From Michigan State University, and the Department of Junior Lewandowskys, where this angry looking guy obviously thinks global warming manifests itself in every weather event, we have the same old ad hominem argument, except published.
Global warming cynics unmoved by extreme weather
EAST LANSING, Mich. — What will it take to convince skeptics of global warming that the phenomenon is real? Surely, many scientists believe, enough droughts, floods and heat waves will begin to change minds.
But a new study led by a Michigan State University scholar throws cold water on that theory.
Only 35 percent of U.S. citizens believe global warming was the main cause of the abnormally high temperatures during the winter of 2012, Aaron M. McCright and colleagues report in a paper published online today in the journal Nature Climate Change.
“Many people already had their minds made up about global warming and this extreme weather was not going to change that,” said McCright, associate professor in MSU’s Lyman Briggs College and Department of Sociology.
Winter 2012 was the fourth warmest winter in the United States dating back to at least 1895, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Some 80 percent of U.S. citizens reported winter temperatures in their local area were warmer than usual.
The researchers analyzed March 2012 Gallup Poll data of more than 1,000 people and examined how individuals’ responses related to actual temperatures in their home states. Perceptions of warmer winter temperatures seemed to track with observed temperatures.
“Those results are promising because we do hope that people accurately perceive the reality that’s around them so they can adapt accordingly to the weather,” McCright said.
But when it came to attributing the abnormally warm weather to global warming, respondents largely held fast to their existing beliefs and were not influenced by actual temperatures.
As this study and McCright’s past research shows, political party identification plays a significant role in determining global warming beliefs. People who identify as Republican tend to doubt the existence of global warming, while Democrats generally believe in it.
The abnormally warm winter was just one in an ongoing series of severe weather events – including the 2010 Russian heat wave, Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and the 2013 typhoon in the Philippines – that many believed would help start convincing global warming cynics.
“There’s been a lot of talk among climate scientists, politicians and journalists that warmer winters like this would change people’s minds,” McCright said. “That the more people are exposed to climate change, the more they’ll be convinced. This study suggests this is not the case.”
###
McCright’s co-authors are Riley E. Dunlap of Oklahoma State University and Chenyang Xiao of American University.
Nature Climate Change is part of the Nature Publishing Group, which publishes the flagship journal Nature.
Pretty sure U-M and MSU are NOT the same things. Might wanna check the headline?
It says Michigan State. That is MSU. the other big (bigger) Michigan U is U of M not U-M.
Michigan State Spartans- #11… Michigan Wolverines- nada.
There you go.
This year…but not last year.
There you go.
Last year the Spartans won the Big Ten Championship and went to the Rose Bowl which they also won over Stanford (think it was Stanford). The Wolverines sucked last year too.
It has been a few years since Bo Schemblecher.
SchembECHLer. I would be dangerous if I could spell.
Oooops – mea culpa. I got my MSU and UofM mixed up. I knew it was the guys in Lansing, if that helps.
I play golf with a bunch of MSU grads. They are going to hear about this.
A sociologist who claims to be a climate expert. That’s a new one. Most people wouldn’t consider a sociologist a scientist in the first place.
They aren’t, more like a phrenologist.
So you’re criticizing an ad hominem argument with an ad hominem argument?
It is hardly an ad hominem argument to observe that is some question as to whether a sociologist can be considered a real scientist.
A “Post Normal” scientist perhaps, but hardly in the same class as – say – a physicist.
He started it Ma.
OK, then I will happy to take a closer look at the credentials of those who post blogs here.
Barry:
The argument is not ad hominem.
There is active debate about the “scientific” status of economics, sociology and psychology. Hard sciences (math, physics, chemistry) view these disciplines as lacking intellectual and scientific rigor. Basically the issue amounts to an amusing grab for academic status.
The babblings of Sociologist McCright don’t do much to demonstrate his “scientific” chops.
You appear not to understand what an ad hominem argument is. It is an irrelevant attack on the person (“toward the man”).
To say Professor X beats his wife is irrelevant because, even if true, it not affect the quality of his work (unless he holds himself out as an expert on family relations). To the left, to say that Professor Y routinely discards data that do not support his hypothesis is relevant (although it may also be false) because it means that his published results cannot be trusted).
Sociologists have long had the desire to be regarded as ‘scientists’ while those who are ‘scientists’ have no desire at all to be sociologists, as they tend to value facts and data ,over the type of BS which sociologists place so much value on . Although to be fair climate ‘science’ shares a similar outlook, start with results and create the ‘facts’ you need to support it.
I myself am not sure there is much difference between countering an “ad hominem argument with an ad hominem argument” and countering “a sociological theory with a sociological theory.” Is it not a sociological statement when it is stated, “Most people wouldn’t consider a sociologist a scientist in the first place.” ???
The statement I like is, “Those results are promising because we do hope that people accurately perceive the reality that’s around them so they can adapt accordingly to the weather,”
I’m not all that sure this applies to teenagers. They adapt according to the fashion. My daughter once refused to wear unfashionable boots in a blizzard, and my son once refused to wear a hat when it was very cold because it would mess up his carefully spiked hair.
Come to think of it, political correctness is a sort of fashion. Perhaps some people are basically teenagers who never grew up.
I’d study this phenomenon further, if someone would give me a grant.
He is typical of the 97%
One step above climate scientist, astrologist.
“Climate Science” as a discipline is generally found in the Geography Department at universities that now offer the discipline.
That puts climate science on a par with other quasi-scientific pursuits.
Rocky Road
Climate science, as practiced today, can hardly be called a ‘discipline’.
Alternative descriptions to ‘discipline’ in this instance could be:
i) a ‘Deceit’ – far too many instances for it to be a real science.
ii) ‘Disingenuous’ – far too often the norm, rather than an exception.
iii) ‘Duplicitous’ – that’s what you get with grant addiction, expect nothing else.
iv) ‘Devious ‘ – at the end of the day, it’s all about the money.
Climate Science is very disciplined. Just try to publish something that contradicts the AGW meme. They will discipline you upside your head with a hockey stick.
As a geologist – yeah, we pretty much laugh at the scientific rigour of geographers. Geology has everyhting they know and do inside of it, plus we layer on physics, chemistry, mathmatics, astonomy….
But geography has parts of sociology to.
Do you geologists partake of that discipline?
Most climate scientists aren’t ‘scientists’ if they were they would understand the that the terms; skeptic, data and evidence are not bad words.
Not surprising at all, it just says that the barrier to entry is very low, like politics or stock prognostications money honey business.
right on! Col Mosby, There’s natural science and then there’s un-natural science, political science, social science, environmental science etc. The former is fact based he latter is not!
Thank you for your ignorant comment.
Social scientists probably do more actual science than natural scientists because there is more to discover in iur realm. The problem is that some in our realm don’t actually practice science. But, that’s different than natural sciences, how exactly?
So, your comments are on par with saying the police are all racists because after what happened in Ferguson.
Two labs
Bovine excrement.
Chip Javert, Assuming science involves the use of the scientific method and falsifiable hypotheses then there is no reason why some social scientists may be scientists. It’s not what your qualified in. It’s not what you study.
It’s how you study.
Yes, many social scientists are playing with words and symbols to make social constructs that they then reify. Which I can’t defend. That is an error so old it was condemned in the first commandment.
But it is not fair to say that is all social science is.
Calling BS on a whole field of research is closing your mind to potential insights.
M Courtney
While it’s probably accurate to assume I’m not overly impressed with sociology (thinking about this is not exactly a priority for me), I clearly was responding to the claims in Two Labs’ comment:
(1) “Social scientists probably do more actual science than natural scientists…”
(2) “So, your comments are on par with saying the police are all racists because after what happened in Ferguson.”
Those comments are bovine excrement.
I doubt most sociological observation behave according to hard natural laws (F=MA, and all that), so attempting to use or mimic the scientific method is simply inappropriate – the field should simply adopt a more relevant paradigm.
Chip Javert (or the opposite).
That’s a helpful comment. I had taken your first statement to be that “The problem is that some in our realm don’t actually practice science” was BS because you questioned the “some” and not all.
That was worth a challenge, I thought.
Perhaps Sociology should adopt a probabilistic model.
Maybe if they want to use a physics template they should go for a quantum universe rather than a classical one. Populations can be in a superposition of opinions, after all.
Good comment.
Chip,
By both your own admission, and by the nature of your comments, you obviously have no idea what social scientists actually do, so why bother commenting?
Both of my statements you impolitely disagree with are correct.
Social science often resembles cargo cults really. Sorry, but there it is. The basic problem that I so often see is that they are almost incapable of formulating experiments properly. For most sciences we are trying to eliminate bias from the expermmental data, and trying to generate objective results. For the social sciences the bias is the very thing your are trying to understand and study. Hard to learn much about yourself staring in a mirror. A general lack of scientific rigour is baked in the cake, so to speak. Also proper expermients are exeedingly hard to do or analyze, menaing and awful lot of “arm waving” science gets involved. You know, like global warming.
Two Labs
You state “…both your own admission, and by the nature of your comments, you obviously have no idea what social scientists actually do…”. That is factually incorrect; I plainly said “I’m not overly impressed with sociology “.
Not only do you appear to have science envy, your reading skills are suspect.
Not to beat a dead horse, but I’d bet physicists at CERN do more science in a day than all sociologists in recorded history. For the most part, sociologists do “observations” and statistics, not science.
Sad, that weak stuff like this makes it into Nature Climate Change.
Have you seen anything good in Nature Climate Change?
Michigan State is where the Behavioral Sciences Teachers Education Project–BSTEP–was created in the 60s. In the 70s it moved on to being the home of the Effective Schools Project to push schools away from the academic emphasis where parents’ levels of education and household priorities made a difference on how children tended to do in school. It’s also home to 2 of the most notorious constructivist math programs ever created–Connected Math for middle school and the Core Plus integrated math for high school.
MSU may have some good departments, but it has a long history of trying to change perceptions of reality via the classroom. This sociology prof is just keeping up the tradition.
Is he an NSF PI under a Behavioral Sciences grant by any chance?
One look shows he’s no field man. Models all the way down.
Oh, and can we have a URL to those comments? Thanks.
What a pathetic scientist. Thousands of climate scientists disagree with him, and have solid evidence. This stooge thinks that ad-hominem attacks are good science. He can join the hockey stick idiots and ignore the massive failures of the computer models. Just another left wing kook playing scientist. despicable.
He obviously thinks the world began on his birthday and ignores the thousands of recorded weather catastrophies in the prevailing many hundreds of years. He’s just parroting popular psychobabble and knows the gravy train will end soon, so he’s making a last ditch attempt to line his pockets with fame and fortune, like the rest.
Love Being called a cynic on this… As Ambrose Bierce put it in his “Devils Dictionary”, ‘a cynic is a blackguard who sees things as they are, not as they should be.’
Where does it say “cynic”? Is Anthony making stuff up again?
The abnormally warm winter was just one in an ongoing series of severe weather events – including the 2010 Russian heat wave, Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and the 2013 typhoon in the Philippines – that many believed would help start convincing global warming cynics.
************************
reading helps
No. But as dmacleo highlights, you certainly are making things up.
Oh dear…
Now who’s using ad hom argument? Some guy who either can’t read or thinks we can’t.
Reading is fundamental.
Barry, given dmacleo’s quote, I submit this for your review: http://www.sadtrombone.com/
No more than you are prone to do!
You from the OJ jury — if it doesn’t fit you must acquit.?
Well, I didn’t read the original paper (no link to it here), but there was no indication that the researcher(s) actually said that. If only in the press release, it should be taken with a grain of salt because those writers tend to skew things.
Barry
I realize it pains you that the press release contained the word “cynic” even though you accused Anthony of “making it up again”.
Your best response would have been to make simple mea culpa and move on.
PS What other instance of “making it up” are you accusing Anthony of? Please provide an example.
“Is Anthony making stuff up again?”
Barry, when did you stop beating your wife?
Barry,
“…it should be taken with a grain of salt because those writers tend to skew things”
I agree; although it is not only “those writers”, it is those that need to call attention to themselves, it is those that need to prove their grant, it is those that need to obtain future grants, it is those that need to defend their previously skewed data, it is … Mann and the likes of Mann.
My I quote you (repeatedly)?
Looks like Nature Climate Change will publish anything as long as it conforms to the party line.
Giving them the “Sokal” treatment might be an effective way of exposing that “the emperor has not clothes”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair
Yawn.
A sociologist; ok.
This guy looks too young to make it to retirement before this whole cowpie blows up in his face.
Chucklle.
I was going to say has this guy received any training in the scientific method, and then I saw he’s in the Dept of Sociology at MSU, so of course he hasn’t. Anybody out there in a real science department at MSU that would like to take this little Associate Professor aside and teach him a bit of how science works?
Sure. Would anyone else like to help a poor, pretend climate scientist?
But a lot of the climatologists apparently did neither. Otherwise how can one justify paper upon paper of materials and methods that when stated do not address how the method used impacts the outcome. Look at the latest post by Steve Mc — where Mann and the latest NASA god encourage “scientists” to just change their method description but keep the conclusions the same.
Michigan State and The University of Michigan are two different schools. Please change the headline.
They’re SCHOOLS?!
Good lord.. what the hell are they teaching them these days.. Economics via climate sociology?
“””””…..Winter 2012 was the fourth warmest winter in the United States dating back to at least 1895, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. …..”””””
Whoopee !
Hurricanes, Tornadoes, and other severe global warming “extreme” weather events don’t occur in winter time; they occur in summer time. Also warm winters simply mean it didn’t cool as fast as it should have. It doesn’t cool much in winter anyhow.
Major cooling also takes place during the heat of the day in summertime when sigma T^4 kicks into gear and radiates like crazy.
So why focus on global warming in the winter times, it is hotter summers that might fry us, not hotter winters.
Oh I see this chap is a sociologist; not a physicist.
Just forget I said anything; I wouldn’t expect a sociologist to understand simple physics of thermal radiation..
But I’ll keep him in mind if I ever need any sociological advice.
I would like to see his conclusions on the 2013-2014 winter. Perhaps his view would change? (Nah!)
Or the almost to winter of 2014-2015.
“””””…..As this study and McCright’s past research shows, political party identification plays a significant role in determining global warming beliefs. People who identify as Republican tend to doubt the existence of global warming, while Democrats generally believe in it……”””””
Ah! there we have it.
People should stop voting Democrat party, and they will see the light..
Well, usually folks feel the heat before they see the light, but in this case they will probably have to skip step one.
Trust me, there are plenty of us Democrats that question the validity of the global warming theory.
Tsk.Angry? Serious perhaps, a bit overweight for his age I think,,, perhaps some snow shoveling will cure both mental and phyical burdens.
“perhaps snow shoveling will cure both mental and physical burdens”. Mike snow shoveling apparently kills a lot of people each “warmer” winter, you would not want him to shovel snow in his physical shape!
Yeah point taken, I grew up in Conn in the 1960-70s We made money shoveling now. It gave all of us kids a work ethic, or the start of one. I forget shoveling snow is something you have to learn to do. Take your time and pace yourself, And not be alone.
in maine most of my life.
I learned to shovel…with an attachment on front of the tractor that tosses it 40+ feet.
In Jan 2009 I went back to Conn for a visit after one of the snows storms I meet with my older brother at our Mom’s house. He handed me a shovel and asked “You still remember how to use one of these don’t you?”
Funny but 2 items that get messed together. Fact is that more people die from heart attacks in winter. They may be shovelling snow when it hits but that doesn’t mean snow shovelling is the underlying cause but could be a trigger. Other mechanisms like lack of Vit D3 in winter from lack of sun. Interesting topic.
What extreme weather is that?
Cheers
Roger
http://www.rogerfromnewzealand.wordpress.com
Extreme weather indeed! Who in his right mind calls a milder-than-normal winter “extreme”? My ice-cream cone is starting to melt. Oh no, it’s too extreme to lick! All the ice just melted in my drink. Now it’s too extreme to consume! I don’t think “extreme” means what you think it means, Mr. McCright. Something that is too hot or too cold could be extreme, but lukewarm is not. It may not be someone’s preferred temperature, but it is not extreme. You don’t have to be a climate scientist to know that one mild winter is just a variation in the weather. Have we seen a repeat warm winter since 2012 to indicate that it might be a change in the climate?
The 4th warmest winter? That means the three warmer winters were in the normal range even before GW set in.
This does touch on something I have wondered. The general public does not spend a lot of time researching Global Warming. They take their opinion from authority. Scientist say it is happening, so it must be happening.
But a lot of them take it from the position their personal political party has staked out. The Democrats have come down heavily on the believe it side, while the Republican, or conservatives, have come down on the other side.
The problem is, I feel a lot of those politicians have adopted their beliefs for purely political motives. I don’t think either side really care all that much about the truth. The democrats see it as a means of shoe horning their favorite socialist theories down our throat. Their opposite side seeks to deny them that leverage.
I made up my own mind about it due to the way one side always seems to fudge the figures and relies more heavily on scare tactics than actual real world observations. But I fear most people who agree with me do so for purely ideological reasons.
As such, I find it hard to take support when this politician or academic supports my view, or to have my mind changed when they don’t.
They need to offer more than speculation and opinion to sway me.
What do registered independents do?
I gnash my teeth a lot.
Peter:
Gasp! You’re a skeptic!
There’s skepticism, and then there is cynicism. So what is this chumps evidence, that skepticism leads to cynicism ?
Well I’m neither skeptical nor cynical. I’m quite sure they haven’t got the science right, either experimentally or theoretically, as in modeling.
Why does this editor want me to spell modelling as “mowed- ling”. I was always taught to double the (l) before adding (ing).
Please excuse me, I suppose that should be “ading”, and not adding.. And I’m geting quite tired of it changing my speling without my permision
One “l ” is American. 2 is English, Canadian-et-al
http://grammarist.com/spelling/model/
I am like you, modeling. But I am Canadian
Now I am being corrected. Hah!
I prefer two ‘L’s. Especially in ‘travelling.’ It’s more colourful.
“3” is the new “2”, Alberta Slim. It should be modellling.
“1” or “2” just aren’t alarmmming enough.
My understanding is today’s progressive schools don’t mark down for spellllling and everyone gets a trophy.
I find that one of the few advantages of dual Anglo/American nationality is that I can write modeling or modelling with a clear conscience. And I also get to laugh at “shag” more often.
And another name to the dustbin of history ;>(
“As this study and McCright’s past research shows, political party identification plays a significant role in determining global warming beliefs. People who identify as Republican tend to doubt the existence of global warming, while Democrats generally believe in it.”
————————————–
They were Grubered by Obama and the ACA, too.
Gruber said they were stupid, what’s McCright’s excuse for believing this BS?
They believed Lois Learner accidentally lost the entire department’s emails.
Richard Winsor believed John Beale was a CIA agent.
Looks like Gruber’s right, democrats are stupid.
So, what’s his point?
He obviously got his degree in cherry picking!!!!
Lots of cherry orchards in Michigan…
And there’s that word: “believe.”
People who identify with the agenda and priorities of the National Socialist Democrat American Party (NSDAP: used to be “Democratic”) “believe” in the preposterous bogosity of anthropogenic global warming – man-made atmospheric CO2 as the cause of significant adverse “climate change” – and American citizens most likely to vote for Republican politicians seem to be looking for something like supporting evidence of this whackjob contention.
Which ain’t yet been brought forward.
The only way for the “Liberal” fascisti to get a more pleasing response on public opinion regarding their idiot noise about “climate change” is to take their questionnaires among the National Socialists’ most reliable voter base.
Poll the graveyards.
You know, this thread is about how pinning an insulting label on people who hold a view that you disagree with is most unpersuasive.
Perhaps you should reread your comment and think about how it would influence a Democrat who is unsure about the state of climate science?
At 1:16 AM on 25 November, the egregious M. Courtney meets my observation that:
…with his usual pointless bilge, whining:
There’s a spectacularly false assumption, eh?
Whatever in hell gives anyone reading here to assume that “a Democrat” (more precisely, a committed “Liberal” fascist of the Gore-besotted obamaphile sort) is ever to be influenced by an appeal to intellectual integrity or even the usages of common decency?
So why treat ’em tenderly? Should one cozen up to a tuberculosis bacillus with terms of endearment and encourage the little pathogen to devour the lungs, to manifest as scrofula, meningitis, and osteomyelitis?
Politically speaking, the subject of this entry is a government-employed sociologist having proclaimed his discovery that “belief” in the anthropogenic global warming contention prevails at high incidence among survey subjects self-identified as supporters of the National Socialist Democrat American Party (NSDAP, used to be “Democratic”) while a boatload fewer self-identified Republican Party voters got gulled by this hokum.
It ain’t those of us on the anti-fascist side – Republican or otherwise – who have been peddling this preposterous “man-made global warming” bogosity for political power, perquisites, promotion and pay.
Tucci78, whether you think you are anti-fascist or not – You aren’t helping.
Ever heard of “Divide and Conquer”? By assuming that people who disagree with you in some things must be wicked or stupid you are dividing your side in all things.
But thank you for the archaic and egregious compliment
As I recall, several prominent Republicans also thought AGW was a serious issue during the Bush years.
At 11:15 AM on 25 November, more soylent green pointedly observed:
Well, there’s a reason why they’re called “the Stupid Party.”
Not that a Republican career political prostitute can’t or won’t exploit any perceived opportunity to steal hot stoves, and the great man-made global climate change fraud has been a wonderfully “bipartisan” opportunity for peculation by grafters, looters, extortionists, and goons regardless of nominal party affiliation.
What the surveys in question had established, mind, is that subjects self-identified as Republicans (as opposed to the National Socialists, not to mention participants adherent to neither wing of the permanently incumbent Boot-On-Your-Neck Party) are less inclined to admit belief in the proposition that a trace increase in a trace atmospheric gas component due to the purposeful combustion of petrochemical fuels had – or ever could have – an adverse impact of any significance upon the global climate.
There is something that I find odd about some of the posters here at WUWT. It’s this left vs right, socialist vs capitalist dichotomy that pops up now and again, and given the nature of this blog that makes no sense.
I mean, the vast majority of posters in here have outright rejected the generally accepted CAGW “theory” (and rightly so), often in the face of all the world’s experts and leading opinionators, equally often despite heavy resistance from every angle. That is scepticism at its finest, and I must say that many of the arguments I see are very interesting and helpful to me (who for now stay out of it because I don’t feel ready to argue convincingly myself). Logical argumentation and healthy scepticism is abundant in here. Then, out of the blue, comes a “communist conspiracy for world domination” mixed into a post or ten and drags the whole site down to common idiocy. I don’t get it!? How can so sceptical, analytical and knowledgeable people fall for that kind of moronic 50s cold war propaganda? There’s a strong cognitive dissonanse in rejecting CAGW and then in the same post unquestioningly support a virtually non-existent political distinction designed to cull the masses, followed by an unquestioning support of an entirely fictional economical ideal over another.
What on earth is the difference between a small group of individual, capitalist rich people owning everything in the world, and a small group of communist party members owning everything in the world? The result is the same for all the others! It is delusional to think that capitalism is any better than socialism; any concentration of power will lead to abuse, and it matters very little under what banner they conspire to gain control.
At 3:01 PM on 25 November, we have BiggusD blowing chunks with regard to the subject of capitalism, writing:
Here’s the common idiot’s failure to appreciate the fact that the term “capitalism” had been devised in the 19th Century as a pejorative descriptor for the premise that the best way to organize a division-of-labor society is the voluntary and mutually beneficial exchange of goods and services – value for value – in a market free of aggressive force.
What BiggusD is bitching about isn’t capitalism at all, but rather what might more properly be termed mercantilism, a system of “legal plunder” perpetrated by politically favored private actors in an economy where consumers’ and producers’ freedom of choice is violated by the coercive interventions of government, the police power in civil society.
BiggusD succumbs to the fallacy of the false dilemma by implying that there is no choice other than one between mercantilism (which he idiotically calls “capitalist”) and socialism.
The topic at hand – a sociology professor on the payroll of the government of Michigan reporting correlation between survey participants’ self-identification with the two major factions in America’s Boot-On-Your-Neck Party permanent institutional incumbency and their relative tendency to “believe” in the anthropogenic global warming fraud – has nothing to do with the scientific basis of the AGW contention and everything to do with apparent correlation between personal politics and the willingness to get suckered by this preposterous “Cargo Cult Science” crap.
Study subjects self-identified as Republicans (adherents of “the Stupid Party”) tend predominantly to reject it. Survey participants admitting to advocacy for the National Socialists (“the Evil Party”) preponderantly “believe” it.
According to BiggusD:
Not goddam hardly.
The “vast majority of posters here” are acutely and without fail aware that there has never, ever, been a scientific case made for the AGW contention. Never. Not once. No friggin’ way. Indeed, when not peddling outright lies, the “Climate Consensus” quacks have been pushing suppressio veri, suggestio falsi, and scientific method – the process of skeptical error-checking – has been their deadliest enemy.
The advocacy of this catastrophist crap has been POLITICAL in its entirety, for purposes both mercantilist (see the hideous meatgrinder of the government-subsidized and privileged “renewables” industry, f’rinstance) and socialist (the desires of the political left to get its collective thumbs around the figurative throat of the productive sector of civil society).
With it understood that the ‘viro Watermelon is “Green on the outside but Red to the core!” and has no ultimate purpose in advancing the AGW fraud except to jam his socialist politics down the throats of innocent people, just what kind of flaming idiot makes BiggusD‘s kind of noise about how awful-nasty-icky it is to acknowledge this?
Tucci78, Capitalism has never existed the way you describe it – it was just a rather silly idea dreamt up by the same kind of idiots that thought that communism was brilliant. You also failed to read what I wrote, but managed to erroneously colour it red, just like you do everything else. I really thought this kind of nonsense died with the fall of the Soviet Union, but apparently its ugly head still pops up now and again.
Everything you write just proves me right. On one hand you manage to grasp and argue well for the fallacy of the CAGW belief-system (I assume – there’s none of that in this thread), but on the other you fail to realize that you have been fed bogus political and economical belief-systems your entire life by the same guys that shamelessly lie to us all about the climate. Apparently, you cannot fathom that their self-interest trumps all but have to drape it all in delusions of a communist conspiracy to make sense of it all.
So I’ll tell you again; your leaders are lying to you. About everything.
At 10:23 PM on 25 November, BiggusD continues to prove that he’s bereft of the capacity to distinguish between abstractions and concrete entities (as well as being pretty well totally gulled when it comes to lucid reasoning about political economics), writing:
In precisely the same way, it can be said that the scientific method “has never existed” as the concrete instantiation of a theoretically effective and therefore desirable approach to the examination and explanation of phenomena in the physical universe.
You reading this, BiggusD?
The concept of the free market – pejoratively labeled “capitalism” as a way for socialists like Marx and Engels and their successors to denigrate what is nothing more than the preservation of the individual human being’s right to alienable property in society – had been so practicably effective in advancing the material condition of participants in the market economy that those of a dirigiste inclination could not inveigh against “the free market” without looking goddam idiotic. So they fastened upon the term “capitalism” to sucker the botched and the gullible (check out the nearest mirror, BiggusD) as a demonization of the notion that people should be free to truck and barter without coercion, thereby maximizing the practical as well as the theoretical benefits of a division-of-labor society.
If the term “Capitalism” can be made to serve any intellectually honest purpose, it is as an ABSTRACT CONCEPT, which doesn’t have to have “existed” in physical form – as a CONCRETE ENTITY.
Now, how hard – and with which blunt instrument – do you have to be hit over the head for you to appreciate this aspect of reality? ‘Cause it sure as hell doesn’t seem as if you’re amenable to reasoned persuasion.
BiggusD says:
It is delusional to think that capitalism is any better than socialism;
Then I am delusional. There is a huge difference.
For one, capitalism doesn’t lead to dictatorship; socialism does. It’s called communism, which requires dictatorship to stay in business. You also say:
Capitalism has never existed the way you describe it – it was just a rather silly idea dreamt up by the same kind of idiots that thought that communism was brilliant.
Capitalism is an excellent goal. Socialism/communism is not. I agree we have never had pure capitalism. But we have never had pure communism, either. Or pure socialism [communism lite].
The difference is freedom. Liberty. Capitalism only works with freedom, but the others require coercion. Force. Really: armed force. It’s like this:
1. Government is force
2. Good ideas do not have to be forced on others
3. Bad ideas should not be forced on others
4. Liberty is necessary for the difference between good ideas and bad ideas to be revealed
You could pay $100,000 for an Econ education and never learn the above.
ur welcome.☺
Again, both of you repliers above fail to see the point; there is just as much tyranny in a monopoly caused by aggressive financial tactics in the free market, as in a state-controlled tyranny. You are still uncritically accepting the idea of the free market and “liberty” as something that is automatically achieved and maintained once enough free will is added to the equation. Which is why the only nation that still generally believes in that myth, the USA, is the nation with the highest degree of excessive population control measures in the Western world.
Again, it doesn’t matter whether the guy who wields the whip is a corporate CEO or a self-professed saviour of the people. Power will always be concentrated, and those concentrating it will always be corrupt.
They call it “liberty” and you’re enslaved with debt and get to vote for the new leader of the Public Relations department of Your Nation Ltd, which is of course run the same way regardless. They also call it “community” and you’re enslaved to do the bidding of the Party for the “good of the people”. In both cases, all three of us lose and our “leaders” grin all the way to the bank.
Bottom line is, the assertion that it is a “socialist conspiracy” to rule the world is nonsensical. The ones who want to rule the world and are willing to do what it takes to execute those plans, are also willing to lie to the public about it, and that lie include controlling the masses with comfortable ideas like “nationalism”, “environmentalism”, “free market”, “socialism”, “war on terror” and “global warming”.
I am just surprised how these silly tactics still manage to dupe self-professed “sceptics”.
They could do that whilst collecting ballots.
“Many people already had their minds made up about global warming and this extreme weather was not going to change that,” said McCright, associate professor in MSU’s Lyman Briggs College and Department of Sociology.
==========
No shzt Sherlock. Weather isn’t climate as we have been repeatedly told by climate scientists.
The problem for most people is that they haven’t been alive long enough to know what extreme weather is really like. The longer they live, the more likely they are to experience extreme weather, so to the naive it will appear that the climate is changing.
But it isn’t. What is changing is the length of your sample.
We see this all over the natural world. The longer you keep looking, the more likely you are to see new records set. Does this mean the natural world is changing? Only in fairly-tale land.
“The longer you keep looking, the more likely you are to see new records set.” +1 And when it happens does that mean there’s a trend? Why doesn’t it work that way with coldest temperatures recorded?
it works for all types of records. in this case the author is arguing that warmer winters are more extreme than colder winters, which is about as illogical as one can get. as such, he is well placed for a career in sociology.
“Only 35 percent of U.S. citizens believe global warming was the main cause of the abnormally high temperatures during the winter of 2012”
Well then, perhaps the extreme cold that they are experiencing now will convince the rest of them that Global Warming is real.
Stupid U.S, citizens don’t believe global warming was the main cause of the abnormally high temperatures during the winter of 2012. Naturally they will believe global warming was the main cause of the abnormally low temperatures during the winter of 2013. Keep researching, Aaron! Don’t give up!
Tez this Ahem, paper lists only Dems and Repubs..What about Independents? or other Parties? Also what of employment? Government or private sector?
I would think just the converse. That the lack of warming and tornadoes and hurricanes would convince alarmists to relax but this article shows that is clearly not the case.
Jackasses.
What extreme weather link?
Well, there ain’t one. There is no known physical mechanism that could serve as a basis for the hypothesis that CO2 causes both hot and cold extremes in weather. An equally valid (and similarly unfalsifiable) hypothesis would be “Rain god, him plenty-plenty angry.” This is on top of the fact that climate is a long term trend, weather a short term phenomenon. Warmism is intellectually bankrupt if it has to rely on such pseudoscientific drivel.
Perhaps that should be the “God Cotwo, him plenty angry” they might “believe” that.
Indeed. What link? Whoever is in the know, please feel free to elaborate at length on the issue.
I would think entering and leaving the little ice age with its changes in temperature, sea level, glaciers and precipitation would set a standard for what we would consider calling any shifts climate change.
imo…
Any less change in the environment would be weather.
the article says:
– But when it came to attributing the abnormally warm weather to global warming, respondents largely held fast to their existing beliefs and were not influenced by actual temperatures. –
Columbia University’s Center for Decision Sciences(?) posits the opposite, according to Cass Sunstein!
24 Nov: Bloomberg: Cass R. Sunstein: What Global Warming? Pass Me a Blanket
“Global warming strikes America! Brrrr!” So tweeted Missouri Representative Vicky Hartzler last week, as much of the U.S. experienced extreme cold. (In Buffalo, it was a full Snowpocalypse.) Do frigid temperatures give you doubts about global warming?
You wouldn’t be alone. When people think the day’s weather is exceptionally cold, research shows, they’re less likely to be concerned about global warming. And when the day seems unusually hot, concern jumps.
Notably, this effect can be found among Republicans and Democrats, men and women, young and old…
To study this phenomenon, Eric Johnson, Ye Li and Lisa Zaval of Columbia University’s Center for Decision Sciences, asked almost 600 Americans two questions…
And even when the researchers went out of their way to inform respondents that minor fluctuations in weather are to be expected during climate change, the day’s temperature affected their answers.
A follow-up study found that, on exceptionally warm days, people were also far more likely to donate money to a charity concerned about global warming, and they were likely to donate more money as well — 500 percent more than on cold days…
What’s going on here? The best explanation probably involves “attribute substitution,” a pervasive phenomenon described by Daniel Kahneman, a behavioral scientist who won the Nobel Prize in economics…
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-11-24/what-global-warming-pass-me-a-blanket
Droughts in the desert? That’s about all I can come up with. It’s been cold this November, but I can remember it being just as cold in November back in the 70s. It’s snowing in Buffalo? Seriously? You kidding me? In Buffalo? Who would have guessed. Golly gee. Snow in Buffalo. Cold and snowy in Wisconsin? Who would have thunk it? Hot and dry in Australia? Fer reals? I never thought it was hot and dry in Aussieland. Forest fires? We’ve never had forest fires before! Something must be up. (sarcasm off) I’m 45 years old. I just don’t see any crazy deviation from the norm. What I do see is a return back to weather patterns I was accustomed to when I was a kid. What luck that some of us are older and haven’t completely lost our memories. Or our minds.
WUWT has posted plenty of evidence that most extreme events are on the decline. Its even better than the norm. I’m fine with that – I only had to hide from one Tornado this year – was a welcome change.
I’d “believe’ in global warming if there was any — at least any outside normal natural variation within my lifetime. I don’t however, believe in sociology or AGW caused by a trace atmospheric gas.
Gee if there are only 3% of us and we aren’t even chasing a buck to advance our research, what’s the urgency in converting us? This is probably the percentage of dissidents that there were in the Soviet Union and guess what? They were correct. The 97% were wrong.
More ink from the irreparably broken social sciences – how does a scientific illiterate know the main stream scientists are right? It’s because he identifies with their politics. Also, it’s typical of the broken social sciences to conflate progressives with being correct and conservatives with being wrong.
You see, here it the problem with these types of analyses. Yes, there is a dynamic in which scientifically illiterate liberals are unquestioningly and unthinkingly supportive of the line put out by progressives, and their counterpart conservatives opposed to it. But the real serious sceptic is not political at all in his thinking. He/she isn’t a yea-nayer. The real sceptic, the one that strikes terror into the hearts of the warming clique, analyzes the data and refutes the chaff from the politco-physicists. These count-on-one-hand folks are the ones that give employment to such as McCright and Lewandowski and harpoon shoddy science by such as Gergis/Karoly, Marcotte, “Polar Bear Monnett” and a host of others that, without the intrepid few on the file had been filling journals with bumpf for a couple of decades.
It is telling that the majority of scientifically literate sceptics would appear to be conservative. I dearly hoped this not to be true. This would be a sad statement indeed if it is the case and it is one made by progressives all the time. How to understand it? One would be tempted to say that progressives, because of their overweight Kumbaya collectivism and political goals, are largely unsuited to the practice of objective inquiry. Acceptance of such principles unabashedly as “ends justify the means” is antithetical to the scientific search for truth. Maybe I’ve just been listening to progressives too much on this dichotomy. I’d be happy to be dissuaded from it.
I remember the story of Chicken Little from grade school.
I guess these global warming Kool-Aid drinkers either did not hear the story or just refuse to believe they are acting just like Chicken Little.
I also thought they loved trees.
Please remember the climate change nuts are 99 percent useful idiots.
1 percent who want wealth redistribution well not really.
Unless the wealth goes to them.
The last thing left to tax is the air, we have to stop them.
I wish more carbon dioxide apples would fall it feeds the world and the trees love them.
For the most part the people in this blogosphere are the most informed of any site I have ever been.
And I have to say some of the comments have me ROFL.
Anthony and the guests are the best.
Keep up the good work.
Quote – “What will it take to convince skeptics of global warming that the phenomenon is real?”
That is a good question.
I would become convinced if the actual temperatures were increasing at the rate that the theory says they should be. I would become more convinced if they stopped adjusting the historical temperatures every week so that they can just get up to 50% of the temperature increase predicted (let alone 100% of the temperature increase that is predicted). I would become more convinced if they hadn’t changed the climatology of northern oceans so that they could claim once per year, records are being set. I would become more convinced if it didn’t seem like every single rain-storm or morning sunrise or just plain normal temperatures were not exaggerated into proof of eminent global warming disaster.
I don’t buy a used car just because some salesperson says it is worth twice market value. I don’t buy 20 pounds of steak when I see the butcher has a thumb on the scale.
I don’t believe something without having some good logical reason to believe it. But the actual base logic and human instinct and human base emotional reaction here says that something funny is going on. Logic, and math and “spidey sense” says I am being sold a crap used car for twice the price of a good one.
What will take to convince me? How about something simple like just convincing me with facts that don’t sound like a used care salesperson is providing the facts.
It’s a real phenomenon and as a sociologist he should know it: it’s just group think by arrogant academics who think they are too clever to be concerned by petty details like the evidence that it hasn’t warmed in 18 years or that none of the climate models work.
“Q” changing the laws of physics?
Why in heaven’s name do the sociologists get such serious attention? When you have to drag them out, they do nothing but confirm that few are buying the message. Somehow this failure is the fault of the audience as opposed to the fault of those crafting / delivering the message people aren’t buying. Academics fail to realize that people have legitimate reasons to be suspicious of government funded research that always come to the conclusion that more government regulation will save us all, even if only 3% of worlds population is covered by such a regulation to solve a global problem that may or may not be as bad as advertised but the money out of peoples pockets to pay for poor solutions is very real
Sean
Rather than calling it “serious attention”, I’d consider what’s happening to poor Mr. McCright to be rather well deserved ridicule.
“I AM smiling.”
So even though the respondents said the winter of 2012 seemed warmer than normal it didn’t scare them. A winter that seems warmer than normal certainly doesn’t scare me either. I’m grateful for it and want to see more of them! In other words these people saw the warmer winter as a benefit and not something the government should use to raise taxes or regulate something or other.
Makes sense that GOPers don’t believe in GWing. From this article, not worth reading really:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/08/opinion/blow-dinosaurs-and-denial.html?_r=0
“Last month, Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, the chairman of the Republican Governors Association, said on CNN: “We need to stop being the dumb party. We need to offer smart, conservative, intelligent ideas and policies.”
This is exactly the kind of turn the Republicans need to take, but Jindal’s rhetoric doesn’t completely line up with his record. As The Scotsman of Edinburgh reported in June, “Pupils attending privately run Christian schools in the southern state of Louisiana will learn from textbooks next year, which claim Scotland’s most famous mythological beast is a living creature.” That mythological beast would be the Loch Ness monster.
The Scotsman continued: “Thousands of children are to receive publicly funded vouchers enabling them to attend the schools — which follow a strict fundamentalist curriculum. The Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) programme teaches controversial religious beliefs, aimed at disproving evolution and proving creationism. Youngsters will be told that if it can be proved that dinosaurs walked the Earth at the same time as man, then Darwinism is fatally flawed.”
Actually Scotland’s most famous mythological beast is the Haggis. This curious creature has shorter legs on its right side than on its left side so it can run around mountains clockwise. Occasionally one is caught and brought to table, usually accompanied by a man wearing a skirt and blowing a windbag – not to be confused with the windbag who spouts poetry at the time. It is classified “Mythological” on the basis that no one has seen one running around mountains in living memory. They are usually caught hiding in special machines in butchers’ shops.
Said to be tasty when boiled and eaten – though there is a theory that they are really of Italian origin – a version of Spaghetti Bolognese with porridge instead of spaghetti – escaped from Italy during the Middle Ages, driven there by the end of the Medieval Warming..
“Youngsters will be told that if it can be proved that dinosaurs walked the Earth at the same time as man, then Darwinism is fatally flawed.”
“The Scotsman” got this right, at least. However, the converse, that “if it CANNOT be proved that dinosaurs walked the earth at the same time as man, then Darwinism MUST be true” does not follow – see simple logic 101!
I had haggis once. It was at a Celtic Festival locally. so I hope it was true to the recipe. A little too much spice. But otherwise, tasty and surprisingly good (after I had heard the horror stories). That little fellow may be mythical, but if he did not hide, I could see where he would be extinct! 😉
Mr McCright is in a curious position.
He is qualified to comment on people’s behaviour and beliefs but totally unqualified to judge whether the behaviour or beliefs are valid.
The finding that Democrats tend to believe in “climate change” while Republicans are a bit more sceptical is hardly surprising and may even be of interest to managers of political campaigns.
It is utterly inconsequential when trying to determine if “climate change ” is affected by human activities, and if so to what degree.
Sociology is not science. Science is hard and sociologists don’t do hard.
It’s interesting how many sociologists are coming out of the woodwork to hold forth on AGW when they’re so patently unqualified to comment. Perhaps someone should study what is wrong with these individuals that they don’t see this.
Biologists, too.
They have:
Kruger, Justin; Dunning, David (1999). “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments”. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 77 (6): 1121–34. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.77.6.1121. PMID 10626367. CiteSeerX: 10.1.1.64.2655
jorgekafkazar
Well, call me a skeptic, but I think they’re doing it for the funding.
When will people get it? On 22 September, the winter maximum ice sheet extent across the Antarctic reached its greatest area since satellite measurement of the ice extent began in 1979. This is corroborated by the Satellite lower tropospheric temperature for the South Polar region, 60deg S to 85 deg S, decreasing. Meanwhile the CO2 concentration measured by NOAA at the South Pole went up by 17.7% in the 36 year time frame.
This is clear and unambiguous proof that increasing atmospheric CO2 does not cause warming of the Earth’s surface.
On 16 September 2012, the Arctic sea ice extent set a record minimum since satellite recording began. This is corroborated by the Satellite lower tropospheric temperature for the North Polar region increasing at the rate of 4.4 degrees C per century. Meanwhile the CO2 measured at Alert, NW Canada, (the station closest to the North Pole) rose by the same amount as at the South Pole.
This is clear and unambiguous proof that temperature changes irrespective of the change in atmospheric CO2 concentration.
http://www.mlive.com/weather/index.ssf/2014/11/great_lakes_ice_cover_developi.html
great Lakes ice cover is max as well.
All that ice in the Antarctic is causing summertime in Australia … just applying warmista logic.
“Scholar?”—wow, what a joke.
Are professors in US as in Sweden the only ones in Academic Circles not having to have an Academic work in their CV?
IF so
many things explained.
So his research suggests Democrats are more gullible and naive than Republicans.
We already knew that based on the last two Presidential elections.
Guber is right, of course!
Nice to see religion making a comeback in the hallowed halls of academia. Too bad he’s worshiping at the alter of ignorance, but it’s a start. As an aside, a guy that looks like the Stay Puft Marshmallow man should probably not get into slinging ad homs at people who practice the scientific method and are properly skeptical of consensus pseudo science or anyone else for that matter.
Most, if not all, university employees must toe the AGW line or risk losing their jobs. The AGW movement is the biggest hoax ever floated out of the swamp. A scientific claim that is too brittle to standup to criticism must seriously have its’ validity questioned.
I respectfully disagree on hoax size:
It’s only a subset, albeit a large subset, of “Phony-socialism is really, really good for poor people’
OT but I just noticed this on Jo Nova’s site:
http://joannenova.com.au/2014/11/nine-poll-shows-69-of-australians-dont-believe-in-man-made-global-warming/
We’re getting through!
From wikipedia: “For the Cynics, the purpose of life was to live in virtue, in agreement with nature. As reasoning creatures, people could gain happiness by rigorous training and by living in a way which was natural for humans, rejecting all conventional desires for wealth, power, sex, and fame. Instead, they were to lead a simple life free from all possessions.”
I don’t see any mention of the winter of 2013 or the polar vortex.
Reading through Aaron’s CV gives me pause. He appears to have drank the kool-aid before his 15 year academic career ever started- http://sociology.msu.edu/uploads/documents/vita/faculty/mccright-cv.pdf
His age is working against him- he’s barely 40 and I doubt he has experienced anything but CAGW propaganda throughout his entire education and professional life.
By the way, higher solar activity was the reason the winter of 2012 was warm. For the record, between Sept 2011 and Feb 2012 the average daily F10.7cm flux was a relatively high 140 sfu/day. Compare that to the average daily flux of 113 for all of 2011, and to only 88 sfu/day during the preceding nearly nine years going back to 2002, the end year of the Modern Maximum in solar activity.
The years 2000, 2001, 2002 had average daily F10.7cm fluxes of 180, 181, and 180, respectively.
Sources:
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/stp/space-weather/solar-data/solar-features/solar-radio/noontime-flux/penticton/penticton_observed/listings/listing_drao_noontime-flux-observed_daily.txt
and http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/indices/quar_DSD.txt
The daily average solar flux for 2014 is 144 sfu/day, as of yesterday. So is it any wonder that at least some warm records will be broken this year!?
If he had experienced the harsh Michigan winters in late 60s through late 70s he would know that weather cycles.
I am from Michigan, on the 45th parallel, and experienced first hand the weather of the 1960’s and 70’s. There’s a common saying here in Michigan: “if you want to see the weather change, wait five minutes”.
The difficulty people are having across the planet is so far a reasonable science-based alternative to CAGW has not YET been sufficiently advanced into the public square such that there isn’t something to rally around in opposition to this failed CAGW paradigm.
That will change permanently for the better in the very near future.
Do you think all of us under 40 are doomed to be closed-minded with respect to AGW?
I respectfully disagree and consider that too pessimistic anyway.
“Do you think all of us under 40 are doomed to be closed-minded with respect to AGW?”
No sir I don’t, only the indoctrinated believers.
There isn’t enough money in my purse to fix every little thing watermelons get all constipated over. Fixing weather is WAAAAAYYYYY down my list of things I think my tax money should be used for. That’s why I am a card carrying cynic. It has much less to do with how hot or cold or wet or dry anything is. It has to do with priorities and spending efficacy. Fixing weather just isn’t a good solid return on my investment. But hey, don’t let me stop you. If you are a card carrying watermelon, spend all your hard earned money on fixing weather. But leave my pocket book alone.
Yes, 2012 was the warmest winter I’ve ever seen but last year was the longest, coldest winter I ever lived through hitting -24 in Chicago. I was sick of shoveling snow before January. It all evens out. Yes, snow on the ground and January cold here even before Thanksgiving.
I have developed this habit of checking out authors, researchers and organizations mentioned in posts here to the extent Google lets me. So, I see Dr. McCright has a nice webpage. http://www.aaronmmccright.com/
But, when I checked out some items on it I see this:
http://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2013/attracting-more-students-to-stem-by-teaching-climate-change/
and learn the Hockey Stick is a valuable teaching tool on campuses these days. Really?
If Gruber was a sociologist he would look like Aaron McCright.
If Aaron McCright had a son he’d look like Gruber 😉
Cheap shots aside, there is something badly wrong here.
There is an incorrect assumption that most skeptics think there is no AGW warming. Even modest lukewarming will break many records.
There is no trend in extreme weather, other than a slight uptick in heat waves. But warmer winters save several times as many lives as the increase in heatwaves costs (as Lomborg pointed out). He ignores net effects. Even the IPCC, with their own highballed projections, says expected warming will produce “net benefit” to man and beast until ~2060.
He is trying (intentionally or not) to produce a false dichotomy. And he is talking past the element that is defeating him, apparently unaware it even exists.
Department of Sociology. That means that he knows nothing about any real world phenomena.
“Department of Sociology. That means that he knows nothing.
about any real world phenomena.”——————————————–
There ya go…fixed it.
Off topic – I know, but I’m thinking we need a REAL Earth day to show the sociologists how to treat a planet properly.
Get a big old industrial bottle of CO2, and have a very public, CO2 Party – for the plants benefit.
Seriously, just how much trouble would one get into, deliberately releasing a full bottle of the good stuff?
I suppose in the US, the EPA would drone taser you from low orbit.
In the E.U. they’d drop leaflets on you from Greenpeace, using one of the two working euro fighters they have.
In Australia they’d confiscate your plants, and put them in a facility in Naru, then watch some Aussie rules.
In New Zealand they’d sell your plants to the lowest bid Corporate, who’d strip them of fruit and sell the stalks as future investment instruments back to the Government, tax payers would foot the bill.
In Canada they’d give them back to the first Nations folks, who’d sell them to a US conglomerate as Bio-fuel feed stock. Matt Damon would star in an advert promoting it.
In Germany they’d deny there were any plants, that if there were plants they weren’t in Germany, if they were in Germany they probably crossed the border illegally.
In Holland they’d give the Plants a new garden, a years supply of plant food, free schooling at the local school, and blame the Dutch if the plants got out of hand and caused a riot.
In the UK the Tories would blame Labour and Labour would blame the Liberal Dems who’d blame the UKIP who’d roll into an electoral victory by blaming immigrants from Germany for bringing in the plants.
In France they’d add the plants to an appetizer.
In Italy they’d add the plants to an appetizer.
In Russia they’d buzz you with a Bomber, just to remind you, they have lots of Plant food they’re not going to give you this coming Winter.
China would bottle the CO2 again and sell it back to you.
India would manufacture a bottle, rebadge it with a PRC flag and sell it to the Chinese.
And finally, in Belgium, they’d try to inhale the CO2, thinking it Helium or Nitrous Oxide, only to become plant food themselves…a win for everyone.
+1000
And another +1000
That is a fantastic idea…would get the skeptics cause no end of publicity and might even get people thinking for a change.
In the US would the EPA arrest you???
I would be happy to give it a go here in New Zealand but obviously a worldwide campaign would be best. Any other takers?
Sounds good.
Here in Christchurch we could light a fire in Latimer Square or use a steam generator and label it CO2 generator.
The thing is you can’t see CO2 but one can see the steam. Give some of the authors, who illustrate steam from industrial process or power generation as CO2, some of their own medicine.
Cheers
Roger
http://www.rogerfromnewzealand.wordpress.com
The best comment ever.
Brilliant! +1000
Thanks fellow travelers.
I have no idea how to kick off a global campaign, but its worth looking into.
We’ll need a caption/slogan…any copywriters out there?
And some kind of legal review, no one should be prosecuted for feeding plants, the steam idea appeals (Thanks Rodger!).
A strategic date needs to be considered.
And a reason goes down well too,…we’re doing this to [enter sound reason here] ~ No trolls invited.
Merchandising? T-Shirts! Balloons with logos and captions inflated with CO2?
And a bit of misdirection for the rent a riot crowd, that always pushes its, ugly, cultural skid-marxist face into Human business.
Think Local, Act Global! (its a well mixed gas) ~ now with 0.04% added CO2!
(yes not the actual caption, more of a rallying cry).
Anti-Socialize! The BIG Gas Off 2015!
(the polar bears made me do it)
Leaving aside the fact that extreme weather events are not on the increase: If their theory is right and the warming occurs at the poles first that would mean a reduction in extreme weather events. Is this just someone so desperate to evangelize his religion that he doesn’t even know which events he should be talking about?
They have a theory ? When are they going to tell us what it is ?
Has it ever risen above the level of a conjecture (now discredited) ?
Now I read the abstract and looked at some of the figures with this article. Here’s the Abstract from :
Seems to me that conclusion is honest. People will agree to pay for adaptation (i,e. better infrastructure) which is common-sense. But their feelings on mitigation, such as drastic CO2 reduction measures, are not affected by weather events. Good news.
Now if Prof McCright did call Climate cynics out for not believing in the climate change fraud, then he is a kool-aid drinker.
I did find it encouraging that “Only 35 percent of U.S. citizens believe global warming was the main cause of the abnormally high temperatures during the winter of 2012.” Sounds like at least there’s hope for 1/3 of the US population to avoid the Liberal Lies.
Mc Wrong?
I thought of that one but refrained from adding it!
“… People who identify as Republican tend to doubt the existence of global warming, while Democrats generally believe in it.”
I’d bet those people were actually asked about ACGW rather than just GW.
Was his previous study on this possibly reading the NYT exit poll, or was he also not interested in the opinions of independents?
Why are critical thinkers generally labeled as cynics and societal dropouts?
So that means that 65% of US citizens have more common sense than this ‘know-nothing’ “scholar”.
Kinda interesting, this sociologist is harping 2 year old information. Is it too early yet to talk about 2013? Was the extreme cold also AGW? Has he looked outside the window in 2014 – not much warmth in Michigan this year.
Warmer winters? Where?
I thought it said he was a scientologist for a second.
Science+meteorology =
More like science + astrologist =
Do you know that certain people are predisposed to falling for scams. This is why con artists seek out those they can identify as previous victims of other con artists. So it’s no surprise that Democrat voters believe in global warming.
And here lies the problem: “we do hope that people accurately perceive the reality that’s around them”.
Just what is the reality when temperatures refuse to rise?
I think the sociologists should study the belief in other unrealistic ideas like ending poverty or creating a socialistic utopia and see which political tendencies agree or disagree with those as well? My guess is the conservatives will be a bit more skeptical and the liberals more accepting. As usual the libs believe they can “fix” the unfixable by their intellectual and moral superiority, which just amounts to arrogance and hubris. On the other hand, the conservatives would prefer to do nothing most of the time, which in many cases is the least harmful, as at least there are no unintended consequences. Unless you can wage a war…….no unintended consequences there.
Maybe someone should point out to this brain dead bozo that most of the CAGW crowd, at least those who are still trying to maintain the illusion of scientific integrity, don,t subscribe to the notion that individual weather events can be reliably ascribed to climate change. This is especially true since the events listed may be unusual, but they are far from unprecedented. Even in the very limited instrumental record there are multiple examples of all these phenomena. I’ve lived in SE MN for 65 yrs. Several yrs ago I went through several yrs of of daily weather records searching for that rarest of al MN weather phenomena i.e. a perfectly “average” day when the daily high, daily low and daily precip matched exactly the long term average. Over about a decade of data the yearly average number of such days was between 2 and 3 with a range of 0 to 5. In addition over 65yrs I can’t recall a “usual” year in any one of them,
Sociology as a discipline found its way into the universities in the 60’s and 70’s as the new universities of that era, had to find some way of capturing the interest of students. It did indeed capture their interest with its absence of any requirement for formal analysis – no mathematics, no laboratories, and no hard thinking required. It also drew into academic life teachers who, by and large, would not have been remotely considered for appointment in any mainstream discipline. It’s intellectual pedigree: the writings of Max Weber, Emile Durkheim and Karl Marx. Karl who? Yes, you read it correctly – the author of the Communist Manifesto and a variety of other tracts which led to that abomination of a political creed which enslaved half the world. But that wasn’t enough – they declared that the modern era ended with the holocaust and that we were no longer modern but ‘post-modern’. With thinking like that who needs reality? They did away with that too – reality is socially constructed. Sociology is the intellectual apologia for the left in politics – when we understand that, the rest falls into place.
At 12:16 AM on 25 November, Bob Ryan uttered a blanket condemnation of sociology as a field of organized study, writing:
Unfortunately, this is rather more an argumentum ad hominem (using a few prominently odious exemplars to take a whack at a whole approach to the study of certain phenomena) and a blanket dismissal of methodologies.
I’m not a sociologist, and I tend to agree with the general observation that modern American university-level Sociology Departments are raddled with leftards, but then what university-level academic departments today tend not to be totally dominated by government-as-god statist (indeed, explicitly socialist) doctrinaires?
In the so-called “squishy sciences,” however (and here we refer commonly to fields such as sociology, psychology, and political economics), because they are condemned as manure-polishing, there has been a tendency over the past half-century and more to apply the tools of mathematical analysis à outrance to support illusions of precision and validity which simply do not exist.
Vide econometrics, which are almost universally employed “…to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” In other words, duplicity in the service of con artists.
Might be better to call the approach “economeretricious,” and be damned to ’em.
However, the study of purposeful human action – praxeology, a term most commonly associated with Ludwig von Mises and the Austrian School of economics – ought not be dismissed simply because the information under consideration is acknowledged to be analog rather than digital.
So to speak.
After reading Azimov’s Foundation trilogy, I expect these people are wanabee Hari Seldons, searching for the holy grail of something resembling Psychohistory.
The difference is that Hari Seldon’s science required real science (he was also the greatest mathematician). Sociology does not.
Dear MSU prof,that’s ok . We think you’re a fascist or communist whore of Gore or Soros from a corrupt wanna be U.
You know, I’m sure that Sou, this guy and many others make statements like this so they end up on here, they must love the accolade of getting a mention on the multiple award winning – best science blog in the world, WUWT !
Frosty weather front was surprised the entire northern United States. The unusually harsh weather in this part of the world is also convinced Polish crew transport Mamry, which contributed to the largest lake water freshwater USA – Michigan.
http://redir.atmcdn.pl/scale/o2/tvn/web-content/m/p5/v/e94f63f579e05cb49c05c2d050ead9c0/352ea7da-73ed-11e4-85a0-0025b511226e/S/000.jpg?type=1&quality=100&srcmode=3&srcx=1/2&srcy=0/1&srcw=632&srch=358&dstw=632&dsth=358
This annoys me. If this guy was genuine and if Nature Climate Change was a peer reviewed journal then it would be noticed that the IPCC has this to say about hurricanes like Sandy.
From IPCC AR5 TS 5.8.2 (page 106)
Which is not surprising as we learn in section 2.6.3 (page 216)
Hurricane Sandy should have no impact on belief in AGW.
When will Nature Climate Change be wound up?
The same group of people who were Grubered by their political party on Obamacare also believe their other scams? Sounds about right.
And now for something completely different. Here is the skeptic’s case in 12 minutes.
http://youtu.be/0gDErDwXqhc
You will find that 70% republicans don’t believe in AGW and 70% democrats do.You will also find that 70% under 35’s do as well and that 70% democrats are under 35. Replicate same worldwide. Same as Y2K2, socialism/communism in the 70’s ect. It will simply die out with time and aging. Be assured this AGW meme will take a full decade to die out, but it will. Expect maybe <0.1% of world population to believe in AGW by 2025. I'm sure if someone did an age survey it would show a large majority of seniors would not believe in AGW but a majority of juniors would. LOL
Y2K2? Y2K — the major computing problem that was tested, verified to be real and corrected? Or something else?
Some code was known beforehand to be affected. Storing only two digits for a year in your database is a hint. Mostly COBOL progs at the banks. No control circuits I know of were found to be affected.
Hysteria was out of proportion. Mountain out of molehill. At best this would have broken the stock market – but currently NYSE or NASDAQ break every other week and nobody cares. Likely intentionally even.
Also open for discussion at More On Miriam O’Brien’s Hot Whopper:
http://moreonmiriamobrien.wordpress.com/2014/11/25/miriam-obrien-says-belief-trumps-fact-at-wuwt-and-are-fake-sceptics-cynics/
Spinning Sou tries (and fails) at criticizing Anthony’s post.
I think the question more is what will it take for True Believers like this Airhead M. McNumnuts to stop believing? Because clearly, he isn’t interested in the actual science, truth or facts. A true sociologist would find that question to be the more interesting one.
= = = = = = = = = = =
“Those results are promising because we do hope that people accurately perceive the reality that’s around them so they can adapt accordingly to the weather,” McCright said.
= = = = = = = = = = =
http://funwithdysfunction.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Siberia-kindergarten-kids-in-underwear-in-snow-and-freezing-water.jpg
-inaccurate perception of reality, with inappropriate adaptation (a huge problem in poor communities that can’t afford a climate scientist)
= = = = = = = = = = =
The abnormally warm winter was just one in an ongoing series of severe weather events … that many believed would help start convincing global warming cynics.
= = = = = = = = = = =
“And as global warming continues to heat oceans, freezing winters could increase” – DailyMail UK, September 2014
“So maybe sceptics should start arguing that it is milder winters, not colder ones, that refute global warming after all.” – Telegraph UK, October 2014
Q: What will it take to convince skeptics of global warming that the phenomenon is real?
A: an affliction with bipolar disorder
Sociolojournalists. Or Journasociologists.
Quote – “What will it take to convince skeptics of global warming that the phenomenon is real?”
Easy: for propoments of global warming to actually put forth a scientific arguement that includes falsification. When Global warming means snow is a thing of the past *and* it means more snow, it’s not falsifiable and thus not scientific. When global warming means wetter *and* it means drier, it’s not falsifiable and thus not scientific. When global warming means it gets warmer *and* it means it gets colder, it’s not falsifiable and thus not scientific.
Also, it would help if global warming proponets could make just one prediction before hand that turns out correct. So far they’re batting zero. Hurricanes have not increased or gotten more intense. ditto tornadoes. The artic still isn’t ice free (and the ice has been increasing). etc. Science is predicitive, global warming’s predictions have all been a bust.
Or even simpler – if real world temperatures tracked what the models predict, instead of parting company.
Every ‘study’ like this always has one of those statistics like ‘ fourth warmest since 1895.’ I always want to ask them, ‘What do you suppose was going on back in 1895? Was it global warming?’
I’m sorry, but McWright looks like that guy who sat next to you in sociology class and thought he was the foremost expert on EVERYTHING. And he obviously knows nothing about climate science.
So, short-term, local, warm-weather events are supposed to convince us that man-made global warming is real. But they haven’t, and so we are all dumbasses. That seems to be the central premise of McCright’s article. But if we allow short-term, local, COLD-weather events to convince us that man-made global warming is bullspit, then we are confusing weather with climate.
I love how these guys can contradict themselve with a straight face. They would make good politicians.
As matter of note, he didn’t call skeptics dumbasses, but rather cynics. Granted that many commenters can take that as a compliment, but the usual definition of cynic is a person that either:
1. Has contempt for idealism (idealism is not a synonym of naiveté, it just means defending some ideal, whether moral, ethical, professional, intellectual, logical, etc.)
2. Jadedly acts with disregard for moral integrity
So tell me who is the cynic, the guy who uses any extreme weather (which always have happened) to “prove” CAGW with no explaining link whatsoever or climate skeptics?
“1. Has contempt for idealism ”
Idealism = Kantianism = Denial of Causality, BTW…
Fixed it
“Many people already had their minds made up about global warming and no amount of data to the contrary was going to change that,” McCright could have said
Maybe stuff like this affects the population’s perception a bit more (especially in Michigan)…. http://www.mlive.com/weather/index.ssf/2014/11/great_lakes_ice_cover_developi.html
This guy has written previous papers that were more an example of how to use inflammatory language than any actual substance. Fortunately my son who was in the Lyman Briggs College never had him for a class. Time to let my alma matter know my thoughts.
Maybe Aaron McCright needs to read Roger Pielke’s book
Disasters and Climate Change
He might learn something about “this extreme weather”.
So democrats are more likely to belive in lies!
That must be why you are stuck with Obama in the US.
“But when it came to attributing the abnormally warm weather to global warming, respondents largely held fast to their existing beliefs and were not influenced by actual temperatures.”
Exactly as they not fear Global Cooling because of a cold winter.
“an ongoing series of severe weather events – including the 2010 Russian heat wave, Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and the 2013 typhoon in the Philippines –”
That fact that he is only pointing to 3 events in a four year span kind of indicates that weather extreams are getting more and more rare. If he could have said something more like “the 20 major hurricanes of 2013,…” that may indicate that things are getting worse, but they aren’t. How many days are we at now since the last major hurricane hit USA? 3319 days since Wilma?
The data is there to see what percentage Democrats believe CAGW showed its face the winter of 2012. The majority of Democrats must not believe either for 35% average as the nation has been fairly evenly split Dem/Rep.
Good sign and further indication of hysterical blindness in the warmist camp who would like to see disbelief as a white, rich, conservative, anti science, Republican trait caused by personal greed, lack of empathy and the machinations of Big Oil.
So if 2012 was the fourth warmest winter going back to 1895, does that mean 1895 was warmer or at least unusually warm? Wouldn’t that fact alone tend to undermine the argument that a warm winter is something new and that human causation must be invoked?
One wonders also how he chooses to deal with the unusually cold winter of 2013-14. Honestly, these people define self-parody.
Nope, it means records began in 1895.
And that’s almost back to the day of creation – according to Climatologists.
“The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.”
George Bernard Shaw
What will it take to convince skeptics of global warming that the phenomenon is real?
Some actual global warming might be a good start.
Follow his money.
What funding is Aaron M McCright trying to obtain?
My priority list of Scienceness “science” disciplines.
High to low…
Philosophy (logic)
Mathematics
Physics (quantum Mechanics, astro physics)
Chemistry
Engineering disciplines
Biology
Medicine
Political Science
Economics
Psychology
Psychiatry
Anthropology
Sociology
Community Organizing
Sociology is one step above community organizing.
So a sociologist’s opinion carries no scientific weight, regardless of the size of his neck.
“Only 35 percent of U.S. citizens believe global warming was the main cause of the abnormally high temperatures during the winter of 2012”
Hmmm… I though weather was different from climate? And how come his logic never applies when it’s the other way around (i.e. abnormally low temps)? And this guy is teaching?
The last time I was in Michigan, I was told “MSU = Make Stuff Up.”
Well…I AM a cynic, but that’s far from the only reason why I’m “unmoved” by extreme weather. I can’t be moved by something that didn’t happen.
“What will it take to convince skeptics of global warming that the phenomenon is real?”
I’ll go out on a limb and suggest an actual, testable null hypothesis. Some sort of actual baseline data and then a hypothesis that suggests an outcome. Not all possible outcomes. This however seems to be exactly the sort of science that would appeal to those in sociology – soft, pliable, changeable.
As pejoratives go, “climate cynic” is a lot less insulting and demeaning than many of the others applied to skeptics.
But what the H does a professor of sociology know about the science of global warming. Again, another non-expert who gets his climate training from the cross-talk at the faculty lunch room.
Sociologist Aaron M. McCright seems to be right about doomsday prophecies wearing out, but should have his mouth washed with a soap.
The old confusion between ‘weather’ and ‘climate’ again.
Statistics allows you to make generalizations from a large number of events, but only a fool would try to apply those generalizations to an individual event. It would be like trying to put the toothpaste back into the tube.
The average coin toss has half a head.
The average American family has 2 and a half kids.
Schroedinger’s Cat has four and a half lives.
The average professor is half-right.
How many people in Michigan are really worried about warmer winter temperatures?
Where are the academic psychiatrists? They are missing out on a big opportunity studying these quacks. This guy, like so many of his intellectually deficient peers, is cuckoo for climate change and this phenomenon needs studied!
We Climate Realists aka “Skeptics” have probably had to develop a certain amount of cynicism as well as curmudgeonliness in response to the enormous amount of bad science and falsehoods so rampant in the climate science community, the MSM, and within once-revered institutions both of science and higher learning.
“What will it take to convince skeptics of global warming that the phenomenon is real?”
Uhm. Rising temperatures?
Maybe rising temperatures everywhere at all times?
Question of the week: Do two McWrong’s make a McCright?
_________________________
“Only 35 percent of U.S. citizens believe global warming was the main cause of the abnormally high temperatures during the winter of 2012, Aaron M. McCright and colleagues report in a paper published online today in the journal Nature Climate Change.”
Ask these same people AFTER the very cold winter of 2013-14, and again AFTER the very cold winter of 2014-15. I bet the number of warmist acolytes will be much reduced – possibly by increased winter mortality – no irony there.
Bundle up good people, and lay in some extra firewood – the central and eastern 2/3 of North America will be very cold this winter, much like last winter. Europe will also be cold and Russia will be very cold.
“As this study and McCright’s past research shows, political party identification plays a significant role in determining global warming beliefs. People who identify as Republican tend to doubt the existence of global warming, while Democrats generally believe in it.”
Or maybe both party identification and belief in AGW are both determined by something else, like empiricism vs. rationalism, or hard-headedness vs. wooly-mindedness.
From the Pen of Theodore Dalrymple:
“Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.”
I tend to agree with the above, but in addition I believe if, wherever political correctness appears, you substitute CAGW the quote reads just as true, if not more so.
“Many people already had their minds made up about global warming and this extreme weather was not going to change that,” said McCright,
Maybe the reason people don’t find extreme weather to indicate climate change is that they understand that these are WEATHER events not climate events. Maybe many common folk have come to understand that extreme weather is one thing and climate is yet another, Maybe the public has figured this out while the “experts” who should know better keep confusing weather with climate. After all, ‘climate’ are weather trends over an absolute minimum of 3 decades to hundreds of years. One weather extreme to the cold can be matched with one weather extreme to the warm and thereby they cancel each other out from a climate standpoint.
Anyway, if Global Warming is what we’re really talking about, why have they changed the name of it to “Climate Change”? The answer to that is clear: there’s no credibility to claiming that the earth ‘has a fever’ when snow, ice and polar winds repeatedly cause havoc and people notice that there are very few hot spells to cancel them out.
Anyway, if Global Warming is what we’re really talking about, why have they changed the name of it to “Climate Change”?
==============================
When people mention Climate Change, I point out that GHG theory says that CO2 will cause warming, so the term “Climate Change” is incorrect. It doesn’t describe the effects of CO2.
Rather Climate Change describes the effects of humans in general, such as land use, industrialization and urbanization. The only solution to this problem is to get rid of humans, because without urbanization and industrialization the planet cannot support 7 billion humans. And with urbanization and industrialization the climate will continue to change, regardless of CO2.
Quite simply we cannot solve Climate Change without eliminating modern society. We must return the urban and industrialized populations of the world back to the farms, the same way Pol Pot did in Cambodia, with much the same result on the earth’s population as Pol Pot had in Cambodia.
so when we talk about Climate Change we are really talking about population elimination, not CO2 emission control, because even if we control CO2 human activity will continue to change the climate. CO2 control simply limits our ability to urbanize and industrialize, because CO2 free energy sources are very limited, which ultimately means we cannot support 7 billion people. Someone is going to have to go.
Then I ask this question: Do you support culling the human population of the planet? Because when we talk Climate Change that is where any legally binding treaty will ultimately lead us. To a culling of humans by war, starvation or mass sterilization; a “no child” policy enforced by all countries. Is this the sort of world you hope for?
What will happen if we have a legally binding agreement on Climate Change, and a country breaks the agreement? History shows us the answer: First there will be warnings, then sanctions leading to poverty and death, ultimately leading to terrorism and war to try and escape the effects of sanctions.
So rather than solving the problem, the proposed solution will cause a worse problem.
Regarding the name change:
“An important art of politicians is to find new names for institutions or actions which under their old names have become odious to the public.” Carl Sagan
I would add that all deceivers practice this art.
Of course ones political views play a role. But this guy simply has the wrong end of that stick. People with a collectivist outlook on the world tend to be more inclined to accept authority and “consensus” views. People who think for themselves, instead of letting others do that for them, tend to question authority and consensus. No prizes for guessing that the former are more likely to vote Democrat and the latter more inclined to vote Republican.
it could be that the former tend to vote for political parties, and the later tend to vote independent. wasn’t it Washington himself that pointed out the greatest threat to the new republic lay in the tyranny of political parties? we see this in today’s politics, whereby elected officials are required to vote along party lines, rather than vote their conscience, making compromise impossible.
Ah, a sociologist talks about the extreme weather.
Makes me wonder what his colleagues Marcuse, Horkheimer and Adorno would make out of Global Warming. Well, it would be pretty obvious given their great work, Critical Theory.
It is easy to by cynical about Global Warming. the exact same folks that told us that Global Warming was going to kill us were telling us the same thing about Global Cooling and the coming Ice Age only 50 years ago.
they were clearly wrong then. why is this time going to be any different? 18 years and counting, The Pause tells us they still haven’t got a clue.
Fool me once…
‘Perceptions of warmer winter temperatures seemed to track with observed temperatures’
Why introduce perceptions when you have observed temperatures?
If they want to convince me about the planet warming up because of CO2, they would have to show me undeniable proof!
Evidence of the tie between climate models and extreme weather would be nice. Even a little, just a tiny bit, would be nice. BTW using the “must be” does not count as evidence, as in “We don’t know so it must be global warming.”
Short of that when alarmists accept that positive weather events (ie like less brutal winters, longer growing seasons, polar bear populations growing, etc) we can maybe then look at the tie to extreme weather.
The argument should be about man-made global warming not global warming. The argument is continually misstated by those who champion man-made carbon dioxide as the reason for global warming.