Guest essay by Andy May
This is an open letter to Lauren Carroll regarding her Politifact.com article on December 17, 2014.
I have sent a very similar letter to her asking for her comments, but no reply yet. I’m always annoyed at the media “bait and switch” tactic of picking the most outlandish statements of the “other side” and shooting them down thoughtlessly as if the statement represented the whole of the argument. This is just one case, but it is on a web site that portrays itself as a media and political watchdog that reaches for understanding over ideological rhetoric. It is also a web site that should not take sides, but usually does. I thought it might be useful to discuss the points from a scientific perspective. I doubt I will change Ms. Carroll’s somewhat biased perspective on climate change, but others may find this discussion useful.
Dear Ms. Carroll
I’d like to discuss the points you make in your article and point out some problems from a scientist’s perspective. I’m a petrophysicist (a type of Earth Scientist) with 40 years of experience and I’ve followed the issue of Global Warming or Climate Change with much interest for about 15 years. The issue is much more complex than the media generally portray it. I do not want to get into the debate over the claim that “Climate Change is a hoax.” This is a discussion of the meat of the subject, not straw men. I believe your web site generally tries to get beyond silly claims or statements and seeks to illuminate and inform. This email is an attempt to help in this regard.
Actually, I’m more annoyed at the claim, referred to in Ms. Carroll’s article, that Marco Rubio’s statement that human activity is not “causing these dramatic changes to our climate” is false. Rubio’s full statement (http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/may/13/marco-rubio/marco-rubio-says-humans-are-not-causing-climate-ch/ ) is carefully worded and very reasonable. In my opinion, Rubio is correct. The Kliegman article does not address what Rubio actually said, but changes his statement to “Rubio said human activity isn’t causing changes to the environment…” A statement that is false, but not what he said. This is another straw man logical fallacy, just like Carroll’s.
You have stated that there is a consensus of scientific organizations that agree on three issues. The three are: 1) Manmade greenhouse gases warm (or affect) the atmosphere, 2) the IPCC reports are a good summary of climate science and 3) the increase in greenhouse gases is likely more than half of the cause of warming over the last 50 years. The notorious and widely discredited Cook, et. al. 2013 paper is also cited in the accompanying article by Kliegman on Rubio’s statement. Even the authors of the papers “classified” by Cook, et. al. say they were wrong (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/21/cooks-97-consensus-study-falsely-classifies-scientists-papers-according-to-the-scientists-that-published-them/ and http://judithcurry.com/2013/07/26/the-97-consensus/ )
As a skeptic of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming, I agree with all three statements. My agreement on the third point should be qualified a bit. “Over the last 50 years” is an important condition. The Earth appears to be adapting to the additional CO2, future additional CO2 may not contribute half of any warming. This is because each additional bit of CO2 adds less and less of an effect since CO2 only traps a small range of infra-red frequencies and perhaps there are some natural adaptations that we do not understand very well yet (http://eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/139rmg~1.pdf ). Any qualified Earth scientist would agree with the first two statements, they are obvious. Most of us agree with the last one as stated. The IPCC reports are a good summary of the state of climate science, but the executive summaries often misstate the actual report and there are errors, of course (http://judithcurry.com/2011/07/09/ipccs-new-protocol-for-addressing-possible-errors/ )
Our problem is not with the points above. Our issue is with the assumption that increasing CO2 and warming is a problem that we urgently need to deal with. We also object to the federal money (over $100B according to http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2011/08/23/the-alarming-cost-of-climate-change-hysteria/ ) being spent on researching or mitigating climate change.
Case in point. It is widely known that there has been no warming since 1998 ( google “No Warming since 1998” or go to Matt Ridley’s excellent article in the WSJ, Sept 4, 2014). So, for 16 of the 50 years in question there has been no warming. Doesn’t this suggest that natural forces are stopping the warming caused by manmade CO2? After all CO2 has continued to rise over the last 16 years at a steady pace, correct? If natural forces can stop the CO2 caused warming doesn’t that imply they are as strong a forcing as the CO2?
Increasing CO2 to 1100 ppm (our atmosphere now has 400 ppm) causes plants to grow more than 50% faster and use less water per pound of growth ( http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/facts/00-077.htm ). This is huge for our food supply, especially in most of the third world where food is hard to come by (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v466/n7306/full/466531a.html ). Higher temperatures help plant growth also. The Earth has been very cool for the last three million years; generally the Earth has been much warmer in the past and with more CO2 than today (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleoclimatology ).
As for other scientists who are skeptical of an impending climate catastrophe caused by manmade greenhouse gases, I refer you to the following partial list. “Consensus” is meaningless in science, it is a political term. This is an interesting area of research, but it has been screwed up and obscured by the politicians and the media.
These eminently qualified climate skeptics doubt an impending climate catastrophe and believe we should do nothing drastic now.
Professor Richard Lindzen
Professor S. Fred Singer
Professor Judith Curry
Professor Bjorn Lomborg
Professor Roger Pielke
Professor Roger Pielke Jr.
Matt Ridley
Professor Richard Tol (The Cook, et. al. survey included 10 of his 122 eligible papers. 5/10 were rated incorrectly. 4/5 were rated as endorse rather than neutral.)
And many, many more ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming and http://www.petitionproject.org/ ). Obviously, as we saw with Galileo, it only takes one good scientist to shoot down conventional wisdom.
I hope this clarifies the skeptic case somewhat. You are not the only media person to miss the point of the argument.
The “hoax,” if you want to use that term, is the speculative jump from simply “global warming” to an “impending climate catastrophe.” It is true that the globe is warming; it has been doing that for the last 18,000 years. It is not established that warming is a bad thing or will lead to catastrophe, that conclusion is pure speculation. Generally, the warmer periods in the past have been good for mankind and the cooler periods problematic (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/17/climate-and-human-civilization-over-the-last-18000-years/ ).
The alarmists argue that global warming is real and they can back that up. True enough, I have no argument with that. Then they deftly switch, without any supporting data to “global warming is bad.” They are very skilled at this.
Andy May
Since I live in the Tampa Bay area, I’m often subject to the “fact finding of the PolitiFact columns The “PolitiFact” folks rarely seem to get the Fact part straight but they always support a Political opinion that is well left of center. Indeed, when it comes to Political Facts, they do to these “facts” somewhat the same thing that SkS does regarding “climate facts”.
Yes, it sucks that facts have a liberal bias.
@ChetEsium:
That is not at all what JohnWho said.
Wise up, scientific facts don’t have a political bias. People like you do.
And…
“The alarmists argue that global warming is real and they can back that up. True enough, I have no argument with that. Then they deftly switch, without any supporting data to “global warming is bad.”
Also, they deftly switch, without any supporting data to “humans are the primary cause of the warming which is bad” and further to “human CO2 emissions are the primary cause of the warming being caused by humans which is bad”.
Andy, while your letter probably won’t be read by the PolitiFacts group, I’ll give you a Gold Star for trying.
“Human CO2 emissions are the primary cause of the warming being caused by humans which is bad” and we must spend
hundreds of billionstrillions ofother people’scurrency units to fix it.PiperPaul, did you cross out “other people’s” by mistake? I’ve never known the “we” you talk about to ever volunteer to spend their own money, have you?
Environmentalists for the most part, accept as gospel that any change to the earth that is caused by man, is de facto bad. Therefore, to them, they don’t need to prove that global warming is bad, the mere fact that it is at least partly caused by man is the only proof they need.
Starting from that psychology goes a long way to explain the misguided, anti-human, perspective of the modern green movement and the AGW scare.
The worse part is when they segue to their answer.
Inefficient solar panels and bird slicers – ruined landscapes – huge subsidies.
Plus, give government more tax money or give their cronies trillions of dollars.
With no evidence of how these mechanism are supposed to reduce the devastating effects of catastrophic global warming.
How does me giving Wall St. millionaires money stop floods in Pakistan and droughts in the US?
How much do I have to pay for gasoline before it never floods in Pakistan again?
At what level of CO2 will the US aquifers be replenished?
I’d really like to help save the world.
What can I do?
It tends to be a part of the liberal mind set to establish a utopian environment – hence, we have to keep track of workplace accidents using lawsuits to encourage management to cut the number of such accidents down to zero – young teens can not operate any powered tools more dangerous than a vacuum cleaner – etc, etc. Without an appropriate mathematical appreciation for magnitude, they think they can extend their regulated utopic ideology to the entire globe!
That isn’t a switch (replacing one thing with another) but an unwarranted assumption. The original claim (“global warming is real”) remains in place.
Amen
On top of cholestorol causes heart attacks so gobble your statins folks, comes more evidence of scientific alarmism and jumping to conclusions on rather flimsy evidence-
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/lifestyle/health/cancer-often-caused-by-bad-luck-not-genes-say-johns-hopkins-researchers/story-fni0diad-1227172343837?sv=a498c09233aaee801c85c802030dd4d7
There’s no doubt publicly funded science produces some very tenuous findings and it’s eagerly jumped upon by like public servants in policymaking in order to grow their empires. There’s been an obvious symbiotic relationship between the two for a long time now and mainstream journalism swallows it repeatedly, hook line and sinker.
PolitiFact, is Tampa’s answer to the
National Enquirerthe New York Times – right?Reblogged this on Sierra Foothill Commentary and commented:
I am re-bloging this as it could just as easily be an open letter to our local lefty global warmers who have no understanding of the skeptical scientist views on global warming or climate change. Please read with an open mind.
Andy – I wish you luck in your endeavour with the media. Like you I am an earth scientist and have been engaged in policy work for over forty years. Often I have worked with the media – having advised over time, several TV companies, including the BBC, written articles in the press (Times, Independent and had my work featured in the Guardian and Independent), written also for New Scientist and Nature. My media relations were excellent on issues of ocean pollution, atmospheric dispersal, nuclear accidents and risks and various biodiversity and sustainability issues….all until I became a sceptic on climate change! I little realised what I was letting myself in for when I agreed to have a report I had produced for environmentalists published in a popular book format. My past record would normally guarantee reviews – but none of the above would even consider reviewing it (it was reviewed in The Holocene, but that did not cut any ice). It was endorsed by a drafting author of the Kyoto Protocol – on the grounds that the questions I raised needed answering. No ice cut there either.
But the usual hacks for the left-liberal-green press thought it valid to attack what they presumed was the message of the book – without reading it (‘not able to judge the science’ – said George Monbiot – so lets look at ‘who’ this guy is…..). When not able to fault my ‘green’ credentials, I was roundly attacked for ‘beliefs’ in homeopathy, astrology and the supernatural (I have no ‘beliefs’ but did recount experiences in an autobiography – which were shamelessly quoted out of all context).
There is a HUGE amount of collusion within the media….but that is a simplistic statement, because as I have come to realise, the ‘media’ now includes the environmental organisations who were my former allies – the NGOs have become adept at playing the media, even becoming the media…and they receive substantial funds (hundreds of millions of dollars) of foundation money to get their message across. Furthermore, once progressive newspapers such as the Guardian (I was a devoted reader as a student) have allied with the cause – as also has the BBC. They then become committed not to rational argument or open debate, but to the message. Critics are labelled or branded as heretics unworthy of engagement. They strategise as to how to suppress dissent or discredit opponents. For example, Greenpeace and the Guardian work closely together, and the former is embedded within the UN – but it is the Greenpeace media specialists who operate at these levels, and they cannot judge the science, hence need and take a party-line.
I don’t know what the answer is – especially now that the sceptic arguments have been taken up by the political right (e.g. in UK, the Daily Telegraph), because then the liberal-left dig even deeper into their own hole. But maybe taking the constant trouble to write as you have done will wear them down! Good luck.
Regarding this turn in Peter Taylor’s standing in the science world, I would like to see an entire post telling this story fully.
They did this to my father, Dr. Aden Meinel when he tried to publish his last paper, ‘The Sun Is A Variable Star’ where he predicted, 6 years ago, that the next solar cycle would be like the Maunder Minimum or weaker.
He was censored! No one would publish it. He couldn’t believe this was happening to him. He destroyed his paper and died soon afterwards.
When you suddenly go from being ‘top scientist’ to ‘who’s that?’ it fills people with despair and this angers me greatly. This is not how a scientific debate is conducted. This is like when Galileo was censored.
True story: on the anniversary of Galileo’s death a dozen years ago, my father was invited to Italy to talk about the famous astronomer and lived in Galileo’s apartments during the visit.
I reviewed Peter Taylors excellent book ‘Chill’. From personal knowledge I know there to be sceptics in Both the Met Office and The Environment Agency and also various international Management Consultants, but they don’t dare ‘out’ themselves as they know which way the wind is blowing.
Many sceptics aren’t revealed until they retire from their full time job.
tonyb
Very well said Peter. Your book ‘Chill’ was one of the best I have read on the subject, it’s a real shame that the questions it posed were not more thoughtfully addressed and discussed. I suspect time will vindicate your position. I sincerely hope so.
Thanks for the tip on Peter’s book. I just bought it on Kindle and will read it this weekend. It looks very interesting!
I read your book “Chill” Peter and agree totally with your point of view stated above. I have long suspected this collaboration between the MSM and the Greens is an entirely political agenda, and well left of centre. There is plenty of support for our view that minor global warming is benign and that increasing CO2 is beneficial – see the 15% increase in global vegetation cover over the last 20 yrs. On the right of politics here in UK there is a dawning realisation that the de-carbonisation of the Western industrial economies is suicidal – the politicians’ problem is they don’t know how to get off the back of the tiger they have let loose – without a colossal loss of face and professional credibility that is. Hats off to Tony Abbot and his colleagues in Oz for having the guts to do this – and note the sky does not appear to have fallen in, in Oz.
I write to my MP regularly and berate him to press for a repeal of the UK Climate Change Act (CCA) which has committed UK to economic suicide – eg the phasing out of all gas fired heating and cooking by 2030 in favour of “renewables”, just when we have discovered a huge bounty of cheap onshore shale gas. Which companies are going to invest in developing this resource if there is no on-shore use for the gas in 15 yrs time??
We all need to lobby our MP’s and it is easy – just google “my MP” (without quotes) and you will be invited to enter you postcode which will automatically bring up your sitting MP’s page – and a tab where you can email your MP. Do it now – quote the fact that there has been no global warming for 18 years and that the models on which the AGW scare is based are totally discredited. Mention this website.
Note for the Global Warming Policy Foundation – why don’t you get up an on-line petition to compel the UK Gov’t to debate the repeal of the CCA??
BJ in UK
It is amazing, here we sit, over two thousands years after Socrates was forced to drink poison and not much has changed. I applaud you sir.
Nice soft muddy response.
I suspect they’ll read just far enough to get the fact that you agree, almost. That’s close enough for the irrational worshippers of CAGW.
Instead of leading with soft rationale or general agreement, identify their arguments by main components. Pick their weakest statement/argument and hammer it hard.
Yes, it is desirable to nail all of the points they gloss over; but the more complex you make the rebuttal, especially when including weak or limp wrist agreements, the harder it is to press important points.
100% – no equivocation – and never ‘half’ agree with alarmists.
“Sir David Attenborough is calling on global leaders to step up their actions to curb climate change, saying that they are in denial about the dangers it poses despite the overwhelming evidence about its risks.”
“So if we don’t do something about it – the natural world that is – we will starve,” Sir David said.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11381285
Alzheimers?
Alzheimers? Sorry I thought he’s already volunteered to be the first to go so we don’t all die out-
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/technology/david-attenborough-why-humans-could-die-out/story-fnjww5vn-1227171301676
Me? I’m not drinking their Green Koolade for quids but you go right ahead doomsdayers.
Attenborough is a “useful idiot” from the BBC, and a human-hater. His core belief is that humans are heading for a well-deserved extinction. He never used to believe in AGW and only joined them after he realized that they were human-haters too.
Myoptic pessimism has a better chance of causing human extinction when compared to climate change.
Oops, meant to type ‘myopic’.
Can anybody in NZ explain why the NZ Herald so repeatedly produces nonsense about climate change without investigating the possibility that it is all a scam? We always say “follow the money”, so what could that trail lead to? Is it something to do with investments held by the owners of the Herald? My several letters to the editor on this subject are never printed, so presumably the editor is in the same position – or following orders!
Can anyone in Houston explain why the Houston Chronicle does the same?
Very few journalists have any formal university scientific or engineering training. Their ability to critically examine and test assertions in science, and engineering disciplines, at even a top level assessment of statistical or mathematical assertions on climate science and examination of inconsistencies, is nil.
Most journalism schools are run a left of center-oriented faculty. Confirmation bias and In-Group Bias dominate the media, especially print media. The Left learned long ago that they must control and own the media.
That is why today’s Internet is so disruptive to the Leftists and their lies. It is also why print media outlets are dying.
Could investment in carbon credits be relevant in statements like Attenborough’s?
From the link above: “Sir David’s comments come two days after a separate warning – on the dangers posed by the booming human population.” Whenever I see a quote about the dangers of overpopulation I am pleasantly reminded of the man who save a billion human lives, Norman Borlaug. The predictions of better men than Attenborough have long since crashed against the rocks, some of those men, even to this day advise our President.
“Manmade greenhouse gases warm (or affect) the atmosphere”. Really? In theory they might, albeit a little. But so far there is no conclusive evidence that it has, which leaves it in scientific limbo, as still conjecture. As far as “affecting the atmosphere”, what effects, other than the obvious one of increased levels of those gasses?
They won’t understand it. Virtually all warmies that I read in the meeja or know personally argue the case for “warming is occurring and d@n!@r$ are delusional.”
No warmies I’ve even encountered (outside specialist sites) are equipped to argue 3 things:
1) since all agree that CO2 is a weak GHG, which is the “correct” ECS
2) prove scientific consensus on this ECS
3) prove the effectiveness of $trillions spent on abatement activity (hint: point to major ETS / treaty milestones on a chart of global abatement) – the economics, not the “science.”
Andrew, why don’t you type some more letters instead of using CODE?
What is meant by: GHC, ECS, and ETS. Spell it out.
Dan Kurt
Well, GHG is obvious: Green House Gas
But the other ones (ECS and ETS) aren’t so obvious and really should have been spelled out for those less familiar with the acronyms.
ECS: Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity
ETS: ?????
ETS = Emmissions Trading System. It’s a European thing.
When my liberal friends start going on about “deniers” who go against the scientific consensus, I just ask them “Oh, you mean like Galileo and Darwin?”
Why do you bother with this woman and her tedious ramblings?
If you did not stick posts like this here, nobody would know or care about her or PolitiFact.com
She is just another climate hysteric with the same old tired, stale, worn-out and discredited doom-laden polemic, using the same old words, phrases and straw-man arguments that we have all heard over and over until we are all sick of reading them.
EXAMPLE:
“Research also shows that climate change denial is concentrated among those who have less expertise in the subject or no scientific training at all.
“Additionally, much of climate change deniers’ back-up evidence is cherry-picked or too simplistic to be meaningful.”
Notice her scientific qualifications? Like most climate hysterics, she feels it is OK for her to comment on climate science without having any scientific qualifications whatsoever, while at the same time decrying so-called “deniers” for having no scientific qualifications. Why would anyone bother arguing with this genius?
But the problem is that the MSM listen to her and her ilk and publish what they say, rather than doing the research themselves and then publishing what they have found.
Do you not get the feeling that if these writers actually did the research and wrote up their results, their article would be spiked and would never be published? Do they “go along” with the AGW delusion not because they really believe in it but to pay the bills? That’s their level of credibility.
Sasha, you are right – it will take an independant minded owner to appoint an honest editor.
Don’t hold your breath.
There are quite a few in the media who consider Politifact to be the gold standard when it comes to judging truth and falsehood. They actually consider it to be unbiased.
PolitiFact is an oxy-moron. Politics is about deception.
Science + Politics = BS
Good point about what PolitiFact represents.
Andy,
Yes, that does get tiresome.
Always fun to give someone a dose of their own medicine though, innit.
That would be the presumption for most any form of skeptical objectivity, yes.
Typically the correct play when talking about physical phenomena.
I constantly marvel that bias is nearly always everyone else’s problem but the person talking about it. But enough of my rhetorical jabs, let’s get to the science.
Yes, absolutely.
No dispute here, those are the facts as I understand them, except that I’d note CO2 accumulation rate is not steady but increasing.
Stronger actually. This is a problem for AGW theory, how?
Brandon Gates
IMO it just proves the natural variability, what ever it is, is larger at decadal scale and is able to at least completely hide the AGW effect in that timescale.
James Annan, I heard, was expecting and betting that new hottest years ‘ever’ would come like every secondish year now. He lost the bet, though I don’t like to think this as gambling.
Hugh, perhaps I preach to the choir with you but the obvious variability is the one with the greatest total heat capacity in the system: the oceans at over 90%. And yes decadal scale in bold italics all caps, multi-colored, blinking, 48 point-sized super-duper headline style text.
Once, just once, I would like to see someone like Mr. May here point to the exact text of an IPCC document wherin it reads, “Every year and/or decade is guaranteed to be hotter than the previous one in lockstep with rising CO2 emissions.”
Especially when also simultaneously complaining to a journalist about strawman arguments. Unbelievable.
Brandon Gates;
Once, just once, I would like to see someone like Mr. May here point to the exact text of an IPCC document wherin it reads, “Every year and/or decade is guaranteed to be hotter than the previous one
You must be new to the debate. Many moons ago, skeptics were arguing that the warming was well within the bounds of natural variability. Warmists scoffed at this notion, insisting that natural variability was too small to swamp the warming signal from CO2.
Then, when the models started to diverge from reality, Phil Junes of HadCRUT said that if there was no warming for ten years, it meant the models were in trouble. Later, NASA published a paper saying it was more like 15 years. Then Santer published yet another paper saying 17 years.
Now they’ve quit publishing any criteria at all for validating the models, and instead are insisting that natural variability is swamping the CO2 signal. So they’ve gone from arguing that CO2 dominates natural variability to arguing that natural variability dominates CO2, and have brushed aside their own assertions that decade over decade warming was the only possible outcome of CO2 emissions.
Davidhoffer
Brandon is not new to the debate. He just forgets. He forgot that the whole of AGW argument is based on models and the forecast products of these which all show an ever increasing temp.
Brandon,
Do you not find it a little curious that these natural forcings that seem to have held CO2 in check for more than 15 years have done so by keeping the statistical variation effectively zero for over 15 years despite what is effectively a monotonic rise of CO2 based forcings? Don’t you find that continued coincidence of matching increasing natural cooling forcing and increasing warming GHG forcings a little bit unlikely?
An Occam’s razor approach would assert that CO2 has no effect on global temperatures. Assuming that complex natural forces acting together can precisely match in the opposing sense the warming forcing of CO2 is a little too complex of an argument for Occam.
Brandon Gates;
Once, just once, I would like to see someone like Mr. May here point to the exact text of an IPCC document wherin it reads, “Every year and/or decade is guaranteed to be hotter than the previous one in lockstep with rising CO2 emissions.”
Here ya go. Even the “constant composition” trajectory, which we are nowhere near, published in 2007 by IPCC AR4 shows decade over decade warming:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/figure-10-4.html
davidmhoffer,
Naw, I’ve been around the block a few times.
Is this popular press/political/activist speech we’re talking here, or primary literature?
What you didn’t see was me ranting at my computer screen, “you dummies might regret saying that!!!” Especially at Santer because it was such obvious goal post creep and I was staring right at that big fat hiatus from 1940-80.
yeahno … http://cmip-pcmdi.llnl.gov/cmip5/experiment_design.html
Link hop from there.
Goodness dearie me no, that’s been talked about since Arrhenius. Exactly since his seminal paper on the topic. Like, in the paper itself by him and the commentary of several reviewers.
Brandon Gates, the Precautionary Principle was defined at Rio. It stated,
Policy has been adopted on the scientific certainty required by the Precautionary Principle.
But Sceptics said that natural variation could (and probably did) swamp man’s impact – alarmists called “Precautionary Principle” and ducked the debate.
So natural variation was ignored and Arrhenius invoked as the magic charm to claim plausibility.
But it wasn’t science. Science had been abandoned in favour of fear. Yet natural variation was still a reality.
davidmhoffer,
Caption of the image says: Lines show the multi-model means, shading denotes the ±1 standard deviation range of individual model annual means. Discontinuities between different periods have no physical meaning and are caused by the fact that the number of models that have run a given scenario is different for each period and scenario, as indicated by the coloured numbers given for each period and scenario at the bottom of the panel. For the same reason, uncertainty across scenarios should not be interpreted from this figure (see Section 10.5.4.6 for uncertainty estimates).
… hmmm hmmm following the link to the referenced section …
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch10s10-5-4-6.html
The AOGCMs cannot sample the full range of possible warming, in particular because they do not include uncertainties in the carbon cycle. In addition to the range derived directly from the AR4 multi-model ensemble, Figure 10.29 depicts additional uncertainty estimates obtained from published probabilistic methods using different types of models and observational constraints: the MAGICC SCM and the BERN2.5CC coupled climate-carbon cycle EMIC tuned to different climate sensitivities and carbon cycle settings, and the C4MIP coupled climate-carbon cycle models. Based on these results, the future increase in global mean temperature is likely to fall within –40 to +60% of the multi-model AOGCM mean warming simulated for each scenario.
… backing up to the section header …
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch10s10-5-4.html
10.5.4 Sampling Uncertainty and Estimating Probabilities
Uncertainty in the response of an AOGCM arises from the effects of internal variability, which can be sampled in isolation by creating ensembles of simulations of a single model using alternative initial conditions, and from modelling uncertainties, which arise from errors introduced by the discretization of the equations of motion on a finite resolution grid, and the parametrization of sub-grid scale processes (radiative transfer, cloud formation, convection, etc). Modelling uncertainties are manifested in alternative structural choices (for example, choices of resolution and the basic physical assumptions on which parametrizations are based), and in the values of poorly constrained parameters within parametrization schemes. Ensemble approaches are used to quantify the effects of uncertainties arising from variations in model structure and parameter settings. These are assessed in Sections 10.5.4.1 to 10.5.4.3, followed by a discussion of observational constraints in Section 10.5.4.4 and methods used to obtain probabilistic predictions in Sections 10.5.4.5 to 10.5.4.7.
What happens when we isolate, sample, filter and take means? Smoothing I think. Probably why the charts look the way they do. They go through great pains to describe how IF this certain set of emissions happen in exactly this way, we think temperatures 50-100 years from now will fall inside this envelope. IF this other set of assumptions happens instead, because we make x,y,z hard choices now, this is the range we think we’ll be in.
That’s basically it. The wrong way to read those charts is to say, hmm, “laser-straight 0.2 K/decade for 10 decades until we fry” because that’s not at all what’s in the text behind the scary — but pretty — graphs. The laser-straight part I mean …
MCourtney,
Lol, read it again: … lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation …
What am I, chopped liver?
Noooo … from the horse’s mouth: http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/uploads/WGIAR5-SPM_Approved27Sep2013.pdf
It is extremely likely that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was caused by the anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas concentrations and other anthropogenic forcings together. The best estimate of the human-induced contribution to warming is similar to the observed warming over this period.
“Ignoring” natural variability would be, It is 100% absolutely certain that ALL of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was caused by the anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas concentrations, and we therefore are going to fry, no ifs ands or buts. Now please fork over your pocket lint. No, and the money too. Thanks for your support. ~Management
Ian W,
More like interesting, with no small amount of politicial inconvenience. The planet is not a Team Player you see.
Not at all. There are two good precedents in the instrumental record:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:12/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1880/to:1910/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1945/to:1975/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1997.5/trend
Note the slope of each hiatus increases as CO2 rises. Negative from 1880-1910 and 1945-1975, then ever so slightly positive from 1997.5 to present. [1]
Actually, that’s a null hypothesis approach, and you have stated it rather perfectly: we’re NOT causing the warming is the default assumption being tested.
It’s not precise, nor is it the same each go-round. It does appear that there’s a 60-year cycle which is somewhat regular in period and amplitude, and as CO2 rises the shape of the up and down slopes change around the gradually increasing long-term new equilibrium.
Occam said nothing about things being complex and/or seeming improbable not possibly being true. And he never said that the simplest explanation for observed phenomena is always correct. Einstein may or may not have said something like the following:
It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience.
Or as is often paraphrased: Make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler.
The fact is, temps have been nearly dead-level for the better part of two decades. In a dynamic system such as the planet, by your own reasoning you should find that a little more than a little bit of a spooky coincidence. I’m really not sure why in your eyes I’m the only one who has need of a shave here.
————————————
[1] I tried to find a dead-level flat line, I really did. If RSS went back to 1880 I might have managed it.
Anyone else find it humorous that folks like Brandon are now asserting that “uncertainty” is now a factor that supports their position? This has long been a skeptical position (my main one) and alarmists are now claiming we can’t be “certain” that alarming warming won’t happen. LOL.
Now, add that to the obvious cherry picking in his reference to the Hadcrut4 data. That was classic. In his mind this supports his view because the pauses are trending higher. Of course, this is simply wishful thinking on his part. The first two pauses were perfectly aligned with the negative PDO while the last one is not (it is about 50-50). In addition, the first pause also ends with a couple of weak solar cycles.
What the data show is exactly what one would expect from a perfectly natural warming trend that goes all the way back to the Maunder Minimum. It is also perfectly consistent with the warming that preceded the RWP and the MWP.
However, Brandon WANTS to “believe”. He has “faith” in his climate priests. This “faith” requires him to cherry pick the data to support him. It is the only way he can function. Also notice how he completely ignores the fact that much of the warming is due to adjustments and the trend in those adjustments aligns with the last negative PDO making it appear weaker as well.
The psychology of the alarmist mind at work.
Richard M,
I don’t. But then I know my own position a lot better than you do. I know how, why and perhaps most importantly when it evolved, and “now” — as in “just now” in the ad hoc sense is not a factor. But hey, this is your fantasy, I shouldn’t intrude too much.
Yeah, and some return lulz for the climate contrarian who thinks he’s got some sort of monopoly on prescient skepticism.
That elicited an audible chuckle. Would you prefer GISTemp? http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/mean:12/plot/gistemp/from:1880/to:1910/trend/plot/gistemp/from:1945/to:1975/trend/plot/gistemp/from:1997.5/trend
Here’s HADCRUT4 again: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:12/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1880/to:1910/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1945/to:1975/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1997.5/trend
Oh dear, it looks like I “cherry picked” the time series which provides the weaker support for the story I wanted to tell.
Somewhere in this may be a good rebuttal. How about supporting it with hard data instead of hand waving?
It’s no secret that solar activity estimates show a rise from 1650-1700 to present:
http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/itsi_wls_ann.png
The math there is a 1.7 W/m^2 rise in solar constant from the Maunder Minimum to the turn of the millenium. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to demonstrate how that rise of insolation explains all of the observed temperature rise, and how the following curve cannot possibly have contributed anything to it:
http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/ico2_monthly.png
This exercise will require doing some math and showing your work. I find Excel’s
linestlinear regression function adequate for this purpose, though it is a bit cumbersome to use. Or you could spare yourself the hassle by simply pointing to the peer-reviewed primary literature which demonstrates your “perfect consistency”. Something like “R^2 = 1.000, p = 0.000” would be especially impressive, albeit perhaps a little too good to be true. Eh?It’s at this point a rational person who was actually thinking while writing would realize (s)he therefore has no better idea what temps have done than I do.
[hack, hack, cough, cough, gassssp …]
Gates seems to have a problem with this:
“Every year and/or decade is guaranteed to be hotter than the previous one in lockstep with rising CO2 emissions.”
But that is exactly what the alarmist crowd believes. Many of them are now arguing that the data is wrong, and that this year is ‘the hottest year EVAH!!‘.
Really, they have given up any pretence of being objective. They have apparently decided that if lying is necessary for the Cause, then that’s what they must do.
So rather than saying that the IPCC has not explicitly stated the position above as their belief, it would be far better to correct fellow cult members; the ones who have taken the position that global warming is still chugging along, the same as it always has.
Because the truth is, it isn’t. Global warming stopped — many years ago.
dbstealey,
No “seem” about it. I’ve got big problems with it, not least of which is illiterati who can’t read an IPCC AR properly.
Who and where? Links please.
Gates says:
Who and where? Links please.
Are you kidding? You can start by reading WUWT. Some folks refuse to accept that global warming stopped, many years ago. Some folks continue to argue that this is the hottest year ever.
Why don’t you inform them that they’re wrong? Unless, of course, you agree with them…
dbstealey,
No, I’m not kidding. The only place I’ve seen the “hottest year evah” claim is right here on WUWT, and you’re the main one saying it. Elsewhere I read, “might be the hottest year ever” which I don’t much care for because:
1) I don’t like counting chickens before they hatch and
2) focusing on one data point, especially in the context of a record-breaker, sends the wrong message.
Some people don’t know the difference between surface temperatures and net energy retention in the entire system, and can’t be bothered to figure out that retaining energy is the very thing predicted by AGW.
Links please.
Because the numbers aren’t in for Pete’s sake, and I don’t know of anyone who has prematurely said, “This is the hottest year”. Why do you think I’m asking you who is saying so?
Just for fun, did a google search (was 2014 the hottest year ever) and this wiki came up:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_hiatus
Within the wiki, I found this tidbit which I’d not previously seen:” In a presentation to the American Physical Society, William (Bill) Collins of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and lead author of the modeling Chapter 9 of the IPCC AR5 said “Now, I am hedging a bet because, to be honest with you, if the hiatus is still going on as of the sixth IPCC report, that report is going to have a large burden on its shoulders walking in the door, because recent literature has shown that the chances of having a hiatus of 20 years are vanishingly small.”
“This is a problem for AGW theory, how?”
It is a problem because it means that it is impossible to attribute any of the observed warming to humans – if the current plateau is natural, then the previous warming could have been natural, too. It means that the climate establishment has no means by which to gauge the impact of human activities on the climate, and their prognostications are no more than subjective guesswork.
Bart,
I think we have the famous non sequitur here. The fact that decadal variation can hide agw in decadal scope does not prove that it does not exist. I’m not quite understanding how many seem to think so.
It might prove agw is smaller than some expected it to be, or that natural variability is larger – again in decadal scope – than some thought.
I really liked to see a wuwt widget showing how much colder (according to some cagw theory) the globe were without human CO2, because it also shows nicely how much natural variation we have.
Hugh,
What AGW? Please show me AGW.
But you won’t because you can’t.
Hugh,
I’m not sure I understand your concern. It is not incumbent upon skeptics to prove that AGW does not exist, but on advocates to prove that it does. Moreover, if we do not know that AGW is occurring or how, then how can we hope to take any measures which would mitigate it? How do we even know that we can do anything about it? How do we trade off the effectiveness of any responses we choose to make? How do we know when we have done enough? What is the criterion for success?
There are more than enough concrete problems in the world to deal with. We do not need to conjure up any additional ones based on fear, or take measures against any imagined ones based on the precautionary principle – that would lead to an unending supply of hobgoblins to pursue – and, we can ill afford to waste precious resources striking haphazardly and ineffectually at phantoms. Children shiver at monsters under the bed, and demand that mommy and daddy make them go away. Adults realize that we cannot spend our lives cowering under the sheets.
Bart,
You don’t. He’s telling you that you’ve built a fallacious argument. I agree with him. You’ve got:
1) a naked assertion: it is impossible to attribute any of the observed warming to humans
2) a conditional: if the current plateau is natural
3) and finally an argument from ignorance masquerading as outright speculation: then the previous warming could have been natural, too
It almost wants to be a fallacy of four terms. Then you really fly off the rails with It means that the climate establishment has no means by which to gauge the impact of human activities on the climate, and their prognostications are no more than subjective guesswork.
Does it not occur to you that by your very own arguments you could be in exactly the same boat up the proverbial swollen creek on a moonless night without a paddle or a flashlight? If we don’t know nuffin’, how is it that you do?
This isn’t a burden of proof scenario, it’s that your argument against the evidence presented is fallacious. You do need to defend that, not us.
Regardless, I cannot give you proof (as I define it); such a thing doesn’t happen in empirical science. But our side of the debate has accumulated plenty of evidence from which we infer that we’re having a noticeable effect on climate. Here’s a great place to start reading: http://www.ipcc.ch/
Your willingness to accept what’s therein, or not, is your choice. It is not our failure to provide an argument backed with evidence. Which is fine, I believe in choice. Just don’t think for a moment that we’ve fobbed off our duty to hold up our end of the debate on anyone.
Correctomundo, Bart.
Although AGW is not ruled out, it is such a minuscule forcing that it can be completely disregarded for all practical purposes. The alarmist crowd has completely failed to provide any credible arguments; without verifiable measurements, everything they assert is only a conjecture; an opinion. It is nothing more.
As Willis points out, at current levels CO2 is only a tiny, 3rd-order forcing. That small forcing is swamped by 2nd-order forcings — which are in turn swamped by First-order forcings.
Even adding another 20% – 30% more [harmless, beneficial] CO2 to the atmosphere will not have any measurable effect on global temperature. This graph shows exactly why that is:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/clip_image0062.jpg
Next: so far, no one has ever provided an empirical, testable measurement of AGW. There simply are no measurements of AGW. No one can say that AGW is 50%, or 20%, or even one percent of total global warming, because no one has any verifiable measurements of AGW.
The reason is clear: If it exists [I think it does], it is simply too small to measure. Thus, all the wild-eyed Chicken Little squawking over “carbon” is nothing but a tempest in a teapot. It is a gnat on an elephant’s butt — and just as insignificant.
If the alarmist crowd exchanged all the energy they waste on their pointless arguments, they could build a new row of pyramids — plus a new Taj Mahal. But now that they’ve staked out their silly and indefensible position, they feel they must see it through to tthe bitter end, no matter how many problems it causes the rest of society.
B Gates:
Bart is 100% correct.
It is up to the AGW proponents to prove the AGW hypothesis, and not the other way around.
So let’s see you prove it.
Brandon Gates @ January 2, 2015 at 4:05 pm
This is a rather incoherent post.
Look, it is very simple: The climate science community was caught flat-footed by the plateau. If the natural dynamics are so unpredictable and powerful, then they do not know enough to say whether the previous warming was natural or not.
They. Do. Not. Know.
They are flailing blindly. At that point, following their advice becomes the proverbial case of the blind leading the blind. It is difficult to envisage anything good coming from that.
Bart,
It was not predicted. Nothing on my radar indicates that such future events will be reliably predicted either.
No, “they” do not say that, the IPCC says extremely high confidence that we have contributed to about 50% of the warming since pre-industrial times.
Then. You. Don’t. Know. Either.
Your logic is failing badly. We already know what the planet was like in the recent past at slightly lower temps and far less CO2. Rational people know the difference between past certainty and forward-looking uncertainty.
Bart – I cannot agree with your comment here – it is nearly entirely incumbent on sceptics to disprove the CAGW argument. The sadness is that the advocates of CAGW do not all do the same. Science requires scepticism not continual unchallenged hypothesis and conjecture.
I do not necessarily agree with Brandon (and hugh for that matter) and have said so at times, he is however truly sceptical in his approach (in the true scientific meaning not the political one), in that he does not accept consensus as truth or fact. For that reason I greatly respect his position and enjoy the debate he brings. In this case I cant fault is argument as for the most part it will only be proven by future statistics not by models as will anybody elses. Only thing is by then the argument will have moved, as it is now, in the direction of the most recently updated data sets.
I am more a lurker than a contributor but I find the responses of sceptical people far more interesting than fanatics who tend to live in a massive echo chamber (see Tim Balls cartoon strip – how true).
Mod – please put ‘with’ before Brandon first line second paragraph of my reply – thank you
Brandon Gates @ January 2, 2015 at 7:23 pm
“No, “they” do not say that, the IPCC says extremely high confidence that we have contributed to about 50% of the warming since pre-industrial times.”
I say, with extremely high confidence, that I can move objects with my mind. Do you believe me? Don’t be such a chump. Open your eyes and think with your own mind.
“We already know what the planet was like in the recent past at slightly lower temps and far less CO2.”
And, we know it had higher temps with low CO2, and lower temps with higher CO2. Get a grip.
mwh @ January 3, 2015 at 4:53 am
“…it is nearly entirely incumbent on sceptics to disprove the CAGW argument…”
When you buy a car, is it incumbent on you to accept whatever the salesman tells you about it unless you can disprove it? I pity you and Brandon. It appears you will go through life as easy marks.
No, young ones. Extraordinary measures and marked increases in poverty and suffereing are required to shut down Western industry to deal with this. Extraordinary evidence is required to verify that if it is to be considered worthwhile.
So far, there is not even ordinary evidence. There is no evidence at all, only fear. Take the sheets down and relax. There are no monsters under the bed.
mwh,
I kinda sorta agree with that. As with anything, it’s a choice whether to support or oppose a given proposition. If one chooses to oppose by saying, “no, that isn’t correct” then one assumes the burden to falsify the proposition. At that point, one should recognize their decision, own their choice, and accept the burden they’ve placed upon themselves.
The political reality is that climate contrarians must oppose policy they don’t wish to see enacted. Saying, “You haven’t ‘proved’ we need to do this” and leaving it at that isn’t a very good argument in my book.
Every IPCC AR is an expression of the consensus owning their own burden of proof. Every paper published supporting or extending the consensus view is the same. Rarely do I read a paper from a consensus research team which does not also challenge previously held assumptions or findings. I’m also quite sure we both can find examples of schlock, confirmation bias, flat-out motivated reasoning and overwrought emotionalism. However, I get a little tetchy when those examples are held up as representative of the entirety of the AGW consensus body of thought. You’re not exactly doing that here, but as it is morning and I’m cranky before I fully wake up, my “grrr” circuits are buzzing. I apologize in advance if I’ve read too much into your statement.
Hear hear.
Thanks for that. I like disagreeing with agreeable people. I wish to clarify something: I do accept much of the consensus as factual because there is such widespread agreement. [1] That really is compelling to me in and of itself because my default view of all science is that most researchers eventually converge on reality. Climate being an interest of mine — I think it’s a fascinating field in its own right — I know a lot more of the “faith-shattering” uncertainties than I do in other fields like, say, high energy particle physics.
My trust and confidence does only go so far. I’m most certain about the fundamental nature of the GH effect and our contributions to it because I have also taken the time to learn as much about those things as I can from first principles. How much effect exactly, what future effects good and/or bad they will have — those questions I unflinchingly say are uncertain and cannot, should not, be taken as Gospel Truth.
Exactly. Of course, the future observations will still have their uncertainties, and your grandkids will still be squabbling with my grand-nephews over them. 🙂
Kidding around aside, my main point is that I’d prefer not to “win” this argument by future events conforming to even the mildest of the dire predictions. [2] That does not mean I advocate wrecking the present economy. Nobody worth talking to or reading on my side of the fence wants that either.
—————————
[1] I’m human, heuristics work even when they’re wrong. I can’t be analytical about everything all the time, but I have thought about this particular rule of thumb quite a bit, and not just in the context of climate.
[2] Either way, it will likely be a posthumous victory for me personally, so frankly, I’d very much like the satisfaction of winning now ….
Brandon,
Hope you don’t mind my stepping in, but I have a question re this: “That does not mean I advocate wrecking the present economy. Nobody worth talking to or reading on my side of the fence wants that either.”
Can you share your thinking on what needs to be addressed, how, and associated costs. That may be a long answer as I’ll assume there will be co2 mitigation, but wondering about your other thoughts. It seems that even in your mind the science is unsettled, so can you share your risk management?
Danny Thomas,
I have a short list of stuff which I think should be considered more aggressively by my side:
1) End subsidized ethanol production from food crops.
2) Build more nukes yesterday.
3) Lay off the fracking already, natural gas for coal is a good trade, and the market made that decision for us.
My thinking is that those three things make environmental sense, and either potentially gain political capital but at the very least don’t cost quite as much of it. Take that gain in goodwill, reach across the aisle and use it for a revenue neutral carbon tax, proceeds of which get spread around for a variety of things which both sides can be happy about. That’s probably going to involve greasing the palms of the fossil fuel industry with something significant. This I do not mind, I like electricity and liquid fuels. One way or another that entire infrastructure and its management will be in the game 50-100 years from now, a protracted political battle against that lobby isn’t exactly what I’d call progress or a good use of campaign finance dollars. Some nice juicy carrots on the public dime might go a long way in the short term and cost less in the long run. It may be a matter of simply switching around some of the subsidies they’re already getting and laying in some sweetener.
Next, we need to be leaders in emerging green technologies. If we build it, they will buy. This is a business opportunity for us, and it hacks me off that it isn’t seen that way in some quarters. I would gladly support substantial incentives and subsidies for non-food crop biofuels (switchgrass, blue-green algae, etc.), solar and geothermal in addition to the aforementioned fission plant initiative. Not only can we use those things ourselves to reduce dependence on foreign oil, they are saleable technologies to the rest of the world who do really want to buy them. We’ve already lost worldwide market share on windmills — of which I’m not a huge … fan … but I like money. Why let even more of it wander offshore???
Yes, in my mind the forward-looking science is quite unsettled. Since we know what the past and present look like with far more certainty, my risk management perspective is simple and not at all novel: let’s keep the planet the way it is as much as possible.
From that perspective, for me of the supreme ironies of this debate is that it tuns otherwise reckless liberals into cautious conservatives and vice versa.
Thank you.
There seemingly are fairly innocuous and economical things we can do as a sort of “insurance” against the risk possibilities that don’t seem to be market catastrophic so I appreciate your sharing.
What about land use, urban planning, farming methods? These areas seem to lend themselves towards less controversial policy and planning. One issue that’s bothered me for decades is that we build our cities in the U.S. almost requiring cars to get around. For traffic/transportation issues alone, this is not a climate specific and could have multiple cross benefits. I don’t hear much about that kind of thinking.
Bart,
Your telepathy is as lousy as your telekenisis.
How many of those periods involved 7.125 billion hungry mouths to feed. Perhaps I need to disabuse this forum of the notion that I give two craps and a whiz about the planet itself because it:
1) has seen plenty worse
2) doesn’t care either way what happens to it.
Polar bears are not cute and snuggly, and would sooner rip out my liver and eat it than thank me for saving its hide. Are we clear on my priorities now?
mwh says:
it is nearly entirely incumbent on sceptics to disprove the CAGW argument.
No, it isn’t!
That’s one of the central problems in this debate: per the Scientific Method, skeptics have nothing to prove.
It is not “incumbent” upon skeptics to disprove anything! Assertions have been made by the alarmist crowd. They are obviously nonsense, as shown by the real world, therefore they can be disregarded as such. It has been shown conclusively that changes in temperature are the cause of changes in CO2 — exactly the opposite cause-and-effect that the alarmist crowd hangs its hat on.
Their premise is backward. They got it wrong. But rather than admit it, they dig in their heels and argue incessantly, disregarding the fact that if they used the correct premise, their argument would be nonsense.
Always keep one thing in mind: the onus is not on scientific skeptics. The alarmist crowd made the failed conjecture that a rise in CO2 will cause runaway global warming. Reality shows them to be flat wrong. In any normal discourse, that would be the end of it. But not in this discussion, where alarmists have wired around their On/Off switch. Many of them appear to be truly insane.
Finally, Brandon Gates, you left off #4: When the planet proves you are wrong, try to figure out why. Don’t keep arguing incessantly. It will drive you nuts, if it hasn’t already.
I think you were a bit cranky Brandon, but then I dont word everything perfectly either. In this thread or at least our interchange you and I are not that far apart at all, I certainly dont disagree with points 1,2 &3. Nothing wrong with your political wish list either – just wish it was that simple (John Lennons ‘Imagine’ keeps playing in my head as I write this!).
Sooner rather than later we will have to break from fossil fuels anyhow and both wind power and solar panels are particularly inefficient ways to fill the energy gap. Where steady reliable energy is needed they are nigh on useless without a secondary back up. I find it somewhat doubtful as well that biofuels are an effective replacement either as the collection and processing is energy and resource heavy and biofuel harvesting will always affect the food chain one way or another.
There should also be a redirection of money away from conjecture, fear mongering and hand wringing, to preparation for climate change, better distribution of efficient energy and protection of our environment for the future. Carbon tax already exists – big time. Naming it as such will just be a goodwill manipulation by politicians. Redirection of taxes away from feel good projects would be a good start, and a political shift that sees through Chinas duplicity wouldnt go amiss either
DBS – its only my opinion but I reckon that without a functioning peer review process that is trusted, blogsites such as this one are very well placed to question what is being presented as settled science. CAGW supporters are obviously (by their actions) not going to be critically reviewing their hypotheses. In fact the time they do spend is spent proving themselves right. If you dont believe in something but keep quiet, you cant complain when it becomes uncontested and treated as fact or at least theory. You yourself spend a lot of time criticising and disproving CAGW, would there be much point to this site if that didnt happen here.
Brandon Gates @ January 3, 2015 at 4:42 pm
“How many of those periods involved 7.125 billion hungry mouths to feed.”
Classic red herring, the argumentum ad metum. For a guy who gives lip service to logical rigor, you sure do employ the fallacies liberally. Projection, much?
Bart,
I don’t subsribe to the notion that the planet is a resource infinite cornucopia. True, to date Malthusian catastrophe has not happened despite many past predictions to the contrary other than his own. I don’t discount human ingenuity especially when it comes to basic survival, but my optimism is bounded by recognition that exponential growth curves eventually stop being exponential for good reason.
One thing which comforts me is that population growth is “spontaneously” subsiding in some parts of the world; the typical relationship is that fertility rate is inversely correlated with wealth. One hopes, for their own sake, that third world nations go that route rather than population stabilization via starvation. Time will tell.
The funny thing about projection is unawareness of doing it. So I’m the last guy you want to be asking that question. You may as well ask a retarded kid why he’s stupid.
B. Gates refers to the IPCC’s ‘extremely high confidence’…
Yeah, yeah.
And says:
The funny thing about projection is unawareness of doing it.
Brandon, your posts are filled with projection. I know you’re not aware of it. But it is there.
Then BG says:
You may as well ask a retarded kid why he’s stupid.
Just FYI, my wife works with ‘retarded’ kids and adults. They are well aware that there’s something very wrong with them. They know it. But the interesting thing is, they don’t complain. None of them complain. But their aides and teachers do enough complaining for everyone, and then some. Brings to mind the alarmist crowd.
Finally, the Malthus example is very similar to the climate scare. They both predicted widespread catastrophe. But it didn’t happen. None of it ever happened; quite the reverse, in fact: more people are well fed now than ever before — and the climate is as beniign as it has ever been throughout recorded human history.
You might want to consider those things for a change.
mwh,
You’re being generous. At times I have been near furious on this thread. There are better ways for me to express it, such as simply saying, “I’m hacked off by this comment and here’s why”.
I wish it were that simple too, quite clearly it isn’t. But all good things start with statements of desired outcomes and suggestions. I dislike the cliche “vision statement” because so often those things are nothing more than PR. I’m utterly sincere about my proposals, also aware that they come across as naive and overly-simplistic. I’m open to reasonable challenge and debate, which I again appreciate you giving me.
There are plenty of non-AGW reasons to break from fossil fuels sooner than later. We use petrochemicals for other things than energy. Coal emits more than just CO2, NIH and WHO estimates say that between 30 and 60 thousand premature deaths per year are caused by coal fired industry and grid power, in the US alone. That is approximately equal to double the mortality rate of automobile accidents. The less reliance on the Middle East we have, the better. You get the point.
These issues have gotten plowed under by the left in my opinion, and worse, the historically staunch opposition to fission is irrational fearmongering at its very worst, if not outright hypocrisy even worse than worst. To be very blunt, this pi**es me off on principle, and as a liberal on social issues and most economic ones I don’t much care for the guilt by association either. I hate the feeling of being boxed in by nitwits who are ostensibly on my side of the argument.
My view is that nukes are the only viable near- and mid-term replacement for baseload electrical power for industrialized nations. It’s not going to work in Africa, they’re not competent to handle the technological and proliferation issues. I’d like to trust Iran with nuclear power, but I don’t. I especially don’t trust Israel to not bomb them back to the stone age if Iran develops a truly peaceful nuclear power infrastructure.
None of that is any excuse for the US, EU, Australia and New Zealand to not adopt fission power in a significant, publicly financed and/or loan-guaranteed way. The (increasingly historic) French model of nationalized nuclear (nationalized utilities in general) won’t work here, but their technological model has been admirable and quite financially successful, numerous wrinkles, hiccups and complexities notwithstanding. We can and should learn from both their successes and mistakes, one success being that they have been privatizing their power industry and it is still world-class in terms of reliability, cost-effectiveness and air-quality.
Geothermal in the US seems to make a ton of sense. Industry estimates, for what those are worth, say approx. 20% of present US electricity demand could be met in the five western States with the greatest abundance of hotspots. That’s a technology I could really get behind with “drill baby drill” chants. Where it has been employed in significant fashion, namely The Geysers in California, their percentage uptime and operating costs are the envy of the electrical power industry. It’s chancy drilling the well, but once it’s up they seem to go like gangbusters, 24/7/365.
Won’t happen with wind and solar. Doesn’t mean I don’t think those things aren’t worth doing, but as you say they don’t solve the baseload issue.
Long-term, and by that I mean centuries to millennia, we’re screwed if we don’t figure out how to harness the Sun for energy, or find another planet to exploit for stored solar energy. In these terms, the former option is far more likely than the latter. As it stands now, photosynthesis is known to be the most efficient way to convert solar into stored chemical energy, bar none, period. Silicon is coming along, but it’s a distant second to what chlorophyll can do. If we can harness it the way plants do, it will solve a lot of problems. I think our chances are better of doing that than getting fusion to work.
I like cyanobacteria for liquid fuel. The products can be run through existing oil refinery infrastructure (with some retrofitting, obviously) to produce the same or similar grade of liquid fuel products used in both air and surface transport. Batteries really aren’t going to do it, sad to say, because the Tesla Model S is an awfully sexy piece of engineering and I very much want one.
I agree with that in general. I do of course balk at the implication that AGW concerns are 100% baseless conjecture. Please don’t ask me for the actual percentage, for me to give you one really would be idle speculation on my part ….
Well that’s a provocative mix of pessimism and cynicism. Again I see you in principle, we probably differ on the details. I’m not looking to put lipstick on the pig, I want to get rid of the pig. Ironically that will require some visits to pork-barrel because that’s just how things are done.
Our China policies generate a rant four times longer than what I’ve already written. Perhaps in a future installment.
Danny Thomas,
You’re welcome. Everything I speak of involves some risk. Not everything will work, Solyndra is the canonical example, amirite? I’m right.
Depends on the proposals. Those things are already highly controversial, re: food crops for energy as the poster-child example of Not Good policy. From outside looking in, it seems to work for Brazilian sugar cane, but even there at what cost for the land clearing, herbicides and pesticides? OTOH, I missed this when it first posted in 2012: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/14/us-brazil-us-ethanol-idUSBRE88D19520120914
Reducing tariffs on the stuff seems a good idea at first glance, I’m not real big on economic protectionism to shelter already established industries, and big US Agra is far from a nascent concern.
Ahem. Well yes, our public transportation flat out sucks. I’ve spent some time in New York and Chicago and their rail systems compare well to London and Paris with which I also have some experience, albeit not nearly as much. San Francisco and Amsterdam have good surface trolley systems and bike culture is prominent both places and is well-supported. Long-distance rail in the States truly stinks compared to Europe. Geography and population density cannot be ignored in the comparison, but that’s just for starters.
So, we have a lot more space than people and we aren’t really used to crowding. Something I have seen in my visits to Jakarta are mixed use high-rise buildings. One place I stayed, the Menteng Prada building, is a 20ish story structure with apartments priced for both long-term lease and short-term hotel-like stays. Integrated parking garage for foreigners crazy enough to drive their own car. Lobby and basement levels contain a miniature mall and a rather comprehensively stocked supermarket. Dunkin’ Donuts has a counter right there at the ground-level entrance catering to both the morning coffee rush crowd and the late night munchies. Just across the street from a rail station for anyone crazy (or poor) enough to take the train instead of a taxi. It’s fantastic since getting around Jakarta can otherwise be a real pain … if you think US urban planning is bad, you’ve seen nuthin’.
We love our cars. It’s as true of me as anyone, I like the freedom of going where I want to, when I want to. We’re Americans, we should be able to figure out a way to keep that feature without quadrupling costs and which doesn’t depend on fossil fuels. That’s what I want us to accomplish, and that’s way it’s been for me since I was in high school and first learned to drive.
That said, we really could do some work on our zoning practices in urban and semi-urban areas. I think we do commute an awful lot more than is good for us, many of those bad things not all related to the environment.
dbstealey,
Let’s not hide this graphic beind a link:
http://www.energyadvocate.com/gc1.jpg
Spencer should know how to do a proper baseline for comparing obs to CMIP5. He didn’t do it here, choosing instead to zero his five-year running means at 1979. The appropriate comparison is to match how the IPCC CMIP5 ensemble results using a 20-year reference period from 1986-2005, 2005 being significant since that’s the last year of the hindcast portion of the model runs. Done properly, the result looks like this:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1C2T0pQeiaScmgxQW5nRHFJN2s
Spencer’s graph overstates the divergence by 100%. I’m perfectly happy to talk about the fact that the CMIP5 ensemble is running a quarter degree hotter than observations. I don’t like it that they’re off as much as they are. But I have zero respect for people like Spencer who fudge the magnitude of the difference when they should darn well know better not to.
You are of course clinically correct, mental retardation does not necessarily equate to wholesale lack of self-awareness. People on the personality disorder spectrum range in intelligence. I personally associate narcissistic disorders with well above average intelligence. Perhaps my perceptions are skewed by having worked around a lot of medical doctors and PhDs doing clinical research in my college years.
As with all fallacious reasoning, you could very well be correct on this one. I prefer a more rational approach to risk management however, part of which is accepting a healthy dose of future uncertainty as a given and making a conscious, deliberate decision to err on the side of caution. Honest, reasonable and intelligent adults call this concept “prudent responsibility”.
You might not want to take up mind-reading. You stink at it.
Gates says:
As with all fallacious reasoning, you could very well be correct on this one.
Sometimes I just can’t understand where your head is at. Really, does anyone understand that one?
dbstealey, while I’m backing you in this debate I think that this statement is logical.
“You may as well ask a retarded kid why he’s stupid.”
Well, at least you have a sense of humor, and a healthy capacity for self-deprecation. I will leave it at that and bid you adieu on this thread.
Bart, I did have a certain amount of fun in the exchange. [doffs cap]
MCourtney, to be fair I should have identified the fallacy but was, and am, feeling lazy.
AGW theory has it that CO2 has completely swamped the natural forces.
Brandon, I specifically agreed with AGW theory in the sense that man is causing some warming and probably more than 50% of the warming over the last 50 years. I am just not convinced this is a problem that needs to be addressed at the scale that the Alarmists are proposing. And, most certainly, the alarmists have not proven that we are headed toward a man-made global warming catastrophe. As you admitted, natural forces, over the long haul are probably much stronger than anything man is producing. But, the media and public conflate AGW and CAGW, which is very annoying and very ignorant.
Andy,
I did read that, you don’t sound terribly convinced. Why else bring up The Pause?
Well that’s fair enough. But that can be discussed without waffling on the scientific basis of what’s already been observed to happen. And if policy is your main concern I think it most appropriate to address specific policy concerns as the bulk of the argument. May I emphasize being specific, as in “this proposal to spend bazillions of megabux on ‘I-heart-the-planet’ buttons is a frivolous and unproductive use of public funds because it doesn’t offer any real mitigation solutions based on a,b and c economic studies … etc …”
For someone who is so anti-bias you sure like using pejorative labels. But tell me, how are we warmistas supposed to “prove” a series of future events which is unprecedented in modern human experience? Or try the argument in reverse: climate contrarians haven’t “proved” that man-made CO2 calamity won’t happen.
Uncertain is the future, no? Yet you claim to agree that “probably more than 50% of the warming over the last 50 years” is anthropogenic. With so many uncertain futures at stake, I’d think most rational people would err on the side of certainty. Your arguments aren’t consistent with each other. That isn’t very credible, and hence not very compelling.
It’s a lot more annoying to realize I don’t know what exactly will happen because most experts on the consensus side of the fence tell me that they’re not sure about a great number of things. On that basis, we’re all equally ignorant. Recognition of that might just change your perspectives if you really sit there a while and think on it.
andymay2014 says:
…I specifically agreed with AGW theory in the sense that man is causing some warming and probably more than 50% of the warming over the last 50 years.
Andy, I specifically disagree, based on common sense. You’re asking us to believe that changing human emissions must exactly balance AGW, in order to keep global T flat? That’s a whole lot more than I’m willing to accept.
That takes us to the heart of the problem: there are no empirical, testable, verifiable measurements quantifying the fraction of total global warming that is caused by human emissions.
Without any measurements, anyone can ‘say anything’. You can say that 50% of total global warming is caused by human activity, and claim that it precisely balances global temperatures. But without any supporting measurements, that is only a conjecture; an opinion, nothing more. To someone who had never heard of, or been exposed to any of the global warming scares, that conjecture would sound outlandish.
Next, it is NOT “AGW theory”, as you say. Because a theory must be capable of making repeated, accurate predictions. The Theory of Relativity can make very accurate predictions. But the AGW conjecture has never been able to make accurate predictions, ever. Certainly no AGW believer predicted 18+ years of temperature stasis.
There is nothing being observed that rules out natural variability as being a full and complete explanation for our present climate. There is certainly no reason to figure in an extraneous trace gas, [cf Occam’s Razor].
We have been living in a truly “Goldilocks” climate for the past century or more. Don’t let the alarmist cult colonize your mind with their incessant drumbeating. There is nothing either unusual or unprecedented happening. Nothing at all. Yet, otherwise reasonable and rational folks begin nodding their heads after hearing the Narrative enough times. But it doesn’t pass the smell test.
You have to resist that. AGW is their conjecture [although I too believe that a *minuscule* amount of global warming is caused by our emissions, but it is just too small to measure]. My personal beliefs aside: MAKE THEM PROVE IT!
Make the alarmist crowd quantify AGW! Insist on it: we need a number; a measurement that is acceptable by most everyone. If they can’t measure AGW, then it is simply too small to worry about. Isn’t it? It is a non-event, which cannot even be measured over the background noise. We should waste our resources on that baseless conjecture??
Make them prove it! Because right now, they’ve got nothin’.
Brandon Gates, If you deftly switch from “This is a problem for AGW theory, how?” to a “Global warming is bad” argument you’ll nicely prove May’s point.
sinewave,
Kind of a classic double bind isn’t it. We know this thing is happening which I think might be bad, how much I can’t tell you, but if I even give you an estimate I’ve lost the argument. I’m not sure Mr. May sees the actual switchery here however: we agree it’s happening but I don’t like the proposed solutions — look, squirrel! — temperatures have been flat for 20 years, QED.
Gates says:
…that can be discussed without waffling on the scientific basis of what’s already been observed to happen.
I already posted a chart above, showing exactly why we observe what we do.
You are in the same position as a guy laying in bed in his dark room. The guy is convinced there is a black cat hiding under his bed. It is very real to him. He can almost hear it breathing.
But when he turns on the light and looks — there is no cat.
And there never was. It’s just like your belief in runaway global warming.
Same-same.
Finally, some people bring up ‘the pause’ because the alarmist clique is fixated on it. They cannot abide the fact that their entire Belief system is so wrong — the belief that a rise in CO2 will cause a rise in global T — that they are filled with consternation. How could the planet double-cross them like that??
But the planet is always right. It is people who are often wrong, and in this case the alarmist contingent has been flat wrong about everything.
If instead you begin by accepting reality and working from there, rather than by assuming that you’re right — and then trying to fit facts to conform to your Belief — you will be much happier and more contented.
But that’s entirely up to you. Your other choice is to argue here incessantly. But that’s just argument by assertion. Not convincing at all.
dbstealey,
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/clip_image0062.jpg?w=700
Ok, what does this chart tell you?
Wait a tick, didn’t you just write above, … so far, no one has ever provided an empirical, testable measurement of AGW. There simply are no measurements of AGW. No one can say that AGW is 50%, or 20%, or even one percent of total global warming, because no one has any verifiable measurements of AGW.
And sunofagun if that text wasn’t just below your chart which says in bold text along the top:
Atmospheric Temperature Increase per 20 ppm Carbon Dioxide Increment
Which is it DB, can we measure the thing or not?
The rest of your post didn’t address a single of my points, but I like that partiuclar line for some reason. Well, actually, none of your post addressed a single one of my points. This is getting to be par for your course Stealey. I suggest you and the groundskeepers put in a few water hazards and a couple of bunkers over night. Something. Sheesh.
Wrong again Gates.
We have data which show the globe is not warming except via increased insolation. AGW is yesterdays puddle.
Gates, you’re just confused.
I said there is no testable measurement of AGW. You keep trying to argue around that fact. But you never post any measurements showing the percentage of global warming specifically attributable to human emissions.
You don’t, because you can’t. There are no such measurements. Whether someone “feels” that AGW may comprise 50%, or 5%, or 95% of global warming is just their baseless opinion. Because there are no empirical measurements of AGW.
Everything else is just deflection and misinformation. Fact is, you got nothin’.
Do you have a PayPal account? I’m beginning to feel guilty for all this free therapy you’re giving me.
Reading plain English has historically not been an issue for me.
Why would I go and do a damfool thing like that when:
1) you’ve already assumed the burden of proof with your claim than no such thing exists and
2) by (1) you’ve quite obviously already made up your mind on the matter?
Keep in mind this is between you and me I’m talking about here. People I take more seriously than you get different treatment. As in, I cite references to show how testable measurements have been taken. Do some math to show how those things are applied to make estimates and predictions. Whereas most of what I get from you is ….
…. the self-awareness of a rock.
Gates says:
Ok, what does this chart tell you?
Can’t you see it, Brandon? OK, then, let me help:
CO2 has a diminishing effect; the more-coats-of-paint analogy. You can see that the more CO2 molecules that are added to current concentrations, the smaller the effect. Currently, that effect is *minuscule*. It is far too small to measure.
We are now at the point where adding 20% – 30% more CO2 would not cause any measurable warming at all. On net balance, that would be a good thing, too.
CO2 builds plants. When you grow a daisy in a pot, the soil is not consumed. No, every bit of the growth comes from the air. No one has ever demonstrated a credible downside to adding more harmless, beneficial CO2 to the air. There are only the usual baseless scare stories.
Next, Gates says:
Keep in mind this is between you and me I’m talking about here. People I take more seriously than you get different treatment.
Oh, you take me seriously all right. Very seriously. You bird dog my posts, nitpicking is a way of life with you, and it’s pretty obvious that you’re fixated.
But at your age I’ll cut you some slack. Maturity will come, I’m sure.
” When you grow a daisy in a pot, the soil is not consumed. No, every bit of the growth comes from the air”
…
http://www.lfpl.org/teen/blog/images/Photosynthesis2.png
…
Can you please send me some seeds from those daisies of yours that don’t need any water?
PS….not many plants can obtain the nitrogen from the air……..I think they “consume” it from the soil
dbstealey,
When I post a chart, I provide a narrative. When someone doesn’t extend me the same courtesy I ask it. That enhances information exchange and reduces misunderstanding.
I got that much, it’s inherent in the canonical simplified expression:
ΔF = 5.35 * ln(C/C0)You mean the marginal increase in effect.
Hence we again arrive at the original question I posed: how in the heck do you know how much effect there is to begin with? That plot doesn’t show change in forcing, it shows change in temperature. Forcing is the relatively easy one to figure out. Equilibrium temperature change for a given change in forcing is what the primary debate is about. This plot doesn’t even do us the courtesy of telling us what that number is, nor anything about how the estimate was derived. [1]
Apparently not, you’ve provided a plot purporting to show exactly how much effect there is. And I do mean exactly: no error bars. What would Willis Eschenbach say about that? Further, by what presently uncited authority do you tell me that something is too small to measure?
In fact, where the heck does this graph come from? It looks like one of those zero-provenance homebaked charts you characterize me of making even though I cite my data sources and openly discuss my calculation methods … but hey all’s fair in love and war, eh?
Finally, most amusing of all, you’ve confused marginal increase in forcing with total forcing. So if anything, the deltas become more difficult to measure, but at ever higher levels of CO2 for darn sure the total effect will tend to become more measurable.
———————
[1] For the curious, the calc I’d do is to use 280 ppmv CO2 as the pre-industrial reference, so today ΔF = 5.35 * ln(400/280) = 1.9 W/m^2. Multiply by 0.8 as a common rough estimate of climate senstivity, gives a ΔTeq of 1.5 K. Observed change is only 0.8 K since 1850 according to HADCRUT4GL, so I’m off by 0.7 K. Noting that TOA energy balance is ~0.5 W/m^2 down, that buys me another 0.4 K potentially “in the pipeline” leaving me 0.3 K I can’t explain from these simple calcs alone … which is why it’s a good idea to read actual literature. I’d start with the papers which went into drawing this pretty picture:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelforce/NetF.gif
Remove the NetF.gif for the parent page.
mr gates says:
You mean the marginal increase in effect.
As I’ve pointed out before: King of the Nitpickers. Yes, ‘marginal’, if that makes you happy. The change always happens at the margin.
Next:
how in the heck do you know how much effect there is to begin with?
Radiative physics. You know, the original model.
Next:
where the heck does this graph come from?
Must you be held by the hand? It’s radiative physics, and you can find similar charts to that one just by searching. You weren’t kidding when you said you’re a layman at this.
Just like Socrates, who can’t see the forest for the trees, as usual.
dbstealey,
Actually I need to pick my own nits here, “marginal” is the wrong term to use. We’re talking about “incremental” change. I just wanted to be clear on that.
Well that’s nicely circular. Why do you trust the “original model”?
No, more like I enjoy busting your chops.
lol. Some days I simply cannot tell whether you don’t actually read my posts, or simply have no shame when it comes misrepresenting their content.
Anyway, I don’t suppose it has occurred to you that I ask you questions as a test of what you understand and what you don’t. Or in this case, what you understand and accept.
On that note where did whoever make the first chart you posted come up with 0.5 for lamda? Here it is again, just so nobody gets confused about which one we’re talking about:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/clip_image0062.jpg?w=700
I’m an old pro at tit-for-tat. Remember all those charts I posted, with citations to the raw data and wherein I detailed my calculations, which you dismissed as “homemade” and of dubious “provenance”?
Says the guy tangled up in a thorny bramble who doesn’t appear to realize he’s even blundered into one.
Gates,
Since you are truly an expert at tit-for-tat and nitpicking, this could go on all day. So I will put a stop to it. You can have the last word in this thread, and that does not worry me in the least. You haven’t scored any points so far, just juvenile pot shots. So try your best; you get the last word.
But first: let me rein you back in a bit, before you swoon over your crazy belief that you’ve started ‘busting my chops’. As if. Because you haven’t even begun. You’re just a noob, nipping at my ankles.
I’ll rein you in here by pointing out that no matter how many times I ask, you have never been able to produce any measurements of AGW [homemade fabrications don’t count]. The cAGW conjecture is the central debate issue, with skeptics saying “show us”, but alarmists are unable to produce.
Also, I understand you’re touchy about being reminded that you’re a noob at this. But you chose to advertise that fact, so suck it up. You have a lot to learn before you’re up to speed — and all you will get from the alarmist blogs you run back to for talking points is misinformation.
You need to learn the difference between a conjecture, which is just an opinion, and a theory or hypothesis [same-same, really], which must be capable of making accurate predictions. The AGW conjecture cannot. You’re still at the beginner stage of trying to argue for man-made global warming — but you still don’t have any evidence that quantifies AGW. You have a long way to go.
Next, you always forget: skeptics have nothing to prove. The catastrophic AGW conjecture belongs to you. You own it. The belief in cAGW forms the basis of everything you Believe. Because if you thought like most skeptics, you would understand that any global warming from human emissions is much too small to even measure — and who in their right mind would continue to argue your side of the debate, if that’s what they thought?
No, you BELIEVE. Without a single measurement showing how big or small AGW is — or even whether it exists at all — you BELIEVE. But skeptics are from Missouri: we say, ‘show us’. Because the onus is on you. ALL of it.
Finally, are you Socks’ big brother? What, he can’t defend himself? Well, OK then. If you feel you must pick up his standard and protect him, Lord knows, he needs it more than you.
dbstealey,
Since you are truly an expert at tit-for-tat and nitpicking, this could go on all day. So I will put a stop to it. You can have the last word in this thread, and that does not worry me in the least. You haven’t scored any points so far, just juvenile pot shots. So try your best; you get the last word.
Word.
But first: let me rein you back in a bit, before you swoon over your crazy belief that you’ve started ‘busting my chops’. As if. Because you haven’t even begun. You’re just a noob, nipping at my ankles.
Oh, so you weren’t quite done yet.
I’ll rein you in here by pointing out that no matter how many times I ask, you have never been able to produce any measurements of AGW [homemade fabrications don’t count].
Not to be nit-picky or anything, but a full list of of those kind of restrictions would be nice. This would help avoid the ad hoc nature of the post hoc objections.
The cAGW conjecture is the central debate issue, with skeptics saying “show us”, but alarmists are unable to produce.
Say, I have an idea. Maybe you guys could huddle up and produce the list of acceptable evidence you’d like our team to compile so that we might be better able to serve you. It would require some planning and organization — dare I say even consensus building — to all get on the same page, but think of all the angst and frustration it might save to actually clearly communicate what you want in good faith, and get a return answer back.
Also, I understand you’re touchy about being reminded that you’re a noob at this. But you chose to advertise that fact, so suck it up.
I wasn’t aware that I’d lodged any complaints.
You have a lot to learn before you’re up to speed — and all you will get from the alarmist blogs you run back to for talking points is misinformation.
Fortunately I hit the irony meter off switch before she went, I just can’t give you #5. That would be the second one today, and I’ve already awarded you two this young year alone.
You need to learn the difference between a conjecture, which is just an opinion, and a theory or hypothesis [same-same, really], which must be capable of making accurate predictions.
Oh hell with it, #5 with a bullet. That was my most expensive German model, too. Since all I got was coal for Christmas, next batch will be coming bulk from China.
The AGW conjecture cannot. You’re still at the beginner stage of trying to argue for man-made global warming — but you still don’t have any evidence that quantifies AGW. You have a long way to go.
Tsk. You’re the one with evidence quantifying AGW, here’s the (homemade) chart YOU posted that you suddenly don’t want to talk about any more:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/clip_image0062.jpg?w=700
Now tell me, Mr. “It can’t be measured”, how did whoever did this (if you even know) come up with 0.5 for lambda, hmm?
And even less to offer. Despite being the most honest kind of scientists, these so-called “skeptics” you keep talking about have yet to produce a model which produces more skillful predictions of magical natural variability than the crappy IPCC self-serving shysters have been able to foist upon the hapless ignorant world.
Talk about your basic cop-out ladies and gents: “‘skeptics’ have nothing to prove” is a real doosy.
You’re asking a putatively crazy person whether he’s sane. Ponder that for a while and get back to me if your head doesn’t explode first. If you need a break from that taxing exercise, review the above chart again, and tell me:
If the thing is too small to measure, why in the heck you would believe anything that stinking chart has to say to you?
GASP No wait, don’t tell me … that’s not some sort of evil non-scientific model “prediction” based on curve-fits to agenda-manufactured observational data …. is it???
HERESY!!!!
You’re the one tossing charts around showing exactly how much effect CO2 has. No error bars in sight. So is it measurable or not, DB? Do you stand by this chart or not?
Ok then, it’s agreed: you’ll never show me another chart based on theory written by the AGW alarmist cult who have not a shred of evidence to support the calculations that went into it. I’m gussing Missourians always keep their word about such things as well. Am I right? I’m right.
You’re right, you don’t sound worried in the least. Not one bit. Still and all, a nice rant.
Brandon. Love reading your comments. You are a clever, funny man. Don’t know which I enjoy more….
Thanks, Simon. Having a bit of humor is the only way I know how to keep it light with dbstealey. I’m glad someone other than me appreciates it.
Actually I think DB is really playing for the other team and his strategy is to make comments so “stubborn” and “head in the sand” that he wants to make genuine skeptics look bad. If this is the case then I think it could well be working.
Simon, if he’s a Loki, he’s a very very good one.
Simon, I’m not ghey, so I wouldn’t know.
I take it then that you admit you admit AGW is a proposition and not accepted scientific certainty of any sort.
You are kind of right, there is a responsibility to “falsify the proposition” but are wrong if you believe the burden is disproving AGW. The defense does not have to prove innocence only that the prosecution has not proven guilt. You may get this, but it is a subtlety lost on many climate science supporters which makes for exceedingly bad scientific discourse and exceedingly bad science.
The overwhelming burden is on the the one making the proposition. In climate, skeptics only have to show that supporters of AGW have not made their case, which is easy to do and yet here we are. I guess climatologists are good dancers so world governments and the media still treat it as a certainty. Certain of who knows what, with alarmist press releases filled with hyperbole and idiot rhetoric, propositions that are as solid as smoke on a windy day, research papers that start with a assumptions, and qualifications like “confidence levels”.
Your replies would make a White House Press Secretary proud, so am not sure how you stand on selling increased confidence levels while increasing forecast fuzziness and language. It is cute, like a car salesman is cute when he claims he is selling you the best car on the lot. Meanwhile the IPPC can claim 100% confidence by forecasting we may or may not get more rain.
Alx,
Nope. I do recognize that not everyone thinks of AGW as accepted science however. Hence I do hold up my end of the debate to the extent time, energy, interest and knowlege are available.
The planet doesn’t care about burden of proof, it will do whatever it’s going to do regardless of what we think. What you’re talking about is law, which doesn’t apply to a policy debate. The way to figure out what the planet is going to do is to ask it what it has done, the venue for that conversation is the lab, not a court. What we do about the answers from the lab will mostly decided in the voting booth. At least I hope so.
And the IPCC does so on a regular basis. They have a website chock-full of stuff supporting their conclusions. Its contributors even more so. Every day. You are awash in papers with arguments backed by evidence, all just waiting to be read by any all.
That’s certainly been the majority strategy I have observed. I see that as a debate tactic and a political strategy, not science. I’d love to see more actual research from contrarians, and I am not alone in that wish. One reason for the mockery you guys get is the perception that you don’t have much to offer. And yes, that sword does cut both ways …
Or they could be as right as Copernicus and Galileo. I won’t tell you that with the same confidence because I’m all too aware of climatologists’ own uncertainties about things, but more importantly I know far less than one trained domain expert knows much less the whole body of them. More than I’d like to, some days I do just have to say, “You know what, here. Read it. Make your own decision.”
This has turned into one of those days.
It’s the press’ job to sell papers. Always has been. Deal with it. If you want the straight dope, go to the source, not a talking head on tee vee. Whatever you do, don’t whine at me for what media moguls do to make their billions because in this context I don’t much like it either.
I rue the day that pundits popularized the notion that a scientist saying, “we think y +/- z might happen if x” constitutes waffling or weasel-wording. The short answer is that I love science having grown up around it and apparently remember a lot more of my basic science education than most people who don’t work in a scientific field. I had many excellent teachers who drilled it into me that whole letter grades, plural, will be dropped if the discussion section doesn’t include a very thorough documentation of everything I might have missed, could have done wrong, and especially what other things might explain why my results don’t match the expected values and how far off any of my predictions might be. Completely different from what my English teachers wrote on my opinion pieces when the conclusion of my essay for their class was, “both sides make some good points, I need to know x,y and z before making any further conclusions.”
Andy May,
Reasonably presented and argued. Well done. The only concern I have for you is that it has been brought to my attention that citation of a wiki of any kind is inappropriate methodology and is to be avoided at any and all cost so I feel certain that this will be strongly brought to your attention.
That is just childish passive aggression.
Keitho,
Absolutely correct, and intended as such. Pointing out double standards is common practice and necessary, don’t you agree? It’s bad behavior on my part, and equally bad behavior on the part of others who point out such things w/o bothering to check the facts contained within. As a further point, the wiki offered in the letter is another which I find to be a reasonable reference should one wish to seek further information w/r/t those on the skeptical side.
The intent of the post was to go fishing to see if wiki’s are only okay if they support a skeptical position. Surely DB & Phil will jump in here and chastise Andy May thoroughly for the use. (crickets). More likely, they will jump on me for bringing it up here (inappropriately).
Whatevs dude but it isn’t a good look.
And here we have yet another example of the strawman argument. In this case, it’s modifiying what others have said in order to make it easier to refute.
The statement has always been that wikipedia is unreliable for any topic that is controversial. For basic facts, they are quite reliable.
It’s immature and childish of me to reenergize this discussion and I freely admit it, but these were the educational words that were provided to me: ” So ALL data sourced from there must be viewed with a jaundiced eye. If you find the same information, at an untainted site, that merely shows that Connolley is not omnipotent. But Wiki cannot be used as a primary source. Period.”
Wiki cannot be used as a primary source. Period.
.http://sanityfirst.wordpress.com/ Words of Phil Jourdan, Dec. 28, 2014, 12:15 pm.
I recognize it’s not “a good look” just making a point. As that point was so strongly address AT me including questioning my veracity and integrity please forgive that I find it worth addressing. Keitho, Mark W, et al I apologize for my poor behavior. I am highly confident that the same will not be forthcoming from those that initiated the discussion. I’m not sure why I come here expecting some sort of fairness, but I will continue to look for it.
Hmmm, Forrest Gump pays us a visit.
The intuitive if simple war hero and successful business person? Phil, you’ve almost made me blush.
I am sure you do, as Forrest says, stupid is as stupid does.
Painting me, everyone else who uses wiki’s and Mr. May with that same brush? Or just me? Wow!
Quoting Forrest Gump again “Stupid is as stupid does”.
I did not paint anyone but you as No one but you is trying to use the forrest gump defense.
What next? You are going to proclaim you speak for the entire human species? What arrogance.
DT,
You’re only blushing from embarassment.
Unless, of course, you’re a real war hero and successful businessman.
But from what you’re posted, you are an employee at a trailer park.
LOL! Indeed I am. Hit the road at the ripe old age of 48 and visiting this wonderful country and having two successful companies! Now, I’m an employee at a trailer (RV) park as it’s what I chose. How ’bout you db?
That’s so embarrassing. But just to be clear. I am no war hero. That was my father.
You always attack the person Db. Have a hard time with the facts of the arguments? (with apologies to M. Courtney, but once again I didn’t start this up)
I just love these impotent boasts from clowns who try to impress others that they were not always janitors. And of course with all that money, what do they do? They blog.
See, DB is actually the mentor of George Soros – He made his billion and retired. Alas his protege’ went bad. Me? I taught Bill Gates every thing he knows. But I was a family man so let him run the company.
It is all true! Why? Because I said so on a blog.
Nah, he just cuts the grass at the local ball field. Visions of adequacy.
D. Thomas,
I am impressed! Before, you told us you are the employee of a trailer park. No mention at all of ‘two successful businesses’.
That’s what I would have done! I would have told people that I work at a trailer park, and keep it hidden that I ran two successful businesses. Yessir, that’s what anyone would have done.
OK, does anyone believe that?
D. also says:
You always attack the person Db. Have a hard time with the facts of the arguments?
I have insurmountable arguments, which have never been refuted. I also attack weakness, like any predator does. The fact is, you never respond to my substantive points, such as the fact that there are no measurements of AGW; meaning that any discussion of AGW is merely a conjecture about something that may well exist. Or not, as the case may be.
Post a verifiable measurement quantifying AGW. This is about the tenth time I’ve asked. But if you can’t, then you are supporting an alarming scenario based on …a conjecture.
I can make a conjecture that the cow jumped over the moon. You may or may not be able to falsify it. But it is ridiculous, just like the belief that human emissions are causing runaway global warming and climate catastrophe.
That just isn’t happening. In fact, the planetary climate is as benign as it has ever been for any extended period. We really couldn’t ask for a better climate. Maybe about a degree or two warmer, but that’s about it.
So in the midst of the best climate of the Holocene [or very close], the alarmist crowd is still trying to tell folks that the end is nigh.
They are nuts. And anyone who agrees with them is nuts, too. Just like everything else they try to demonize, the rise in CO2 is not the bad thing it is portrayed as being — it really has no downside. It’s all good. But some folks aren’t happy without doom, defeat and despair. They are called climate alarmists. They look at our wonderful planet, and it’s benign climate, and they see only bad things.
The problem is within their own poisoned imaginations. Skeptics know better.
Db,
Please post a pic of your pretty blond sister, your brunette sister, and the redheaded one. I’ve asked ya 10 times to do this and yet you have not yet.
Ya know, it’s a bit tough to produce stuff that’s imaginary. You want me to post something I never stated I had and insist I do so, so I insist you do the same……………. I’ve now responded to your substantive points in writing. Would you care to respond to that response w/o a personal unhelpful attack? We can play this game forever (and bore the heck outta those not in this tap dance) or we can move on.
Predator? Db, that is the last description I would have used for your tactics. Us trailer park guys have a different description.
I’ve told ya I’m here as I’m skeptical of what I read on the alarmist side. I’ve never been an alarmist. I am a bit concerned as there is so much I (we?) don’t understand but at this point I suffer no fear. Should we learn more, I reserve the right to add fear as much as I chose and I’m open to that course. Are you?
From the stand-point of a non-scientist, this letter was clear and easy to understand (one of the few for someone like myself) – thank you.
We are repeatedly seeing scientific issues being twisted into emotion invoking symbols used to influence mass perception. The facts and discussions wait in the wings while alarmist rhetoric dances center-stage.
One thought about the formatting of the clear and articulate letter. Links inside sentences is just confusing even if they prove the point being presented. And in my experience more of such links makes me click on less of them because it all becomes tedious beyond the curiousity of whats behind the links. It becomes work.
An better approach would be to keep the links in the footnotes. That way you can’t be accused of not bringing proof while being free to word you letter better and not chase down url’s
Just a thought
Try reading the article through without linking then going back and checking out the detail provided by the links. think of them as being in the footnotes.
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Yeah, the problem is that it actually stopped in 1996.
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Are you referring to the ocean heat content? I’m kind of not concerned on temperature change which you can’t see in your heating bill.
Frankly the + 2.x°C in 166 years here has… well it has catastrophically decreased summer time frostbites and lengthened the growing season. I’m devastated on that and afraid that if the 1998-2014 development continues for another 400 years, we might need to stop wearing woollies at midsummer grill parties. /sarc
The best here is when you try to ask the cagwists on the predictions, they will say future warming will be up to +10°C/century. But it could be negative for the next 30 years. I love that, almost infallible prediction.
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Well, what I get is claims that warming continues, just all of it went to the seas. Oh yeah, and then there are people who do a great deal of work to not to admit any pause. But, Google varies based on your own location and cookies.
Google is “Warmist” and will not support even lukewarmists. Google News always has CAGW articles.
[from what I have seen].
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Google Search ‘sadly’ tries to guess what you are looking for and thus is slightly unstable when groups of people want to find completely different things. I’m no expert but it appears to pretty quickly be affected by your own search history.
Depends of course the search words, I guess search terms like ‘sex’ can’t be easily moved around.
I see plenty of google hits saying no warming, including Matt Ridley’s WSJ column cited in the above. Of those that claim warming, they are generally of the variety that claims it hasn’t cooled, therefore it has warmed, which is of course nonsense.
OK, I did the search. First three hits:
1. http://www.nationalreview.com/planet-gore/348796/bbc-notices-no-warming-1998-greg-pollowitz
titled “BBC says no warming since 1998”, says “Since 1998, there has been an unexplained “standstill” in the heating of the Earth’s atmosphere”.
2. https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071217123039AAhwa0k
titled “No Warming Since 1998 – What Does NASA Say About This?” it addresses only the USA. ie, it’s OT.
3. http://news.discovery.com/earth/global-warming/nasa-global-warming-goes-on-140121.htm
titled “NASA: Global warming goes on” it says “the ten warmest years on record have all occurred since the millenium (with the exception of 1998)” which is rather different to saying it’s warming. It then shows a graph in which there is clearly no warming after 1998.
I see no need to go further – the graph says it all. I use Duckduckgo.
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Mike Jonas,
That chart is a classic example of a zero baseline chart. It appears to show rapidly rising temperatures, but if a trend line chart replaces it, we see that global T has been rising at about the samer rate since the LIA; before human emissions mattered.
There’s a reason they use zero baseline charts: it makes grants easier to snag. But they fool the eye, and as a result they are deceptive.
If I Google ‘John Cook 97% consensus of scientists support AGW theory’, it’s quite clear that 41/13944 = .97. The Big Lie, as Dr. Tim Ball has stated here.
Major problem with this letter: the IPCC has just announced triumphantly that this year was the Hottest Year EVER. So saying temperatures have been flat is useless. The blatant propaganda has steamrollered facts flat as a pancake.
Now we have to explain how deceptive this claim is and start from scratch. Meanwhile, even as the drought in California drowns, as it snows just outside LA, as cold sweeps across the Northern Hemisphere, these delusional liars will be screaming about how hot it is which eventually will turn nearly everyone off because we are cold, cold, cold.
Yet, the Australian alarmist crowd can use present weather conditions to support their doom predictions.
If solar cycle 25 continues to mimic the Dalton Minimum and brings marked cooling, it will establish the relative insignificance of CO2 and greenhouse forcing, and/or implicate the quantity of it’s climatic effects comparative to history.
The drought here in California is nowhere near “drowned”. The recent rains and snow have been a start, but we need a lot. lot of precipitation to refill the reservoirs, start refilling the aquifers.
http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/data/pngs/20141230/20141230_west_none.png
Looks like even more catching up to do than we had in the Midwest in early 2013. My (normally one acre) pond was less than half it’s normal depth that winter. Hope you find this encouraging, my pond has been at the overflow level for close to 5 months now.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/MODIS-dec-23-2013-2014-green-CA.jpg
emsnews,
Exactly right. This year is far from being the ‘hottest year evah!’, as we can see in this satellite data.
Planet Earth is debunking their Narrative, so they do the only thing they can: they lie about it.
Politifact? Uh? Politics and fact? They have nothing to do with one another,
Thanks, Andy. Good try.
From despising the local downtown airport to wishing to keep Major League Baseball as a chattel, the TBT reliably pursues a course unleavened by fact. Being supported largely by endowment allows them to be relatively unresponsive to facts as observed by the majority of their readers. “the narrative” so obvious to observers of the national left leaning press, is alive and well in local media here in Tampa. Few industries are as sensitive to climate as our Citrus and Strawberry growers ….. and few media outlets as oblivious as the TBT.
Ah, Tampa Bay Times. All these acronyms I feel like I am back in the military.
I agree with new normal on the style bit.
I believe that you have to expose the motive and solution for the crime of humanity’s cause of “global warming” and increasing CO2 = abundant, cheap base-load energy fuels are bad for the planet (hogwash) so we absolutely must poison China with toxic radioactive wastes from rare earth mining and processing toward intermittent and unreliable breaking winds . . . or else the poor polar bears etc. etc.
These people don’t care about science, except to hijack it before martini time.
Between termites, farting cows (to replacing the millions of buffalo), volcanoes, and tectonic plate CO2 generation and breathing humans, and balanced off by increased plant growth, it is hard to see how human industry and machines have any global effect on the climate. Local UHI – yes; but globally probably very small.
Your post is intelligent, but when dealing with a leftist, facts, data and logic do not matter.
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They live in a different reality: To a leftist, reality is whatever they wish it to be.
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Now please remember that Earth is always warming or cooling, and measurements since the 1800’s suggest warming is the trend (it may have ended 12 to 18 years ago, but we don’t know that now.)
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What the leftists have done is to take a mild, harmless existing trend, and then project an acceleration of that trend in the future, that will have dire consequences.
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They have done that dozens of times before, for DDT. acid rain, hole in the ozone layer, etc.
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If the climate doesn’t warm for another decade, or gets colder, it won’t matter to leftists — they will either claim global cooling is their new boogeyman, or they have fellow leftist “scientists” pick another boogeyman they think will work better at scaring people.
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You can’t debate leftists — they will character attack you if you try.
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Facts about the current and past mean little to them — the crises they always see coming are always off in the future.
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The goal of a leftist “crisis” is to stop economic growth, stop population growth, and promote big (bigger) government socialism.
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The coming ‘climate change crisis’ has nothing to do with the climate or the environment — it is a political tool, technically known as a boogeyman, or a MacGuffin, to promote an extreme leftist political agenda.
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The correct way to debate a leftist is to swat them with a rolled up newspaper — not one you would want to read later, like a Wall Street Journal, but one you would be using to line a bird cage, such as the New York Times.
Ka Ching!
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Precisely.
The spaces mean I have bad vision and a small laptop … it’s much easier for me to type and proofread what I wrote with a space between every sentence.
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I know it wastes bandwidth … but its also easier to read for everyone else too. And you don’t have to read anything between the lines because there’s nothing there.
Actually, from a bandwidth perspective, those lines are only 1 extra character (LF-CR versus 32), so it is not a waste. And adding spaces between lines is much better than all caps. It is still easy to read and with no offense.
So please continue.
ABSOL…..effin’…..LUTELY
Follow the money. There are billions of dollars being allocated to alternative energy projects that eventually fail. This money magically disappears. It is the going to be the biggest rip off in history. It will dwarf the bank bailouts. The leftists and the media are merely “useful idiots”.
Media whores and the parasitic class working hand-in-hand to further the conditioning tactics that mad science first gave birth to 70+ years ago, and yet i wake up every morning to that beautiful sun expecting something different…… why? i ask myself. What were we talking about again?
Andy May, why waste time arguing with a political hack like Lauren Carroll?
Because the other political hacks listen to her.
I’ve moved on from engaging in quarrels about climate change/global warming and global cooling; only because i know that de-facto governments, insurance companies and the military have openly admitted to efforts made in weather modification. So how can we sit and have a chat about whether either or is happening when we have this wildcard.. Do any of you really know the outcome of sulphur loading or spraying silver iodide and various salts into the atmosphere.?
Don’t you see, your tastes have been formed!
Kenin. get real!
Do you know how enormous our Earth is. Mankind cannot control the weather. Cloud seeding or adding ocean Iron can’t reach the scale necessary to actually have a lasting effect if any at all.
Your right. That’s why I said “weather modification” I did not say control the earths atmosphere on a grand scale. You clearly don’t know enough about geo-engineering in this respect. If it wasn’t having any effect, then why are they doing it in the first place.
I do remember googling the term “no warming since 1998”, and getting a good list of links proving it several years ago – but at risk of looking like a conspiracy theorist, somebody has been very busy lately – and there are a lot of new results now that come up in the search from sources like “skepticalscience”, NASA, and other interested parties. It’s funny, the links from 2012 or so back are fine – but seemingly most newer articles are arguments saying “don’t believe the ‘deniers'”. Apparently, when you tell people to google something, and results of the google search reflect content on the Internet, some people who read that content will simply go and write an article with your google search in the title, and thereby invalidate your advice to go google it.
Likewise, I wouldn’t quote wiki, because literally *anybody* can go and edit the article you link to. Both “google” and “wiki” are very poor tactical choices when it comes to trying to prove something. A good, solid argument, with good proof can literally “melt before your eyes”.
Andy May, that’s a good letter. Good luck getting it published.
@richard Greene
That is an excellent short summary of leftists………. Thanks for that.
Exactly. And anyone who has used the precautionary principle has endorsed that leap.
But there is no evidence for that outrageous step.
This needs to be hammered home every time some politician or journalist tries to promote policy positions based on countering “global warming”.
Actually, I’ve always thought that the warmist jump from “global warming” to “climate catastrophe” should be compared to saying that because most scientists agree that there may be life on other planets, this somehow conclusively proves that cousin Cletus was abducted by space aliens last Thursday.
the dot in the politifact.com seems to have been replaced by a tick. I imagine that this is something to do with having the correct answer. And then it is in a goldish colour I suppose that is like the very best answer.
“It is also a web site that should not take sides, but usually does.”
That is one thing I have noticed about leftists in general. They go on and on about how they are being neutral and even handed, but they almost never are.
something I havent personally heard often as of late, is that it wasnt as much the fact it would warm but rather the rate of warming. now the meme is mainly “change”. It is amazing that PR campaigns now dictate for most how data is to be interpreted. This is done so well that differing opinions often that better fit the data are seen as a conspiracy of some type. It truly is amazing to watch, I fear for science and real proven enviro issues, several of which are rather dangerous but nearly ignored in favor of supporting the delusional memes present within Cagw. .
“It is widely known that there has been no warming since 1998”
Widely but wrongly. Trends from stated date to Oct 2014, in °C/century:
HadCRUT GISSlo NOAAlo UAH5.6 RSS.MSU Dec 1998 0.881 1.003 0.772 1.427 0.249 Jan 1998 0.595 0.742 0.526 0.684 -0.429You can see how the “since 1998” depends on the blip in 1998. But even then, only RSS fails to show a strong positive trend since 1998. Since Dec, UAH shows the strongest trend of all.
Funny, if my memory serves me, back around the 2001 the CAGW hysterics were only too happy to exploit the so-called “blip” as an integral part of the temperature record and indication of impending doom.
Quite frankly quibbling about the slowdown, plateau, hiatus, stasis whatever, sounds pretty undignified coming from taxpayer-funded scientists who are supposed to be seeking as close to the truth as possible based on the evidence rather than just maintaining a stance based on a failing (CAGW) hypothesis.
Nick, surface temperature data really only reflects continental weather. You need global satellite measurements to get a perspective on global climate.
But UAH, which is the closest we have to a global satellite measurement, shows a positive trend.
Andy, you lost the conversation in the first two lines. You described yourself as a “petrophysicist”… done, right there. Describing yourself as a “petro-” anything to a warmist, ends your argument with them. the rest of what you say is “blah, blah, and blah”. You then went on to defend a Republican. Strike two. Doesn’t matter if there is a strike three – you lose arguments with leftists on the first strike. If you are trying to argue with facts, remember – facts don’t matter. It’s not about the facts – never was.
Paul, sighhh… You may be right. Somebody else compared me to Don Quixote, he is probably right also. Reason, logic and data mean nothing to someone who only listens to their own tribe and will not do their own research or make their own decisions. Often they only parrot what their leader (whoever that may be) says.
For years we have been told about what kind of diet is good for us and which ones were bad. There is/was a consensus on the issue and it kind of made sense. So you can imagine my shock at finding saturated fat deniers on the rampage.
Note: the first study was funded by British Heart Foundation – an organisation dedicated to the reduction of saturated fats in the UK diet.
Are they onto something?
Good luck Don Quixote. Poltifact is the clown car outfit that called the 2012 lie of the year, Mitt Romney’s ad that said Jeep was going to build in China. They are.
They are a hack outfit. And have nothing to do with “facts”.
For what it’s worth, I contacted Politifact about some of what it wrote about global warming a couple weeks ago. I haven’t received a response. I don’t expect I will. I haven’t copied the “letter” I sent them, but you can read what I discussed in it here:
http://www.hi-izuru.org/wp_blog/2014/12/do-fact-checkers-know-what-facts-are/
Put simply, it appears the people at Politifact are so biased on the issue of global warming they will latch onto anything as an excuse to write about it in a way which paints people they dislike as buffoons. I described one of the examples I find most troubling as:
And it’s true. They published a 1,500+ word article because someone used the word “stabilized” instead of “paused.”
Thank you. I enjoyed reading your posts. I hadn’t seen them before.
You’re welcome. I’m glad to hear it!
Brandon, Poltifact does not know a Global warming from a hole in the ground. SO they are not biased for or against it – unless the left tells them they are. As has been demonstrated too many times, they only know what their handlers feed them, and their handlers are the morons on the left.
philjourdan, I non’t care to defend Politifact nor have I been. I know idiots (and geniuses, sometimes simultaneously) of all political alignments, and I think arguing politics by calling the other side a bunch of nitwits and leaving it at that is moronic.
None of which has anything to do with what I wrote to Andy. My problem with his arguments would be the same no matter what context in which he’d first written them.
Excuse me? Are you Gates or Shollenberger? I replied to Shollenberger. And I get a defense from a Gates?
Is this sock puppetry?
philjourdan,
My mistake, wrong Brandon. I didn’t see him on here until after I replied.
Appreciate your admission of error. Still confused on why you would be.
philjourdan,
In long threads like this one I find responses to my comments by text searching for my first name. I was tired, missed that you were replying to Shollenberger not Gates. I should have caught it because I knew your response didn’t mesh with my own comments, so there was a fair amount of my own prejudice about climate contrarians’ propensity (as I perceive it) to toss out red herrings and/or be generally confused. So, fatigue and unwarranted bias I think best explain my careless error.
It is widely known that there has been no warming since 1998 ( google “No Warming since 1998” or go to Matt Ridley’s excellent article in the WSJ, Sept 4, 2014). So, for 16 of the 50 years in question there has been no warming. Doesn’t this suggest that natural forces are stopping the warming caused by manmade CO2? After all CO2 has continued to rise over the last 16 years at a steady pace, correct? If natural forces can stop the CO2 caused warming doesn’t that imply they are as strong a forcing as the CO2?
————
It suggests that natural forces are stopping warming caused by manmade CO2 if one believes that said warming was caused by manmade CO2. Has that been proved?
No, it has not.
exactly
Andy, Thank you for writing this, I’ve often wanted to but am not skilled enough to do so.
I will however point to this letter as to why I won’t help them with their Kickstarter” effort.
Once again Thanks!
Green Journalism is the new Yellow Journalism. Facts are only facts if they support your agenda.
From the piece at PF-
How do we know climate change isn’t a mass conspiracy to pull the wool over the world’s eyes, as Whitney and others claim?
Such a scenario seems near impossible, considering the overwhelming consensus among respected climate scientists that anthropogenic (human-caused) global warming is indisputable.
Since the original 97% was a survey of ’79 Recently Published Climate Scientist’, of which 75 of 77 answered yes to both questions, what is the new XX / YY when adding ‘Respected’ to the mix.
Research also shows that climate change denial is concentrated among those who have less expertise in the subject or no scientific training at all.
Additionally, much of climate change deniers’ back-up evidence is cherry-picked or too simplistic to be meaningful.
So is Black pot / kettle racist or not?
Nice letter Andy, mostly futile but these things need to be shown to have been said.
Later this Propagandist will claim to have been misinformed and deny that any “credible person” showed any doubt of the CAGW meme.
However human nature will dictate here.
There is gonna be a swing of the pendulum, CAGW, The Eco-nasties and those who have been using them are all yesterdays fad.
As the economy tanks due to the exuberance of mass idiocy, people in general will get a little darker, meaner and vindictive.
CAGW is now clearly identified as a planned method of robbing the many while enriching a few.
We of the West are in debt up to our great grandchildren’s eyeballs, there is no long term investment made with that money, that will reward the next generations left to pay the tab.
Instead a total waste, welfare statism, government grandees, mitigation schemes that mitigate nothing but enrich the well connected.
All enabled by a world wide bureaucracy centred at the UN. Truly useful idiots, however as the public mood swings, I expect more and more of these fools and bandits to attempt to save their precious skins.
By the usual methods, blame others, accuse everyone of their own sins..and so on.
Buy popcorn and archive their past and present proclamations.
I fully expect to see national government agencies grant “immunity” to their colleges currently at the UN.
While simultaneously attempting to purge the record, control the internet.
Shame that is only going to inflame the crisis but I guess thats been the problem from the start of this Policy Based Evidence Manufacturing.PBEM .. hmm need a better acronym.
Good Enough for Government.
From the point of view of political persuasion (propaganda) the phrase “Global Warming Hoax” has the potential of turning the debate upside down. Hoax exposes the Believer to the possibility of looking foolish. So once any substantial defection from Belief starts, there is the possibility of a runaway effect as no one wants to look foolish — i.e. to be hoaxed. Thus the Belief can collapse almost over night if people become concerned that it is or might be a hoax.
You are taking the bait and replying the irritation of a small extremist faction in an insignificant small city. You have just given them a massive boost in readership.
Why bother? In Australia, such extremism usually results over time in falling readership and increasing irrelevance, as they preach to the converted, not the general public.
I’ve never before heard of Lauren Carroll or Politifact. I’ll forget this reference to them, soon enough.
Life’s too short to pay attention to those who have no interest in truth.
Brandon Gates January 2, 2015 at 2:52 pm
Based on these results, the future increase in global mean temperature is likely to fall within –40 to +60% of the multi-model AOGCM mean warming simulated for each scenario.
SNAP! goes the trap.
Precisely Brandon. We were told that the science was settled, the debate was over, the situation dire, the need to act urgent. That’s what we were told Brandon. Over an over. We were ridiculed just for asking questions. But when WE put aside the press releases and the public pronouncements and looked at the IPCC reports themselves, what did we find? Uncertainty at every turn. Weasel words tortured into suggesting a level of certainty and accuracy that a careful reading of the documents showed just didn’t exist.
So where were you then Brandon? You said you’ve been around this debate for a while upthread, did you speak up back then? When the pronouncements were coming fast and furious that the science was settled, the debate over, did you raise your voice and say “…uhm no, that’s not what the document says”?
I find it somewhat disingenuous for your side of the debate to have shoved the certainty of doom in our faces, and when events didn’t play out as you claimed (with the highest of confidence I might add) you now wish to assert that your side never made those claims in the first place?
LOL.
Phil Jones – 10 years disqualifies the models
NASA – 15 years
Ben Santer – 17 years
Brandon Gates – uhm, well, uhm, the IPCC never actually said….
BULLSH*T. If they never intended it that way, then they made a p*ss poor job of saying so these last few decades. Weasel words from beginning to end, and in the end, a meaningless document now being used by warmists to claim they never said what they clearly did say to governments world wide.
“The data doesn’t matter. We’re not basing our recommendations on the data. We’re basing them on the climate models.”
Prof. Chris Folland, Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research
Yup, pretty stupid thing to say. Also pretty old, and one Dr. Folland likely wishes he could have back.
davidmhoffer,
[looks around bewildered, sees no trap, shrugs and moves on]
Let’s you and me get something straight between us right now. I don’t carry anyone’s water for them, I speak for me and me alone. If you’d like to ask me what my views on policy are, go right on ahead. But you need to ask, not assume. Are we clear?
Well I’ve met a variety of climate contrarians online and let me tell you, you’re not a monolithic group any more than we on the consensus side of the science. I think some contrarian questions are wonderfully conceived and properly skeptical and add much value to the debate. Others, and I’ll just say most, are not. Many are flat out silly and deserve ridicule and even ire. In my opinion, mind. The sky dragons are my pet favorites. No CO2 accumulation from humans, which is topical today, is just about one of the silliest, whacky, loopy arguments out there — confirmation bias and total logic failure written all over it.
Get bent about being made fun of if you’d like but this is a highly charged issue because of the stakes, harsh things have and will continue to be said. I don’t complain about that and therefore I don’t suffer complaints about it gladly either.
You think? What fantasy planet is it you live on that’s so easy to figure out?
How about a little less arm waving and little more citation. I like vague sweeping generalizations even less than I do mewling about being made fun of.
Somewhere … William Briggs blog probably … I pretty roundly condemned Obama for the “science is settled bit”. Over the years I’ve corrected others on my side when I perceived them to be in error. I’ve done it here a time or two …. Socrates said something a few weeks ago that didn’t look right and I nudged him about it. A number of times here I’ve said I don’t like politics of fear no matter who uses them.
I’ve delivered bigger “same-team” a** chewings on other issues which I feel more emotion about than this one. I’ve been killfiled by more than one person for doing it.
Where did I disavow something someone said?
I’ll be darned if that’s my actual response. Ranting doesn’t make for good reading comprehension.
Brandon says:
…looks around bewildered…
‘Bewildered’ is correct.
Hoffer makes some irrefutable points. And I would also like to ask:
What is a ‘climate contrarian’??
Skeptics know the climate always changes — naturally. What is ‘contrarian’ about that? Or have you run out of facts, and now must resort to ad-homs?
I’ll be darned if that’s my actual response. Ranting doesn’t make for good reading comprehension.
I’m sorry that you were unable to comprehend my point.
davidmhoffer January 2, 2015 at 7:48 pm
I’ll be darned if that’s my actual response. Ranting doesn’t make for good reading comprehension.
I’m sorry that you were unable to comprehend my point.
The fault is most certainly mine
Thus sprach dbstealey:
Ok. Care to enlighten me on which ones, or is this just another armwaving session.
Someone who doesn’t hold the consensus view on AGW.
Not recognizing the part humans play as established by the majority of scientists working in the field.
Really. No, really, I mean …. seriously?
As established by? So the majority decides the climate, is that it? LOL! Db was too kind.
davidmhoffer,
Um, ok. I’ve lost track, did we or did we not establish that the IPCC has not been promising laser-straight non-deviating temperature trends from now until meltdown in lockstep with rising CO2 levels?
Brandon Gates January 2, 2015 at 9:22 pm
Um, ok. I’ve lost track, did we or did we not establish that the IPCC has not been promising laser-straight non-deviating temperature trends
What we’ve established is that the perception and the reality of the published science are two different things. Once again, thanks for pointing that out. As before, if you don’t understand the point, the fault is mine.
Brandon, is there a caveat in here about natural variability possibly overcoming CO2 forcing for a decade or more? Did I miss that part? The wording in the SPM is identical. Doesn’t really reflect what the sections you quoted say, does it? Now do you understand my point?
Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report
ContentsSYR33.2
3.2 Projections of future changes in climate
For the next two decades a warming of about 0.2°C per decade is projected for a range of SRES emissions scenarios. Even if the concentrations of all GHGs and aerosols had been kept constant at year 2000 levels, a further warming of about 0.1°C per decade would be expected. Afterwards, temperature projections increasingly depend on specific emissions scenarios (Figure 3.2). {WGI 10.3, 10.7; WGIII 3.2}
Since the IPCC’s first report in 1990, assessed projections have suggested global averaged temperature increases between about 0.15 and 0.3°C per decade from 1990 to 2005. This can now be compared with observed values of about 0.2°C per decade, strengthening confidence in near-term projections. {WGI 1.2, 3.2}
davidmhoffer,
Ah. No, I got that point alrighty. I just treat them as separate issues and get a tad cranky when they’re mashed together. I don’t think it makes much sense to discuss policy without first having some mutual consensus on the factual basis.
What jumps out at me is that they’ve revised estimates and strengthened confidence in those estimates perhaps because the constraints on natural variability weren’t considered as good. The thing about GHG and aerosol concentrations may be about the “warming in the pipeline” concept. I think I’m starting to understand what you’re getting at but I’m also getting fuzzy because of the late hour. I’ll read the whole section tomorrow in context and get back to you.
Brandon Gates;
What jumps out at me is that they’ve revised estimates and strengthened confidence in those estimates perhaps because the constraints on natural variability weren’t considered as good.
What should jump out at you is that their public facing pronouncements and SPM contain certainties that are not born out by close examination of the balance of their own publications. Further, in AR4, the estimate was a sensitivity of between 2.0 and 4.5 degrees per doubling of CO2, with a consensus median estimate of 3.0 degrees. In AR5, they were unable to arrive at a consensus median estimate at all, increased the range of the estimate to be between 1.5 and 4.5 degrees (with only the lower bound changing), and announced that their confidence in the science was even higher than ever.
Really? The range got bigger, unable to reach agreement on a median estimate, but their confidence went up?
We’ve gone full cycle. First natural variation was too small to explain anything, and now it is large enough to explain everything.
“Brandon Gates
January 2, 2015 at 7:03 pm
davidmhoffer,
“SNAP! goes the trap.
[looks around bewildered, sees no trap, shrugs and moves on]”
You are bewildered because you’ve been trapped and part of the trap is blinders.
LOL
davidmhoffer
January 2, 2015 at 11:07 pm
Really? The range got bigger, unable to reach agreement on a median estimate, but their confidence went up?
Nothing confusing there David: their confidence in their uncertainty has been strengthened by their inability to make a determination.
Perfectly clear.
At least, that might be what they probably could mean.
/grin
davidmhoffer,
Confidence went up in conclusions drawn from observation. “The science is settled” quote, as unfortunate and wrong that meme is, refers to what has happened in the past.
You should be happy that with the switch from CMIP3 to CMIP5 from AR4 to AR5 that they reported the lower bound change from 2 to 1.5 for climate senstivity. In the scientific world, that’s called integrity. In the political hack world, that’s called flip-flopping. Know the difference.
I like the subtle shift from comparing FAR to AR4, to comparing AR4 to AR5. Did you think I wouldn’t notice? Perhaps you may wish to limit my comments to the context in which they were given?
Brandon Gates January 3, 2015 at 8:04 am
Confidence went up in conclusions drawn from observation.
Confidence went up in model predictions by increasing the range in which they could be right, and avoiding a consensus estimate because it would have exposed that bounded by observational evidence, sensitivity is much lower than previously claimed. The 4.5 upper bound is not supportable, but they left it in anyway and just didn’t comment on how unlikely it is, else the report would have been left with nothing frightening in it.
“The science is settled” quote, as unfortunate and wrong that meme is, refers to what has happened in the past.
It refers to what is happening now. The 97% consensus meme is just another manifestation of it, and you yourself in a reply up thread attempted to use another version of it in defining “climate contrarians”.
You should be happy that with the switch from CMIP3 to CMIP5 from AR4 to AR5 that they reported the lower bound change from 2 to 1.5 for climate senstivity. In the scientific world, that’s called integrity. In the political hack world, that’s called flip-flopping. Know the difference.
In a scientific world with integrity the 4.5 upper bound would have been adjusted downward on the exact same evidence that was used to adjust the lower bound, and the median estimate would also have been adjusted downward. Instead they went the political route, some weasel wording to continue to provide the perception of danger while giving themselves a huge out so that years later no one can say for certain that they lied or not.
I like the subtle shift from comparing FAR to AR4, to comparing AR4 to AR5. Did you think I wouldn’t notice? Perhaps you may wish to limit my comments to the context in which they were given?
I made no such switch, I referred to AR4 and AR5 only. The switch is in your head.
But congrats on completely avoiding the original point. You demanded to know where the IPCC said we should expect decade over decade warming with no pause, and I showed you that they did. I showed also that they said one thing in one place and another in another place. The best you could do was mumble something about having to read it again, and maybe aerosols or something….
You’re welcome.
The SPM writers obviously already know how wide the uncertainties are. For AR4 they were kind enough to provide a key for the language used to discuss them elswhere in the other documents: http://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR4/website/spm.pdf Endbox 2. Communication of Uncertainty in the Working Group II Fourth Assessment Page 15 of the .pdf.
The whole idea of a “summary” being that it doesn’t include every single niggling detail that the main reports do. The “bbbbbut it doesn’t say that HERE” argument really does get a little old, you know.