Update: A guest post response, along with a comment from me has been posted, please see A big (goose) step backwards
Guest Opinion: Dr.Tim Ball
Skeptics have done a reasonable job of explaining what and how the IPCC created bad climate science. Now, as more people understand what the skeptics are saying, the question that most skeptics have not, or do not want to address is being asked – why? What is the motive behind corrupting science to such an extent? Some skeptics seem to believe it is just poor quality scientists, who don’t understand physics, but that doesn’t explain the amount, and obviously deliberate nature, of what has been presented to the public. What motive would you give, when asked?
The first step in understanding, is knowledge about how easily large-scale deceptions are achieved. Here is an explanation from one of the best proponents in history.
“All this was inspired by the principle – which is quite true in itself – that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying. These people know only too well how to use falsehood for the basest purposes.”
————————–
Do these remarks explain the comments of Jonathan Gruber about legislation for the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare? Do the remarks fit the machinations of the founders of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the activities of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) disclosed in their 6000 leaked emails? It is instructive to know that Professor Gruber’s health care models are inaccessible, protected as proprietary.
The author of the quote was a leader whose lies and deceptions caused global disaster, including the deaths of millions of people. In a complex deception, the IPCC established a false result, the unproven hypothesis that human CO2 was causing global warming, then used it as the basis for a false premise that justifies the false result. It is a classic circular argument, but essential to perpetuate the phony results, which are the basis of all official climate change, energy, and environmental policies.
They successfully fooled the majority and even though many are starting to ask questions about contradictions, the central argument that CO2 is a demon gas destroying the planet through climate change, remains. There are three phases in countering what most people understand and convincing them of what was done. First, you have to explain the scientific method and the hypothesis they tried to prove, instead of the proper method of disproving it. Then you must identify the fundamental scientific flaws, in a way people understand. Third, you must anticipate the next question, because, as people grasp what is wrong and what was done, by understanding the first two stages, they inevitably ask the basic question skeptics have not answered effectively. Who did it and what was the motive? You have to overcome the technique so succinctly portrayed in the cartoon (Figure 1).
The response must counteract all the issues detailed in Adolf Hitler’s cynical comments, but also the extremely commendable motive of saving the planet, used by the IPCC and alarmists.
Figure 1
There are several roadblocks, beyond those Hitler identified. Some are inherent to individuals and others to society. People want to believe the best in people, especially if they have certain positions in society. Most can’t imagine scientists would do anything other than honest science. Most assume scientists avoid politics as much as possible because science is theoretically apolitical. One argument that is increasingly effective against this concern is funding. Follow the money is so basic, human greed, that even scientists are included.
Most find it hard to believe that a few people could fool the world. This is why the consensus argument was used from the start. Initially, it referred to the then approximately 6000 or so involved directly or indirectly in the IPCC. Later it was converted to the 97 percent figure concocted by Oreske, and later Cook. Most people don’t know consensus has no relevance to science. The consensus argument also marginalized the few scientists and others who dared to speak out.
There were also deliberate efforts to marginalize this small group with terminology. Skeptics has a different meaning for science and the public. For the former they are healthy and necessary, for the latter an irritating non-conformist. When the facts contradicted the hypothesis, namely that temperature stopped rising while CO2 continued to increase, a more egregious name was necessary. In the latter half of the 20th century, a denier was automatically associated with the holocaust.
Another form of marginalizing, applied to minority groups, is to give them a unique label. In climate, as in many other areas where people keep asking questions for which they receive inadequate answers, they are called conspiracy theorists. It is why I prefer the term cabal, a secretive political clique or faction, named after the initials of Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley and Lauderdale, ministers to Charles II. Maurice Strong referred to the cabal when he speculated in 1990,
What if a small group of these world leaders were to conclude the principal risk to the earth comes from the actions of the rich countries?…In order to save the planet, the group decides: Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring this about?
The motive emerged from the cabal within the Club of Rome around the themes identified by their founder, scientist Alexander King, in the publication The First Global Revolution. They took the Malthusian argument that the population was outgrowing food resources and said it was outgrowing all resources. The problem overall was bad, but was exacerbated and accelerated by industrialized nations. They were later identified as the nations in Annex 1 of the Kyoto Accord. The objective to achieve the motive was to reduce industrialization by identifying CO2 as causing global warming. It had to be a human caused variable that transcended national boundaries and therefore could only be resolved by a world government, (the conspiracy theory). Two parallel paths required political control, supported by scientific “proof” that CO2 was the demon.
All this was achieved with the political and organizational skills of Maurice Strong. Neil Hrab explains how Strong achieved the goal.
How has Strong promoted concepts like sustainable development to consume the world’s attention? Mainly by using his prodigious skills as a networker. Over a lifetime of mixing private sector career success with stints in government and international groups, Strong has honed his networking abilities to perfection. He can bring presidents, prime ministers and potentates from the world’s four corners to big environmental conferences such as the 1992 Rio Summit, an environmental spectacle organized by Strong and attended by more than 100 heads of state.
Here is a simple flow chart of what happened at Rio.
The political structure of Agenda 21 included the environmental catch-all, the precautionary principle, as Principle 15.
In order to protect the environment, the precautionary approach shall be widely applied by States according to their capabilities. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.
What reads like a deep concern for doing good, is actually a essentially a carte blanche to label anything as requiring government intervention. The excuse for action is the unassailable “protect the environment”. Who decides which State is capable? Who decides what is “serious” or “irreversible”? Who decides what “lack of full scientific certainty” means?
Maurice Strong set out the problem, as he saw it, in his keynote speech in Rio in 1992.
“Central to the issues we are going to have to deal with are: patterns of production and consumption in the industrial world that are undermining the Earth’s life-support systems; the explosive increase in population, largely in the developing world, that is adding a quarter of a million people daily; deepening disparities between rich and poor that leave 75 per cent of humanity struggling to live; and an economic system that takes no account of ecological costs or damage – one which views unfettered growth as progress. We have been the most successful species ever; we are now a species out of control. Our very success is leading us to a dangerous future.”
The motive was to protect the world from the people, particularly people in the industrial world. Measure of their damage was the amount of CO2 their industry produced. This was required as scientific proof that human CO2 was the cause.
From its inception, the IPCC focused on human production of CO2. It began with the definition of climate change, provided by the UNFCCC, as only those changes caused by humans. This effctively sidelined natural causes. The computer models produced the pre-programmed results and everything was amplified, and exaggerated through the IPCC Summary for Policymakers. The deception was very effective because of the cynical weaknesses Hitler identifies, the natural assumption that nobody could deceive, on such an important issue, and on such a scale, but also because most didn’t know what was being done.
People who knew, didn’t think to question what was going on for a variety of reasons. This situation makes the statement by German meteorologist and physicist Klaus-Eckert Puls even more important.
“Ten years ago I simply parroted what the IPCC told us. One day I started checking the facts and data – first I started with a sense of doubt but then I became outraged when I discovered that much of what the IPCC and the media were telling us was sheer nonsense and was not even supported by any scientific facts and measurements. To this day I still feel shame that as a scientist I made presentations of their science without first checking it.”
Puls commented on the scientific implications of the deception when he said,
“There’s nothing we can do to stop it (climate change). Scientifically, it is sheer absurdity to think we can get a nice climate by turning a CO2 adjustment knob.”
Now, as more and more people learn what Puls identifies, they will start to ask, who did it and what was the motive. When you understand what Adolf Hitler is saying in the quote from “Mein Kampf” above, you realize how easy it was to create the political formula of Agenda 21 and the scientific formula of the IPCC. Those responsible for the formation, structure, research, and final Reports, easily convinced the world they were a scientific organization making valid scientific statements. They also quckly and easily marginalized skeptics, as the leaked CRU emails exposed.
Do you have another or better explanation of a motive?
=======================================================
Disclaimer [added]: This post is entirely the opinion of Dr. Tim Ball, it does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Anthony Watts or other authors who publish at WUWT. – Anthony Watts
Update: A guest post response, along with a comment from me has been posted, please see A big (goose) step backwards
Quite interesting to read all of the ideas about the “WHY”, apparently without a specific mention of the (probably) most significant “HOW”. I refer, of course to the use of NASA’s large and well-honed public relations apparatus which for more than fifty years has been cranking out press releases aimed mostly at science journalists. As a very expensive taxpayer-supported government agency, by its nature delivering no immediate tangible benefits to the taxpayers, NASA long ago perfected the crafting of “gee-wiz” scientific narratives designed to stoke public interest. The clear objective, of course, was (and is) to give lawmakers some reason (and popular backing) for continuing funding of the agency.
It was a NASA group which latched onto “weather control” as the basis for a slew of gee-wiz narratives, and in the 1970’s promoted scary science stories based on global cooling and a coming ice age. Science journalists, whose daily work was eased by the flood of “information” from this PR machine, dutifully reported ice age stories (which have been recollected periodically in WUWT postings).
From time to time WUWT has commented on various NASA press releases which directly contradict stuff which the same agency PR group had put out just a few months earlier. It was no different with global warming in the 1980’s — the same NASA Goddard group switched their scientific “findings” from ice age predictions to embrace CO2-based global warming. As it turned out, warming seemed to generate more ink in the press than ice did, and could be based upon slightly more plausible “science”.
The long-standing relationships with science journalists gave this NASA group much more credibility than, perhaps, it would otherwise have had. Much of the ground work for the current “climate change” meme can be directly traced to this PR thrust in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Other PR groups sensed the power of the narrative and its attraction to left-leaning political bigwigs. Some important relationships were established with wealthy industrialists who “bought” the global warming story and saw in it a relatively-risk-free avenue to “save the planet” — or at least be seen as trying to be doing so.
By the time the IPCC was established in 1992 considerable momentum had been achieved. In fact, global warming had gained sufficient political and scientific critical mass to continue rolling downhill and start to generate its own funding sources outside of NASA.
While plenty of skullduggery has probably been taking place within the AGW scientific “community” (see countless postings on CA and WUWT for details) it is doubtful that there has been an overall guiding conspiracy at any point. The whole think has just “grown like Topsy”.
Indeed their is no grand conspiracy on either side , despite , what Lew paper would have you believe. Rather what is seen is series of self serving interests , which are a mix of the personal the political and the finical, form the alarmists. With the extreme end acting far more like religions fanatics than anything that should be see in science.
Exactly. +1
It’s no conspiracy when it’s publicly stated by then Greens leader in Australia. It’s policy.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/brown-advocates-for-one-world-parliament-20110629-1gqz1.html
To expand/continue Tetragrammaton’s background story on NASA’s social, public relations and journalism/media-feeding/pablum roles, will mean to include the story of NACA:
In other words, NASA will really have it’s 100th birthday, just 4 months from now.
NACA was glamorous, exciting, and a godsend for journalists & media, just like its alter-ego, NASA. [NACA was meant to be more practical/directly useful, and steadily published awesome technical papers to serve industry & research. These (14,620) papers can now be perused anddownloaded; to scan the listings is to make one jaw-dropping omg find after another … for techie-people.]
But yes; the top-down government influence (sometime-propaganda, but no conspiracy) we see done through NASA, had been a well-hone & oiled ‘machine’, for a couple generations before the acronym-change.
As one might guess, there are a LOT of replies to this post, and it is not surprising. Is it even POSSIBLE to be a skeptic and not have asked this question, and “What motive would you give, when asked?”
Forgive me for responding before reading the actual post (will comment more afterward!). But the question is such a no-brainer to ask.
My before answer? For the scientists: $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ and attention and power (think Mann). For the pols: $$$$$$$$$$$$$$ and attention and power (think You-Know-Who).
Climatology was a scientific backwater, with little funding and little attention. Add in several million, and then increase that to billions and more billions.
Money and attention and power have corrupted people before, and they will again. This is just the example de jour.
The salient question missing from your description is what caused the money to pour in? This isn’t the only game in town, not the only sink down which the government shovels tax payers money. Why did this explode?
Frankly, I think far too many still don’t recognize the deception. I try to force the issue with a simple question. Why has the IPCC made zero effective progress in 25 yrs on narrowing down ECS
– 1990 IPCC’s initial ballpark was ECS = 1.5 to 4.5 as ‘likely’ range
– Fast forward 25 yrs and billions $$$$ in research
– 2014 IPCC still pegs ECS as 1.5 to 4.5 (‘likely’ range)
Since people may deflect, but never respond to the question, I can only hope it sinks in.
Where did our money go and when do we get it back?
I would put it this way (which boils down to much the same thing). Belief is essential to survival. But people can be taught false beliefs. The musical “The Music Man” illustrates how a practitioner can profit by manipulating our belief systems. This is how the salesman operates, and our sales resistance is tested every day. The IPCC says “We have trouble, trouble, trouble in River City, with a capital T and that rhymes with C and that stands for CO2.” But only the credulous accepts a sales pitch at face value and maturity diminishes credulity. So many of us have harbored reservations and this reticence has saved us from a serious mistake. We owe the IPCC a debt of gratitude for floating such an awful falsehood, because as we have instinctively reserved action and now can see the denouement, we strengthen our ability to survive such attacks on reason.
I have enjoyed using “The Music Man” as a metahpor to describe the climate hypesters for several years.
Good insight but it leaves out the NEED to believe. Nietzsche declares the death of god and a 100 years later the vox populi chants CO2 as a new enemy of the people with environmentalists the new priesthood. The new Devil? Fossil Fuels. God> The Planet. This scam has been going on for over 2000 years and will continue to go on until we, as a culture, wise up and stop thinking ‘someone has to be in charge’ and that every problem requires a global one size fits all solution and that solutions can be forced on people.
Kill CO2 as the enemy of the people without changing the ground these things play out on and a new enemy will be created to take its place. How many times do we have to go through this before we learn. Isn’t 2000+ years long enough?
Daniel says “How many times do we have to go through this before we learn.”
It depends on how many of you are in there. I usually have a thing committed pretty well by three recitations but a thing that is boring is going to take many more than three. Effects that are sufficiently dramatic or painful, such as a bee sting, are quite effective with only a single lesson.
I notice a fascination with the number “2000” for you. I happen to like the number “42”, which you may recognize as the ultimate answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything.
{ preface to my comment: it is important to understand ‘why’ / ‘motivation’ / ‘fundamental premises’ in the pursuit of understanding the development of the failed theory of significant climate change from CO2 by fossil fuels, so I thank Tim Ball for stimulating a stark discussion }
Tim Ball’s intellectual basis and explanation (of why CAGW supporters are doing what they are doing) is as flawed as Naomi Oreskes’ intellectual basis and explanation (of why skeptics are doing what they are doing) and both of them have the same fundamental reasons for being flawed.
Tim Ball asks in the closing sentence of his post,
First, I do not think the fundamental question is ‘why’, although it is a step in the right direction for achieving understanding. ‘Why’ and ‘motivation’ are not necessarily the same and neither is the question at the most fundamental level. The most fundamental question is what is a person’s basis for their most fundamental premises?
Given that approach, I think the supporters of the failed theory of significant climate change from CO2 by fossil fuel use have, at the most fundamental level, a false basis for their premises supporting:
a) their positions on what is the nature of reality and;
b) their position on what is the nature of man’s means of knowing.
What is their false basis? That basis, when identified, answers a question that is more fundamental than the Tim Ball question. This is a central intellectual issue that was first systemically addressed more than 2,000 years ago and has been a systemic central issue to this very minute.
Finally for emphasis, to distance myself totally from the populist con$piracy meme in this thread, I think the con$piracy explanations suggested on this thread are chthonic crap..
John
How then to explain the characters like Hansen, Schmidt and Mann cashing in on their notoriety? Hansen was making so many millions from globe-trotting alarmist speechifying that he quit his day job to go full time into activism openly. Schmidt blogs on the public dime.
Given the clearly displayed massive ego’s of ‘the Team’ you can see that fame has much as fortune is what motivates them. Although to be fair its also clear that without AGW and given their proven scientific ‘abilities’ most of them could not get a job teaching at a third rate high school , so even without the fame and fortune angle there is some big time motivation for them to keep the gravy train on track.
John,
+1
Hunter,
: )
John
John, the question could not have been addressed 2000 years ago, because there was no science and no scientific context 2000 years ago.
The method of science, and the recognition of objective knowledge, became consciously explicit no more than about 250 years ago.
It’s quite clear that the leaders of the major scientific institutions have had to abandon the critical thinking required of science, in order to espouse the positions they do on AGW.
When I read the primary literature, the one consistent fault I find is neglect of critical detail. In global air temperature construction, it’s neglect of systematic sensor measurement error. In climate modeling, it’s neglect of model physical error. In paleo-temperature reconstruction, it’s neglect of physics itself. Never does one see propagation of error through sequential calculations. In every area, assumptions are made that permit the neglect of error (typically, the assumption is that error is random and the CLT applies).
When that neglect is rectified, it becomes immediately apparent that the errors are so large nothing is left of substance. So, the systematic neglect of error permits the AGW narrative. I believe AGW proponents know this at some level, which is why error treatment is avoided like the plague. From this judgment I exclude climate modelers, because I’ve discovered that they don’t understand error analysis at all (I have that in black-and-white).
So, my overall judgment is that AGW is the lies of a few abetted by the incompetence of the many. How so many physical scientists became so incompetent in critical thinking and error treatment is the deep hidden question of AGW alarm.
My own view is that the incessant progressivist attacks of the last 40 years has created such a poisonous atmosphere, that any crime levied against the west in general, and against the US in particular, is given credence. So, AGW is just one more obvious crime of the greedy capital-seeking consumption-glutted westerner. Even scientists apparently were primed to accept it by the culture of accusation, and adjusted their thinking accordingly. This explanation could all be wrong, but somehow, the basis isn’t: somehow critical thinking has been jettisoned in the interests of truthifying AGW.
Screw the whole crappy chthonic con$piracy meme running through the thread and Ball’s lead post.
Why shouldn’t they profit from their chosen professional path and maximize that profit? If they did something illegal then it is for the courts to decide. If, by the standards of conduct of their profession, they carried out misconduct then it is for their profession’s conduct committees to decide. Pursuit of profit while pursuing ideas and profession is not wrong or inappropriate; it is a virtue.
It is up to NASA GISS to discipline Schmidt if it is misconduct by their rules for him to blog during working hours.
All of that has nothing to do with their fundamental basis for their root premises at the core of their support of the failed theory of significant climate change from CO2 by burning fossil fuels. What false positions do they have as a basis of their false premises in their scientific philosophy about the nature of reality and the nature of how humans know? That is the essence of understanding the climate change cause phenomena.
John
John Whitman asks “Why shouldn’t they profit from their chosen professional path and maximize that profit?”
Scientists can pursue profit, or they can persuade the public; but they cannot do both at the same time. I discount the claims of the shoe salesman (or any salesman).
I’m all in favor of profit. I’m against public employees profiting privately by spreading lies which impoverish the public and put lives at risk around the world.
I would have thought that distinction to be obvious.
NASA won’t discipline Schmidt. The agency is part of the government-academic-Green-industrial complex which his blog promotes.
Michael 2,
If a climate focused scientist conducts shoddy, inept or intentionally misleading / exaggerated research then the science process will eventually correct. It always has and I see no reason that eventually it will in climate focused science. In the case of the scientists doing so to advance the climate change cause, the correction needed is immense, so I expect it to be a nasty dog-eat-dog guerrilla resistance affair. Still a scientist can pursue fortune and fame while doing publically funded research on climate; if you think there is a law against it or if you think there is a principle in science behavior that makes it unethical, per se, then please advise the law or principle.
John
John Whitman says “then please advise the law or principle.”
I need do neither. I speak for myself. If you are a beneficiary of your own claims, then I will be suspicious of those claims. I am probably not the only person on earth with a similar outlook. I did not say I reject those claims, but they will be subjected to more scrutiny than would be otherwise the case.
As it happens, most scientists are not going to get rich, don’t expect to get rich (in my understanding anyway), but they are also not the ones making noisy policy statements. If a scientist profits from his discovery, as for instance the gentlemen that figured out blue LED and won a Nobel prize, I have no problem with it because they are not demanding vast sums of money from me. I am very happy to buy their blue LED’s.
Catherine Ronconi,
Lies in business or in government or in science or in every human endeavor are deplorable. Noble cause purposed lies are deplorable. The exception that comes to mind is maybe government on government espionage (eg ‘CIA’ stuff) which is the profession of stealth and deceit.
I fail to find the distinction you suggest. So, back to my point that scientists pursuing fame and fortune is not the issue; the issue is lying or cheating or deceiving or exaggerating or unlawful acts or etc etc etc . . .
John
Catherine Ronconi,
NASA hasn’t publically done so to Schmidt, but that does not mean it is impossible that there wasn’t some internal censure. Nor does it mean that it is impossible that there won’t eventually be blowback to Schmidt by NASA after a year or two. Politics being what it is, many things are possible wrt correction of the behavior of climate change cause activists in government employ.
John
Pat Frank,
I was referring to subjective versus objective as the central intellectual issue that was first systemically addressed more than 2,000 years ago and has been a systemic central issue to this very minute. The supporters of the failed theory of significant climate change from CO2 by burning fossil fuels have subjective science of philosophy positions. The more objective considerations are with the skeptical broader perspective on the science focused on climate.
Science did indeed begin >2,000 years ago, so we do not appear to agree there.
I thought the rest of you comment was very circumspect and well done. I share many of your thoughts.
John
John, we probably agree that science has its origin with Thales of Miletus, 7th BCE. It’s true that reference of theory to factual information began then. But it’s not clear to me that a recognized distinction between objective and subjective knowledge was a conscious part of their program.
My caveat, then, is that the people pushing AGW, and uncritically believing in it, have had to consciously put aside the adherence to objective knowledge. I think we agree on this, too.
But the conscious putting aside is a modern offense. This could not really have been done 2000 years ago, before a conscious adherence to that principle was knowingly held as the central sine qua non of science.
It’s interesting, isn’t it, that in the 10,000 years of human civil society, an Enlightenment happened only twice. Once among 7th century BCE Greeks, once among the 17th century CE Europeans. It seems to be a rare phenomenon. Both times localized around the Mediterranean. We’re probably lucky, as a species, it happened at all.
The sheer volume and pomposity of your (all of you) inversions of reality are breathtaking. Over and over you clowns posit ridiculous conspiracy theories while steadfastly ignoring the barely concealed program to discredit the science that is funded by the very self-interested on your side. Over and over you state as facts such tired memes and fallacious arguments as:
There’s no warming
It’s all models and they’ve all failed
Al Gore, Al Gore, Al Gore!
People who accept the science are sheeple that aren’t thinking for themselves (the projection!)
The science side is all political/ideological (mega-projection)
I understand the science and don’t need to just take someone’s word for it. That said, most people cannot, so one must consider the credibility of those you choose to trust. On the side of the science, you have:
* An amazingly strong concensus of the science
* Every national science academy on the planet
* Every university science department that’s expressed a position except those of creationist Bible colleges
* NASA
* NOAA
* The foreign equivalents of NASA and NOAA
* Every international science body that’s taken position (nearly all of them)
* The Pentagon
You, on the other hand, have:
* Retired weathermen lacking even a metrology degree
* Fake British lords with liberal arts degrees
* PR fIrms employed directly and indirectly by fossil fuel interests calling themselves “think tanks” that employ few if any scientists and do no science whatsoever
* Charlatans and rogues with fake science journals, etc.
Then there are some inconvenient truths such as the fact that the Right in most countries accepts the science and did in all countries prior to the success of the d____l industry’s efforts. This, even though the evidence has grown tremendously since then.
Speaking of facts; here are a few that should, to any knowledgeable person, render the general findings of climate science nearly obvious:
* CO2 is the primary GHG. H2O has a larger warming effect but seeks equilibrium with liquid water and is therefore a dependent variable
* CO2 is up 43% in a geologic heartbeat; well over 100X faster than at any time in the historical record
* Human CO2 emission are at least 100X greater than geologic (volcanic) sources
* The above make sense considering that we’re returning to the atmosphere in decades carbon that was geologically sequestered over 10’s of millions of years
* The negative feedback loops involving CO2 are dominated by long time constants such as those of silicate weathering and biomineralization by marine organisms
* The positive feedback loops involving CO2 are dominated by short time constants such as those of desertification and permafrost melting
In direct opposition to your endless claims of “alarmism”, the positive feedback loops are not being included in projections, rendering them likely conservative.
Here’s some inconvenient truths for those espousing the stage of d____l that admits warming but not GHE causation:
* More warming near the poles
* More warming at night
* More warming in winter
* Cooling and contracting stratosphere
All the above are (rather obviously to those who understand the science at all) indicators of GHE warming. All other forcings would have the opposite effects.
For those at the stage that claims it’s not warming, consider that the above factors can combine to yield far more than the fractional degrees that you find so easy to dismiss. The average midwinter temperature at a Canadien Arctic weather station is up 10.7degF.
I don’t know what proportion of you are here because it’s your livelihood to pump up the disinformation and lend it an air of acceptability. I don’t know how many are here because your ideological fervor is in control. I don’t know how many of you are here seeking the comfort of others sharing your desired conclusions. What I do know is that you all will pile on anyone coming here who disturbs the circle jerk by interjecting facts. The sheeple remarks, Leftist bashing, Al Gore attacks, repetitions of Big Lies, and all manner of ad hominem argumentation will commence forthwith.
Consider this – when reality can no longer be dismissed by more than the looniest few, all of the ideals that most of you cling to will be drug down by association with science and reality d____l and the catastrophic consequences associated with them. If you’re religiously motivated, consider that many of you are and the correlation is well known. If you’re a believer in small govt and individual liberty, consider that many of you are and the correlation is well known. If you’re a rock ribbed Republican, . . . you get the idea.
So, if your goals in life are to contribute to the disruption of the biosphere, impoverish billions, kill many millions, and associate your religion, your ideology, and your political affiliation with that, and thus put non-religious, big govt, and Democratic leadership in power for generations, keep to your present path.
Kyle, I didn’t read much beyond your narcissistic introduction sentence:
“The sheer volume and pomposity of your (all of you) inversions of reality are breathtaking.”
Perhaps you could try again more politely. Or not. It is up to you to craft a message that will be read by more than you.
Kyle- maybe I’ll take a moment of my precious time to respond, not so much to you but our readers.
“Over and over you state as facts such tired memes and fallacious arguments as: [list]”
Yes; why you remind me of what I have written? Perhaps you could provide some indication that I am in error rather than just declaring what I have written.
“There’s no warming” True enough since about 1998 where I live. YMMV.
“It’s all models and they’ve all failed” All predictions made by 2005 or so have failed. With improved data and models perhaps their skill will improve.
“Al Gore, Al Gore, Al Gore!” One of many I write about. He is one of your standard bearers.
“People who accept the science are sheeple that aren’t thinking for themselves” Strawman. What sheeple accept are ideologically motivated claims. How else can you explain that nearly all leftists believe in the Consensus, and most everyone else does not?
“The science side is all political/ideological”
Same strawman. Science is what is measured and measurable. How can anyone argue with science? If a thing CAN be argued about, then maybe it isn’t science (or insufficiently so).
More from Kyle:
“CO2 is the primary GHG. H2O has a larger warming effect but seeks equilibrium with liquid water and is therefore a dependent variable”
Yes, H2O has a LOT more warming effect, perhaps as much as 20 times that of CO2 depending on local circumstances. The rest of your comment is slightly unclear. Water vapor depends on things, so does CO2.
“CO2 is up 43% in a geologic heartbeat” So it seems.
“Human CO2 emission are at least 100X greater than geologic (volcanic) sources”
I cannot confirm or dispute your claim; but I note that you ignore all other natural sources of CO2 that dwarf either. In other words, this claim might be “trivially true”. Inasmuch as both 100 times greater than volcanoes must still fit in only 43 percent, it appears you are suggesting a microscopic contribution by volcanoes. That may well be true. I have not argued for volcanoes.
“The negative feedback loops involving CO2 are dominated by long time constants such as those of silicate weathering and biomineralization by marine organisms. The positive feedback loops involving CO2 are dominated by short time constants such as those of desertification and permafrost melting”
Seems reasonable. I have insufficient information to dispute and I am naturally included to provisionally accept such claims.
A few more points from Kyle:
“More warming near the poles” Hooray for that. I had plenty of arctic duty in the military.
“More warming at night” I see no worries here.
“More warming in winter” No worries here, either. I am pretty tired of -20 (F) winters.
“Cooling and contracting stratosphere” Why should this concern me?
[Why would you/he expect a cooling stratosphere with a warming atmosphere? .mod]
More from Kyle:
“I don’t know what proportion of you are here because it’s your livelihood to pump up the disinformation and lend it an air of acceptability.”
All of me is here to learn more about climate science from less self-serving sources. I’ll dip into self-serving sources too from time to time.
“I don’t know how many are here because your ideological fervor is in control” Your list of things you don’t know is growing. I hope we get to what you DO know while I am still interested.
“What I do know is that you all will pile on anyone coming here”
Results reveal intentions, signifying you want this outcome.
“all manner of ad hominem argumentation will commence forthwith.”
Obviously. How else shall I describe your commentary?
” If you’re religiously motivated, consider that many of you are and the correlation is well known.”
ALL of me is religious and I am well correlated, too.
“If you’re a believer in small govt and individual liberty” I wish for small government but I BELIEVE in big government. It’s pretty big and I believe it. I wish for individual liberty and so do you.
Your final paragraph suffers from the fallacy of the false alternatives. I am a libertarian. My goal is not your goal. My goal is not anyone else’s goal; not predictably so anyway.
YOUR goal is going to be a lot more predictable because you are not a libertarian; you have to be given your goals. And yes, Democrats will be in power until this and every other nation collapses in bankruptcy.
Kyle says “I understand the science and don’t need to just take someone’s word for it.”
Of course you take someone’s word for it. Unless you personally core trees, bore ice, and check undersea sediments, you are taking someone else’s word for it.
Whose word you take, and whose you do not, conforms to and confirms your ideology. You might start in the middle of the road, but as soon as you start to choose a side, your choice is reinforced by the very behavior you have demonstrated here today — ridicule and insult; it keeps you in your fold. Among the Amish the same strategy is called shunning. In the blogosphere it is banning if ridicule does not work. But what is your power? Negligible. Once you ban someone, that’s the end of your influence over that person.
In other words, sites such as SkepticalScience, DailyKOS, Huffington Post do not exist to convince the other side. They exist to keep you in the fold.
Referencing NASA and Schmidt, above.
John, your faith in government correcting itself is touching but hopelessly naive. NASA not only won’t discipline Schmidt, but the agency promoted him for getting the Team’s message out on the public dime.
The fix is in and the CACA corruption is spreading to other realms of government and academic “science”. The government is as far from self-policing as possible. Even with a supposedly different party in control of congress, it’s unlikely that anyone will sanction Schmidt and GISS any more than his activist boss Hansen was punished rather than allowed to resign to make even more ill-gotten gains from spreading absurdities like the “Venus Express”.
Sadly, Catherine Ronconi is entirely right about Schmidt and NASA.
She has summarised his promotions and “honours” correctly.
And the reason is that the cost to the institution of admitting a faux pas is so much greater than the cost of keeping silent.
At least in the short term.
It’s worse than John thought! Not only won’t NASA discipline its errant GISS directors, but they’re doing the bidding of the agency and the whole executive branch regime, so there’s no reason for any of their superiors to sanction their misdeeds.
Kyle,
Let me repeat what I have said in this thread now for the third time (“over and over” from your words), “the populist con$piracy memes on this thread and in the Tim Ball lead post are chthonic crap”.
I considered your “Consider this – when . . .”. Now, I suggest that you consider the following.
Consider this – when the philosophy of science is no longer accepted by the IPCC that allows the irrational subjective approach to climate focused science where the ‘a priori’ premise of significant climate change from CO2 by burning fossil fuel is given priority over significant contradicting evidence found in objectively observed reality, then the IPCC’s erroneous philosophy of science used in climate focused science will have been corrected.
John
Michael 2,
I tend to concur. And if one puts the parts of Kyles comment aside that are uncivil and agitated verbiage as just irrelevant emotive venting, then I consider the remaining parts show Kyle has done a considerable attempt to integrate his thinking. I do not agree with much of it but I respect his efforts toward integrating ideas.
Personal Note: it is the start of USA Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Happy Holidays to those observing Thanksgiving.
John
Kyle, if you really understood the science, you’d not have to yatter on about “amazingly strong” consensi, and retired weathermen. None of the first part of your polemic is relevant at all. Neither is your disdain.
To prove your point, all you’d need to do is point us to the published paper deriving the climatological equilibrium sensitivity to CO2 from a valid theory of climate.
But no such theory exists, of course, meaning you can’t prove your case on the merits. That explains your recourse to ad hominem and vacuous disdain.
Stepping through your relevant claims:
“CO2 is the primary GHG….” is refuted by your own “H2O has a larger warming effect,” i.e., is the primary GHG. Your second statement refutes your first. Saying H2O “seeks equilibrium with liquid water and is therefore a dependent variable” shows that you don’t understand the science at all. Water vapor is a condensible gas in Earth climate. CO2 is not. Water equilibrates among three phases, and can act as a heat pump, moving thermal energy up from the surface and dumping it out into space.
CO2 acts as an energy transducer, converting photo-energy into kinetic energy, meaning it adds thermal energy to the atmosphere. Climate models include the assumption that all that thermal energy appears only as sensible heat in the atmosphere and oceans. But that assumption is not based in any valid theory of climate.
If you actually knew the science, you’d know that, too, and would be far more diffident about making obviously nonsensical statements.
“The negative feedback loops involving CO2 are dominated by long time constants such as those of silicate weathering and biomineralization by marine organisms.”
Negative feedbacks include increased convection from the surface, and increased water evaporation, condensation and cloud formation, and precipitation (rain and snow). These are very rapid and mostly negative feedbacks. Global average cloud feedback alone is about -25 W/m^2.
If you knew any climate science, you’d know that, too.
The absence of any valid theory of climate means that the claim of CO2-induced warming is a physically unsubstatiable inference. Your claim, and the AGW claim, are no more than the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
The only thing we actually know for sure that the extra CO2 has done, is green up the global ecology since 1980. It’s made all the plants happy.
The rest of your post is just more blowhard polemics. Your expertise seems dominated by hyperventilation.
Catherine Ronconi,
Faith? My faith in gov’t? Not bad, I did laugh a bit. If you are serious and not jesting, then you probably haven’t been around for the half dozen years of my many many hundreds of comments here.
I am not cynical about NASA’s GISS whereas you seem to be indicating that you so strongly are cynical. I have a suggestion for you about looking into Schmidt’s behavior on RC for the last 3 to 4 years. Don’t you observe a distinct change in Schmidt’s behavior? Doesn’t look he seem to have evolved to a significantly more even toned manner or even a significantly more subdued tone? Also, don’t you observe that RC activity has evolved to much less restricted / limited periods. Looks to me like RC did change. Why? If the reason wasn’t publically stated, then what was the unstated reason?
As to Hansen, he is the stern sounding father of the genre of climate change activism based on ideology and exaggeration. He is the iconic evangelist of climate change. He is the subjectivist who is copied most in the climate focused science that supports the failed (observationally failed) theory of significant climate change from CO2 by burning fossil fuel. In person you can feel his religious fervor on climate change. Kooky.
I do not hold any issue with the fortune or fame of either of the two as you seem to have serious issue with their fortune and fame. I have an issue with their irrational subjective positions on climate focused science; which derives from their false basis for their premises supporting their positions on their philosophy of science in the areas of epistemology and metaphysics.
Happy Holidays to you if you celebrate USA’s Thanksgiving.
John
MCourtney,
Intellectual cost to some individuals in NASA GISS due to ‘a faux pas’ (your words), maybe.
Other costs like funding drops do to ‘a faux pas’, doubtful. Unrelated to ‘a faux pas’ there have been budgets cuts due to ever increasingly severe congressional scrutiny on all areas of gov’t as a general trend that is reasonably expected to continue. But, if public demands change in NASA GISS from a fundamental climate focused ‘faux pas’ (your words) then one might expect an infusion of funds into NASA GISS to investigate, study, reform and adapt to more appropriate focus and process improvements.
John
John,
Thanks and the same to you and yours regarding Thanksgiving. My family and I do very much observe the holiday and have done so for going on 300 years.
Despite my good Genoese Catholic name, I also have English Puritan ancestors. The holiday is a very big deal with us, going a country mile beyond turkey with all the trimmings, as we’re a union of various culinary cultures. I plan to contribute mightily tomorrow to an increase in concentraion of the beneficial, life-giving and sustaining essential trace gas CO2 in our precious atmosphere.
John,
I haven’t noticed a change in Gavin’s blogging or other public behavior, although he did go on John Stossel’s program, while still refusing to share the stage with a d*n**r, so you might be right.
Catherine Ronconi,
It is a gov’t body. It is exposed to elected political (regime) changes. It knows this. It will change with regime mentality changes. The intellectuals in NASA GISS are expected to be survivors if drastic change in NASA GISS does happen due to regime change . . . . and the regime has changed a lot and some reasonably project it will change a lot more. Bureaucrats shift with the political reality.
John
“Politics being what it is, many things are possible wrt correction of the behavior of climate change cause activists in government employ.”
John
I hope you’re right John.
KNR,
It is a collectivist premise to posit that it is bad to have any motive to pursue great personal monetary return for one’s ideas and efforts.
John
But you don’t expound on points a and b which leaves your salient message as, it’s a lot of crap. Not much of a message.
Daniel,
Why expound at all due to the following case?
Everyone, every single adult on this planet, has an a) and b) whether explicitly held or implicitly held. One cannot escape operating in life on some premises in those areas . . . . . so everyone has a basis for those premises whether explicitly or implicitly held.
The essential issue of climate focused science is whether there is objective versus subjective basis for the premises of a researcher’s or assessor’s a) and b). For the case of supporters of the failed (observationally failed) theory of significant climate change from CO2 by burning fossil fuels, there has been a significant amount of scrutiny by critics / skeptics which gives a reasonable finding that those supporters have a fundamentally subjective basis for premises supporting their a) and b); so therefore not objective science. What philosophy and its associated philosophy of science allows them to think their subjectivity is science?
Any complete history of philosophy work shows there are >2,000 years of systemic considerations of what is subjective and what is objective; systemic consideration that goes up to this very day.
John
Dr Ball, I suppose you know Prof.em. Claes Johnson KTH Sweden. He might inform you about he situation in Scandinavia.
To understand what has happened, you need to know how different people in different countries have used climate change for their interests.
Look at Sweden and Denmark.
In both countries climate change is used to motivate energy, business and welfare politics. Bert Bolin and other meteorologists at Stockholm University supplied the tool.
In the EU commission, with responsibility for climate change, was first Margot Wallström Sweden and then Connie Hedegaard Denmark. One without education at University and one with a degree in Literature.
In UK Magaret Tatcher used climate change to combat coal miners union.
Scientist in the field of energy conversion and environment and business leaders evaluated and found opportunities. Now they don’t know how to get out of the mess.
Perhaps I’m oversimplifying, but in my opinion this can be unraveled with one question: what do the involved parties need?
-Politicians need a speech to inspire their electorate.
-Media need looming disasters to sell their stories.
-Civil service organizations need a mandate and funding.
-Everyone wants to stand for good – there are prisoners taking themselves for Robin Hood surrounded by intolerable injustice.
IMO, CAGW is lucky strike for skeptics. CAGW inevitable foundations are in the Malthusian Lebensraum. Sensible people don’t want to be associated with it. With something more subtle this could have continued forever, because there is no point trying to:
-prove CAGW to be a conspiracy or people defending to be evil. It’s not true.
-disprove CAGW on facts. Some people prefer the argument from authority fallacy.
Just watched a BBC4 documentary:-
The Cursed Valley of the Pyramids The Peruvian Lambayeque civilisation, which based its culture on a strong belief that building pyramids was essential to its survival – as was human sacrifice. Archaeologists in northern Peru found mass graves near the lost city of Tucume, revealing a bloody secret. Narrated by Mark Halliley
Couldn’t help but notice the similarity between the High Priests climate change policy and understanding of the climate then and now.
The EPA in the USA is doing the blood sacrifice.
Worse the majority of these closures are on the east coast where the protesters will not allow natural gas pipelines to be built.
Now remember what happened in the 25 hour blackout in New York City in 1977. 550 police officers were injured, 3,776 looters were arrested, 1,000 fires were reported, 1,600 stores were damaged.
And we have Obama busy agitating the inner city communities…. The department of Homeland Security is buying enough ammo for a 20+ year war (1.6 billion + rounds including hollow point) and local police are being given military gear. The Department of Homeland Security is apparently taking delivery of an undetermined number of the recently retrofitted 2,717 ‘Mine Resistant Protected’ MaxxPro MRAP vehicles returning from overseas for service on the streets of the United States. The MaxxPro MRAP is built to withstand ballistic arms fire, mine blasts, IEDs, and other emerging threats. (From Forbes)
From DHS: http://www.dhs.gov/photo/hsi-using-armored-vehicles-training-ice
I am glad I am not living in a city. If we have the power grid make a major crash it could get really nasty.
This makes for a great 2016 election issue. Do we get energy or do we get catechism from the self-proclaimed enlightened?
So Kevin are you saying that huge wastes of human effort and materials is nothing new?
Oh boy…..when climate sceptics move on to broader environmental policy, finance, science and international conventions…..this is what we get: uninformed, prejudicial clap-trap that fuels all the put-downs that sceptics face as a bunch of unscientific conspiracy theorists. WUWT has done a fantastic job of displaying the really bad science at the heart of the IPCC, but the site loses immensely when it gives free rein to amateur analysis of a complex area like Agenda 21, the Precautionary Principle, and ‘green’ motivations. I have spent 35 years in the policy sphere – advising just about every player from governments (my own included occassionally), the EU and the UN, as well as Greenpeace and a host of small scale community led activist groups opposing extremely dangerous technology and exposing how governments lean more to the financial and corporate take on risk, than to community health and safety. It would be a waste of time to make a list here of what life would be like if there had been no green movement, no environmental safety critiques (and reliance entirely on government – as in China).
AND in my one book on climate change science (Chill: a reassessment of global warming theory), studiously ignored by WUWT, I actually provide a thorough analysis of why and how the IPCC made such a huge error. But heh! It is a ‘green’ critique! From within the environmental mindset – and hence, not worth referencing – and indeed, better to act like the critique does not exist, otherwise you can’t beat up the green with such fervour!!!
I am disappointed. I should have learned long ago not to comment or even read comments – and just focus on the science news, but that is getting scarcer and this kind of anti-environmentalist tripe is filling the gap. Shame on you!
Long on criticism, short on specifics, Peter. Hardly compelling.
Here’s a thought: why not contribute a WUWT essay on those topics definitively close to your heart.
We’ll all get educated when exposed to your closely argued thinking, and you’ll get the joy of proving all your critics to be shallow-thinkers.
Peter Taylor coauthored a Post on WUWT two years ago, titled Is the Current Global Warming a Natural Cycle?
It sounds like his main message is getting out.
There is though no entry for the book on Wikipedia (where Mr. Taylor is treated at some length), and I believe that the dust-up surrounding it, alone, would make it Wiki-worthy.
Wow, talk about a holier than thou attitude. Why even bother telling us plebes about your exalted accomplishments?
Well, it ain’t braggin’ if you really did it.
Then again … Are any of those actions actually worth being proud of? 8<)
How many lives have been ruined because of those regulations and those political actions and political decisions?
Kyle,
Quoting long winded lies is no better than tossing out your shorter idiocratic claims.
We all get the point- you are too cowardly and too stupid to actually think for yourself. So like a fundamentalist you can only rely on naming the devil and quoting long passages of your scripture.
Good luck with that, loser.
Peter Taylor
November 24, 2014 at 3:35 pm
” I have spent 35 years in the policy sphere – advising just about every player from governments (my own included occassionally), the EU and the UN, as well as Greenpeace”
Given that they all act like corrupt psychopathic crooks, I guess you advised them in deceiving the public, looting and pillaging.
“AND in my one book on climate change science (Chill: a reassessment of global warming theory), studiously ignored by WUWT, I actually provide a thorough analysis of why and how the IPCC made such a huge error. But heh! It is a ‘green’ critique!”
The ERROR they made was getting caught lying, I guess? You show in your book how they could have avoided getting caught? Is that it? Or do you want to imply you know ANYTHING about models? After bragging about your policy advisory credentials?
” “Chill” is a critical survey of the subject by a committed environmentalist and scientist. Based on extensive research, it reveals a disturbing collusion of interests responsible for creating a distorted understanding of changes in global climate. Scientific institutions, basing their work on critically flawed computer simulations and models, have gained influence and funding. In return they have allowed themselves to be directed by the needs of politicians and lobbyists for simple answers, slogans and targets. ”
(from the amazon blurb)
Peter Taylor, I don’t understand. You advised them for 35 years, they did what you told them to do, and now you write a book criticizing them for it?
Ahhh. Sorry for being slow.
You did a Lovelock. You earned your money for 35 years in the Green machine, then, when you had enough, you quit and published your book, revealing the inner workings of the corrupt Green machine.
And now your frustrated because it didn’t sell.
Dirk H,
Skeptics should always be open to the idea of someone who is willing to allow new information to change their views, even if they are the views of a life time, based on new knowledge or new insights. We are all better off if we welcome and encourage the growing list of academics, scientists, activists and journalists who are to a greater or lesser extent seeing that skepticism of the climate consensus is not only reasonable but compelling.
A big skeptical tent serves us well.
Good point. Peter Taylor is a maverick; an independent ‘agent’; a provocateur; obviously & at times obnoxiously, um, all-too human.
I ‘defended WUWT’ against his (inaccurate?) deprecations, but … I am one of those maverick, find-yer-own-path (stumble in the weeds, trip in all the gopher holes) types, too.
Even modern-digital, try every implementation of Big Brother society, benefits strongly from renegade figures careening seeming-destructively through the china-shop. In pre-modern and tribal societies, the special values & strengths of this role is overtly recognized; protected and developed, even. [They were the main “informants” who fill ethnographers notebooks.]
Today, ‘mass-institutionalization’ creates distrust & fear of the unaffiliated, self-motivated & defined figure, like Taylor. Nonetheless, such operatives command significant, if ‘morbid’, attention. And for good reason.
Not only is Taylor’s paper-trail easy to find & parse … he himself is our best & most-willing informant about his distinctive & intriguing … explorations.
Peter,
Many skeptics have reached high levels of frustration over this issue. So few allegedly open minded people even consider a review of the assumptions regarding the climate consensus. From a President whose main tool in dealing with those who disagree is to ignorantly mock, to media groups that censor by ignoring well documented facts, to the mindless petty bigots like Kyle on this thread: the climate committed show themselves to be willfully ignorant. This raises questions outside the science sphere and you are right: the speculation represented in this thread’s essay is unfortunate. But you should cut some slack.
Peter Taylor “the site loses immensely when it gives free rein to amateur analysis of a complex area like Agenda 21, the Precautionary Principle, and ‘green’ motivations. I have spent 35 years in the policy sphere”
It sux living in a democracy where your vote is exactly the same as mine. So what does one do?
“I should have learned long ago not to comment or even read comments “
Wrong answer. Ignoring the “little people” is one of the problems with elites.
“It would be a waste of time to make a list here of what life would be like if there had been no green movement, no environmental safety critiques”
And yet you feel compelled to mention it. Your list would just be another “hearsay” list. Telling a story, on the other hand, is a lot more convincing (“Silent Spring” comes to mind). Instead of just being the elite (you) telling the stupids what to believe, you evoke understanding in the minds of other people using metaphors readily available to nearly everyone.
But this works both ways. George Orwell has done a pretty good job warning people what life would be like in a totalitarian world where ONLY the elites rule and there is no democracy because, well, people are “stupid”. So help make people less stupid, one at a time if necessary, but a comment on WUWT will be seen by a very large number of people and if your word choices are sufficiently on topic and diverse, Google will bring people to your comment in the future, whereas right now, Google brings them to me 😉
IPCC is an arm of the United Nations.
The United Nations profits greatly from the Clean Development Mechanism, e.g., “certifying” carbon credits for a 2% or more cut of the action.
A large part of the valuing of carbon credits depends on climate sensitivity. Higher sensitivity, higher value; lower, lower.
Therefore, via the IPCC sensitivity estimates, the United Nations plays the world leading role on the valuation of internationally traded carbon credits.
Less sensitivity, less money for the UN.
That’s the core.
Then let us make it an issue of the 2016 election to toss the UN out of our country and totally de-fund it with taxpayer money. The UN as an institution seems nothing more than a corrupt, rent seeking bureaucracy that serves the interests of those whose interests are exactly counter to our own.
The IPCC is not the source of the science, people!
The UN doesn’t pay scientists to arrive at any conclusion – one way or another.
UN baiting is just another of your type’s transparent propaganda tricks.
UN baiting? You jest, surely.
The UN IPCC gets to select what to include and not to include. Read the NIPCC reports to find out what the UN IPCC excludes:
http://climatechangereconsidered.org/
Kyle, who loves strawmen, writes the following:
“The IPCC is not the source of the science”
Trivially true. The IPCC is the source of reports (AR5 for instance) and Summaries for Policymakers. Actual science means very little to legislatures, such as ratios of oxygen isotopes at varying depths on the Vostok ice core.
“The UN doesn’t pay scientists to arrive at any conclusion – one way or another.”
Also trivially probably true. Most scientists appear to be paid by universities. Therefore it is public funding, just not via the United Nations.
“UN baiting is just another of your type’s transparent propaganda tricks.”
Yes indeed, and a good one it is since the UN makes no secret of its agenda. The grasshoppers love it, the ants hate it.
So you admit that I’m right but stick to your unfounded conclusions anyway.
Yes Kyle, you are 100 percent correct except for the parts where you are 100 percent incorrect (gotta be black and white, doncha know).
There’s been rather a lot of traffic on this website so I’m not sure whether you commented on your claim that the sun rises in the West.
IMO, the Team’s motives are similar to those of spies, summarized as MICE: Money, Ideology, Coercion and Ego/Self-importance or Excitement. To which are often added Disaffection and grudges, Personal relations and Sex.
For government officials, it’s control and new taxation opportunities. For activists in and out of academia, it’s mainly ideology and money or career advancement.
Environmentalism is a mindset that is almost impossible to counter with reason. The best description of it I’ve found is in a lecture by Robert Gordon of the Heritage Foundation: http://www.heritage.org/research/lecture/2012/10/individuals-liberty-and-the-environment-challenging-the-foundations-of-the-green-establishment
Once you adopt the environmentalist mindset — that people are destroying the planet — the next intellectual step is easy to take. We must get control over people, which means economics, energy usage, living arrangements, and consumption of resources. Of course, the only way to accomplish this is top down, centralized government control (euphemistically knows as “regulation.”) Hayek went to some length in “The Road to Serfdom” to describe how the only way to get a large number of people, say an entire nation, to subject themselves to top-down organization, is to identify some existential threat against which all of society must be organized. In the most recent past, World War II provided such threats, but today there is nothing except climate change.
Despite the world-wide failure of socialism/communism, there are still many intellectuals who cling to the hope that socialism can be properly implemented (it only failed earlier because of poor implementation, according to their reasoning) and we’ll all live happily ever after, so these folks have grasped ahold of climate change as their new cause.
So we have the alliance between environmentalists and socialists, with climate change providing the perfect rationale for the aspirations of both. IMHO, that’s the answer to why there is so much lying going on.
Pretty much agree but I have a question: Why do you suppose people still believe in Nirvana/Utopia? I have my thoughts but I’d like to hear what other people think about this constant pursuit of Utopian goals that have always led to blood baths and yet people are not seen as pathological nut cases who espouse Utopian goals but as idealists whom we should admire. What is the foundation for this? What keeps us from being revolted by a set of ideas that always treats individuals as a collective, as a herd of sheep to be gathered up and controlled? For their own good, of course. Why do the individuals who will be rendered as sheep go along with it?
Reblogged this on Sierra Foothill Commentary and commented:
It is hard for the low information voters to understand that they are being captured and controlled under UN Agenda 21. It is time that more people start asking question and seeing fact based answer.
It’s time to rid ourselves physically and financially of the UN, a thoroughly corrupt and contemptible organization of thugs and rent seekers who do nothing to advance the cause of Liberty and Freedom but everything to advance the cause of every collective notion and tyrant on the planet.
“It is hard for the low information voters to understand that they are being captured and controlled under UN Agenda 21.”
And there are two reasons why these ‘Grubers” are not seeing things clearly:
1) They use feelings and emotions to think with.
2) They fully believe and trust in the liberal MSM.
kramer:
Ah, yes. Agenda 21.
Clearly, there are a great variety of motivations, but the two most obvious will get you well into the tail of the curve:
1) Money–without a global climate crisis the money dries up in a hurry. Climate scientists have to shift gears into other, far less remunerative research
2) Power–some people are less concerned with pecuniary interests, but have great appetite for controlling the lives of others.
From the “Big Lie” –
The primary rules of The Church of Climate Alarmism:
1. never allow the public to cool off;
2. never admit a fault or wrong;
3. never concede that there may be some good in your opponent or their views;
4. never leave room for alternatives;
5. never accept blame;
6. concentrate on one opponent at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong;
7. people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and
8. if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.
Wow. The more I read this, the more it rings true.
Time to stop the Alarmists.
The threat of “climate change”, much like “terrorism” has been manufactured and exaggerated to effect wealth extraction and oppression by a ruling clique. According to independent studies you’re are as likely to die from a terrorist attack as you are from a wasp, bee or hornet sting and six times more likely to die in the bath. Yet $trillions have been poured into wars and the “security industry”, benefiting the narrow elite which control the military industrial, media academic complex (MIMAC).
Climate change is making $billions for the banks and others. The political economy has evolved to benefit the few as business and public institutions become increasingly corrupt. All the systemic incentives are to promote the threat of global warming, irrespective of the truth. Until we tackle the deep structural flaws in the political economy, we’re p*ssing against the wind.
http://freecriticalthinking.org/images/Documents/Events/ConcentratedPowerConsequencesReport.pdf
Tim.
Coming from a scientific perspective; There are claims and there is evidence. Focus on that.
Why people say this or that is neither here nor there.
Challenge the core claims.
For example, there is an IPCC consensus.
How was this consensus determined (measured)?
Answer: It wasn’t. Some unknown person made (invented) this claim, without basis, and it gets endlessly repeated.
The “unknown person” is known – the 97% claim (which I assume you refer to) comes from a paper, can’t remember who did the study (begins with a G I recall) and the methodology was lousy. Perhaps someone else can fill in the missing detail
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/article
skepticalscience John Cook, self-employed cartoonist
Philip Bradley writes “Why people say this or that is neither here nor there.”
I disagree with this part. You don’t need to dwell on it but you’d better know what is the motivation behind claims being made as otherwise everyone is just playing “whack-a-mole” since you are not addressing the motivation which provides the energy for this continued non-debate on settled science.
Skeptics seem to be motivated by concerns about socialism and totalitarian government rule, about which little secret exists. Warmists seem genuinely concerned about the Earth burning up and turning into Venus and will do anything they are told to do to prevent it.
Consequently, with these motivations in mind, warmists ought to be distancing themselves from socialism (but instead seem to embrace it all the more firmly), and skeptics ought to be distancing themselves from disaster language. Suppose you go “full scientist” on your environmentalist family, trying to explain how many joules of energy it would take to actually boil the oceans, long before which clouds would cover the entire earth and reflect nearly all further incoming solar energy right back out thus stopping the process in its tracks.
You’d be facing a dinner table of glassy eyed “huh?”
When a simple, “nope, impossible, pass the potatoes please!” spoken as casually as telling someone how to change a lightbulb. Trivial. Not even worth dinner table conversation.
If at your table is a farmer, Canadian or Russian; point out that the Russians love it — wheat fields and corn “eat” carbon dioxide and the warmth means more growing season and maybe more rain, too! All good.
This post is also open for discussion at More On Miriam O’Brien’s Hot Whopper:
http://moreonmiriamobrien.wordpress.com/2014/11/25/miriam-obrien-says-anthony-watts-tries-for-one-foot-in-the-hitler-camp-and-one-foot-out/#comment-115
Sou expresses her displeasure with the language of a commonly used disclaimer and the timing of it.
People think of scientific research as a sort of ivory tower occupation. In reality, it’s like a combination of show biz and professional gambling. Like a gambler, you’re always hoping for that big score that will set you up for life, and few ever get one. As in show business, you’ll do anything for that next gig, because it’s that or Mickey D’s.
The mystery is why people with brains go into it in the first place…
Proud Skeptic:
The simplest answer to someone who believes in Global Warming is “prove it, by your own life experience.” Anybody can get temperature or tidal or rainfall records for their locality. Power utilities may even provide “average temperature” for the past month, and the month a year ago. There are sometimes a few degrees difference. Follow the records. Plot a graph. I’m 63 and I have lived in the same neck of the woods most of my life…and nothing has changed. If temperatures had increased only 1 degree per year, my annual average temperature would be near 110 degrees…and I live farther North than Maine. Obviously, it isn’t happening. Obviously, the Dutch are not worried about sea level rise.
How would he “know” that the Globe has Warmed–unless somebody told him this enormous lie? Has he come to his own conclusion? No. He believes in the agencies of the same government that brought us the Post Office and the Internal Revenue Service. He believes in NASA, whose accomplishments include killing one Apollo and two Shuttle crews, not to mention squandering a quarter century of funding and technology development, to have no Shuttle replacement on hand when it was retired. This is the stuff of responsible stewardship? Unless you are willing to expose the failings of NASA and NOAA, you have bought into your friend’s world-view of unquestioning trust.
Your friend may be bright and clever and semi-well-read, but he is not wise.
While the ‘Big Lie’ quote is perhaps correctly attributed (if to AH), he was writing about it in denigration of the methods of propaganda employed by other nations~ most notably the Soviet Union.
Chris said
“For those that believe that climate scientists have been corrupted globally, I have a question – why hasn’t this same kind of global corruption happened in other areas of scientific research? For example, cancer research, HIV/AIDs research, research on ALS or Alzheimer’s?”
I suggest you check out Andy Grove’s (Former CEO of INTEL) article in Fortune Magazine “Taking on Prostate Cancer by Andy Grove, Fortune … May 13 1996. Mr. Grove did research to determine the best course of treatment for prostate cancer (for himself). One of the things he discovered was that researcher’s findings were not shared because if you were looking into proton treatment you had to show that you were making more progress than other treatment researchers or you would lose your funding.
Just saying….
First, note that this isolated, single-case med-research anecdote dates to the late 20th C. Digital journals, PubMed, PLoS etc have all had big impacts on medical research publishing & sharing.
Second, scientists characteristically enjoy research. They are not intrinsically in any hurry to get it over with, or completed. Research that just leads on and on and on, is their idea of a pleasant outcome. Meanwhile, patients are dying, waiting on new treatments.
Lastly, because the country is basically carpeted with hospitals and medical labs (for Health Care), all staffed with lots & lots of Doctors who would love to do research … we have a practically limitless physical-facilities medical-research capacity. What is not limitless, is the funding to pay for it.
For these reasons, there have long been programs to make medical research quicker, more goal/results-oriented, and to divvy up the available funding in the best interests of the citizen & patient.
We know, in the case held forth, why proton treatment has to show ‘competitive’ progress, or get axed.
Actually, this is a relatively minor source of medical angst. Imagine, eg, that you are using a drug to address a serious issue (or that your child is), without any problem at all, but then because 1 in 10 patients have side-effects from it, it’s withdrawn. Actually, you don’t have to imagine it. You see it the news, repeatedly.
Corruption of medical science? No. Best-effort, optimized-outcome, stretch-taut budget? Yeah.
My experience is that none of the doctors even mention Proton Beam Therapy. One reason is because doctors live by referrals.
And Proton Beam facilities are not local.
Tim Ball asks: “Do you have another or better explanation of a motive?”
‘Follow the money’ is usually a good one.
Yes.