Guest opinion: Prof Richard Betts, Dr Tamsin Edwards
Dr Tim Ball’s blog post “People Starting To Ask About Motive For Massive IPCC Deception” – drawing parallels between climate scientists and Hitler – doesn’t do anyone in the climate change debate any favours: in fact it seems a big (goose) step backwards. It’s especially frustrating to see him write this so soon after the productive dinner at Nic Lewis’s place, where the attendees agreed on the need to depolarise and detoxify the climate discussion. Anthony Watts wrote an extremely positive blog post about the evening, and there were many favourable comments from WUWT readers saying how great it was to have a more civilised conversation.
But here we see Tim sink to a new low, with Mein Kampf quotes and snide misrepresentation of the IPCC reports. Perhaps Tim hasn’t yet heard that many people on both sides of the discussion have moved on from the simple name calling of the past…. We were also disappointed that so few commenters below the post distanced themselves from his views. We hope this is merely selection bias, and that many of you are simply sighing and moving on to the next post.
For those that do endorse Tim’s views: we often see people who are sceptical of climate science and/or policy object to the term ‘Deniers’ (a phrase neither of us use). But it’s hard to see how anyone could justify taking offence at being called a Denier if they were happy to call other people Nazis. Especially when those people – professional climate scientists like us – are trying to engage in good faith discussions with Anthony and many others in the sceptical community.
We do understand that Anthony does not read all WUWT guest posts. We’re pleased that when we contacted him he added a disclaimer (albeit a somewhat ambiguous one) and offered us this chance to respond. We see this as a positive outcome of meeting in person at dinner. Certainly we would not be writing this without it.
As we understand it, Tim’s post does not at all reflect Anthony’s views.We therefore hope future WUWT guest writers adopt the civil and rational tone of the conversations we had that evening and do not remain stuck in the pointless, playground insults that do not help either climate science or its discussion.We invite our dinner companions from the 21st September (including Anthony) to add their views below. Personally, we think they will agree that Tim’s view is an out-of-touch relic.
Richard and Tamsin
Professor Richard Betts
Chair in Climate Impacts, College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter – Head of Climate Impacts Research, Met Office Hadley Centre
Dr Tamsin Edwards
Lecturer in Environmental Sciences, Department of Environment, Earth and Ecosystems, The Open University
Note from Anthony:
I agree that Dr. Ball’s post had some “over the top” rhetoric in it, and it is my error that the post was published without benefit of editorial actions. It does not reflect my views. My excuse is simply that I was distracted by an extreme challenge in my life at the time, and I didn’t get to vet the guest post as I normally would have. That won’t happen again. On the plus side, this issue illustrates why one of the most common ugly claims about WUWT, the claim of being in the pay of “big oil” or some NGO, can’t possibly be true. If that were true, I could have long ago hired an assistant editor and such missteps would not occur. While there are many things that the IPCC can be validly criticized for, some of which were in Dr. Balls post, parallels with Nazism is not one of them.
While there remain wildly disparate views about climate science, I see that there are people on both sides that are gravitating towards a more central and in my opinion, more reasonable view. Climate skeptics and climate advocates should do everything possible to help facilitate such dialog, otherwise all we have is just noise. – Anthony Watts
“Dr Tim Ball’s blog post “People Starting To Ask About Motive For Massive IPCC Deception” – drawing parallels between climate scientists and Hitler – doesn’t do anyone in the climate change debate any favours”
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Maybe the authors know of some better examples of the big lie.
AH was just one man among the best progressives in the world.
Progressives like Barack Obama (ACA…lots of lies)
Jon Gruber (paid $M to lie)
John Beale (EPA paid to lie …Secret Agent retired)
Lisa Jackson (EPA Richard Winsor was just one lie retired)
Lois Leaner (IRS lies vs TEA party retired)
Nancy Pelosi (Speaker of the House really silly liar)
Eric Holder (Attorney General from gun running to race baiting liesretiring)
Along with other proven liars Al Gore, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Wendy Davis and too, too many more to list.
All these people are considered leaders and all are pushing a big lie just like the UN.
It’s not whether they know it’s a lie because it doesn’t matter even if it is a lie.
They use lies to nudge Socialist policies worldwide and any lie is good if it’s for the cause.
… and all from a common ‘institution’.
If you are going to start an article discussing propaganda by explaining how it works then Hitler is a reasonable example to use. Nazism was adept at using propaganda. It was not a poorly chosen parallel but one that readers would readily understand.
The Big Lie quote specifically perhaps isn’t a good example of it though. The quote from Hitler is his claim that Big Lies were used against Germany by jewish controlled interests. That said, I suppose this itself could be viewed as Hitler’s ‘big lie’.
Or, the fact that so many people believe an erroneous fact (that Hitler promoted the “Big Lie” in his book) is an example of the ‘Big Lie.’ Wouldn’t you say this is a successful use of propaganda against Hitler and the National Socialists (whether you think it’s well deserved or not)? So I suppose Dr. Ball’s piece in an unwitting example of a Big Lie which unfortunately greatly weakens his argument. His opponents do no better because they make the same mistake.
Wow, talk about “playground” behaviour! This is juvenile whining over nothing. Where exactly does Dr. Tim Ball “call other people Nazis”? Dr. Ball was illustrating an important, relevant point about The Big Lie and how you get away with it, which with the demonization of CO2 and and the unproven hypothesis of man-made global warming is exactly what happened, right under our noses, while many scientists were asleep at the switch, or worse, collaborated. And to top it off, Betts and Edwards are not satisfied with a disclaimer (“somewhat ambiguous”) that should never have been made in the first place.
Dear Anthony Watts, Professor Betts and Dr. Edwards,
Dr. Balls last sentence in his post was
“Do you have another or better explanation of a motive?”
Well, do you? Telling us that your feelings were hurt by incorrectly believing that Dr. Ball called climate scientists “Naz!s” or distancing yourself from Tim is not a refutation of his post. Rather, it may be only your inability to comprehend his writing style that correctly asks and answers the question that your smokescreen can’t cover up. Do you have another or better explanation of a motive?
+1000
Do you feel lucky …
http://youtu.be/8Xjr2hnOHiM
Another +1000
Sensible people who base conclusions on data and logic, collected and analyzed without any political bias, do not understand that leftists lie and mislead ALL THE TIME because they think their cause is so important that lying is justified!
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Leftist scientists are no different than leftist political science professors, or leftist plumbers — they have a cause they believe only fools would resist, and there is no harm in lying to fools since they don’t know what is best for them.
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There is no other way, other than lying and misleading, for leftists to justify their hatred of capitalism, corporations, profits, prosperity, economic growth and population growth.
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Their goal is not the prosperity that most people want — their goal is an impossible dream of equality, in spite of the fact that people are so different in intelligence and attitude.
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The global warming scam is nothing more than a political tool to advance the big government / anti-private corporation agenda.
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Prior scams that didn’t take were acid rain, and the hole in the ozone layer, among many.
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Claiming a catastrophe is coming in the future is an age-old power strategy used by political and religious men to gain power over the masses and tell them how to live “for their own benefit”.
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There is no reason to be polite to leftists, since they will NEVER be polite to anyone who questions their claims.
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Their goal, in the Saul Alinsky-style, is to ridicule and character attack opponents so there WILL NEVER BE A DEBATE (because anyone who opposes their beliefs is (called) a fool / denier / etc. not worthy of debate).
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There is good reason to ridicule the left wing scientists who take money from the taxpayers to play computer games — they are NOT practicing science, and they are WASTING the taxpayer’s money!
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Playing computer games and making inaccurate predictions of a coming climate catastrophe … that no human could predict … since no human can predict the future climate .. is not science … and whether or not a person doing this has a science degree makes no difference — computer game predictions are climate astrology, not science.
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Whether you call them climate Nazis, or science deniers, or warmunists, or climate astrologers … these offensive labels put the warmists on the defensive. That’s a good thing.
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If they want us to stop calling them names, then they had better stop calling us names — only then can we all get down to serious, calm and soft-spoken debate of the data (of course that will never happen).
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When the case is weak, every good trial lawyer knows he must badger the witnesses and try to discredit them.
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The case for a coming climate catastrophe is very weak, given the absence of warming in the past 12 to 18 years … so the name calling will not stop.
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Name calling in one direction is a clever political tool — Obama is an expert in character attacking his opponents — he won two elections using that “debate” tool.
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Refusing to fight back when the leftists character attack non-believers like us … is like boxing them with one hand tied behind our back.
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“Their goal, in the Saul Alinsky-style, is to ridicule and character attack opponents so there WILL NEVER BE A DEBATE”
Add to that — Cry foul when tables get turned.
Saul Alinsky’s relish in dishing it out, but can’t stomach it when they get spoon fed their own.
+++! Yes, control of the language and the debate is everything. Scientists who wish to counter leftist tactics of debate need to start studying neo-reactionary sites which clearly and succinctly lay out the rules for talking to (and attacking) leftist memes. Most of the neo-rx blogs are written by political thinkers; but everything they are about is exactly where real scientists need to go when planning to counter the anti-science memes of the socialist agenda.
Investigating IPCC motives is the most important undertaking humanity should collectively ask at this point in history. Name calling doesn’t help anyone, but getting to the bottom of this massive “Crisis of Opportunity” scam is the only way to derail the gravy train and put the science train back on the tracks. Hitler, The Salem Witch Trials…..they are similar in many aspects but not productive references.
Not really. “motive” is subjective. We need to do what skeptics do best: Use facts to counter hype.
Richard Betts & Tamsin Edwards,
Please start your efforts at more civil and rational dialog by showing us your real concern for your own use of less-than-civil discussion of Tim Ball in your lead post. You see, don’t you, that your civility criterion already wasn’t met even by yourselves in your plea for civility.
John
I agree with you entirely, John. The article Richard Betts & Tamsin Edwards wrote is an embarrassment of less-than-civil discussion. I am sorry to see it published on WUWT.
+ 1
“Refusing to fight back when the leftists character attack non-believers like us … is like boxing them with one hand tied behind our back”
Nothing short of Congress defunding EPA and educational institutions wasting money on CAGW will halt the tide. To do less means they win.(It is all about their getting money and power after all, not science. We taxpayers are just suckers.)
Yes, Congress will end politicized climate-games, the same way it ended the Vietnam War. Decline to fund it … while glancing nervously over their shoulder at a sea of unamused citizens.
“End it or we vote to end your career”, is a message Congress responds to.
The polling-attested slide of climate-games began about 2006. 2016 might not be too optimistic.
“We taxpayers are just suckers.”
Only the modern day ones. The taxpayers of past, through a Tea Party, then a revolution. Based on Taxation without Representation. Which is where taxpayers are at today, No representation.
Congress does not represent Taxpayers. While, White House uses IRS as political weapon. Not to be left out, SCOTUS decided health care Insurance was a Tax, an annual Tax to just Live.
“Especially when those people – professional climate scientists like us ”
While do I feel like, we are being whacked by people hiding baseball bats behind their backs?
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“We were also disappointed that so few commenters below the post distanced themselves from his views.”
As we have been to see so few “”Professional”” Climate scientists distance themselves from BAD Climate Science, Politics of CO2, Denier insults, going Green profit Scams, ‘We are Smarter than you’ attacks, GW cover-ups, falsifying of temperature records, and Climate scientists hiding their work.
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“… it’s hard to see how anyone could justify taking offence at being called a Denier if they were happy to call other people Nazis”
Redirect much? Ball didn’t call Climate Scientists Nazis. Ball pointed out that Global Warming Cabal was using similar psychological tactics that Hitler had written about, a tactic long known to scam artists and politicians.
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“when we contacted him he added a disclaimer (albeit a somewhat ambiguous one)”
“Albeit”, doth protest too much, methinks.
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“playground insults that do not help either climate science or its discussion”
Prey tell, why should we help “Climate Science” that isn’t?
Why should we play, and be judge by AGW rules; when Global Warming Cabal does not?
When your name is against a guest post here, isn’t one honour bound to at least respond to questions and comments at least for a couple of days?
Unless Betts is posting under nom de guerre then he hasn’t posted a single reply in 813 comments. I suggest he has seriously abused Anthony’s hospitality and should not be allowed further guest posts without committing to responding for 48 hours after the posting has been made.
Does that “logic” also apply to the author of the thread that this thread is in reference to?
Yes, anyone who has asked rather than a re-blogging.
Betts will not respond.
He and Edwards claim that Dr Ball compared them to Nazis. He didn’t.
Edwards has given some replies. It seems that Dame Julia Slingo has told Betts to keep quiet.
Maybe Edwards is the tart with a heart of gold. Maybe Betts is the deputy assistant under-pimp?
But they both get plenty of the taxpayer’s money, so that’s all good then.
How could Richard Betts bring himself to respond? He is terrified of Big Momma Dame Julia Slingo.
I have commented at WUWT many times, but usually they are humorous one-liners or limericks. Just occasionally, I feel the need to say something serious. I fear this has to be one of those times. What I say is going to be – necessarily – longer than I would like it to be. And it isn’t going to be nice to either side in this “debate.”
(A brief aside about me. Long ago, I was trained as a mathematician. I don’t like to name-drop, but Dr Edwards, whose Ph.D. thesis was about Z bosons, might care to know that one of my supervisors in my first undergraduate term was Jeffrey Goldstone.)
Now, I’m no Steve McIntyre – nor even Sherlock Holmes – but there has been a lot of misdirection on both this and the earlier thread.
It’s a fact that Dr Ball quoted Hitler out of context. Commenter Brian Macker picked this up on the other thread several days ago. Hitler wasn’t talking about his own version of the Big Lie – that came later. Instead, he was referring to Jewish and Marxist critics of the German loss of WWI.
I don’t know if Dr Ball did this deliberately or innocently. Whichever, Drs Betts and Edwards fell into the “Godwin trap.” They should have known better.
However, there are other problems too. Betts and Edwards say: “It’s especially frustrating to see him write this so soon after the productive dinner at Nic Lewis’s place.”
Was Dr Ball invited to that dinner? If he was, could he have afforded either time or money to visit from Canada? And did he give his assent to the conclusions of that meeting? He didn’t comment on Anthony’s post about it. So, is it reasonable to expect Dr Ball to “toe the line” agreed by a meeting he wasn’t at? I think not.
Then there was the following; which, the more times I read it, the harder I laugh. “Perhaps Tim hasn’t yet heard that many people on both sides of the discussion have moved on from the simple name calling of the past.” But when I look at the previous sentence, I see the word “snide.” Yes, Drs Betts and Edwards, you have indeed moved on from “simple name calling.” You have learned to use adjectives as well as nouns! Clever (adjective) children (noun).
Almost five years have passed since Judith Curry, back in February 2010, entered dialogue with us skeptics in this very forum. I myself was one of “Willis’s wolf-pack” who gently mauled her. It can’t have been a pleasant experience; but she came through it, dealt with it honestly, and is a stronger person and a better scientist for it.
But the gap has widened in that time. Richard and Tamsin, if you really do want to follow Judith, you will need to jump. In a big way. For the planet itself, by refusing to warm, has made us skeptics even surer of our scientific case. That is, that whatever warming foreseeable human activities may (or may not) cause in the next century won’t be catastrophic. Yet the bad, anti-business and industry, anti-human politics has gone on; and still goes on. And you, Betts and Edwards, have continued taking the money – our money – and yet you have done nothing to counter that politics. So, are you really surprised at the tone of the comments on this thread?
I’ll end by seriously mis-quoting Robert F. Kennedy: “Ask not what climate skeptics can do for you. Ask what you can do for climate skeptics.”
+ 1 for most of this.
I do not agree that Dr Ball quoted Hitler out of context. Hitler was writing about how propaganda is done, and that pertains to how CO2 scare propaganda is done. Tell the big lie, again and again.
“And you, Betts and Edwards, have continued taking the money – our money – and yet you have done nothing to counter that politics. So, are you really surprised at the tone of the comments on this thread?”
Edwards has tried, as weakly as is humanly possible, to deal with this. Betts hasn’t even tried.
Edwards is an academic, Betts is a civil servant. Edwards has more job security. From now on, Richard Betts is Richard “brown-tongue” Betts [tm Slingo 2014].
Neil. You seriously misquoted John F. Kennedy. I watched that speech on live TV. You wrote one of the best replys on this 1000+ thread. I wish I had your smarts and education so I could make better sense of the math and science. I have always been a skeptic but started to have doubts after one recient warm winter and summer. After trying my honest best to find the truth I remain a skeptic. This site has been the most convincing help. I hope that the science and math wiz kids who make comments to the effect that only science should be discussed here, realize that the 200+ million visits would not be that high with only the S & M people. I love the witty humor here. Maybe some of these folks should chill out.
Thanks, Jim, and I’m surprised you’re the only one who noticed my mis-attribution to RFK instead of JFK.
I’m glad you enjoy WUWT. So do I.
“Goodwin’s Law” at work
The boxer doesn’t like it when the punching bag fights back! Time to settle this like normal human beings and have a televised debate!
Is that a clucking sound I hear?
Let us converse, Richard and Tamsin
The science is settled, friends. Read my previous comment and educate yourselves as befits climate scientists. You seem to have enjoyed a conversation with Anthony so let us discuss some things that can be said conversationally. First, Richard, take your foot off that wall you faker. You cannot prove that opponents of global warming are Nazis by doing that. You were right to hide your face, Tamsin, when he did that. Nevertheless he convinced you to sign his scribblings after that, and this is a shame. You, Richard, are twisting what Tim Ball said to prove that opponents of globsal warming are Nazis. This I would have expected that only from the likes of Naomi Oreskes and you have now lowered yourself to her level. . What Tim Ball did was to hold up what Hitler said as a negative stereotype of what global warmists are doing now, in his opinion. I happen yo think from personal experience that his charges are justified. Take, for instance, the HadCRUT3 temperature curve that originates in Met Office Hadley Centre where you work. When I was writing “What Warming?” that came out in 2010 I discovered that they were showing imaginary warming in the eighties and nineties. They called it “late twentieth century warming,” but there was none according to satellites. I even put a warning about it into the preface but nothing happened. They continued with the fake upward slope into the twenty-first century with the absurd result that in their temperature curve the 2010 El Nino peak is now higher than the super El Nino of 1998. But this is not all. HadCRUT, GISS, and NCDC, all ground-based data sets, are very similar and all differ from satellites by showing the same fake warming where there is none. Having three independent data sets that show similar temperatures should increase any user’s confidence that the temperatures are real. But are they really independent or just cooked up by operators behind the scenes? I vote for the latter case. Why? Because all three curves were secretly computer processed, a perfect opportunity for synchronizing their readings. And how do I know that? They screwed up. Unbeknownst to them the computer left its footprints on all three publicly available data sets, all exactly in the same positions on all three temperature curves. They comprise sharp upward spikes at the beginnings of years. One even sits on top of the super El Nino of 1998 and makes it taller. They are all easy to see if you compare them to satellite temperature curves that are free of this junk. This is why I advise everyone to use satellite temperature data whenever it is available. All this I know from personal experience but Tim Ball probably has more, enough to make him justifiably hopping mad. You. Richard, saw an oppportunity to squelch criticism with your fake “Nazi” charge. Anthony thought you were really offended and apologized, something he need not have done had he known what fakery you are associated with. I also hope that Tamsin will learn something about how you guys operate to keep control of the movement.
Please use paragraphs to make your posts more readable.
I’m sure that Tamsin Edwards was well aware of how these guys operate.
The innocent tart with a heart of gold? I think not.
On the Tim Ball post at WUWT entitled “People Starting To Ask About Motive For Massive IPCC Deception”, my comments there had just the following two criticisms of Tim Ball:
1) Ball’s intellectual approach to ‘why’ / ‘motivation’ / ‘basis of premises’ has the same fatal flaws that Oreskes’ intellectual approach to ‘why’ / ‘motivation’ / ‘basis of premises’ has.
2) As Oreskes does in her repetitious con$piracy hysteria about skeptics, we see Ball doing in his con$piracy stuff about the supporters of significant climate change from CO2 by burning fossil fuel.
I add that, although I do not have much criticism for the general intellectual approach of Ball’s in comparing an infamous piece of early 20th century Continental European history to early 21st century international (UN) history involving the climate change movement, I think that relevant historical comparison was destroyed by the two flaws I pointed out above.
John
I’m not sure the authors are particularly fair to Anthony. For example the following post has a number of references to ‘deniers’ in its comments:
http://blogs.plos.org/models/climate-scientists-must-not-advocate-particular-policies/
I could not find any apologies by Dr. Edwards in the chain of comments.
I also found Tim Ball’s post to be mild compared to the caustic nature of so many AGW proponents. If it is OK for authors like Cook and Lewandowsky to question both the motives and the sanity of skeptics in (supposedly) peer reviewed papers, questioning the motives of AGW activists in a blog is probably OK.
So here is a challenge for Richard Betts and Tamsin Edwards: Are you willing to publicly, and in writing, disavow the 97% myth? That will be real progress.
I’m a lurker here and in other climate skeptic blogs. I’m not a scientist, so I don’t weigh in on the many scientific issues that are dissected in the serious skeptic community. But I am very well informed wrt history and political science and philosophy. And I absolutely believe that Tim Ball’s comments were fair. Fyi, from the outset, you should know that ideas that claim “any time a comparison to the Nazis is made, you have already lost the argument” are nonsense. The Nazis weren’t some magical evil force that existed outside of normal society and normal institutions. In fact, Nazism most pernicious aspect was its ability to wrap it’s more ugly and dark agenda around good causes and beneficial outcomes for the German people.
And when asking why the Progressive-Marxist left has put so much political capital behind such a bad set of ideas and science, one can quite easily draw parallels to the Nazis. Ball’s hypothesis about the true ideological motivations of the much of AGW hysteric left is spot on. They believe we are overrunning the biosphere and in their world, “whatever it takes is the motto”. So, what would it take to really get govts to deindustrialize and reduce population growth? How about “the big lie”?
Ball does a great job of explaining how the big lie works. Essentially trusted sources tell a lie so huge that people conclude that it can’t be a lie, as it would be so absurd to tell such a big lie. This is exactly what AGW liars have done – the parallel is perfect and the case is not at all overstated by Ball. These people we are up against are Malthusian-Marxist hysterics.
Many climate skeptics are very uncomfortable with discussing the politics of this and it’s clear why at this point. First, many are Progressives of a sort and have been brainwashed into thinking that any time someone mentions the word “Marx” they are deranged. No, that’s just your effing ignorance. The other issue – very common among STEM men – is that they are political idiots but don’t know it. They seem to not understand how Marxist, Anarchic and other radically left, supposedly “Progressive” causes use AGW to justify their ideas about “social justice”. Sorry, some puke just came up the back of my throat – but I’ve read Rawls, who invented Social Justice theory and I know it’s as big a pile of horsehockey as the AGW hysteric’s science.
What you are seeing in AGW is one of many ways the left intentionally corrupts reason to support their political ends. Too bad you folks here either don’t understand the politics/history or that it makes you uncomfortable. Ball is spot on.
+10 From a fellow lurker.
AGW or CAGW is about social behavior, – not about the atmosphere.
YES. thanks long time lurker- me too. and now i am commenting and hoping to help these real scientists and engineers understand the battle they are in- for truth and their lives. Mr. Ball was indeed ‘spot on’. I dreamed of a nation which would continue our dream of colonies on the moon, electrical energy too cheap to meter, and an actual helping hand of technology to our poorer brothers and sisters on this globe. Instead, as the neo-reactionaries are putting it “the monster only swims left” – I am only 68 yrs old (ha) and when I see where the supposed “conservatives” of our political parties are today…. well. Is it deliberate? Many would say so, and have published evidence of such. There are now two generations of western youth indoctrinated in a belief that humans are evil, and that the civilization which created the highest standard of living for the most number of humans – EVER in history – must be brought down. The science and technology which makes all these well- fed and pampered ‘useful idiots” turn on their own society is beyond belief- except it is real. It is good to see so many comments here helping scientists find a slightly different “candle in the dark”: political reality.
Yeah, but people getting down on themselves goes way back. All kinds of self-abasement and kinky goings on. Takes me back to Bible Study. Sin, the Fall, Expulsion from Eden, Living by the Sweat of Thine Brow, and Redemption following interminable subjugation of the unworthy spirit..
Makes me wonder sometimes if it’s just a political quirk, or if there’s sometime more ‘organic’ to it.
Dr. Ball is indeed correct and accurate. He is what we call “dead-right“.
Dead-right is the highway-safety campaign in which we are encourage to essentially drive for the other guy, or to at least to check & monitor his driving.
Dead-right is where you do something or act in some manner that is within your road-rights to do, but someone else is committing a fairly small road-error, which results eg in them T-boning you (when they should have yielded), and you die.
You were right. Dead-right.
All Tim Ball needed was a good analogy or metaphor. The one he chose is – and is known to be – explosively incendiary, whereupon everybody with a cigarette or other smoking-material pulled out their Bic and flicked it. KA-BLEWEY.
Now, most people don’t even notice what he was saying – only that he kinda T-boned himself.
Ted Clayton writes “most people don’t even notice what he was saying”
Really? How do you arrive at that observation? Be scientific.
Yes, sadly, most folks just run the blooper-reel over and over.
Even this post ‘about’ Dr. Ball’s article, doesn’t make any mention of it’s subject. All the authors care about (and they’re papered Academics), is his unfortunate choice of analogy-material. About the core topic he was addressing or theme he was articulating – not one word.
People Starting To Ask About Motive For Massive IPCC Deception
Motives. Not goals. Goals, objectives, results – that’s easy. What pushes us toward goals?
Note that taking an interest in motivations is not risk-free. There are opportunities to make mistakes. But then, Tim Ball made a mistake, using ‘strong spirits’ European History (unrelated to his actual topic) which left much of his readership intoxicated.
By observation. 8-
Fund me. ;-
Hi lurker, I like your introduction. I am a scientist and I jumped into this thread because I think Anthony was wrong to allow these two warmists to put in a comment based on a twisted view of what history means. I already have two comments on this thread and you can get to them by clicking the addresses below:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/11/27/a-big-goose-step-backwards/#comment-1801280
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/11/27/a-big-goose-step-backwards/#comment-1800394
There is science in there but I always make a point of using English, not math, and to make it comprehensible to anybody who wants to know. I agree with what you have said and suggest you avail yourself of my previous comments so I don’t have to repeat what I said.
Glenn, spot on. Very well articulated.
Sorry for jumping from the ropes into the ring on you, Glenn. I should have reined it in long enough to say Hello, and Welcome, and despite the rowdiness I think it’s a great move to ‘go active’, bounce your own pennies off the wall!
In college, around 1980, I went for the full German program, to avoid all the gimmicky Composition-Lit courses. I was aware of who the Prof was, a German national immigrated after WWII.
Turned out, he was a pubescent in Dresden, a bright kid already long channeled into the Old European scholasticism-curricula, when it was firebombed. He lost his family and was evacuated to some old hillbilly couple out in the Black Forest. He loved to retell the story of the barrel they kept behind the stove, adding fruit-trimmings (eaten-apple cores) and left-over mush and bread-crusts … carefully dipping rations of low-test brew from deeper down. Then he would shudder in revulsion.
Each summer he made a major tour through East Germany, examining Communist social programs and giving sanctioned talks. I believe his family were native Easterners. He wasn’t a Commie, but he didn’t go with the usual Western hard-line, either. He thought Marx was daft; a comic-book intellectual.
Even as a kid, he was already taking classic Greek & Latin training. He taught introductory course in both at college, at night, alternating quarters. I took both from him, after my first semester in his regular day-class. These night ancient language class were really an eclectic bunch. A good scatter of European exchange students, in all his classes.
So it turned out to be a lot better than just dodging Freshman Requirements. There’s a bit of Herr Schneider’s classes, here at WUWT. 🙂
+ as many as I am allowed.
TE and RB should be here defending themselves. Instead, silence. Shame on both.
This is a very good reply. I am thinking of collecting some of the best and try to get them posted in a new post. I think the ” why” and “how could such a big lie be believed or spread” question, should be thoroughly discussed. I think that the goals and motivations you have mentions should be discussed here a little more. It is the driver for CAGW alarmist scientist.
Gary Pearse November 27, 2014 at 6:33 am
Yeah, but you guys ignore all real pollution. CO2 is your one trick pony. You are even happy about the risk using mercury curly bulbs to reduce CO2 and at the same time regulate the tiny amount of Hg from coal fired plants just to shut down the CO2 emissions. Its the hypocrisy of all this that galls. BTW, what do you drive, where do you take your holidays?
Coal fired power plants provide ~50% of the US Hg emissions that’s a long way from a ‘tiny amount’!
I am not at all versed on mercury. What is the data to support a concern from US coal plants? Increase in ??? disease down wind from plants??
I think it’s making us all stupid. Take Phil., for example…
Mark
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/01/mercury-the-trickster-god/
I think I have found my answer. There is no direct health effects measured, BUT, the downstream levels in sport fish COULD be a problem if eaten every day. Since this is an easy fix by all coal plants to install modern scrubbers, it is OK by me to mandate it. Those that don’t will switch to natural gas.
Globally natural sources are responsible for 30%-50% of Hg emissions. As for the rest Cement production, Incineration of waste, Gold mining, Burning of other fossil fuels, burning wood and Cremation (teeth fillings) should be added to burning of coal.
Thanks.. but how about the data on adverse heath effects? Surely coal burning states should have higher rates of something health related.
Even a little bit of Uranium is good for you! Your red granite counter is actually ore grade at a couple of hundred bucks a lb of oxide. A geiger counter turned on is never quiet. All 92 elements are to be found in a teaspoon of dirt. I’ve got amalgam fillings in me 50-60 years old and I’m a healthy old guy. Just because you can measure it in parts per trillion, doesn’t say it’s a worry.
Not long ago, there was a determination with considerable alarm by some over-educated cretin that he found several parts per trillion of Sb (antimony) in water from plastic bottles (the plastic is made using an Sb catalyst). He was unaware that high analysis antimony compounds are used as a medicine.
It’s the same with mercury. Yes volatilized mercury is dangerous and dosages of a number of its compounds are similarly known to be toxic, but such compounds such as amalgam for teeth and mercurochrome as an antiseptic (recommended for “scarless” healing) have had long uneventful usage. Nevertheless, the mercury scares (some legitimate) have resulted in the removal from use of many things like mercurochrome and mercury thermometers. Yet, when it comes to the AGW scare, we are encouraged to buy Chinese curly mercury light bulbs!!! Tell me you haven’t simply swept up your broken curly lightbulb and thrown it in the garbage instead of calling in some kind of mercury swat team to clean it up.
You are right that natural sources of Hg emissions make up about 50%. That in itself should tell you that it isn’t such a problem in the dosages we are alarmed about. It apparently damages the brain. We kids used to play with it because it was such cool stuff and heading for eighty, I can still recite the periodic table of the elements and still consult on the geology, mining and processing of rare metals – rare earths, Li, Rb, Cs, Platiinum, tantalum, niobium, etc. Don’t be afraid.
Commentary on the SCOTUS review of the Utility MACT Rule
http://junkscience.com/2014/11/28/commentary-on-the-scotus-review-of-the-utility-mact-rule/
Anyone who brings Nazis into a scientific argument is ignored. IT’S Sad that there are skeptics that defend this guy.
I salute you Anthony.
Dr. Tim ball…You are an Ass.
Blue sky writes “Anyone who brings Nazis into a scientific argument is ignored”
Except by you and several hundred other people!
I try to reconcile your outrage with Suzuki and Kennedy saying there should be a law to jail ‘deniers’.. That somehow reminds me of the ‘thirties’.. and yellow arm bands, the jail, then.. so you see, I get concerned about the CAGW crowd. Should I take them at their word? Dare I vote them into office? Am I a sheep? Is T. Ball not an echo to my concerns?
You might surprised to learn that you have believed the “small lie”…..
Did Dr. Ball use Naz! or Naz!sm in his post? No, That would be Dr. Edwards, Prof. Betts, Anthony Watts and now you and many others whose reading comprehension is apparently lacking.
Can’t hold their liquor. Dr. Ball serves them a taste of hot-spiked rhetoric, and they’re drunk outa their gourds.
So Nazism and all the ruin it wrought has no lessons for us anymore? We are never to use the terrible examples of Nazi Germany in order to illustrate behaviours which might in some way resemble what the Germans created in the last century? Okey dokey. Let me know when we have decided to ignore history altogether, after all, what can the past teach us? For the record, the big lie was brought in to the argument to illustrate a political rather than scientific argument.
No, hauling out history’s more-vile figures to characterize climate activism is not a measured or proportional response.
Are we forgetting about Russia? Venezuela and Argentina? The Middle East and radical Islam? Lots of bigger worries than climate-sensationalism.
Global Warming is gasping, eyes rolling white in its head. The models are fluff. The climate is fine. It’s a charade. Alternative energy is a bust. The price of oil is in free-fall. OPEC is in shambles.
No. There’s nothing in the climate-circus says it warrants the H-man treatment.
Grandma will lay this sucker out cold, with a chad.
Quite. The use of propaganda was at the heart of the Nazi machine.
Ted Clayton. The CAGW scare is killing the poor in the Third World. 2 million die of smoke related disease each year – cheap electricity would stop this. Biofuels add to hunger. This is in effect, indirect eugenics. CAGW is an assault on humanity, hurting the poor and the deprived the most.
jeremyp99,
(Sorry for the delay; I ‘hid’ this in my reply-Tabs.)
The general idea behind the wood-fire disease-morbidity example is a big & important one. It’s what’s behind large parts of epidemiology and the CDC, etc. But we also have to keep our heads up & eyes open, in this field … as it is easily ‘exploited’.
Our response to the theme of ‘starving children in Africa’, eg, required a major reassessment, after it was noticed that countries and regions were ‘creating’ such children, to attract our benevolent attention … and funding.
Smoky cooking fires have been noticed, all along. A wide range of approaches have been tried. The biggest factor maintaining the smoke, is that they live in hot and often humid country. This is the tropics & subtropics.
They don’t need/want the heat, from a fire. So they deliberately maintain a (relatively cool) smouldering cook-fire (that’s why dung is popular). The fuel lasts longer, too. That’s what generates 95%+ of the smoke, pure & simple.
Cheap electricity would help, but of course first off, electricity is certainly not cheap. Right now, the price of oil is falling, and generally other sources of energy will follow. But overall, longer-term, we expect energy-prices to continue with an historic climb, for a few more decades. We used to tell (tease) children; “You can catch a bird, by putting salt on it’s tail.”
Secondly, and more in-their-face, is that installing distribution powerlines is much more problematic, than it is in the West. And for that matter, it is now very difficult to build new powerlines, in the USA. In Africa, oil pipelines are often punctured, to swipe the crude. Protecting powerlines, even if they could be erected, is a serious issue in lots of the regions where we would like to see improvements.
Realistically, the main driver today behind lamenting & targeting the smoky cookfires of poor regions is not really the effects on health, but instead is motivated by perceived environmental effects. “Wood-burning is denuding/destroying the ecology!”
I have no concerns about your own honest concerns, but by now we are all-too-aware of the hazards in an ‘overly-simplified’ analysis of these issues.
Ted
It takes one to know one
Anthony has put an enormous amount of effort into creating this splendid blog and so must be entirely free to include or exclude whatever he wants. However, given that Climategate showed some proponents of the CAGW scare to be lying,it’s surely legitimate for Dr Tim Ball (and others) to speculate on their motives. Future historians surely will.
“Guest opinion: Prof Richard Betts, Dr Tamsin Edwards”
The Richard Betts who thinks that climate models are not that important?
Hey, Betts, that’s a nice turnaround! Hey, can we have our money back? Please sell the taxpayer funded supercomputers for scrap and refund us will ya?
Any ambulance chasers preparing a class action lawsuit against the warmist crooks yet? I’m game!
Hmm funny that, or not so funny depending on if you pay taxes to HMG Exchequer.
“Fork out for a new super computer!” they cried!
I cried, the pain of it is too much…… “Wot another one?” We spilled £33 million on a new super computer not 6 years have passed………!?#!
Dame Slingo exhorts the government – all your problems will be solved at the keyboards in the Exeter ‘hive’. Exeter, [Hadley centre and Richard Betts] for reasons only beknownst to our idiot Westminster polity presiding over the plebeians, once again the poor old taxpayers ARE NEVER consulted!…….Yep, all those global warming advocates – aka the civil servants down in Exeter – will shorty be in receipt of a new super computer and at the princely sum of £100 mil’.
Alas but even at £100 million – if the supposition is bunk [CAGW] all you’ll get out – is junk science.
Hell’s teeth, why do we put up with and continue to fund these mountebanks?
Fantastic isn’t it. All the new computer will do is generate rubbish quicker than the previous machine.
Result.
The noble doctor and the esteemed professor will pay back all of the public money they have received, just as soon as the IPCC confirms that there is nothing to worry about.
That’s what they said. In a quiet moment. In a silent way.
Just watched a horse in the winners circle at Woodbine, it was huffing and puffing while the humans tried to make it stand still for a photo after running its guts out, I swear the horse was looking around for some real competition.
I am surprised that with so many learned folk here that no one mentioned this.
Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party embraced and even promoted Welteislehre (World Ice Theory / World Ice Doctrine), also known as Glazial-Kosmogonie (Glacial Cosmogony).
So in a sense, the Nazis promoted a crack-pot climate theory to further their political agenda.
The comparison between Nazi misuse of science and the IPCC misuse of science for political advantage could very well be justified.
It occurs to me that suggesting Dr. ball has ‘sunk to a new low’ is somewhat of an insult and not exactly civil. So maybe the authors should stop their sniveling. Also, while it might be Mr Watts’ view that we all ought to gravitate towards the middle I would submit that Dr.s Betts and Edwards are doing no such thing. Moreover, is it necessarily the case that the middle is where we ought to be? What if, contrary to Mr Watts view, the truth lies elsewhere?
Noting these words from the authors of this post:
“We were also disappointed that so few commenters below the post distanced themselves from his views.”
Think about how ironic this statement is, since virtually the entire collection of AGW advocates community and green energy advocates, including academia have been silent on the numerous, extensive distortions promulgated my a major sector of that community. This extends to the top of one political party using such terms as deniers, flat earther”s, etc.
Are they deaf to the nasty comments from Pelosi, Boxer, Gore, etc.
How much longer do we have to sustain an annual budget of 20+ billion dollars for climate change to fund the distortion and promises of failed green energy for “settled science”.. http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/assets/legislative_reports/fcce-report-to-congress.pdf
Also I find it appalling how the global warming community clung to the hockey stick story well after it was shown to be flawed. It virtually took an act of Congress to extract the truth.
If the authors can show they have been critical of the above GW claims in writing, I will apologize.
Given the treatment of those who do not confirm to the party line it would be a pleasant surprise.
It is clear what causes the current lack of public interest in climate.
There is NOT ENOUGH NAME CALLING. You can’t have a WWF match between someone nicknamed The Hulk and someone called John Smith.
So let us call someone who takes every new excuse for the observed lack of warming at face value, like “the heat went in the deep ocean without causing any dilation, without raising temps there more than they rose before, and without being noticed on its way, and will jump back defying thermodynamics,” let us call someone like that a `gullible.’
Someone who is willing to pay for bringing back the weather of the past, which had more tornadoes and droughts, a `mark.’
Someone who would enact energy taxes passed to the poor to subsidize cars for the rich a `cynic.’
Someone who knows the Arctic ice surface announced yesterday, a `data freak.’
And so on. Imagine a Sunday TV debate between a denier, a skeptic and a data freak vs a gullible, a mark and a cynic about spending a trillion to reduce the current 3mm/year sea level rise to the 3mm/year sea level rise from a century ago.
A skeptic vs a cynic on how many poor is it OK to freeze to death in order to raise the subsidy for a Tesla from $30k to $40k.
A denier vs a gullible, on: “If the poor freeze before they have children, how does that save their grandchildren?”
Or, refreshingly without names, two Sierra Club folks on “The last California condor: fried at Ivanpah or chopped at Altamont?”