Dr. Caleb Rossiter – The Debate is finally over on “Global Warming” – Because Nobody will Debate
I am deserting from the Climate War. I will never write another climate article or give another climate talk, and I’ll bite my tongue and say oooooooooooom when I hear or see the sort of exaggerations and certainties about the dangers of heat-trapping gasses that tend to make my blood boil at their absurdity. For a decade I’ve been a busy soldier for the scientific method, and hence a “skeptic” to climate alarmism. I’ve said all I think and know about this repetitive, unresolveable topic. I’ll save hundreds of hours a year for other pursuits!
This is not like my pledge to my wife after a marathon that “I’ll never do another one.” This is real. There is simply too little room for true debate, because the policy space is dominated by people who approach this issue not like scholars weighing evidence, but like lawyers inflaming a jury with suspect data and illogical and emotional arguments.
The believers in human–induced catastrophic climate change, strongly represented among the liberal and radical left of American and international politics, have won the mainstream media and government battle for the conventional wisdom, but lost the war for policy change. None of the governmental and few of the institutional and individual actors who claim to fear climate change will take real steps to reduce their use of energy, choosing instead to put on phony shows of “green-ness” and carbon-trading shell games. So it’s over, on both fronts.
I guess I should be happy, since in the other two areas, and blogs, in which I expend professional and personal blood, sweat, and tears (the American empire, and school “reform”) I am usually in agreement with the radical left, and never win. I nod my head happily when reading the Nation magazine and listening to Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now, yet am sadly on the losing end of the policy fights in my areas that they describe. Politicians and well-paid reformers continue to double down on the disaster of nearly 30 years of the blame-the-teacher, mistest-the-student regime, and U.S. arms and training for dictators have reached new heights under every president from Carter to Obama.
Finally, I’m a winner, but for all the wrong reasons. The leaders of the big governments who control global policy aren’t avoiding change because they disagree with the conventional wisdom. They’re avoiding change because it would be politically uncomfortable for them. Thank goodness, because the change they’re mouthing would be more than uncomfortable for developing countries. It would be a disaster, de-industrializing them and taking decades off their citizens’ life expectancy.
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Climate Claims and Fears Can Drive You Crazy
I never expected to be in the Climate War. I have enough wars to fight as an anti-imperialist and an activist supporting development and democracy in Africa against a U.S. policy of backing dictators and American corporations. Only by chance did I get drafted for climate duty. About 10 years ago, when a graduate student in my class on international research statistics wrote a required analysis of any peer-reviewed study in the field, she chose a journal article on some aspect of climate science. Her paper reported data and conclusions about human-induced global warming that were so weak and illogical in their own terms that I gave her a poor grade, noting: “You can’t have read this study carefully.” She protested, and brought me the article, and indeed I saw that one of the most respected names in climate science and climate policy was writing flights of fancy and getting them published in refereed journals. I raised her grade, of course, but not all the way to an A, because she had been so smitten with the credibility of the author and the journal that she forgot to check his logic.
Read the entire essay from Caleb Rossiter here. http://www.calebrossiter.com/Last%20Climate.html
h/t to WUWT reader “David” in Tips and Notes
Caleb Rossiter got fired because of his globalwarming opinons, which we covered here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/06/12/professors-fellowship-terminated-for-speaking-out-on-global-warming-in-the-wall-street-journal/
Another essay from him was also carried on WUWT:
Caleb Rossiter – opening eyes to the uncertainty of global warming claims
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As he realizes, China is going to wake up tomorrow and continuing burning coal for as long as it benefits them, whatever comfortable Western environmentalists say as they drive and jet around the world.
It’s NOT OVER. It is AGENDA 21 and ICLEI is making great progress behind what Rosa Koire calls “THE GREEN MASK.” The late Milton Friedman said, “Real change is made possible through crisis or the perception of crisis.” So this whole alarmist front is not simply about money, but rather, it is the vehicle of change. The question is, what change, specifically? Familiarize yourself with Agenda 21 and ICLEI. Ask yourself what major landmark steps each President, Democrat and Republican, have taken in this iteration of world order, beginning with George Herbert Walker Bush. They are all playing from the same book while trying hard to appear opposed.
The reason they changed the name from Global Warming to Climate Change is not because they are losing the battle of direct measurement vs. model failure, but rather, because word association is a key to social psychology. If the climate is changing and humans can be convinced they are the cause, which appears to have subjugated the left leaning, liberal, progressive movement……FORWARD……., then we too must accept change, even if it means giving up our freedom. Make no mistake, Rosa Koire is SPOT ON. Start thinking in terms of the Hegelian Dialectic and the common use of Delphi and Ad Hominem in the alleged debate over climate change. What we are witness to is the biggest social engineering scam in history…bigger than religion! Wait! This is a religion of Utopia where common folks must be poor together and suffer de-evolution of man while the rich change nothing….but us. Please come back to the debate on a different front. The world needs us all right now, to step up and wake the sleeping masses.
Rosa Korie!!! Yes I think this is one of her best presentations for those not familiar with her.:
It’s worth watching if you can put asside some time…
Just actually watched an hour of this. I think that Dr. Caleb Rossiter probably agrees with her on a lot of her points, as she is a liberal Democrat also. It’s worthwhile info, ENTERTAINING, and even more up-to-date even though it is several years old. Rosa Korie hasn’t given up the fight:
http://www.democratsagainstunagenda21.com/
and:
http://www.postsustainabilityinstitute.org/
Conversely, how likely is it that the right is right about everything? It’s not so black and white.
The error the left made was a category error. They thought climatology was a social science – affected by the very practise of itself – rather than a physical science.
An understandable mistake as climatology took economics as an input, practitioners acted like political activists and the subject used statistics in the same way as the social sciences.
But it is actually studying a physical reality. King Canute knew that.
And so the left’s attitude and response is inappropriate.
That doesn’t mean the left’s attitude and response is always inappropriate.,
Well said in the greater part. However, read Jose Duarte’s blog articles. Climate “science” does not use statistics like social sciences do, though, as Duarte points out, some social scientists frame problems and use statistics in much the same way climate “scientists” often do. The problem is badly framed hypotheses, poorly employed data and analytical tools, and those problems are becoming endemic in science. Worse, they may be infiltrating outward. Read some of the shenanigans linked to the construction of the new Bay Bridge between Oakland and San Francisco. Some of the worst actors there purported to be engineers.
That is actually a very insightful and thought provoking observation. It does open up a lot of paths to follow to understand their thinking. Thanks
As far as Dr. Caleb Rossiter not writing about climate again, I don’t believe him.
Wait until someone attacks him on climate, or he sees something so outrageous about climate change that he just has to respond. I just know it will happen. But, I understand his frustration.
He makes some good points, but I’m sure he will come to his senses when the time comes…
Anthony, After the service the minister was asked why he wasted his time preaching to the choir. With out hesitation the minister responded that if he didn’t preach then they wouldn’t sing. the skeptics need the paper with the music in order to sing. The climate change debate is not about science it is abut politics. Eventually the science will overwhelm the CAGW theory just like the discovery of the moons of Jupiter finally overwhelmed the idea that the universe orbited the earth. They are all looking pretty foolish now. but remember n their defense they did have a theory that provided predictability to the limits of their ability to observe. If you stop preaching to the choir then the politics will continue the music will be weaker the choir will be less organized and it will just take longer for the epiphany to occur. Do not be dismayed. Laugh and preach. Your have a great choir, just encourage them to sing a bit louder.
Hey, there are other ways to fight the war. Don’t quit, change your tactics!
The North Shore Times, NZ has a frightening story of inundation and the need to start panicking. It’s full of “weasel words” but the majority won’t see that. Climate Alarmism at it’s best/worst.
The first sentence leaves it unclear whether “I” refers to Mr. Watts or Mr. Rossiter.
while Rossiter has seemingly given in to peer pressure – i have no sense of abandonment – this issue is not as life-and-death as say a battlefield where every soldier counts – besides – his published works on he subject survive – and so far he isn’t recanting
as a leftist – he is in a predicament different than those of us on the right – he wants to continue with leftist work – with leftist collaborators – and if keeping tight lipped is good enuf for them – than for him his silence is worth it – and for us – it can be useful as one more demonstration of the fanatical nature of the adversary