By Mark Heyer – You’re a climate denier if:
– You believe that the atmosphere has continued to warm for the last 17+ years despite rapid growth of CO2. 97% of real climate scientists acknowledge that it hasn’t. They call it the “pause” or “hiatus” although there is no scientific evidence that warming will pick up again or when.
– If you believe that Antarctica is melting. NASA satellite data shows that the sea ice extent around Antarctica in 2014 is the largest in recorded history.
![antarctic_seaice_sept19[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/antarctic_seaice_sept191.jpg?quality=83)
– If you believe that the observed West Antarctica warming is caused by warming of the atmosphere. Recent studies show that the heat is coming from volcanoes below the glacier. Besides, air temperatures in the area are far below zero. Ice doesn’t melt in subfreezing air.
![antarctic-volcano[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/antarctic-volcano1.gif)
– If you believe that 97% of climate scientists support the claim that global warming is driven directly by man-made CO2. It is true that 97% believe in climate change, which is the question they were asked, which is like asking them if the sun rises in the morning. Far fewer agreed with the man-made warming question and few of them agree on the details.
– You believe that climate models accurately represent the climate of the earth. They don’t. Even the scientists who run them and the IPCC agree that they cannot predict the future of the climate. This is now obvious to everyone since they totally failed to predict the leveling off of atmospheric temperatures since 2000.
– You think that climate models accurately model the behavior of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. They don’t. They are completely unable to model the behavior of 97% of the greenhouse gas, water vapor and clouds. The dire predictions of runaway global warming from CO2 were based on the conjecture that water vapor would amplify the effects of CO2. The lack of recent warming while CO2 continues to increase shows clearly that water vapor is either neutral or in fact suppresses the warming from CO2.
– If you believe that around 2000, CO2 magically changed its mind and decided to warm the oceans instead of the air. Some scientists speculate that this is the case but there is little or no hard science to support the notion. Some even speculate that the heat is going into the deep oceans, even though there is no way to measure it or find it.
– You believe that man-made global warming is causing climate disasters. The International Red Cross reports that natural disasters are at a ten year low. Tornado and hurricane activity have also been at near record lows.
Don’t be an anti-science climate denier.
Just out of curiosity, what is the ‘likely, very likely, extremely likely’ style title for 97% sure? I’d just like to know in time for AR6 since they’ll obviously be that positive of their ‘Science’ by then.
I believe it is a measure of the confidence expressed by the IPCC at each stage, pointing out the preposterous way in which their expressions of confidence increase even as their models diverge.
Well, yes. But what I was asking was what you CALL a 97% confidence level. If >60% = Likely, >90% = Very Likely, and >95% = Extremely Likely, what does >97% equal? Super Likely? Incredibly Likely?
Ludicrous SpeedLudicrously Likely? What’s the NAME for this ultimate consensus level of confidence?To: schitzree October 24, 2014 at 6:13 pm
I believe it’s “double plus good”, eh?
A likely story?
Danny: It’s not just strictly a numbers game. Remember, the “Climate Catastrophists” were the ones who claimed that anyone who agreed with them was a “Climate Scientist’. The people who are skeptics, among other things, insist that any claims made must be testable, verifiable and all data and codes be made available to see if the work is replicable. Unfortunately there are number of practitioners on the other side of the divide that refuse to do so. So yes, there are a good number of people on this side of the fence that are “scientists” who happen to study climate and climate related phenomena.
What did I miss, what did I miss?
When I replied to you I was thinking about your previous:”Well, if I remember correctly, the people who came up with that 97% consensus claim, defined a “Climate Scientist” as one who has more than 50% of his papers/articles published in peer-reviewed journals that purport to be concerned with climate issues.”
That made think that if “Climate Scientists” on this side could do the same? Score could be kept, uniforms, the whole bit. 🙂
Heck, I was even thinking that if/when I gain enough of an understanding I might “become one” (When I grow up) (Not picking a side).
As I’ve shared, I trying to learn enough to know what questions to ask? But you know that already.
Thanks again.
Well, Actually I didn’t state that clearly enough. The source of that 97% of “Climate Scientists” say that man-made CO2 emissions are causing global warming comes from two now thoroughly discredited surveys that mailed out over 11000 questionnaires (with only 2 questions on it) to people who had published papers concerning climate. They got about 3000 replies. Then they used the criterion I stated above and narrowed it down some more. When all was said and done they had 77 answers and of those 77 answers only 75 of them completely agreed with their thesis. 75/77= 97.4%. The other source of the claim is from “the Hockey Team” (aka Michael Mann and company) who said that only those who published papers in journals they approved of could be called “Climate Scientists”. Anyone else was either incompetent, deluded, or in the pay of “big oil’ (ie a shill for the oil/gas or coal industries). Or worse yet… anti-science.
First filter: I understand there were 5 questions on the original survey – but we have never been told what the other three questions were, not what the replies to those three questions were.
Second filter: The second criteria used for ranking the few who did reply was number of publications – again, emphasizing the “appeal to authority” (listen to the consensus) needed by the ones in authority! Notice that the “person” was ranked. NOT the paper itself. If, for example, three people were compared: The first was thrown out because she had only 3 papers – even if they were very important. The second was thrown out because he had 12 papers written and 3 textbooks and over 12 years teaching had reviewed 232 papers. Who was accepted? The person who co-authored 42 papers pal-reviewed citing the work done by the first two, who closest approach to new data was sitting on the board approving next-years budget for the other two!
Third filter: The resulting list was filtered by government money/government job: Those who worked in the private industry or a non-official institution were thrown out. This left 77 government-paid “officials” answering two questions out of 13,000 scientists who were originally asked five questions about climate.
The proper summary to the 97% mantra is to agree: “97% (75 out of 77) of government-paid scientists agree that raising 1.3 trillion dollars a year in carbon taxes will be good for the government that pays their salaries and research grants and the government computer programs that they use. And I agree with them! “The earth’s temperature is rising, and mankind is responsible for some part of that increase in temperatures in recent years.”
We profoundly disagree with them on how much the earth’s temperature is rising now – and if it is continuing to rise at all the past 18 years much less what the earth’s temperature will be in 100 years, how much of the latest increase is due to man’s actions, how beneficial increased CO2 and lower energy costs are to world at large, how much greater harm the government’s CAGW exaggerations are doing to billions of the world’s poor and suffering.
RA,
Thank you. Gives me food for thought and more to research. Sure sounds like a “numbers game”
You know, the irony of this all is that the reason I’m here it due to lack of comfort with what I was hearing, so maybe I’m “skeptical” after all. Shoulda started off with that.
Grey, can’t help but believe you’ll see this to so will thank you (again) also here.
yah! – that’s the way to write a nutshell putdown of the alarmist positions – witty – and easy for laymen to grasp
Absolutely agree! In fact, Moderators, in spite of the fact that I have seen no “sticky post” since the new format, I believe with a bit of grooming as suggested above, this should be the first.
I forgot to say I luvs me some new format.
Yes, We believe that 97% of climate scientists
support the claim that global warming is
driven directly by man-made CO2.
Hello Mark, We criticize others for having outdated material so we should be careful our own material is not outdated. Your first graph, in my opinion should only show RSS as follows:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1996.65/plot/rss/from:1996.65/trend/plot/rss/from:1996.65/to:2005/trend/plot/rss/from:2005/trend
Hadcrut3 has not been updated since May.
Hadsst2 has not been updated since June. And on top of that, Hadsst3 no longer shows a flat or negative slope for any length of time at all.
As for Hadcrut4, it has not been updated on WFT since July. The reason is that WFT only shows Hadcrut4.2, although Hadcrut4.3 is now out. But WFT does not show it yet. September is not out yet, but the possibility is there that the slope may only be positive for all lengths of time. I understand it only needs to be 0.639 to have no negative slope and it was 0.669 last month.
Are the Had-s hiding in the depth of the seven seas or is someone trying to hide something???
I like the graphs and think they are necessary to reinforce the statements.
You might want to add the global drought graph:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/sdata20141-f51.jpg
Good list, but I didn’t see anything about the polar bears. Don’t our friends on the left harbor the notion that they are on the brink of extinction?
Oh! and don’t our very good friends on the left tell us that when the glaciers disappear that the rivers in those valleys will run dry?
Such is not the case, it will still rain and snow, and the rivers will still flow.
“…that the rivers in those valleys will run dry…”
Good news: no more floods!
I’ve been suggesting for more than a year now that global warmists should be characterized as deniers of reality. Glad to see that someone finally did a full blown job.
” Ice doesn’t melt in subfreezing air.” Uhm… Over simplified. My (Chicagoland) house faces south. In the winter (duh!), when we get a load of snow overnight and we have a clear sky the next day, my driveway will usually be clear of snow by the time I return home from work. The folks across the street, not so much. I think it has something to do with that big hot thing in the sky heating the black asphalt driveway. It always works better when I scrape a few lines with the snow shovel to uncover a bit of black. So, between melting and sublimation, the snow goes away. Temps can be near zero F and it still goes away.
I fail to understand the issues some people seem to have with the word “denier”. I DENY the reality of Anthropological Global Warming and will say it in the face of anybody who believes what they have been told otherwise. That makes me a DENIER by definition. I am proud to be one.
“Some even speculate that the heat is going into the deep oceans, even though there is no way to measure it or find it.”
Funny how they keep doing that…putting it somewhere that can’t be measured. Almost seems intentional 😉
They’ve GOT to be running out of places though…
I’m still waiting for them to tie the missing heat to dark energy somehow.
Mark, Great work! And could make it even better with the good suggestions above. And then (maybe) we find money (out of our own pockets, if needed) to distribute it more widely. Or even get a TV stand-up comedian to do it as a gig (in simpler form), as a You Tube video. Can easily link to all the back-up graphs as proof to keep the loud mouth deniers at bay.
I assume you seen the guy that does the “You might be redneck if you…..”
And one more idea: You might be a denier if you think CO2 is not crucial to life on earth…”
Here’s a few oldies along the same line…
Reed Coray
August 20, 2012 at 8:19 pm
Gunga Din says: August 20, 2012 at 6:52 pm
If you’re idea of saving the Great Barrier Reef from human influence is for humans to throw a really BIG blanket on it …. You might be a Green-neck.
Green-neck, now that I like. It opens up a whole new world of jokes–ala Jeff Foxworthy–e.g., “If your garden is used to power your car, you might just be a green-neck.”
If your idea of saving the planet is to watch to watch an ice sculpture melt in DC, you just might be a green-neck.
davidmhoffer
August 20, 2012 at 9:44 pm
If you think we can save people from starving by burning the food, you just might be a green-neck.
John F. Hultquist
August 20, 2012 at 10:12 pm
Green-neck:
If your compost pile has a higher IQ than you do, you might just be a green-neck.
If you would sign a petition to get all CO2 out of the atmosphere, you might just be a green-neck.
Reed Coray
August 21, 2012 at 11:54 am
If the centerfold of your favorite magazine is Michael Mann, you might just be a green-neck.
If your recently approved grant proposal was originally a story rejected by the SyFy Channel as being “to bizarre”, you might be a green-neck.
If you’ve ever considered wearing a gas mask to capture your own CO2 emissions, you might be a green-neck.
If you’ve replaced your black-velvet portrait of Elvis with a black-velvet portrait of Al Gore, you might be a green-neck.
This should be a Friday Funny if it has not already been there.
Beautiful!
Turning the tables.
Good list. It should be revisited and items added to it from time-to-time.
Good work
+10
Mark,
Excellent treatise, illustrating ‘humorous turnabout is fair play’!
Made my day – Thanks!
Mac
“They call it the “pause” or “hiatus” although there is no scientific evidence that warming will pick up again or when.”
Evidence shows us that the oceans have continued to warm, which is where 90% of global warming goes.
Also, the past 12 months has been the warmest on record. The surface warming “pause” is over.
Martin,
Which oceans are warming, and at what level, and as for the warmest 12mos on record, according to which data set?
“Also, the past 12 months has been the warmest on record. The surface warming “pause” is over.”
Roflmao!
The past 12 months is the tallest I’ve ever been, and I’m 41 years old. Heavens! I must be taller than the Eiffel Tower by now!
I’m sure hoping there’s a sarc tag missing Martin…
There seem to be some hotter years on this graph:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1997/plot/rss/from:1997/trend
Martin, put down the kool-aid. The surface record is hopelessly corrupt. You’ve been duped.
MArtin:
You need to get up to speed on radiative physics. CO2 cannot warm water because water is opaque to IR. SST is determined by insolation only and not by the greenhouse effect
Martin,
Why did heat go into the atmosphere in the 1970-1990+ period and then all of a sudden decide to go into the ocean?
Your other comment has already been debunked:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2014/10/why-2014-wont-be-the-warmest-year-on-record/
Apparently they never consider the policy implication if 90% of the warming goes into the ocean. That’s an enormous negative feedback going into a sink so large that it could absorb all the otherwise predicted warming through 2100 and it would still be within measurement error.
“Also, the past 12 months has been the warmest on record.”
No they aren’t. The data only says that after a lot of torture.
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/10/18/gavin-takes-climate-fraud-to-an-entirely-new-level/
“Evidence shows us that the oceans have continued to warm, which is where 90% of global warming goes.”
Interesting re-write of the standard co2 greenhouse warming hypothesis. Is it your own? What evidence, and who is ‘us’? Perhaps the ‘us’ comprises, “My comrades and I over at the Edward Bernays University of Fourth Estate Education.”
I’m fond of this one:
South Miami is so fed up with climate inaction, it just voted to secede from Florida
http://www.salon.com/2014/10/22/south_miami_is_so_fed_up_with_climate_inaction_it_just_voted_to_secede_from_florida/
“As the nation’s 51st state, “South Florida” would address climate threats head-on”
Hmmm…interesting wording. Exactly what is a “climate threat”?…is it the same as a weather threat?…if so, they most certainly will get to do exactly that at some point.
The sad part about this is that most people don’t look any deeper than mainstream media freaking out about climate change. I myself totally believed we were doomed, until about a year or so ago I decided to delve a little deeper because I read something somewhere about the Texas drought and how it might or might not be caused by ‘Climate Change’.
What if this was the first chart?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1997/plot/rss/from:1997.9/trend
Global temperature data by satellite.
When you combine the land-surface air temperature dataset and the HadSST3 sea-surface temperature dataset.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1997/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1997.9/trend
Which shows a clear warming trend.
No one believes GISS anymore. The divergence from satellite is driven mainly by the systemic alterations to the data (which are then reported with hilarious precisions).
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/10/25/gavin-doesnt-understand-his-own-data/
Martin,
I prefer satellite data. It is far more accurate than HADSST, which is anyway sea surface temperature.
Like all habitual liars, they will continue the lie till beyond the bitter end, even in the face of irrefutable evidence. They have painted themselves in to a corner and must continue to tell new lies to maintain the line. The excuses get ever more bizarre to buy time. Like all liars, they hope to die before their lives of lies are uncovered.
This should be a movie or video, put it on u tube with a great voice explaining the charts and hope it will go viral. Maybe some of those rich oilmen will pay to put it on the networks as an add.
Great summary with a punch!
The word ‘deny’ is a very descriptive and useful word. There is nothing inherently wrong with the word or with the process of denying certain things.
The person who coined the phrase climate change denier was indeed equating climate crisis skeptics with Holocaust deniers. And that is where the issue lies; not in the word ‘denier’ but in the accusation of denying known facts. The real irony here is that climate crisis skeptics are not denying any known facts, while the warmests are continually denying many known facts.
In psychology, there is a name for the behavior of accusing another of the crime you are committing. It is called ‘projection’. A very angry and attacking person will accuse the much calmer people around him of being very angry and attacking. This behavior is quite common in people who have serious personality disorders, although it is not limited to them. The behavior is completely irrational.
So…when we became offended when an irrational person demonstrated the behavior of someone with a serious personality disorder, it actually gave credence to the deranged individual and his statement. It is like getting offended when a man you know to have Turret’s Syndrome calls you a foul name. You would only be upset if you actually believed the man was expressing a legitimate viewpoint. By getting upset, you show the rest of the world that you think there is something to the man’s insulting language, besides a bizarre mental issue.
A more appropriate response to the initial ‘climate crisis skeptic/Holocaust denier’ connection would have been some compassion for the source, pointing out the irrationality of the statement, and expressing concern that the source would soon be receiving some psychological help. The above article would have been useful in cementing just how irrational the attempted connection was, and how the speaker was obviously ‘projecting’, similar to those with serious mental disorders. The whole thing would have ended right there.
Instead…we became offended, giving the statement and the source legitimacy, while destroying the functionality of a perfectly good word. Articles like this one are a step in reversing our mistakes.
Well done!
Thanks for the lucid analysis. Spot on. What got me going on this idea was an AGW zealot friend. I casually asked if he had seen a particular study mentioned on WUWT. He got a look of horror on his face and screamed, “Scumsucking denialist claptrap!” Explaining that this was just a summary of a peer reviewed study was useless.
My desire in all this is that the counter charges would create confusion and like matter and anti-matter mutually anihalate the entire concept and use of the word.
Of course, the word denier has been used since the 1850s to refer to someone who does not accept the findings of science, approximately 80 years before the Holocaust.
And the swastika adorned pottery made by American Indians. Your point?
Jim Clarke says:
The person who coined the phrase climate change denier was indeed equating climate crisis skeptics with Holocaust deniers. And that is where the issue lies; not in the word ‘denier’ but in the accusation of denying known facts. The real irony here is that climate crisis skeptics are not denying any known facts, while the warmists are continually denying many known facts.
True dat. “Denier” is a pejorative, and Margaret Hardman is attempting to mislead again. Columnist Ellen Goodman originally appended the “denier” label to scientific skeptics of catastrophic AGW. You could even look it up.
It is true that the real deniers are Michael Mann’s acolytes. They believe Mann’s Hockey Stick chart that showed essentially no global temperature change prior to the Industrial Revolution. But of course, skeptics have always known that the climate always changes, and always will change.
Further, CO2 has nothing measurable to do with global temperature. I invite Margaret or anyone else to prove me wrong: simply post a testable, empirical measurement, quantifying the specific amount of global warming due to human CO2 emissions.
But so far, the alarmist clique has not been able to find a single verifiable measurement quantifying the amount of global warming that can be directly attributed to human activity, out of the total global warming of ≈0.7ºC over the past century and a half. For all anyone really knows, human emissions have zero effect on global T. Because their belief is based entirely upon their assertions; it is 100% measurement-free opinion.
Catastropic AGW is ALL conjecture. Nothing more. It is simply an opinion, with no supporting measurements. Without measurements, it is hardly a scientific position, is it?
So the alarmist crowd is left with very weak tea: they only have their Holocaust comparisons for their argument. But that is not science. That is desperation on their part. They are desperate to keep their carbon scare alive. But really, they have no supporting facts or measurements that are worth a fig.
I truly wish that M. Hardman or anyone else could find actual measurements to support their True Belief. Then we could have a real science discussion, instead of having to endure their incessant religious beliefs and insults.
“The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably
not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind.” — H.L. Mencken
How else can one explain all the damage done to economies and people around the world by fools who thought that anthropogenic released CO2 had any measurable net effect on climate? I am becoming pessimistic that we can ever shake lose from this madness. After all, it is exactly as Mencken pointed out:
A tiny bit more CO2 in the atmosphere is one of the greatest imaginary hobgoblins that the governments have come up with yet. It means ever more power over people and is the “health of the state” as much as war itself is.
Okay, I have a question: if 99.7% of articles don’t claim human caused global warming, but 0.5% do, how does that work. 99.7+0.5 = 100.2.
I’ve been wondering the same thing.