stick team, Steig’s red Antarctica and now Marcott’s faux vindication of Michael Mann’s life work being bold examples. Their real demon is the upcoming youthful backlash against them and indeed loss of family income, as their halos turn into horns in the eyes of a generation of indoctrinates who didn’t expect science itself to willfully deceive them.
Re 1:
Climate scientists should have their emotions surgically removed, then they’d see the truth.
Re 2: “I feel like I want to hurl.”
Me too, Tony, not because of the same reason as you, but
I’d be crying too, if I’d planned on being on a good thing until the end of my days, and the end was looming well before I expected. Poor things, I guess a degree in climate quackery might get them a good job flipping burgers.
What a bunch of emotional little sissies. For God’s sake grow up
Science is so hard that very few scientists can do it. Unfortunately, very few of us non-scientists realize that.
This is why rational arguments and scientific evidence have so little effect on this crowd. You are going to tell a group ofdelusional paranoid narcissists with delusions of grandeur that the problems are all in their heads?
This is why they go on about mass funding conspiracies – to them, the very fact that anyone is against them is PROOF of a conspiracy. They FEEL that there is a vast conspiracy opposing them, so there MUST be one.
This conflict will never end with the warmists changing their minds – they are as incapable of that as they are incapable of gaining control of their emotions. Thorazine or prozac would have far more of an effect on their positions than any hard evidence we can show ever will.
In actual fact, the whole scare of AGW is about feelings. Not science. Mann’s “feelings” were hurt so he is suing everyone and everything. We must “feel” for the endangered species (except when minced or fricasseed by non Fossil fuel energy generation). We must feel for the future children. Etc., etc., etc.
Some like to complain about Steven Mosher or Nick Stokes and their view. But thank god at least they discuss the issue from the standpoint of the science, and not “feelings”.
It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, become even more entrenched in your position by scientifically expressing your feelings of disappointment in a cursive writing style while blaming others for their failure to grasp the science, to give your scientific opponents one final chance to voluntarily concede before resorting to the final scientific option, brute force.
The movie ‘Pretty Woman’ was on the other night and what was the main point of that 1990 movie? Do not let emotions get involved in your work. These climastrologers are way too emotional to be doing their job right. Las Vegas casinos would love to welcome these irrational climastrologers into their buildings to gamble. Their model says red is coming up next and they really feel it will.
Alba says:
August 21, 2014 at 4:24 am
Being sad about some tragic event is not the issue here. There will always be tragedy and death in the world (hurricanes, car accidents, cancers), but ‘feeling’ that reducing CO2 is going to change that is beyond ridiculous (and profoundly un-scientific).
The truth is, many of the actions that are proposed to fight CO2 will actually make the world poorer, and less able to cope with climate events like hurricanes, resulting in more tragedy. And that makes me sad.
Is there any particular reason these esteemed scientists with fancy degrees print instead of writing? Most of these letters were as neat as a third grader’s paper. At least compared to when I was in third grade. Then we learned to write. They also make almost as much sense. I expect third graders to let feelings guide their actions.
On a serious note, it is somewhat disheartening to see that some “climate scientists” are expressing their positions in such an emotional manner. Especially when we here on WUWT see real scientists, such as Richard S. Courtney and Dr. Robert G. Brown, express the honest truth that we still don’t know enough regarding our chaotic climate to be losing sleep worrying that “we are all gonna die” because atmospheric CO2 levels have gone from 3 parts in 10,000 to 4 parts in 10,000.
These people are activist’s not scientist’s, these bad actors are trying to prove what they “feel” is true, scientist’s try to disprove theories.
That made for uncomfortable reading.
But what really struck me is that they have all subscribed to the catastrophic variant of AGW. With so much uncertainty emerging around the the influence of CO2 on temperature, they haven’t blinked and remain convinced – literally – that life on this planet is coming to an end.
I pity the sober, rational climate scientists out there. It must be like working with children.
With all that sickly emotionalism, hope they don’t read any climate history & figure out changes are natural and inevitable. Do they weep due to seasonal changes? Day & night?
“I wish that climate change were not real.”
If climate change was not real we would not exist! Luckily it did change and allowed us to evolve.
What a bozo! Clearly deluded but so are most climate “scientists”!!
Kevin Walsh – “I wish climate change were not real”
So where exactly would you like the climate change to stop Kev? During an ice-age or during and inter-glacial? How & why do you propose we do that? Or are you being dramatic?
Perhaps Kev (and all the other fools quoted here) should get back to basics and remember that there’s an A in AGW, and the theory of AGW is suffering right now because the climate doesn’t match that theory.
Climate Scientists seem to be the EMO’s of the scientific community, they certainly don’t seem rational.
These people sound mentally ill.
Let’s define a period as, say 200 years.
Has there ever been a “period” when climate has not changed?
[in reality, I suspect that 200 years is not really a “period”, but is more likely to be best represented as a point on a graph or chart].
Church of Gaia, inspired by the Scriptures detailing the Fall From Grace of its hominids.
‘Cept these would-be “intellectuals” are just back-ups from the choir. They may be singing out of tune, but they sure are on rhythm.
Kurt in Switzerland
Had I not know the identity of the writers, I would have thought I was reading missives from a class of eighth-graders. I think they should call McKibben and Holthaus and have a cry-in.
If the science doesn’t work on us sceptics, maybe pathos will!!
What pathetic, small minded little morons. They certainly need a phyca or a phsyco. Perhaps Loo Papar-donsky can help them while he help himself.
From the referenced paper’s hypothesis – borne out by fMRI studies (my bold): “ these reciprocally inhibitory effects reflect two incompatible cognitive modes, each of which may be directed towards understanding the external world. Thus, engaging one mode activates one set of regions and suppresses activity in the other. We test this hypothesis by identifying two types of problem-solving task which, on the basis of prior work, have been consistently associated with the task positive and task negative regions: tasks requiring social cognition, i.e., reasoning about the mental states of other persons, and tasks requiring physical cognition, i.e., reasoning about the causal/mechanical properties of inanimate objects. “
So if a researcher engages social cognition mode, the researcher’s physical cognition mode will be inhibited. Or in more natural language a researcher who becomes emotional ceases to be scientific.
The letters show that these climate ‘scientists’ are not suited to science due to their emotional cognition overriding their science; also known as noble cause corruption and cherry picking. It certainly seems to explain a lot.
This must be some kind of spoof. Obviously these letters were penned by pre-teens as part of an after school project.
They sound as though they haven’t been exposed to contrarian arguments except in strawman versions. They also sound as though they wouldn’t seek out disconfirming arguments.
What this goes to show, incidentally, is what we have all know for so long now, that climate science has long ceased to be clear headed objective science, but has become the magnet for more and more deranged and delusional thinking. Confirmation bias anyone?
What a bunch of pathetic, spoiled babies.
The saddest part of all this is that these people appear to really believe that humans are causing climate change (climate must have been static in the past I guess), and that this climate change is going to be catastrophic. An honest look at the past shows that there is nothing new going on since the industrial era began. So, these people (trained scientists?) are deluded idiots without a drop of logic in them. That, my friends, is sad.
It was actually a computerized “handwritten” typeface, as the editor acknowledged indirectly:
[But “Graphite” was successfully (?) trying to be iconically italicky about the font used. .mod]
As a Larson fan I would have preferred ” peelings, nothing more than peelings…..”
Although, given my past contributions to FAE development, this may be little inappropriate 😉
”I feel bemused. That scientists who have spent years or decades dedicated to understanding how it all works are given the same credibility as poleticians, [sic] media commentators and industry spokes people with obvious vested interests”
Alex Sen Gupta
Senior Lecturer (Oceanography)
Climate Change Research Centre
University of New South Wales
So, Alex, are you saying you are free of having a vested interest in “Climate Change” while the Climate Change Research Centre pays you?
How many scientists are employed for non-problems compared to the greatest threats ever faced by mankind?
Know your enemy: One reason for the way such believers think as they do is something that is invisible to us contrarians: They are constantly reading magazines, newsletters, and papers, and encountering colleagues, that reinforce the CAGW message. It’s beyond belief to them that so many concerned, trained, and intelligent people could be barking up the wrong tree.
I was about to write these are pathetic, but several beat me to it. But I still vote “pathetic”.
as an Aussie, I’m embarrassed we have so many idiots in Uni teaching/research roles taking the taxpayers funds.
time we culled the ranks obviously.
These were really written by people over the age of 12?
Behold what a liberal, social justice education will produce.
I couldn’t read more than a few page scans of that goop they’re all neurotics. At least the Poms do the stiff upper lip, they don’t just let it all hang out in a display of feeling sorry for themselves for their private self-appointed mission failure to stop the world adapting to itself. Aren’t these people paid to lecture and mark student examination papers and bore each other ‘n stuff? Whence the universal self-appointed Messiah complex? Must we remind you about how that turns out?
I need a group hug and a hot beverage with cinnamon in it.
What is apparent from this is these scientists genuinely believe in man-induced climate change/warming. It is not some kind of scam they are foisting on the rest of us. We should accept the sincerity of their beliefs (as they should accept the sincerity of ours).
They all seem to exhibit some sort of savior of the world complex.
The next time someone dismisses me for ‘not being a climate scientist’, I am going to whip out a box of tissues and start crying. They’ll listen to me then
Dr. Murray Q. Finklebottom:
Dear Joe,
How do I feel about climate change? As you can imagine I’m EXTREMELY worried. The public is catching on that we don’t know what we’re doing. And I’m very concerned that my funding will be cut and that I can’t complete my ground-breaking study on how fruit fly gonads are shrinking due to climate change. I wish it weren’t true. I wish the weather was pleasant everyday – just like it was in the distant past where our climate records began (1981). I wish everyone would give up their money, freedoms and reproductive rights for climate change like me. But our message is not getting through! I just don’t get it – no one reads my tweets or visits my facebook page! It’s as if they’d would rather go about their lives being happy!! HOW CAN THEY BE HAPPY WHEN THE EARTH’S CLIMATE IS RIPPING ITSELF TO SHREDS!!!
yours sincerely,
Murray
/sarc
Everyone should realize that science, like cooking, is a human activity and is therefore rarely if ever dispassionate, disinterested, entirely rational, or objective. As anyone who has run across Michael Mann would already know.
A couple of commentators have caught on to the adolescent nature of these letters. The capture of these remarks for the record is quite a coup. This is classic adolescent clique behavior. I have no idea why it is happening in a major university but clearly it is. It is embarrassing for the Australians reading this blog but I suspect if you look at universities in the U.S. you will find similar cadres of nonsense. CU Boulder comes to mind, and the recent Ohio State University paper on this blog would support that. It is a sad time.
A sign on the classroom wall of Ray B. Potter, physics teacher, Washington High School, Los Angeles, ca. 1950:
There are very few you really think
Among the thinking few.
The others don’t think at all,
They only think they do.
Unions produce some of the strangest behaviors from humans. If there were no thug component to their system there would be more research by psychologists on their processes and effects across societies. But then those are unions of psychologists too.
These all read like middle school kids writing essays on the less fortunate. Each one trying as hard as they can to sound more sorrowful then the next. Each prompted by their teachers to feel guilty about the lives they live when everyone around them is suffering. That only when the government steps and makes everything fair will the world be better.
Only a child would not realize this is training to think collectively and not look at things as individuals and question the group. This is how schools condition kids and socialist try to condition the masses to not think but only feel and respond emotionally with group action. Align everyone emotionally and you no longer have to worry about being questioned, because anyone questioning the group is clearly Amoral and heartless ans should be ridiculed.
Never saw better proof that the communication of emotions should be left to poets, not scientists.
I am over my initial disgust at reading the ridiculous drivel and now just want to laugh.
Being a positive sort of person can I suggest that we all put the word about that until the Science faculties have been properly cleaned out of their current infestation that young people be encouraged to study engineering not science. ( You actually learn the science but also actually understand what it means and even get to apply it).
These are adults? With doctorates and such? Sad.
Gosh, genuine true believers!
Science & stories: Bringing the IPCC to life
Our key recommendation is that the IPCC must use human stories as well as science. Human stories that illustrate the impacts of climate change. And the IPCC authors and key figures should also allow the public an insight into their work, motivations, fears and hopes
http://www.climateoutreach.org.uk/science-stories-bringing-the-ipcc-to-life/
Enabling the messenger: How can the IPCC get its message across to the public?
Human stories about the effects of climate change are also urgently required, the report says. This shouldn’t be the responsibility of the IPCC, it adds. Instead, people should start to use the work of the IPCC to build compelling narratives about the effects of climate change, from forced migration as a result of extreme weather events to local effects felt in daily life.
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2014/05/enabling-the-messenger-how-can-ipcc-climate-scientists-get-their-message-across/
Should we should show empathy to these lost souls. Assure them that we can “feel their pain” ? /sarc
They fear not for us, but for their jobs…
Ball Bounces say
No, what is apparent is that they all are afraid of being seen as not part of the group by saying something different. Notice that they all take exactly the same tact. They feel ashamed for what man has done, they are all embarrassed that they have not been strong enough to make others see their wisdom. They are all willing to subjugate their selves to the cause no matter what the out come, because it is right.
This all screams THE INDIVIDUAL is evil and only as a group can we succeed and do good. A programmed response.
From the School of Messianic Myopia, Department of Climate.
One really wonders about cause and effect here – are these people genuinely worried and sad because they have rationally convinced themselves of impending doom, or does the CAGW meme simply satisfy some deeper longing for existential drama? Given the lack of conclusive scientific evidence, the second alternative seems a lot more plausible.
The great writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn summed up his take on the history wrought by another bunch of mankind’s self-anointed saviours: “A great disaster had befallen Russia: Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.” I’m not religious myself, but it seems to me that the world would indeed be better off if people like these ones would fill their emotional voids with religious fervour than with ambitions to save the real world from itself.
What is most dismaying about these puerile, childish, letters, is that they come from putative ‘academics’, people entrusted with the education of our young. It is obvious they have not the slightest idea that science is about evidence, not about feelings.
Granted, they were responding to the question, “Want to let the world know how climate change makes you feel?” A real scientist might have responded: “The Earth’s climate, and regional climates, are always in flux. I attempt to study and understand the processes that are involved. It is a fascinating area of study, and I feel grateful that someone is paying me to do it.”
But the underlying premise of the question is an ideological one, based on the assumption that “climate change” (formerly “global warming,” except there hasn’t been any lately) is a dire threat requiring urgent government action, and that isn’t happening fast enough to save the world from the coming apocalypse. I suppose if you believed that (and since it is an unfounded belief, with no evidence to support it), you might ‘feel’ that the foundations of your faith are under attack. That could be very disconcerting for a 12-year-old, and that apparently is where these self-labeled ‘scientists’ are, mentally.
/Mr Lynn
Michael Palmer says
They have, their religion is communism.
Looking at my children and realizing that they won’t have the same quality of life we had. Far from it. That they will live in a world facing severe water and food shortages, a world marked by wars caused by the consequences of climate change.
============================
Pray tell, where are the children suffering from severe water or food shortages in Australia? Australians have never been better fed at any time in their history.
As to wars. Visit the Australian war graves from WWI and WWII, both within the past 100 years. Nothing to do with climate change.
Do you seriously believe that we can stop famine, drought and war by stopping climate change? How? We had all three long before climate change, which suggest that if anything, a change of climate might be a good thing.
Diddums.
What event did these come from? The hand written essays make it look like the end of some weekend-long support for angst-filled scientists given the final assignment “Write from the heart what you think Gaia and humanity needs to hear.”
Then they all sang Kum Ba Yah and exchanged FaceBook friendships before flying back home.
BallBounces says:
August 21, 2014 at 6:16 am
We should accept the sincerity of their beliefs (as they should accept the sincerity of ours).
—
Or leave belief out and deal with what anyone with eyes open and brain on can see, that living existence is perpetual change and adjustment to change.
Conservation isn’t what nature’s into, have a look at a nice fresh fossil-rich Devonian limestone outcrop, and have a good look. That’s the only conservation Gaia’s prepared to put up with.
What did I say that sent my comment into moderation? Didn’t use the ‘D’ word. /Mr L
Steve Lohr says:
August 21, 2014 at 6:22 am
“A couple of commentators have caught on to the adolescent nature of these letters. The capture of these remarks for the record is quite a coup. This is classic adolescent clique behavior. I have no idea why it is happening in a major university but clearly it is.”
It’s very simple. The reputation of politicians in general is in the toilet since like forever. The reputation of journalists followed and is now below that of politicians. Now, who can still be used to sell your policies under these circumstances? Easy – scientists; our neo-pagan high priests.
What happens next is easy to see. The decline of reputation for the corrup scientist stand-ins is largely complete.
Now the only thing I wonder is who will be used next to sell policies. I think bloggers or Internet persona in general; the White House already predominantly uses anonymous youtube videos as their make believe evidence; maybe also Assange/Snowden style “leakers”. Cass Sunstein’s suggested internet troll/government sockpuppet patrol comes to mind.
With this shift from scientists to internet sockpuppets comes of course a decline of government science funding – Science as a propaganda tool is now a burnt out shell.
A poster stated above: “Climate scientists should have their emotions surgically removed.”
At least then they’d stand a chance of being a physicist or an engineer or a chemist, rather than a side act at the Byron Bay blues festival.
These revealing and heartfelt, and presumably invited, notes will be useful for researchers intent on accounting for the astonishing political and financial success of the CAGW campaign. Part of the complex jigsaw of explanation will surely be an analysis of personality types particularly vulnerable to being scared by theoretical projections, no matter how little support they get from observations and contrary analyses. Parts of the jigsaw will be about others who merely saw political and/or financial advantage in the campaign – that will be one of the easier bits to piece together. Some leads into that gloomy corner are to be found here: http://www.masterresource.org/2014/08/exposing-big-bad-green/
This is simply more evidence that three letters after your name does not make you wise. Perhaps for some “PhD” really does mean “piled higher and deeper”.
So EMO teenagers have now taken over climate ‘science’.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe the technical term for such folks is “wacko”
Now we know what climate science papers make no logical sense.
Just emotive thinking which is opposite of the data they present in their own paper.
JRport says
You need no correcting
This comes to mind.
http://youtu.be/TF5F6eYho8U
Now I’m depressed. You mean these folks are the ones that have cost us trillions of dollars and moved us closer to global-gov. It isn’t any wonder why there have been suicides among the faithful when you get a tiny glimpse (tiny? maybe it’s the whole thing) into their psyches. They talk about the ‘evidence’. What does this mean to them. When you name your specialty and your departments after your foregone conclusions before you have any real evidence, naturally you are going to only accept the “right’ evidence. I’m frustrated and upset and annoyed and all the other adjectives that we are reaping the harvest of what prog_ressives (?) have done to education. Australia, which had the biggest investment into all this CAGW nonsense and their propensity for looking for shepherding governments is a petri dish of where everything is (empty-) headed.
This is truly ‘Worse Than We Thought’. I had always assumed that, at the core, we still had credible objective scientist. And that these scientists had been ensnared by the corruption of political influence and grant money.
But these people are not scientists, they are true believers. There is no way these examples could ever look at this issue objectively and without prejudice. For Kevin Walsh to say: “I wish that Climate Change didn’t exist”, this is the most ridiculous statement I have ever heard! He might as well have said: I wish that Time didn’t exist!
What have they done to the degree programs, to push these sloppy thinkers through, and grant them advanced degrees?
Now I feel depressed.
Mr. Gupta you feel betrayed by leaders who place ideology above evidence? The irony of that statement is staggering, breathtaking, and every other -ing I can think of. Good Night. What is wrong with these people?
Dear Sir or Madame:
I have good news.Science has learned that man-made production of CO2 warms our planet.
This means vast areas of tundra will become arable land or forests.
Since CO2 is plant food, more CO2 will increase the production of every farm on Earth, Lumber will be cheap. The more fosslil fuels we can find and use will contimue to increase the output of farms and forrests, we are facing runaway prosperity.
Prosperity will rise, famine will end and there will no longer be a “Third World”;
Everyone’s lives will be vastly improved through the prosperity of a warm Earth.
Signed ,
NON-Alarmist Climate Expert
Is climate science staffed by nothing but delusional psychotics? I agree with Tom in Denver. I always thought that these people were scammers but maybe their psychoses have actually impaired their logical cognitive abilities to the point where they can’t reason anymore.
DirkH says:
August 21, 2014 at 6:49 am
With this shift from scientists to internet sockpuppets comes of course a decline of government science funding – Science as a propaganda tool is now a burnt out shell.
—
All that occurred is science and politics forgot that public funding of science was supposed to an investment in pure research that was useful for human beings. What the above weepy pages record is that these people do not have ‘the right stuff’.
Most of them are damaged and acting like refugees of a cult’s programing, and can’t quite let go of the cult’s inner circle yet. They need to buck up, they have middle-class jobs in air-conditioned comfortable complexes, paid for by other people’s taxes, and many of those people are doing jobs which these preening whiners couldn’t even face doing.
joe Duggan, the ‘science communicator’, needs to go back to primary schools and re-learn what science is. A scientist would never ask how a scientific phenomenon ‘makes you feel’. Nor would a scientist be able to answer such a question. It would be like asking a chemist how distillation makes you feel…like asking a physicist how leverage makes you feel…like asking a botanist how chloroplasts make you feel.
Speaking as a human being, the *attention* given to ‘climate change’ makes me feel that there is still a lot of room for improvement in human intelligence.
This is enlightening.
Once again it is worse than I thought.
With these kind of experts, Climatology will collapse far faster than I anticipated.
Truly cringe worthy messianic dribbling.
I know 8 year olds who have their logical processes more together.
But it is nothing new, the Saviours of Earth, AKA the Cult of Calamitous Climate, have been emotional basket cases from day one.
This is what they are selling.
It really is an emotional con.Of the intellectual level of the famous; “Look what you made me do”
Hence the label Emoticon.
For these clowns it is never their fault, never do they entertain the possibility that they could be mistaken.
This is their charm, the absolute certainty of the true believer.
Science, at heart, is questioning ones beliefs.
Pardon my french, but holy fucking shit. These are *professors*?
They sound like my grade school daughter whining about being teased.
I feel like none of these people understand what a falsifiable hypothesis is, and have developed an apocalyptic mindset immune to rational discourse.
Unmentionable says:
August 21, 2014 at 8:07 am
“All that occurred is science and politics forgot that public funding of science was supposed to an investment in pure research that was useful for human beings. ”
Nobody forgot anything. In 1971 the UN rolled out its new domination strategy; it was based on Green NGO’s and environmental science – Maurice Strong’s masterplan. (Stockholm summit; first time green groups got carted to one of the big shindigs).
In 1975, in Stanford, “scientists” (Schneider, Lovelock, Mead, Holdren) defined CO2 as the culprit in the Endangered Atmosphere con in Stanford. This was the first generation of pseudoscientist propagandists; the bio of each one of them is interesting.
And so it got rolled out into every university in the West. Nothing of this happened by accident.
Does anyone know the lifestyle of these weepers?
How has their prosperity changed since AGW became a fad?
Do they lead by example along with Gore and Suzuki?
Are they using less powerful vacuums to fight climate change as being mandated by the EU.
Really Tom, “credible objective scientist”???
The small cadre of crooks (IMO) behind CAGW cherry-picked & crafted their data to align with their “theories” (astronomical taxpayer funding), repeatedly “adjusted” (destroyed) real data, again to align with astronomical taxpayer funding, hid both data and methods, criminally conspired to subvert the FOIA process (IMO), hid internal dissent while destroying the careers of all who questioned their conclusions.
There is no remote connection to either science or scientist in CAGW.
Again, IMO, the real crime is the thousands of earth scientists that have remained quiet as hundreds of thousands of seniors freeze in Britain alone, while trillions of dollars are wasted or go into “green” pockets rather than water, food, heating, medicine & refrigeration for the billions in real poverty…
“The 29 per cent rise in excess deaths occurred against a background of soaring gas and electricity prices, which left millions worried about whether to spend on heating or eating. Most victims were 75 and over…”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2513719/Number-deaths-linked-freezing-winter-increases-30-31-000-temperatures-fell-record-lows.html
This is helpful. It draws our attention to why climate publications tend toward propaganda. It may help the media recognize that (some) scientific publications are far from objective.
Emoting egos galore. While I was reading the letters, at first I felt embarrassed for these people, but now I just have to shake my head in disbelief. There’s a name for this kind of syndrome, though it escapes me. These people honestly believe they can save the the whole entire world, and they wring their hands because their salvation is being ignored. Their arrogance is unreal. Delusional. This really is a religion isn’t it.
I would like to see/read the correspondence between that group prior to their penning of “emotional love notes” to each other.
Such agitprop chicanery was done for a specific reason, ya know.
Good Lord. On the upside, you know what? This post actually makes me feel better about the dog eat dog world of research. Let’s hope we soon get back to backroom brawls between competing researchers. I am now compelled to say I wanna see bloodied noses coming out of a barely enough money to buy gum grant-funding committee meeting, not sympathetically over-funded bunch of tears and tissue.
This is hysterical….it’s like they are all trying to out do each other
My guess is that all of this has been orchestrated by Lewandowsky in the hope that it will be seen by The Prime Minister
I believe there are medications for this type of problem.
Ben Hewitt recently addressed this topic. Please read his musings about how much he and his children think about global concerns.
http://benhewitt.net/2014/08/21/our-obligations/
Pathological. This is why the CAGW crowd will literally fight to their death for the cause, because the truth literally means the end of their relevance, lifestyle, hopes, dreams, etc. They seem like eloquent meth heads. Pretty freaking scary if you ask me.
Next they will run around hitting themselves with a whip as an act of atonement. Sick puppies.
Sigh! As an Australian finishing up a PhD in modelling, I find this utterly embarrassing. I can’t believe these people are allowed to call themselves scientists. Thankfully, these types don’t infect the Engineering, Maths and Physics department at my particular Uni. However, they do make up the majority in the Arts and Biological Sciences side of things.
Looking at the CO2 page in the WUWT Reference folders I estimate that the CO2 concentration has been rising linearly since 1995 at a rate of 1-7 – 2.1 ppm/year. Yet , as even politicians and extreme warmists admit, the global temperatures appear to have stabilised for the last 14 or 17 years.
What is missing from the reference pages is the cumulative sum of money poured into AGW projects , including funding these weepy Australian profs in their cushy chairs, enriching numerous politicians and depriving many people of their jobs , and even their food , given the change to biofuels . Some in these blogs have suggested an amount of money of the order of at least a trillion USD has been withdrawn from the world’s economy in the past 20 years – but it has not made any difference to the very linear increase in CO2 concentration.
If the latter is a measure of the success of these academic’s achievements , how much more money are they demanding must be removed from the global economy just to make a small kink in the rate of increase of CO2 ? Thousands of trillions USD? What kind of conflict is that likely to create ?
If these academics had any sense , or any conscience, they would point to the stabilised temperature and claim that , thanks to their hard and unstinting research . the threat of catastrophic warming has been averted and we can now relax – job done. Just keep renewables at the present level , stop converting virgin rain forest into biofuels, stop throwing blue – collar workers out of their jobs and stop throwing money at certain politicians who already have more than they can ever spend.
Meanwhile politicians could return to thinking about the war , rape and murder in the Middle East , pandemics such as bird flu and Ebola , Putin’s aggression towards East Europe and China’s plans to take over most of the China Sea- none of these having anything to do with climate change.
Hand written notes? Only one was dated but it was 2014. I’m sorry, but exactly who actually writes one pages essays any more by hand? Children just learning to write perhaps? These are supposedly scientists who spend the vast majority of their lives working with computers.
Either this is a staged publicity stunt with the letters hand written for extra effect, or… Well I don’t have an “or”. But just because I can’t think of one doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
These letters remind me of a bunch of kids sitting around a camp fire telling ghost stories – then end up scaring themselves silly.
The most economical explanation of these documents is that these people actually do understand the situation better than the folks commenting here do, and that this causes them to be deeply worried about the future. But that evidently cannot be even entertained.
The comments here are a case study in epistemological closure.
You’re kidding. Right?
These amateur compositions sound like a seventh grade English exam. These people are living high on the taxpayer hog, and they are clearly fanning the flames of climate alarmism.
If anyone is sociopaths, it is these rent-seekers.
Dr Mackey: “spew” , not “spue”.
The Aztecs also felt anxious about the climate.
These climate scientists are not the first people to be worried about a changing climate, such worries go back since we could walk upright. In the Little Ice Age it led to extensive witch hunts, much like today.
Lewandowsky should read these – it may make a much more useful study source.
But actually, I’m rather shocked that post-graduate University degrees for climate, seem to be able to be earned without any course reference to earth history. There seems to be no recognition of either the recent nor distant past earth cycles. Can they really have been that isolated that they know nothing of what hot and cold cycles the planet has been through?? Its a serious condemnation of those universities and those faculties.
palindrom says:
August 21, 2014 at 9:54 am
“The most economical explanation of these documents is that these people actually do understand the situation better than the folks commenting here do, and that this causes them to be deeply worried about the future. But that evidently cannot be even entertained.”
Please cite the evidence for your assertion. Thanks.
(Fortunately, those of us who inhabit the real world can rightly ignore these “academics” who have obviously lost their grip on reality…)
Climate Scientist knows best
It’s not the first time the use this angle and even the same people, e.g, Ailie Gallant at 1:05
With friends like these……
Ten letters from Australian ‘real’*** scientists using emotion as if emotion has any relevant value in rational cognition involved in science; as if it has any relevant value in achieving the applied reasoning which is science’s process and product. Emotion is not a logical factor of applied reasoning.
There are philosophies in the history of philosophy that try to elevate emotion to valid cognitive status which they maintain support rational cognition. Those philosophies are consequently involved with irrational cognitive modes.
*** ‘real’ scientists according to Joe Duggan evaluation of what is ‘real’ and what is ‘science’. Given that he is doing favorable PR for the 10 scientists whose letters are emulating emotion as cognitively relevant in science, then his concepts of ‘real’ and ‘science’ are likely subjectivist derived from post-modern philosophy.
John
Chuck L says:
Have any of the supposed writers confirmed their authorship? I find it hard not believe this is NOT a bunch of students who were given a writing exercise along with an identity under which to write it.
We would be happy to entertain this parsimonious, if unsubstantiated, explanation—if these people could provide even a shred of empirical evidence for their fears.
Absent such testimony, I’m afraid these pathetic missives are at best entertaining us.
/Mr Lynn
Oops, previous should read “I find it hard to believe this is NOT a bunch…”
Palindrom says
How many trillions in an “economical explanation”?
I feel:
1.That the whole Chimera is about to fall.
2. The whole effort of spending billions for nothing
will besmirch science for generations .
3.Seeing the death of millions of migratory birds is not green nor clean.
4. the freezing and starving of elderly and poor is not clean either.
5. That the whole AGW grant gravy train is about to jump the tracks..
6. The greater war on terror will come- and we will discover that AGW
hardly the bigger threat…
7. Fracking will loosen-and has- the grip of OPEC on the west.
-let them eat sand…
Bob Boder says:
August 21, 2014 at 10:43 am
Bob – you have to understand. Folks like “Palindrome” inhabit a fantasy world that is supported by their parents and their government. They tell you that your carbon footprint is too big while they warm themselves in their schools and offices using energy from powerplants run on fossil fuels. They fly to vacations and conferences on large commercial aircraft. They drive a Prius not realizing that they need electricity from…you guessed it. They decry “corporate influence” while texting on Apple (corporation) cellphones, tweeting and facebooking using Twitter/Facebook (corporation) technology, and drinking coffee from Starbucks (corporation). They think every weather event is caused by human-influenced climate change and has never been seen before because they are too lazy (or stupid) to research the past. They don’t care about taxes, over-regulation or the myriad of other ills in this world (disease, poverty, etc.) because the world revolves around them, and in case the government and/or Mom and Dad will make things all better. You can’t reason with people like this.
“[…] I will keep shouting in my own little way. […]”
Dr Ailie Gallant
School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment
Monash University.
“[…]She’s slipping away[…] She’s been showing signs of acute illness […] Her increased erratic behaviour […] Certain behaviours […] heightened anger. […] It almost seems everyone has been ignoring me […] they’ve done this to her […] Perhaps I’m the odd one out, the anomaly of the human race. The one who cares enough, […]”
Yours faithfully,
Dr Sarah Perkins
Climate Scientist, Extreme Events Specialist.
The University of New South Wales.
“[…] a future when children won’t be able to enjoy the flowing rivers, mountain snow, coloured birds and bush animals. […] It’s really sad that some of our local children seem quite puzzled and worried by what they see on TV bout this and hearing what adults say. […] frightening problems.”
Sincerely,
Tony McMichael
Emeritus Professor, Australian National University
“[…] I am one of the few people who understand the magnitude of the consequences […] Time is running out.”
Associate Professor Katrin Meissner
ARC Future Fellow
“Dear Earth,
[… Never mind].”
Prof Brendan G. Mackey, PhD
I am sure something dreadful will happen, just beyond the verifiable horizon. It always does.
Frank K says
That was summed up very well. Thanks
Methinks there will shortly be a much needed and misunderstood group hug amonst these “gentlemen”. Then again, maybe they could lay off the Estrogen pills before that happens?
From the infamous music video:
There you have it. An admission climate science is faith-based.
I wonder if the letters are just a ploy to draw “harassing” emails from heretics.
I am worried about the future too. If these brainwashed academics are teaching our children, the next generation of researchers, technicians, engineers, and scientists, we have a real problem.
What I find interesting is the number of times the assertion that the skeptical message dominates their poor underfunded efforts at spreading climate truth appears in these delusional rants. Not long ago the BBC enacted a total ban of people of a climate skeptical bent from their airways. They were far from the first to do this. The default position for “97%” of major and minor media sources is full on, drank the Kool-Aid alarmism. Every TV show, movie, advert, newspaper, magazine feels compelled to include comments, plot elements, and often almost subliminal affirmations of the evils of Carbon. Anti-Carbon ideology is wired into the PR DNA of virtually every corporation, large or small, in the country and in most of the rest of the world and that includes Big Oil and Big Energy The CAGW position has been the beneficiary of at least a half a $Trillion of free word of mouth propagandizing every year.
Arrayed against that and supposedly unfairly dominating all these oh so caring scientists is a motley collection of websites, a few organizations like Heartland, Cato, the NIPCC, etc., and a set scientists and reseachers struggling mightily for scraps of funding and access to publication. Ask yourselves this, in your daily life outside of the Web environs, what is the ratio of the number of times you’re importuned by some Hollywood celebutard to embrace the latest green absurdity versus the opportunities you have to be exposed to real climate information. I would suggest the ratio is approaching asymptotically to infinity, especially since on the rare occasions when any of the above do manage to bang their gong loud enough to attract any coverage in the MSM, their message will be countermanded by quotes from the usual suspects declaring it all a bunch of flat-eartherism.
What is truly amazing about all this is that they are actually at least partially correct in saying they are dominated by the skeptical message, but it has nothing to do with being outspent or outshouted. A Big Lie loudly and endlessly repeated can be very hard to defeat, but a small truth calmly, quietly, and forcefully expressed is like an earworm burrowing away until the Big Lie disintegrates.
Climate alarmism is like Political Correctness and Moral Relativism. Almost everyone knows in their heart of hearts that it is BS but they have all seen how dangerous to one’s well-being it can be to try to challenge the orthodoxy. Most choose the path of least resistance at least superficially. The trouble for the dogmatists is that the true present moment costs are becoming increasingly and incredibly obvious and the distant future benefits are simultaneously becoming much more ephemeral.
If the latest EPA regs regarding coal-fired generation come into effect I’d be willing to wager that long before we see an ice free Arctic we will be seeing massive numbers of old people dying cold in the dark because our electrical grid is no longer is up to the task.
Dear Joe
You have no idea how sad this has made me feel.
I think the Lucky Country just ran out of luck.
Where do you start? Apparently another push by the sophomoric crowd to the emotional side, ” they just don’t understand” and ” we have to do something now “. Their lack of scientific understanding at being able to justify this AGW theory has fallen flat, 1) is contradiction in their arguments and 2) reality. Is that why nobody is listening?
I ‘feel’ just doesn’t cut it in science.
If only these poor folks would go out and get jobs, then
(1) they might find that sense of accomplishment they so desperately need, and
(2) they wouldn’t have so much idle time for useless worrying.
Sad.
palindrom says (August 21, 2014 at 9:54 am): “The most economical explanation of these documents is that these people actually do understand the situation better than the folks commenting here do…”
BWAHAHAHA! Good one!
What is the Occam’s Razor type explanation (a line of reasoning that says the simplest explanation may have a reasonable basis for being correct) for the ten ‘what do I feel’ letters from Australian academics involved in the climate science discussion?
My thought is that the Occam’s Razor type explanation that fits the 10 letters is their science is often perceived in the broader general culture as biased activism so they are simply appealing to populist emotion instead.
NOTE: palindrom @August 21, 2014 at 9:54 am attempted what he called the most economical explanation, however, I find his implied explanation that their emotion is more important because they are smarter just begs the question of why they are doing these letters.
John
Just goes to indicate that education to the doctorate degree level does not validate an assumption that an individual is balanced, mature and has a superior intelligence. Idiot Savant comes to mind.
“Prof. Lesley Hughes – Climate change is likely to become the biggest species killer ever, impoverishing our planet and our race.”
I fear that that statement is correct but not the way intended. Another mini-ice-age and we are all in a world of trouble. Warmer doesn’t kill anywhere near what colder does.
Well – that tears it. After reading this I believe that a 97.3% concensus of climate scientists are clinically depressed and off their medications….
LogosWrench says:
August 21, 2014 at 8:00 am
“Mr. Gupta you feel betrayed by leaders who place ideology above evidence? The irony of that statement is staggering, breathtaking, and every other -ing I can think of. Good Night. What is wrong with these people?”
What is wrong with these people? …..a very good question.
What I believe has happened in the heads of these people is that, of course, they have gone on a We-Need-to-Save-the-Planet emotional and spiritual guilt trip. On the surface, there is of course nothing wrong with caring for the planet and wanting to be a steward of it. The problem here is what has happened in their heads as a result of it.
IMHO, what has gone tragically wrong in the heads of these people (and forgive me if this seems all too obvious) is that they have chosen to disconnect themselves from or disassociate themselves from honest, genuine science as a result of that guilt trip they are on. Facts from real world observations along with logic and reasoning are no longer good enough for them. The guilt trip, along with hatred of fossil fuels and the fossil fuels industry, has so overwhelmed them that something needs replace honest, genuine, real world science.
What replaces it is a pseudo-science that they can manipulate and engineer to service, support and reinforce the guilt trip and their emotions. The beauty of this junk science is that they can mold it any way they want. Hence, we see why climate models, faulty as they are, are given so much weight and real world observations mean nothing. Add in a healthy dose of corrupting politics and taxpayer dollars, and you are left with climate science (if I can still call it that) which is in what seems to be a hopeless state. Again, this is just my theory….I am not a psychologist, and not all climate alarmist scientists may fit into this theory.
Caring for the planet should not cause you to disconnect from or disassociate with genuine, real world science in your head. Why it is nonetheless happening can probably be better explained by psychologists than it can by me. That is my two cents worth.
Palindrom @Aug 21, 2014
No! The most economical explanation is the NULL. Until credible evidence is presented that shows a dangerous result from increased carbon dioxide, it must be concluded that these people are living in a separate reality of their own design with no connection with the true state of nature. They can go back to their rooms and play Bat Man and Robin on their own time. What they are doing is not science, it is theatrics, they would do well on the drama squad.
Is Kool-Aid a popular refreshment down under?
The authors of the ten letters appeal to emotion and they are inconvincible*** about the observations showing failure of the CAGW hypothesis.
Appeals to emotion and being inconvincible are non-rational attributes.
*** Inconvincible – is an adjective defined as incapable of being convinced
John
Given almost all funding for climate alarmism in Australia has been culled…they are out to save their jobs. Sad, really sad!
dear earth,
after assessing the changes in climate during the last 20 years , i am left feeling a bit
. . .
. . .
meh.
Makes me think they’re trying a new turn: “Don’t listen to our science. Listen to our tears.”
Earth
You are a great kid, NEVER CHANGE!
See ya after the summer hiatus!
So wait Austrailian climate scientists are not aware that our understanding of all major variables is in flux in the published work? interesting and kinda sad.
Also I would LOVE to see the lifestyle choices of these exact people. They claim to think the entire future is in jeopardy.
A scenario.
I go to my doctor. He tells me I have 6 months to live.
He tells me this because he is a vegetarian and I am an omnivore.
He said I have 6 months to live, not because of any test results but because some of the things I eat had faces. That makes him feel bad.
Time to find a new doctor.
To paraphrase from the movie “Blazing Saddles”, “now who can argue with that, authentic frontier gibberish“.
What feature is common to each of these climate “scientists”? Why they’re all products of Australia’s eco.. sorry, climate establishment. Here’s the cure for all of their ills (courtesy of Tim Blair)… Paging Dr Switzer:
1. It reminds me of that climate conference where diplomats got up and burst into tears because nobody’s taking climate change seriously – or has that become standard behaviour now?
2. It also reminds me of the seminar in the subsequent post; lots of people, supposedly erudite, making very definite statements about things that are far from definite, in extremely sententious voices.
These turkeys don’t strike me as scientists at all. Not even at three in the morning in the hotel bar.
“Knowing how much is at stake, knowing that I am one of the few people who understand the magnitude of the consequences and then realizing that most of the people around me are oblivious. Some of the people are not only oblivious, they also do not want to understand.”
A statement which confirms the author to be a psychotic monomaniac.
Aussies use to be pragmatic realists. It seems the Marxist disease and Messiah Complex Disorder has run rampant in Australia and as such Australia needs to be quarantined and all existing sufferers exiled to a small Pacific Island out of harms way.
I’m very worried for the state of sanity of the academic world. Especially for fields like climate science, environmental science, gender science research and social science.
It is very depressing to read about so much stupidity being present in the Science community in Australia.
Science in Australia has degenerated from the 1950’s when it was alive and active and productive. Now it is just a sinecure for rent seekers.
Serious stuff first:
These are purported teachers and models educating students? And they write personal dismal weeping confessions that are meant to be published?
What are their intentions? To cause as many suicides among the gullible and weak minded as possible? That makes them potentially major contributors to student despair. Given their tone, several of these authors themselves should be considered suicide risks.
Copies of their letters should be forwarded to authorities, especially governmental, health regulatory officials along with any suicidal hotline specialists.
Copies should also be sent to relevant university officials bluntly asking what university staff are doing or accomplishing with their very public pits of despair.
Sarcasm stuff comes after:
Why didn’t
Lewny, erLoserd, erLewpy, er Loseranbadsky or some slimy thing with a similar name like that contribute from his personal view of Hades? Surely he has views of demons and depression that puts the weepy ones to shame?Embarassing drivel from these Aussie “scientists”. As has been mentioned in the above comments none of the letter authors were geologists. Thank goodness for that!
palindrom says:
August 21, 2014 at 9:54 am
“The most economical explanation of these documents is that these people actually do understand the situation better than the folks commenting here do, and that this causes them to be deeply worried about the future. But that evidently cannot be even entertained.
The comments here are a case study in epistemological closure.”
None of them has demonstrated predictive skill of any climate model and neither have you; they, and you, are talking out of their lower hind region.
So embarrassing. I wonder which of these are still taking their medication. I now see Ozzie scientists in a different light. Thank goodness the ones I do know are so unlike those above.
These letters looked so puerile that I checked one of the people shown as author, Kevin Walsh of Melbourne University. He seems to be real. If anyone is interested to see what Kevin looks like, go to: https://theconversation.com/profiles/kevin-walsh-15300
My MEngSc degree is from the chemical engineering department of the same university. I really, REALLY, hope that they have not been taken in like the School of Earth Sciences.
Ian M
Proper scientists and engineers must be pissing themselves laughing reading that tripe.
After the third letter I started to feel real pity. Mental illness is no joke. It’s nothing to put on public display and ridicule. These people need sympathy and need help.
My, there are some dim bulbs represented in those letters. On the other hand, the writers excel in drama queenery, whinging and self pity.
I wrote to Dr Sarah Perkins as a result of seeing her letter here. She s described as an ‘extreme events specialist’ in Australia . I have also been researching extreme events in England so was interested in her thoughts.
I have received a very pleasant highly detailed reply from her.
That these scientists should be so genuinely concerned is apparently seen as a sign of weakness by many commenters here for some reason. Surely we need to engage with scientists to try to disprove their findings, not ridicule them.
tonyb
There’s no place for ‘feelings’ in Science.
Live Long and Prosper
I think we should encourage their depression in hopes of tipping them into a suicide spiral
It’s Ironic that though their heart is in the right place their head is up their arses
One can only hope that these “climate scientists” graduate from the fifth grade soon …
“That these scientists should be so genuinely concerned is apparently seen as a sign of weakness by many commenters here for some reason.”
These scientists should be genuinely concerned about having turned the term “Climate Science” into an oxymoron.
Glad to see they feel ignored, and hope that the feeling and the stimulus for it intensify.
– – – – – – – – –
climatereason (tonyb),
I would not criticize any empathy in your outreach to achieve debate / dialog between someone with a skeptic climate focused position and someone with an IPCC centric position supporting the CAGW hypothesis like Sarah Perkins.
You appear to have taken one step forward toward the transparent, open and free debate that skeptical climate focused scientists have consistently requested for more than a decade. Still I would suggest to keep in clear focus the context that it was one of the IPCC centric scientists, M. Mann*** (who is seems to nominate himself as a self-styled leader of that group), who has clearly and publicly maintained that he and his IPCC centric associates should not debate with skeptical climate focused scientists.
However much sincere empathy the Australian authors of the ten ‘how I feel’ letters deserve or don’t deserve, there are essential intellectual issues that need resolution about the openness, scientific validity, censorship, gatekeeping and professional integrity involved in creating and maintaining the IPCC centric CAGW hypothesis in the face significant critical analysis and debate / dialog attempts by the more skeptical community.
To be kind but firm with the supporters of IPCC centric CAGW hypothesis while resolving those intellectual issues seems both prudent and civil to me.
*** Gavin Schmidt of NASA GISS was another who publically shunned debating with a skeptical scientist.
John
Tony B.
Perhaps Anthony and Dr. Perkins can connect and Dr. Perkins can make some sort of “engaging” guest post her.
http://www.sarahinscience.com/
I see in her blog, a post from last September 25th,
http://www.sarahinscience.com/blog/power-to-the-people
“Moreover, the Bureau and CSIRO are not the only research groups providing this evidence. Many, many research groups and universities at the international scale are providing the exact same evidence that research efforts from CSIRO and the Bureau are. I am not sure how they are providing propaganda when their research outputs are consistent with the global effort.
Perhaps this is a good place to make the point that it is only non scientific bodies and groups with vested interests that state the human contribution to climate change does not exist.
There are no climate or weather related groups that say anything of the sort, and 97% of climate scientists agree that humans have caused the steadily increasing trend in global temperature we’ve been observing since we started pumping so much crap into the atmosphere.”
…with an approving link to SkS.
“I am infuriated. Infuriated we are destroying our planet.”
Welcome to my world. Expect a self-righteous, pot smoking hippy in flowing white robes to issue an organic-only fatwah for agriculture soon.
love, Generation X
ozspeaksup wrote (August 21, 2014 at 6:05 am):
“as an Aussie, I’m embarrassed we have so many idiots in Uni teaching/research roles taking the taxpayers funds.”
I’m Canadian but had the opportunity to do post-grad work in Melbourne. I found that there were many thoughtful and intelligent Australians. Meaning that it is not only that country that has people like that in academic positions. I have seem several examples of such people who have advanced through the Canadian universities and are now indoctrinating our young people in a similar manner.
It is my observation that there are two types of PhDs. One is people who have genuine desire to learn and teach and the other type finds academia a handy place to avoid facing the real world, often providing them with a place to promote their ideas / notions while also providing them with a steady income.
Ian M
“I’m really sorry about the last couple of 100 years – we’ve really stuffed things up haven’t we!”
Gosh, if only humans hadn’t industrialized. Then life for the brilliant Professor Brendan Mackey would be sooo much better if he had to do his climate change studies with Galileo’s air thermometer and by praying to the wind gods. Oh wait, without industrialization, Mackey probably would have never been born. Well, on second thought…
Yeah, the American Physical Society, American Geophysical Union, National Academy of Sciences, and so on have all come out saying global warming is a bunch of baloney.
Oh, wait …
As I said in my earlier comment, this blog and its commenters are the very model of epistemic closure.
Oh, wait … Just what IS the evidence for catastrophic anthropogenic global warming?
CO2 levels were steady … global average temperatures went down, were steady, and went up.
CO2 levels rose constantly … and global average temperatures went down, went up, and were steady….
Oh … How many so-called “scientific” agencies promoting the government’s global warming political and economic agendas receive government money, power, political influence, and promotions?
I can’t believe my taxes are paying for these cretins. This must be wind up. No-one, not even a warmenista, can be this bare arsed stupid.
I find it quite incedible that they mention “facts”. If they have facts and therefore reasonable proof, then they woiuld have something to worry about. Until then they should just join the Baptists waving banners at the funeral of Robin Williams.
Cheers
Roger
http://www.thedemiseofchristchurch.com
***testifying, as suggested by Marshall!
21 Aug: WaPo: Matthew Hutson: Why our brains are wired to ignore climate change
Recently I learned about “Prius repellent” — a tricked-out truck takes deep swigs of diesel and spews black smog all over a tailing vehicle, preferably a hybrid. These ominous clouds signal that, in our national conversation about climate change, something has gone very wrong.
George Marshall, a founder of the Climate Outreach think tank, tries to get us talking productively in his intelligent and genial new book, “Don’t Even Think About It.” He visits with fellow environmentalists, with psychologists and policy analysts, and with political opponents — even sharing a few laughs in the lair of 40 Texas tea partyers — to try to understand just why people are so prone to deny or ignore climate change…
You might think that climate-change deniers are short on scientific literacy. But everyone’s heard the facts about greenhouse gases. At this point, deniers are actually better versed in science than are accepters. Rather, political forces shape their attitudes. Marshall quotes the ethicist Clive Hamilton: “Denial is due to a surplus of culture rather than a deficit of information.” …
In his view, the “Green Team” should borrow several elements from the “God Squad”: There should be opportunities for public commitment to the cause.
***People should testify to their doubts and anxieties, so they can work through them with peers…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/uncertain-forecast-for-the-planet/2014/08/21/da465b9e-0eb4-11e4-b8e5-d0de80767fc2_story.html
This explains why the scientific community is divided on the issue of catastrophic AGW. Half of them are scientists. Half of them are environmental activists employed as scientists. I think amateur scientists can do better science than activists.
These comments show a obvious disdain for scientists from a bunch of cretins with the combined IQ of a baboon. The grammar is embarrassing and rhetoric typical of keyboard cowards
Steve B says:
August 21, 2014 at 3:32 pm
Aussies use to be pragmatic realists. It seems the Marxist disease and Messiah Complex Disorder has run rampant in Australia and as such Australia needs to be quarantined and all existing sufferers exiled to a small Pacific Island out of harms way.
—
Very much so, it was a country full of straight talker and practical thinkers who didn’t tolerate pompous experts and professional BS artistes.
It’s why many recognized the ABC, or rather, not the ABC itself, but the dopey warped people employed by it as a profoundly degenerate cultural influence (now assisted by the similar touchy-feelies at SBS TV/Radio) ever since this weepy self-flagellating Gaia fever retard’ogoop appeared during the late 1980. Creutzfeldt-Jakob Bovine Encephalopathy exploded in the ecology and climate psience departments . The result is this painful interminable whining from University Campuses.
Dose of free nembutal for all sufferers, it’s the humane thing.
Palindrom, to provide evidence of the existence of something, you do not call on hearsay; you provide evidence.
As has been repeatedly shown, the alarmists have no evidence.
Indeed, the failure of the computer models to predict reality is evidence that the computer models are wrong. And the computer models are the opinion of the alarmist “experts”. Opinions written in computer code (ooh fancy) but mere opinion, none the less. The physical evidence – the observation of the real world – does not support the irrational hysteria shown by these letters.
If you want to open the minds of us poor benighted sceptics why not provide some evidence?
Or failing that persuade us to redefine “epistemic” as “proven by assertion” (that might be harder).
Geeks says August 22, 2014 at 12:16 am
I have the highest respect for scientists.
But I do have disdain for the blubbering fools who wrote these essays.
How would you define a scientist? Is logical investigation involved? Is observation of the real world involved? Is rejection of failed hypotheses involved?
Because the models were wrong.
Geeks on August 22, 2014 at 12:16 am
“These comments show a obvious disdain for scientists from a bunch of cretins with the combined IQ of a baboon. The grammar is embarrassing and rhetoric typical of keyboard cowards”
——————–
In the first row it should be “an obvious” not “a obvious” and you missed the period at the end of the sentence. Welcome to the world of keyboard coward baboons. Also, my high school grammar teacher would cringe at the number of prepositional phrases in one sentence.
palindrom:
In your post at August 21, 2014 at 7:50 pm you make the uninformed comment
I suggest you read this shocking paper by Richard Lindzen. It is the most recent update of an interesting read which names names concerning how those institutions were deliberately usurped and by whom.
Perhaps then you will stop wasting space on this thread with ignorant nonsense in support of the emotionally stunted fools whose writings are the subject of the thread. You are interrupting enjoyment of laughter at the fools.
Richard
A number of commenters have asked me to “provide evidence” for global wamring.
In this forum, that’s a fool’s errand, because the vast majority of the readers have persuaded themselves that any evidence that does not fit their preconceptions is untrustworthy. The view from inside the scientific community — I’m talking hard-science geophysicists, not some airy-fairy socialist enviro-hippie types out to impose higher taxes — is very different.
As I said in both my previous posts, this blog is an echo chamber — that’s what “epistemic closure” means. If AGW theory really were as baseless as many here think, this would be reflected in the scientific literature. It is not. The usual explanations offered for the essential unanimity of opinion among competent, quaified experts (I can already hear howls of “Lindzen! Curry! Spencer! Christy! Singer! Happer!” — note that I said competent, qualified experts) is that scientists are all whoring for government grants, or subject to some herd mentality, or whatever. This is a pretty easy sell, since so few readers have direct experience of how the scientific community operates. In reality, these claims of widespread delusion among scientists are fanciful, and in their extreme forms pure paranoid drivel.
I’m sure that very few of you will take anything I say seriously, because you come here for more red meat to feed your set-in-concrete view of the world, but if you’re still not entirely convinced that the entire world scientific community is off its rocker, there are plenty of resources out there to read. Just have the courage to check your prejudices at the door, and concentrate on the quality of the arguments.
Wow! palindrom has returned from his academic bubble (or Mom and Dad’s basement) to enlighten us. Just for clarification (since he is clumsily throwing this term around):
“The term “epistemic closure” has been used in U.S. political debate to refer to the claim that political belief systems can be closed systems of deduction, unaffected by empirical evidence.”
So how’s that arctic death spiral working out for you? How are the global warming temperature anomaly predictions compared with predictions (not hindcasts)? Hurricanes? Sea level rise? What about Antarctica?
I suggest palindrom that YOU need to pull your head out of the sand and actually INVESTIGATE the empirical evidence, as I have. You make simplistic arguments about the correctness of AGW “theory” but don’t even want to bother trying to define exactly what it is – probably because you are ill-equipped to do so.
Please – go to your own echo chamber at REAL CLIMATE so you can wallow in pity (like your like-minded colleagues described in this post) about how people are taking CAGW “theory” seriously…
…sorry…my last paragraph should read…
Please – go to your own echo chamber at REAL CLIMATE so you can wallow in pity (like your like-minded colleagues described in this post) about how people are NOT taking CAGW “theory” seriously…
Dear palindrom,
Your 4:25am post certainly puts us in our place.
Just one tiny problem.
As M. Courtney observes—
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/08/21/climate-scientists-laid-bare-%E2%99%AA-feeelings-nothing-more-than-feelings-%E2%99%AB/#comment-1714778
“As has been repeatedly shown, the alarmists have no evidence.”
So I suppose it is truthful to say, it would be a fool’s errand. What would you write when you have no evidence? Always the elephant in the room alarmists pretend isn’t there. In your case, pretending really, really hard.
Alarmists are fools, often delusional, increasingly unethical and hoping for misery.
Palindrom, ” AGW theory really were as baseless as many here think, this would be reflected in the scientific literature. It is not.”
Prove it.
Give us references to these papers in the scientific literature that can withstand a moments logical discussion.
You don’t because you can’t. You have no evidence.
And you must know it because you won’t even try and find some.
I’m on pre-moderation at the Guardian and WUWT.
I must be the most offensive commenter ever.
(Not counting Youtube).
“Associate Professor
Anthony J. Richardson
Climate Change Ecologist
Dr Ailie Gallant
School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment
Monash University
Professor Andrew Pitman
Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science
Dr Sarah Perkins
Climate Scientist, Extreme Events Specialist.
The University of New South Wales.
Professor Lesley Hughes
Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University
Founding Member of the Australian Climate Council
Dr Alex Sen Gupta
Climate Change Research Centre, University of New South Wales”
I’m sorry if this has already been brought up, I haven’t read most of the comments – but did ANY of these groups/positions/job titles/organizations even exist 30 years ago? “Climate Change Ecologist”, “Climate Scientist, Extreme Events Specialist”, etc? Look all the new (I think) positions/etc that have sprung up as a result of the CAGW fraud. It’s amazing. “Climate Scientist, Extreme Events Specialist”, what in the Mordor is that, exactly?
This is really going to be hard to overcome. So many people have hitched their wagons, completely, to this fraud, not just these clowns but also many rich and powerful people. Sigh.
Climate Science, defined as belief trumpets observation?
This palindrome, minus the e, is very sure that it can not provide evidence that will convince even one of the million plus visitors to this site.
Such omnipotence, I guess I can’t argue with that,course that is just using a lot of words to say;
“I have no evidence” .
I know you cannot produce any science to support your delusion, that is how I became a cynic of fools who “believe” in science. Such a profound ignorance of science and the methods there of, shall not go unrewarded.
If the alarmed ones used their real names, they would be besieged by telemarketers and miracle workers. Greenpeace is proof of the rising gullibility of these marks.
I foresee the rising scams, Come Save the World, World Savers R Us.
Oh wait, this field is already awash in politicians and NGO’s.
All funded by taxpayers.
If the reason the ten Australian climate focused scientists who wrote the despair ridden ‘how I feel’ letters is the collapse of a pre-scientific ideology that primarily motivated them to become climate focused scientists, then why did the ideology collapse?
It is arguable what pre-science ideology, if any of the ten letter writers had one, could have been their climate profession raison d’être. But candidate pre-science ideologies could be in one of the following categories: mystical (supernatural GAIA entity), pragmatic (forget integrated conceptual knowledge / ideals and just go try social re-engineering stuff to see if it works), pre-destination (what you do is inevitable so just go with the flow). There may be other categories, but that is a start.
Has any pre-science ideology collapsed the preceding decade? I am looking for suggestions. But, I would say that there was a pre-science ideology collapses in the pragmatic category in at Copenhagen (2009) and Australia (2014).
John
O.K, I’ve now buzzed through the comments. w/r/t the letters from these “scientists”, I have to remind myself that these clowns are not bad or evil people – though some of those at the top levels of the CAGW movement could probably be labelled as such – they are just clueless earthly-Utopian nerds with, possibly, a high IQ but absolutely no common sense, and no idea of the true damage to humanity this fraud is responsible for.
And, finally, I really should not laugh too much at these scientists’ apocalyptic fear. They seem legitimately afraid. Throughout history, scientists have thought they have discovered ominous phenomenons , and raised perfectly legitimate concerns. I harken back to another brilliant scientist – Dr. Egon Spengler – upon discovering a similar valid threat to mankind – the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man….
“Sorry, Venkman, I’m terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought….”
I lied, one last one, I apologize in advance….
I grabbed this image from another site I frequent, ‘cause I think it most closely resembles the typical CAGW (non)scientist, especially the “elevated proboscis” aspect…
And, I subsequently found this – the process most CAGW scientists use to secure funding…
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYmzdvMoUUA?feature=player_detailpage&w=640&h=360%5D
Yeah, I know, I know, I’ll stop now…
Oops initial image did not show up, here’s the link
http://imgur.com/Smoqslr
Frank K. says:
August 22, 2014 at 6:04 am
Wow! palindrom has returned from his academic bubble (or Mom and Dad’s basement)
http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2014/08/how-scientists-feel-about-climate.html?showComment=1408640534888#c7647139080075044465
“palindromAugust 22, 2014 at 3:02 AM
I dropped a single drive-by comment there, which I expect will be greeted with fury and/or removed. What a den of fools.”
If any of you want to comment there, good luck! I have given up. If I were to tell them that Jesus walked on water, I would expect the response to be: “What’s the matter, could He not swim?”
There don’t seem to be any geologists there, just a lot of people who make a good living off climate hysteria. A geologist would tell you Man’s replenishment of depleted CO2 is one of the best things to ever happen to the earth. And because of fossil fuels and other tech, the earth has reached peak farmland. Or would have, without bio-fuels.
I just checked out hotwhopper.
She seems to be a sadsack with a chip on her shoulder.
REPLY: Not only that, she is serially mendacious. I consider her (Miariam O’Brien) to be an abusive Internet stalker – Anthony
==========================================================================
It would seem that palindrom feels that providing evidence of CAGW might hurt our feelings and so he declines to share such information.
(Might “palindrom” really be Michael Mann?)
I got it, Anthony needs to do a “how do you feel about being a denier” essay thing. We should include
Roy
Anthony
Bob
Lord M
RGB
And another five Anthony can pick.
It could be interesting
Palindrom
None deny Climate changes we know it does, has and will always change. So stop using the term deniers. We debate the A in AGW and have refuted the C in CAGW, we deny nothing. The fear of the CAGW believers to be even questioned is the problem and the issue that creates the divide and total breakdown in the scientific process.
Great one Frodo! Be a good image for Josh to model from.
Sure looks like a Palindrom to me; echo chamber upstairs and B_____t below.