Guest essay by Tom Fuller
The Peril of Great Causes
342 Comments
Soon and Baliunas just showed there was a mountain of evidence for the medieval warm period and other natural climate variability in history – a very good paper that is now accepted by climate science as more indicative of what actually occured in climate history – despite the fact that they tried and are still trying to get the authors fired.
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/2006Q2/211/articles_optional/Soon2003_paleorecord.pdf
Versus Michael Mann’s hockey stick showing there was no enigmatic medieval period (even tried to change the name) with greenhouse gases emerging as the dominant forcing in the twentieth century – but was based on incredible data-selection techniques and was mostly based on one tree core series, the bristlecone pine trees from one mountain which cannot possibly be expected to provide a reliable indicator of climate – the worst type of science but still accepted by climate science because that it what they do – rewrite history and get all the facts wrong.
http://www.meteo.psu.edu/holocene/public_html/shared/articles/mbh98.pdf
An objective person knowing all the facts would conclude Soon’s work reflected science and the IPCC/Mann’s work does not.
You all are getting off track with your point-counterpoint arguments. What really matters is what was in Mr. Fuller’s post. In case you haven’t bothered to read it:
It doesn’t matter that institutions ranging from the CRU and Stanford University have received funding from fossil fuel sources, or that BEST’s Richard Muller actually got money from the Koch Brothers. It doesn’t matter that this information is old.
What matters for the Cause is that headlines of supposed misbehavior hit the news at the same time as Pachauri’s disgrace.
The problem is the obvious collusion to put out this smear campaign to protect “The Cause”.
Thanks milodonharlani. Now when I take a look at your referenced link I see the following:
“The journal’s publisher had “no specific disclosure form that I know of,” she says.”
“and that, in some cases, journal conflict-of-interest policies appear to require such disclosure.”
“But that policy wasn’t in place at the time of Soon’s submission,”
“Conflict is often in the eye of the beholder, she says, and researchers often accept all kinds of funding that doesn’t necessarily skew their peer-reviewed publications. “I’m for full disclosure,” she says, “but I’m not sure how we’re going to address this.””
The article makes it clear that the rules are not iron clad and it would be easy to ‘break’ a rule that is not clear in the first place.
Now that icouldnthelpit has got the list he may now want to find problems with Soon’s work. Peer reviewers obviously missed them all.
“””””…..
Bill Illis
February 25, 2015 at 4:14 am
Soon and Baliunas just showed there was a mountain of evidence for the medieval warm period and other natural climate variability in history – a very good paper that is now accepted by climate science as more indicative of what actually occured in climate history …..””””
Bill,
I’m familiar with that paper of Baliunas and Soon, from the days when I read Tech Central Station Blog.
As I recall, they reviewed maybe as many as 200 peer reviewed papers from all over the place, and reached a conclusion that the MWP and the LIA were not “Northern Hemisphere” phenomena, as Michael Mann tried to imply in his hockey stick graph, but were in fact true global events, with evidence for that coming from all over the place.
The odd thing, is that they are being chastised and marginalized for pretty much publishing a bibliography of peer reviewed work by other esteemed climate scientists, that supported the case for the MWP and also the LIA, both of which Mann sought to exterminate.
Sally B also wrote a great paper that showed why the sea level in the vicinity of the Maldives, is anomalous. It relates to the great depth and “land lockedness” of that part of the Indian Ocean.
G
Why is taking fossil fuel money wrong for sceptics when these climate change bodies take it? Here is some more of the brazen hypocrisy:
July 9, 2013
200 Climate Campaign Groups All Funded by a Single Source
Source: The Rockefeller Brothers
http://fair-questions.com/post-4/
Fuller makes it clear that Warmists happily do wrong and their side goes along with the humbug for years. Here is Pachauri’s behavior while head of the IPCC. As is clear to see they are happy to attack BIG OIL connections but don’t mind their connections. Pachauri was a directory of an Indian oil company while head of the IPCC too. It never ends.
On the 20th April 2002 Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri was elected Chairman of the IPCC. In 2005 Pachauri set up a residual oil extraction technology company called Glorioil. It advised and gave technical assistance to oil companies on extracting residual oil from fields which would otherwise have been abandoned. Pachauri is no longer linked with the now defunct firm now re-named Glori Energy based in Houston, Texas.
2007 – “Glorioil delivers state of the art bio-technology solutions to improve and increase recovery from mature oil wells. Operating from our new state of the art 20,000 sf headquarters in Houston, TX, GloriOil is ready to discuss and apply this breakthrough technology to increase recovery from your mature assets today.”
On the 20th April 2002 Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri was elected Chairman of the IPCC.
Here is where he served during and after 2002 (while head of the IPCC) according to Teri, his organisation. In no particular order.
• Board of Directors of the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd (2006 to 2009)
• Board of Directors of the Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. (1999 to 2003)
• Board of Directors of GAIL (India) Ltd. (2003 to 2004) – [natural gas processing & distribution]
• Member of the International Advisory Council for the King Abdullah Petroleum Studies & Research Center (KAPSARC), Saudi Arabia (2009 onwards)
His Teri institutue organises the Delhi Sustainable Development Summit. Over the years its sponsors have been oil and gas companies.
2011: Star Partner – Rockefeller Foundation
• 2007: Partners – BP
• 2006: Co-Associates – NTPC [coal and gas power generation] | Function Hosts – BP
• 2005: Associate – Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited, India | Co-Associate Shell
The wall of NO shame continues from Al Gore and Dana Nuccitelli to almost anyone one you care to pick. They are a bunch of shameless hypocrites.
icouldnthelpit
February 25, 2015 at 1:59 am
Jimbo. It’s not wrong to take fossil fuel money. It’s wrong not to state where your money came from.
It is wrong to be hypocritical. It is wrong to CONDEMN fossil fuels as a danger to the planet, then take fossil fuel money. It is wrong to assist BIG OIL to extract more oil if you believe that fossil fuels will destroy the biosphere. It is wrong to take money from fossil fuel funded Al Jazeera then tell the world about the dangers of fossil fuels. There is so much wrong with what you claim that you leave me almost speechless. Is hypocrisy OK with you???? You have to wonder whether these Warmists actually BELIEVE that co2 will lead to dangerous warming.
Please give me information about Soon’s failure to disclose where his money came from. I have got some stuff to do right now, but once I get back and get your details I will investigate matters a little deeper.
PS if it was for his joint paper ‘Why Models Run Hot’ then I have to say that to the best of my understanding the paper was not funded at all, let alone by fossil fuel money. I maybe wrong, but please give me the information.
icouldnthelpit, next time provide me with a link or at least a reference publication and date.
As for choosing to ignore my “whataboutery” – that is the best course of action for you my friend otherwise you would have to either disapprove of hypocrisy or not. Either answer would make you look a little foolish regarding taking fossil fuel money by climate change groups.
Now onto Soon. The reference you give appears on the New York Times on FEB. 21, 2015 (here)
You earlier said:
What’s now come to light is that he apparently didn’t disclose who his paymasters were.
The New York Times said:
He has accepted more than $1.2 million in money from the fossil-fuel industry over the last decade while failing to disclose that conflict of interest in most of his scientific papers.
So the referenced quote which you quoted has clearly said that at least there was disclosure in some of his scientific papers.
Now please point me to the scientific papers where he failed to provide his conflict of interest declaration where it was a requirement? I can’t see it in the NYT or in the Climate Investigations Center. You can ignore everything I have state EXCEPT my last question. Please point me to the scientific papers where he failed to provide his conflict of interest declaration where it was a requirement?
Interestingly the New York Times says
The documents were obtained by Greenpeace, the environmental group, under the Freedom of Information Act. Greenpeace and an allied group, the Climate Investigations Center.
I went to the Climate Investigations Center to find out WHO FUNDS THEM, but came up with nothing. Disclosure is a funny old game.
icouldnthelpit
February 25, 2015 at 7:34 am
Jimbo, I don’t have the actual list. I’m sure it’ll surface soon. We’ll just have to be patient.
I too shall remain patient until the list of papers “surface soon”. I think however that it’s pretty poor show when the NYT repeats allegations supplied by Greenpeace and the Climate Investigations Center without giving us examples of the offending papers. If we had the list we could then look for ourselves whether there was a requirement, listed affiliations etc. Now you see why I like to look for myself rather than taking anyone’s word for it.
Pit,
It would have taken you seconds to find “The List”, a la McCarthy, along with a discussion of the disclosure issues:
http://news.sciencemag.org/climate/2015/02/climate-skeptic-s-fossil-fuel-funding-puts-spotlight-journal-conflict-policies
This is a tempest in a teapot. Far more worrisome is the failure of CACA advocates to archive their “data”. Also the funding of Greenshirts by Putin.
Please state what parts of Soon’s work you imagine has been “refuted”.
Thanks.
Well in the last 65 years, I have read one hell of a lot of scientific papers, even ones written by people like Marie Curie or Albert Einstein.
I don’t recall ever reading such a scientific paper that included in the body of the paper where the funds came from to support the author while he was writing the paper.
Usually, if any there was a footnote that mentioned the affiliation of the author(s).
But most of those papers concentrated on the science of the work, and not on the politics.
Mr idon’tknowenoughtocommentrationally seems to think that funding is the most important part of any science paper.
It has been made quite clear that the Harvard Smithonian Center for Astrophysics got money from BigOil to hire Soon to write for them.
So why not try learning something yourself, so you don’t have to take Wikipedia for a reputable science source?
“Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.”
If it’s been a long time since you read Orwell’s prophetic 1984, you might want to read it again. The parallels with the present world are uncanny. But stay out of range of the two-way telescreen while reading it, to avoid arousing the suspicions of the thinkpol (Thought Police), which could get you sent to a joycamp.
“Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”
But currently the necessary organizational and mechanical infrastructure (e.g., memory holes) is not yet in place to track down and replace all existing copies of malreported published materials. Pending the full implementation of the revolution, it is still necessary for Big Brother’s loyal followers to attempt to discredit such materials with whatever tactics they think might be effective. Let’s see how many can doublethink themselves away from the implications of the narrative and step up in fluent duckspeak in the Replies.
http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/winston-smith-loves-big-brother-even-more-now-that-he-has-returned-to-the-fold-and-discovered-global-warming/
If you examine some of Bevan’s previous postings, they include well researched and professionally presented documents that clearly cost money to produce.
One suspects he is one of Greenpeace’s ( or similar ) footsoldiers , assigned to monitor WUWT around the clock.
Given the productivity of WUWT this montoring must be soaking up quite a bit of Greenpeaces’s resources , which some might think could be put to better use in eg actually preventing Japan and Norway turning the whales into sushi or preventing the last of the rain forests being destroyed to make biomass plantations.
Well Guber perhaps you should call the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for ASTROPHYSICS and let them know that they have been employing someone for 14 years that is not an astrophysicist to do research involving astrophysics.
I understand that to the laymen it is a befuddling concept that not all active researchers hold a degree in what they actually end up researching. It’s simply too difficult of a concept for you to wrap that nugget around isn’t it? We could make a list a mile long automatically disqualifying research because of your logic. Let’s start with Gavin Schmidt, a mathematician major, not a climatologist. Mann is a physicist that specialized in semiconductors when he was earning his degrees, what would he know about paleoclimatology?
“””””……
Gubulgaria
February 25, 2015 at 2:34 am
Soon isn’t an astrophysicist, he’s an aeronautical engineer.
Did you mean ‘are you an aeronautical engineer?’…..”””””
So someone is an Automobile Engineer because he worked for 40 years, on the production line in the Ford Motor s plant; installing Bolt 39 ??
That’s like calling someone with a PhD, a “Scientist”.
Dr. Laura has a PhD. She doesn’t know anything about any kind of science; or ice cream making either.
I believe the Ph is short for philospophy; which is all about holding forth on subjects one knows nothing about.
A real scientist would have a DSc as in Doctor of Science. I only have a BSc, so I’m only a part scientist; but I had to go to work for a living to complete my education, and to contribute to the taxpayer funded support for all the 65% of US Physics PhD graduates, who never ever get a full time paying job in their field of expertise. Well they become post doc fellows at some institute.
In the UK A(neurin) Bevan was the left wing Socialist Minister of Health who took credit for introducing the National Health Service, although it was originally conceived by Sir William Beveridge in his 1942 Report to Churchill’s coalition government.
Bevan represented a Welsh Mining constituency and when visiting it, would invariably leave his expensive car in a neighbouring constituency while having his agent pick him up and drive him over the border in his own old second-hand vehicle.
His hypocrisy was noted. He together with two of his Labour Party colleagues sued the Spectator for libel when that magazine reported on their drunken misbehaviour in Venice, where they had been attending a conference. The politicians won and were paid substantial damages, which were never returned even, years later, when they finally admitted that the report was correct.
I wonder if there is any genetic link between Bevan and A. Bevan?
Wow, all the old sock puppets are out in force this week. It might appear to the casual observer as though there has been a concerted and co-ordinated effort to double down on the message for the cause by character assassination of respected academics, perhaps in the hopes that Their climate guru might have his alleged criminal perversions swept into the ever-growing hillock of ignorance under the carpet.
The Chiefio,aka E.M.Smith has coined the most appropriate description that fits the trolls at the head of these comments to perfection.
As two can play at name calling and skeptics have endured a decade and half of vicious name calling and deadly threats and calls for beheading and 10;10 videos of killing kids and after constraining the language for all that time maybe it is time for the skeptics and those denigrated and attacked to return the favour.
The Chiefio’s term for the vicious public denigrators of skeptic climate scientists and skeptic commenters.
“Slime mongers”
Bevan,
Why is there suddenly record snowfall and suddenly record cold temperatures on the Greenland Ice sheet?
http://beta.dmi.dk/en/groenland/maalinger/greenland-ice-sheet-surface-mass-budget/
Why is there suddenly record sea ice in the Antarctic and ‘recovery’ of sea ice, including multi year sea ice in the Arctic?
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.antarctic.png
What caused cyclic warming and cooling in the past? Why do solar magnetic cycle changes correlate with each and every warming and cooling cycle in the paleo record?
Greenland ice temperature, last 11,000 years determined from ice core analysis, Richard Alley’s paper.
http://www.climate4you.com/images/GISP2%20TemperatureSince10700%20BP%20with%20CO2%20from%20EPICA%20DomeC.gif
Why are the GCMs’ incorrect?
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/02/tropical-ssts-since-1998-latest-climate-models-warm-3x-too-fast/
What is currently happening to the sun? Is there any possibility the entire IPCC paradigm is incorrect? i.e. The majority (roughly 75%) of the warming in the last 50 years has caused by solar magnetic cycle changes rather than the increase in atmospheric CO2?
http://iopscience.iop.org/1742-6596/440/1/012001
The peculiar solar cycle 24 — where do we stand?
Solar cycle 24 has been very weak so far. It was preceded by an extremely quiet and long solar minimum. Data from the solar interior, the solar surface and the heliosphere all show that cycle 24 began from an unusual minimum and is unlike the cycles that preceded it.
We begin this review of where solar cycle 24 stands today with a look at the antecedents of this cycle, and examine why the minimum preceding the cycle is considered peculiar (§ 2). We then examine in § 3 whether we missed early signs that the cycle could be unusual. § 4 describes where cycle 24 is at today.
Other, more recent data sets, such as the Kitt Peak and MDI magnetograms, and they too also show that the polar fields were weak during the cycle 24 minimum compared with the cycle 23 minimum (de Toma 2011; Gopalswamy et al. 2012). The structure of the solar corona was also quite different from what is expected during a normal minimum. As can be seen from the LASCO images shown in Fig. 2 the solar corona has the canonical solar-minimum structure during the cycle 23 minimum, but the coronal did not have a simple configuration of streamers in an equatorial belt as it was during the previous minimum in 1996.
It’s nastier than that:
Greenpeace are trying to get the IRS to go after Willie Soon based on the same silly accusations. Here, in a letter to IRS Commissioner John Koskinen (whose name they didn’t get right).
Others are going after Judith Curry, trying to dig up anything that would suit the same agenda.
A sad state of the world. But it’s good to see where they’re coming from, and what they really would like to (be able to) do if they only had more power of government coersion.
And of course Koskinen is the administration sock-puppet thug who declared that “lost” IRS emails could never be recovered. Emails which were partially recovered, despite destruction of PC hard drives and foot-dragging beyond retention periods, by a simple FOIA request made at a later date.
It is clear that he would be willing to do almost anything to please the white house and sympatico NGOs. Another reason that the IRS needs to be deconstructed and replaced ASAP.
Bevan – either elaborate or don’t hang around to get the first word in if its just a jibe form the playbook.
icouldnthelpit – his paymasters are the Smithsonian and Harvard. They took the money and signed the contracts. Now if you have some data that you find suspect, elaborate on that.
Funding sources are only important if the paper reports new data that is difficult to replicate. Identify that or give it a rest.
A publication has the right to request that papers submitted include sources of funding. If you don’t like those roles, don’t submit your document to that publication.The same for the Smithsonian for their employees (really employees by association since they do not draw a salary from the Smithsonian).
I find it peculiar and somewhat disturbing that Greenpeace and the NYT are going after Soon for the wrong reasons. The funding is immaterial, what really counts is the contents of the papers. I have read them and find no scientific reason to doubt his conclusions. They are well documented as regards science and that is what counts.
The lack of ability to point out significant flaw(s) in Dr. Soon’s science appears to be the motivation for the attacks.
“If I can attack your theory, i will do so. If I cannot, I will attack you.”
What warmists hate about Dr. Soon is the fact that his “irreducibly simple model” works, and even worse, cost taxpayers nothing, while the 70+ “The C02 Did-It” computer are laughably inaccurate and shockingly expensive.
The AGW “computer scientists” give a whole new meaning to the term for expensive software that promises everything and delivers nothing — “Vapor Ware.”
Reply to Bevan Thread ==> Bevan’s off-topic comment continues his obfuscation of the Soon issue started at my earlier essay.
Three important things to know about the Southern/Smithsonian/Soon issue:
1) There is and was no hidden funding of any kind — all grants were above-board through the Smithsonian’s normal grant-receiving channels.
2) Southern Services Company is not a fossil fuel company. It is an electric utility — it generates and supplies electricity throughout the American South. It does have coal-burning electric plants — it is building the only new nuclear power plant in the USA, it operates a huge solar electric plant in the Southwest, it donates millions of dollars to environmental projects throughout the United States.
3) There was and is no possible Conflict of Interest for Soon from the unfettered general research grant from Southern Services Company. No papers were sponsored, no specific research requested, no relationship between Soon’s research and Southern’s businesses — plainly stated — Nothing Done.
On the matter of Soon and funding I think it’s time we entered common sense times.
Wouldn’t Willie Soon make his life a lot easier by simply towing the party line? Funding would POUR IN as his former adversaries cheered and hugged the poor guy.
As regards poor science may I refer you to the ENTIRE body of work produced by the IPCC. Here is an example of poor science.
http://www.energyadvocate.com/gc1.jpg
Warmists are now desperate and sad. Since they like to dredge up that ‘thing of the past’ re Soon let’s see.
Where was the outrage when a lead author of an IPCC report waspaid by Greenpeace? Oooops! Activist backed Climastrology – which leads to Himalayan total glacier meltdown by 2035. Oooops! It was the WWF what made me do it guv. It was just like voodoo, really.
“Dear NY Times Re Willie Soon: Character assassination is not science.”
http://joannenova.com.au/2015/02/ny-times-willie-soon-character-assassination-is-not-science/
The problem is also the Tom Fullers of the world’s ignorance.
Solar Power (for the U.S. Economy) Is a L1e
Re: The Myth of Solar Energy
Ozzie Zehner video: “Green Illusions” (youtube)
(I do NOT endorse ALL of its content — some is highly accurate, however)
[6:55] — As of 2012, less than ONE TENTH OF 1%, i.e., less than .001% (< .1 Quads), of total energy (114 Quads. for N. America) is supplied by solar. [7:11] — Graphic of N. American total energy v. solar (tiny dot v. big bucket).
Caveat re: Mr. Zehner: He is an irrationally anti-nuclear power, Church of Anti-consumption (albeit good-intentioned) religious zealot, BUT, he knows his stuff about solar power and makes a good point about the gross ineffectiveness and hypocrisy of solar/wind. They will NEVER be cost-effective and they promote not reduce fossil fuels/CO2 = not “green” = hypocrisy.
I demand that Dr. Phil Jones and other climastrologists publishing papers while at CRU clearly state on EVERY PAPER THEY PUBLISH that the Climatic Research Unit has in the past / present received funding from the following:
Climate and Development Knowledge Network (“aims to help decision-makers in developing countries design and deliver climate compatible development.”),
Earth and Life Sciences Alliance (“addressing the challenges of a changing climate, the Alliance not only carries out fundamental research but also applies the findings to real world scenarios“),
Greenpeace International, Reinsurance Underwriters and Syndicates, WWF, EPA, British Petroleum, Shell, Sultanate of Oman.
Can I declare game, set and match? LOL.
As you canb see below Dr. Phil Jones did not declare that CRU has in the past received funding from the above ie the Climate and Development Knowledge Network, Earth and Life Sciences Alliance, Greenpiss, WWF et al.
Abstract
P. D. Jones1,*, T. Jonsson2 and D. Wheeler3
Extension to the North Atlantic oscillation using early instrumental pressure observations from Gibraltar and south-west Iceland
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/%28SICI%291097-0088%2819971115%2917:13%3C1433::AID-JOC203%3E3.0.CO;2-P/abstract
So what!
Just because Soon got some money from oil industry sources does not mean his conclusions are false!
The 2 biggest sources of heat on earth are: Sun and the Earth’s inner core. Commonsense demonstrates that any rise in temperature must come from there!
Alarmist scientists get money from the government because alarm sells. Politicians love it!
When you have a toothache you go to a dentist.
Back in 2004, on a short trip to Auckland New Zealand, I was able to get a close look at a strange vessel sitting right at the dock on one side of the Viaduct Harbor; home to the local Americas Cup and other sailing festivities.
This odd looking hydrocarbon fuelled boat (and CO2 disgorging as well), was purported to run on fat, for fuel.
Well not just any old fat; but liposuction fat; of which there is a bottomless supply; excuse me, make that a bottom full supply.
This amazing boat was going to set a round the world speed record by rocketing across the world’s ocean on bum fat.
Well in the end, I think they ended up running it on diesel; aka fossil fuel.
In any case, the project fizzled, and somehow Greenpeace acquired this vessel.
Probably some corporate donation to GP.
Well Just a coupla years ago now, Greenpeace used this monstrosity of a boat to pester some Japanese whale research scientists who were just trying to get some whale tissue samples for scientific research. Maybe to compare it to bum fat.
Somehow, things went pear shaped and the Obesity Burner ended up crashing into the whale sampler, or verse vicea, and the tub of lard , went to the bottom of the Pacific.
Luckily no crew members were harmed; that would have not been nice.
I have a good set of photos of that thing sitting at the dock, right next to an actual green machine; a former winner of the Whitbread round the world ocean race for sail boats, which is now known as the Volvo Ocean race.
The sail boat was actually sponsored by the makers of a free clean green renewable energy source, called (as I recall) Lion Breweries.
And yes I have actually sailed on that sail boat, while out on the harbor watching the then current Volvo Ocean Racers, who were in Port getting ready to go sail among the icebergs in the southern ocean.
I’ll be doing the same thing in a few weeks, when this years Volvo boats come into port on their way into history, all powered by the wind, and with no liposuction fat on board.
Yes Greenpeace have had their fun times all probably corporate funded in some way or other.
Here is an example of poor science:
http://www.leif.org/research/Temp-Track-Sun-Not.png
Soon shows a ‘solar radiation’ [the heavy black curve] and outdated version of TSI [Hoyt and Schatten’s old estimate]. Modern reconstructions are show by the red curves at the top. Soon should know [if he follows the modern debate] that his ‘solar radiation’ curve is false.
Leif,
It is good that this chart is posted by you, for it is sourced from the BEST project and the Washington Times. Because it is posted by you I will assume it is something attributed to Soon. Anyway, the much earlier paper of Soon and Baliunas is what internet searches refer to when controversy about Dr. Soon is searched for, and also the questioning of his funding began with that paper (I think).
The graph is by Soon back in 2013, discussed here http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/26/dr-willie-soon-guest-comment-is-what-i-say-beyond-the-boundaries-of-reasonable-discussion/
lsvalgaard February 24, 2015 at 10:22 pm
As is the ‘big news’ peddled there
==================================
Probably. but if the predictions of you and your fellow solar scientists of a prolonged Dalton or Maunder-type minimum come to fruition, we will be able to observe what happens in detail Maybe, just maybe, after that, we won’t need to guess anymore.
Speaking of ‘poor science’, it isn’t solar radiation per se that matters.
It is variations in the mixture of particles and wavelengths relative to one another that affects atmospheric chemistry so as to change global cloudiness/albedo.
Those solar variations are not yet adequately represented by any charts or graphs that I am aware of.
Even so Leif’s chart still shows warmer periods roughly associated with high solar cycles and cooler periods with lower ones with the thermal effect being proportionate to the length of any run of high or low cycles.
So Leif do you think his “poor” science is as a result of his funding? Do you think a congressional committee can hold a hearing and then promptly investigate all the scientist who told it what it didn’t want to hear? Do you think that government funded scientist aren’t persuaded to give their sponsors what the want but privately funded scientists aren’t? Do you think Dr. Soon would receive government funding for his work, and if not what should he do? Retire and stop doing work that’s challenging the popular assumptions?
Leif, have you heard of DDT? Which was castigated by mainstream government scientists for 35 years as dangerous and harmful. With somewhere in the region of 70 million unnecessary deaths
Or, are you aware that Dt. Atkins of the “Atkins diet” was wrong about the relationship between carbohydrates for 35 years, but now isn’t. In the meantime the proposed consensus solution appears to have given rise to an obesity epidemic in the USA as predicted by Atkins and pooh hooed by to consensus
You take away the wonder of science if you say emphatically that people are wrong and you are right when the scientific evidence is based on models, and theories with huge gaps in the knowledge. Science never progresses by consensus and agreement it progresses by people like Dr. Soon, being wrong maybe, but challenging the smug acceptance of conventional wisdom.
lsvalgaard- A newer version doesn’t make it correct. These are reconstructions, not actual measurements and considering what has happened with other reconstructions, I’m tempted to go with the older versions Maybe Soon has better reasons. Best to ask about that before labeling it bad science.
Wang, Krivova? The data should be between 1365-1366 Wm-2? http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2009RG000282/pdf
Yes, there are several modern reconstructions, e.g.
http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-recon3.png
Here is also an example of poor science.
http://www.energyadvocate.com/gc1.jpg
Here is another example of poor ‘science’.
Abstract
The Key Role of Heavy Precipitation Events in Climate Model Disagreements of Future Annual Precipitation Changes in California
Climate model simulations disagree on whether future precipitation will increase or decrease over California, which has impeded efforts to anticipate and adapt to human-induced climate change……..Between these conflicting tendencies, 12 projections show drier annual conditions by the 2060s and 13 show wetter. These results are obtained from 16 global general circulation models downscaled with different combinations of dynamical methods…
http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00766.1
Robert B February 25, 2015 at 3:12 am
lsvalgaard- A newer version doesn’t make it correct. These are reconstructions, not actual measurements
The newer reconstructions are based on actual measurements. The Hoyt&Schatten reconstruction used by Soon is not based on ANY measurements of solar radiation, but on [dubious] guess work extrapolated from solar activity proxies: “These indices are (1) the equatorial solar rotation rate, (2) the sunspot structure, the decay rate of individual sunspots, and the number of sunspots without umbrae, and (3) the length and decay rate of the sunspot cycle.”, see their paper http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/93JA01944/abstract
Now, now. Don’t feed the microsecond trolls, you two.
Folks are free to comment on what they like and, let’s be fair, the hysterical irrationality of the trolls makes more people question the “official line” than the failure of the climate to behave as prophesied. In fact, their ability to ridicule the warmist cause is so rotund that I’ve often wonder if these trolls might not the fabled “deniers” pretending to be the most maniacal wamists in order to ridicule them all.
February 24, 2015 9:28 pm
“Oh for the days when we talked about science.”
Your first paragraph told us you have made up your mind on EVERYTHING!!!
NOW, with your leaders being shown to be the usual con artists, a lack of observations and science to back up your scams. you want to talk about SCIENCE??? YOU NEVER TALKED ABOUT SCIENCE!!! Y’all only lectured us on how stupid we were and how much smarter y’all were!!!
There was and is plenty of talk about Science on the sceptic sites which only drew your fan boys to deride and insult us.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Editor
February 24, 2015 9:29 pm
Interestingly, I find it surprisingly easy to converse perfectly civilly with scientists who stridently disagree with me. I had a very interesting discussion on Stoat that was quite productive. Also, with Dr. Venema in a thread Sou set up for us and others.
I find if you strictly avoid politics, you can learn a lot from these guys, and maybe you can even make ’em think twice.
Thanks. Only a Citizen Scientist. But I have very many brothers: Everyone, everyone, no matter what they believe, no matter what they have done — who has ever surveyed a surface station is my brother and comrade at arms. Also those who tried and failed.
As for the ones I have corresponded with, well, they have their objectives, I have mine, and I say so plain out. They need to know if the microsite issue is for real, and they actually want to. They are also interested in the problems with adjustment. Whereas I need to be fully and amply prepared for a very gnarly hairy eyeball during peer review. There will be questions. I’d just as soon have some answers.
The deeper I get into the data the more I sound like Mosh. (We are barking up different trees. Yet we are barking in the same direction.)
February 24, 2015 9:33 pm
Tom,
I do not see how our low emissions have much effect on the current warming period or the past cooling period or the warming before that – and so on. Insofar as Earth’s atmosphere was dangerously low of the plant food (CO2) not too long ago, I am pleased that it is now higher. I’d also like a smaller government and less waste. Whatever you mean by “green energy” (maybe solar and wind? – in truth, not very green) being a solution of something – well, so far, it is a nice wealth redistribution from the low and middle classes to the well-off. It cannot, and does not, provide utility scale electric power 24/7 for 365 days each year. That’s the sort of power my refrigerator, freezer, and heating and cooling systems need.
February 24, 2015 9:38 pm
We’re enjoying the weakest solar maximum in a hundred years that followed an extended minimum.
Atmospheric temperature has flatlined for the past 18 years, and EVERY ocean’s rate of SS temperature increase is declining while the Southern ocean’s is in freefall.
Notice a relationship here???
Celebrate every day within which Dr. Soon’s research continues!!!
Note how today’s temperatures are like they were 100 and 200 years ago [or NOT].
============
“Climate change: According to a study by professors at the University of Minnesota Duluth, Lake Superior may have warmed faster than its surrounding area.[20] Summer surface temperatures in the lake appeared to have increased by about 4.5 °F (2.5 °C) since 1979, compared with an approximately 2.7 °F (1.5 °C) increase in the surrounding average air temperature. The increase in the lake’s surface temperature may be related to the decreasing ice cover. Less winter ice cover allows more solar radiation to penetrate and warm the water. If trends continue, Lake Superior, which freezes over completely once every 20 years, could routinely be ice-free by 2040.[21] This would be a significant departure from historical records as, according to Hubert Lamb, Samuel Champlain reported ice along the shores of Lake Superior in June 1608”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Superior#Climate_change
Great Lakes are FINALLY ice free after record breaking seven months frozen
June 10, 2014
It has been a long, cold winter for much of America – but the Great Lakes have really suffered. Forecasters finally revealed today that all of the Great Lakes including Lake Superior are now ice free. It marks the end of a record breaking 7 month stretch where the lakes were covered in at least one ice cube, which is the longest period since satellite records began back in the 70’s.
*******************
Fall snow cover in Northern Hemisphere was most extensive on record, even with temperatures at high mark
December 4
In 46 years of records, more snow covered the Northern Hemisphere this fall than any other time. It is a very surprising result, especially when you consider temperatures have tracked warmest on record over the same period.
-WaPo
*******************
The constantly-revised globally-averaged “temperature” apparently has no meaningful relationship to the real world, so we should probably ignore it.
February 24, 2015 10:06 pm
Mr. Fuller, with regard to the first line of your essay,
I believe “current warming period” is an oxymoron since it is not currently warming. Also “our high emissions of CO2” is contrary since our emissions are incredibly small compared to natural emissions. Even “science explaining how” doesn’t work for me because science currently doesn’t explain the pause or hiatus we are in. I would just throw that whole first sentence out.
Beyond that, what really is a liberal progressive? Is that like “freedom for me through restriction of you”?
You could characterize it a warming period in that surface trend remains flat, but some heat is being convected into the oceans. This is typical of negative PDO periods.
Of course, the recent NASA study refutes the overall hypothesis that the “missing heat” is residing below 2000m. However, we are experiencing a flat surface trend in a cooling period.
I have to disagree. We have been neutral in the pacific, not cooling, basically La Nada. And the AMO has yet to really turn…
?w=520&h=395
You have pointed out that the surface stations have adjusted the Rural to the urban, and not properly accounted for the UHI affect. Perhaps it is better to go with the satellites, and they show us turning the corner and cooling.
February 24, 2015 10:14 pm
c’mon, u know it’s time to accept CAGW is real (sarc) when –
18 Feb: Citigroup: Citi Announces $100 Billion, 10-Year Commitment to Finance Sustainable Growth
New York – Citi announced today a landmark commitment to lend, invest and facilitate a total of $100 billion within the next 10 years to finance activities that reduce the impacts of climate change and create environmental solutions that benefit people and communities. Citi’s previous $50 billion goal was announced in 2007 and was met three years early in 2013.
With this $100 billion initiative, Citi will build on its leadership in renewable energy and energy efficiency financing to engage with clients to identify opportunities to finance greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions and resource efficiency in other sectors, such as sustainable transportation…
http://www.citigroup.com/citi/news/2015/150218a.htm
how fascinating it would be to know what these “impressive” figures actually mean!
loans at interest to renewable companies might be at the top of the list!
Pat:- If your supposition about loans to renewable energy companies is correct ,and because the interest on the loans comes from the subsidies paid to suppliers of renewables , the Citigroup is profiting from green taxes on working families . Since these will only ever increase , especially after Paris 2015, it is a no-risk operation for Citigroup.
Truly bankers are the cleverest people on the planet.
February 24, 2015 10:17 pm
As a “lukewarmist” you should have your head examined to make sure the logic and reasoning side of your brain is working!
If you were a lay person I would be kinder to you and write civilly, but you are a scientist. A paid professional and regardless of who is paying you it’s money that you don’t deserve. I am intolerant of stupid people who are paid to pretend they are intelligent. Find another career, then I’ll be happy to take as much time as necessary to explain to you civilly why AGW is nothing but pseudo science.
As a “lukewarmist” you should have your head examined to make sure the logic and reasoning side of your brain is working!
Well technically I am a “lukewarmist” so I would have to take Mr Fuller’s side on that one. I describe myself as a skeptic though because I recognize that the debate has become polarized. On one side are people who want to take draconian measures because of the science, and on the other are people who believe the science doesn’t justify taking draconian measures. The only middle ground left belongs to the apathetic majority who prefer not to think about such things lest they have to make a decision for themselves.
‘On one side are people who want to take draconian measures because of the science, and on the other are people who believe the science doesn’t justify taking draconian measures’
Wrong!
On one side are people who want to take draconian measures and use ‘science’ as an excuse and on the other are people who know what the word science means.
You took the words out of my mouth.
What a bunch of crap.
There is noting wrong with our climate.
In fact the current weather pattern is very similar to the winter of 1934.
This means that nothing has changed at all.
What worries me is that the same clique pushing for a global CO2 tax are the same sociopaths rigging our economies and our financial system and promote a shooting war with a nuclear power to provide them with a scape goat when the house of cards collapses.
They’re traitors and criminals.
Still the sheeple keep quiet while their henchmen continue their attacks on human civilization because that’s what their “saving the planet” is all about.
http://green-agenda.com
As a “lukewarmist” you should have your head examined to make sure the logic and reasoning side of your brain is working!
Does that mean I should have my head examined?
If you were a lay person I would be kinder to you and write civilly, but you are a scientist.
Isn’t that all the more reason for kindness and civility?
February 24, 2015 10:20 pm
Tom,
first you assert –
“As a Lukewarmer I cheerfully accept the science explaining how our high emissions of CO2 have contributed to the current warming period.”
“Climate change is real.”
and then you lament –
“Oh for the days when we talked about science.”
Tom, all sceptics ever wanted to do was debate the science. It has been the alarmists and lukewarmers standing in the way. Alarmists don’t want debate as they fear the critical flaws in the AGW hypothesis will be exposed. Lukewarmers don’t really want to debate the science because they don’t understand it.
You don’t understand radiative physics or fluid dynamics Tom, so when you say you “cheerfully accept the science”, you haven’t. You have just taken peoples word for it. You haven’t checked for yourself. This is why we are in this mess, too many have done as you have done and believed without evidence.
As a “liberal progressive”, you are soon going to be getting some very bad news. It’s not the “warming but less than we thought” soft landing you and yours are now praying for. It’s “AGW is a physical impossibility”.
I know you don’t understand the science but I will try to explain. Climastrologists made a critical mistake in the very foundation of the “basic physics” of their “settled science”. Climastrologists assumed the surface of our planet to be a near blackbody that could only heat to 255K for an average of 240 w/m2 of solar radiation if there were no radiative atmosphere. They then claimed our radiative atmosphere was raising that by 33K to our current 288K.
Little problem, 71% of our planet’s surface is ocean. The oceans are nowhere close to a near blackbody, instead they are an extreme SW selective surface. The sun alone could drive our oceans to 335 or beyond if it were not for cooling by our radiatively cooled atmosphere.
This is not small mistake. This is a critical error. It means the unproven radiative GHE hypothesis that is the foundation for AGW claims is totally and utterly wrong. Our radiatively cooled atmosphere is cooling the surface of our planet, not warming it.
Tom, this error is to huge to be hidden. No amount of political games can engineer a soft landing for any of the AGW fellow travellers. Words and politics cannot change the physics. The oceans are an extreme SW selective surface and that is that. Every activist, journalist and politician who promoted this sorry hoax is going to get their public face, metaphorically speaking, punched to custard. It’s plane tickets to Brazil time. As a “liberal progressive” you just have to cheerfully accept that.
Boy I hope you are right Konrad. It seems to me that it would not be the first time that a lot of scientist were wrong on a fundamental. All I know is that when I was working on top of an F111 in midday New Mexico (1972) the dark green surface was so hot it would burn your hands. I was afraid my shoe soles were going to melt.
February 24, 2015 10:32 pm
no GREATER CAUSE than this:
24 Feb: CarbonBrief: Simon Evans: MEPs vote for early EU carbon market fix
Analysts say the reforms could see EU carbon prices more than double by 2020, to between €17 and €35 per tonne. Member states must still back any reforms to the ETS, however…
With today’s vote, the European Parliament’s environment committee says the reserve should be established in 2018 and should be operating by 31 December 2018. This leaves ambiguity over the start date, which could come during 2018 or perhaps only at the start of 2019…
A final decision on reforms will need the backing of the European Commission and EU member state governments in a process known as trialogue negotiations. Member state agreement will be the hardest to secure…
Around 80 per cent of council decisions are taken by consensus. If this is not possible, then the decision is taken by qualified majority vote.
The voting system was changed last year. The changes reduce the voting power of smaller member states, while increasing it for the likes of the UK and Germany. However, until 2017, any member state can ask for the old voting rules to apply. Poland is likely to do this, as standard bearer for the opponents of ambitious EU ETS reform, and because it has reduced voting power under the new rules…
Sandbag would like the EU to cancel some suprlus allowances to “ramp up its climate offer”…
If the reforms backed today by the European Parliament were implemented, they would be expected to increase prices to between roughly €17 and €35 by 2020, according to differing forecasts from market analysts Thomson Reuters Point Carbon and ICIS Tschach Solutions.
Sandbag argues these price forecasts are too high because electricity consumption in the EU will continue to fall faster than expected while the increasing penetration of renewables will make life more difficult for gas- and coal-fired power stations, reducing their incentive to trade ETS allowances in advance…
DISCLOSURE: * Sandbag and Carbon Brief both receive funding from the European Climate Foundation
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2015/02/meps-vote-for-early-eu-carbon-market-fix/
if only the public understood this. they surely don’t understand the science.
February 24, 2015 10:37 pm
I believe that green energy can provide a partial solution to some of those problems.
What problems? You’ve placed your horse before your cart. There is no general agreement there are climate problems. There are modeled fantasies that hint at it but when rigorous science is applied the problems are identified as modeling errors.
There is general agreement that there are climate problems among the vast majority of the world’s governments, scientific organizations and large companies. There are also some skeptics, both in the climate sciences and among the general public. If by the words “general agreement” you mean everyone agreeing with AGW you are correct. But that is not true of governments, scientific organizations and large companies.
Seriously Chris!?
Are you saying that there are governments claiming there are ‘problems’, which they say they the need to ‘solve’ for the ‘public’ good, and which require them to increase their spending and regulation?
Whodathunkit!?
And equally seriously: Are you equating “climate problems” (in the beginning of your short comment) with some (unspecified) “AGW” towards its end!?
February 24, 2015 10:51 pm
I am curious as to what events Mr. Fuller sees as “climate change.” We all agree that the Earth’s climate changes over the centuries, and even moreso over the eons. Studying the geologic history of the Earth really opens one’s eyes to the reality of that change, but at the same time, realizing that it has gone from “snowball Earth” to “hothouse Earth” and back, many times, and without human influence, I have to wonder what anyone is seeing today that is any different from those natural cycles.
Sure, Boston had a lot of snow this winter. But it’s not unprecedented. You know how we know that? Because 20,000 years ago, Boston was under a kilometer of ice, which didn’t get there without there being lots of snow over a long period of time.
Now, I’ve been around this global warming thing since the beginning. Then, there was no talk about increased cold, or more snow — it was all about getting hotter and hotter, with more storms, and snow would be a thing of the past that our grandchildren would never see, and so forth. When none of that appeared to be happening, the goalposts were moved over to *stonger*, not more numerous, storms, and maybe *more* snow at times. In effect, any pattern of weather change could be blamed on it — but a hypothesis that predicts anything and can’t be proven false is not science
February 24, 2015 10:54 pm
I believe that green energy can provide a partial solution to some of those problems.
It occurs to me that coal might be the greenest energy source we have. You burn it and what you get is energy, particulates (captured these days at the smokestack)… and plant food.
I dare you to show any similar benefits to plants from solar or wind power. Green my ***
Chris
If particulates are captured at the smokestack, then why do India and China, with their high % of coal fired power, have the most polluted cities on earth?
Several reasons.
All basically come back to “Poverty kills. Energy-starved poverty kills quicker. ONLY RICH COUNTRIES with energy readily available can afford to control pollution.
One. A million small fires on inefficient, manually-fed coal, wood, paper, and dung fires for heat, cooking, light (dung much less so in the cities, but the region around the cities? Many hundreds of thousands of fires out there as well every day.)
No auto emissions controls nor cat converters being kept up-to-date, inspected, replaced.
Bad gas being used in what cat converters are present, so even newer cars get screwed up quickly.
BAD – very bad – controllers and particle filters on the hundreds of thousands of older burners and heaters and industrial shops around the area that cannot afford to update.
No or poorly-maintained particle filters on the older fossil plants still in use. If I add clean filters to 1 plant, but have 12 still burning the old way, will I see an improvement right away? No. Not until I shutdown or fix the old ones!
Get them out of poverty. Get cleaner, healthier people. Force artificially high energy prices? Kill them.
icouldnthelpit
Thankyou for that exposition. I still see your complete agreement with the article but no “remark” except for your addition of a comment about the behaviour of your left eyebrow.
Perhaps in future when you want to comment on an article that you completely agree then you could be more clear by merely thanking its author for the article.
Richard
The purpose of the post was to delve into the willingness of people like you to ignore the logs in their own eyes while whining about motes in the eyes of others.
It also dealt with the eagerness of your side to ignore the science and attack those who disagree with you on anything else.
Thank you for being willing to be the poster child for such nonsense.
icouldnthelpit
In this sub-thread you have written
Richard. I don’t know why you say I completely agree with the article and I’m not entirely sure that I want to know.
and in reply to Bob Boder saying
icouldnthelpit
So you disagree with Soon and think he should be attacked, I got it. Luckily everyone knows your a troll and could careless what you think.
you replied
Bob. No, I didn’t say that either. For the record I lean toward the opinion that Soon shouldn’t be attacked.
So, you say you don’t “completely agree with the article” and suggest you do “disagree with Soon”.
Perhaps it is time for you to plainly state what you do think of the article because – at present – your wriggling is making you a laughing stock.
Richard
February 25, 2015 12:30 am
There is no such thing as a ‘greenhouse gas’ in earth’s atmosphere. The closest effect to a ‘greenhouse’ anyone can observe is heavy cloud cover. The cloud can reduce the rate of cooling of the surface because of NET back radiation from the bottom of the cloud layer which is slightly cooler that the surface. If the sun is shining above the cloud everyone can feel it is not warming up below the cloud.
Please post any link to the science that explains how ‘greenhouse gases’ raise the temperature of the earth by 33 degrees.
Richard,
you are correct. There is no net atmospheric radiative GHE raising surface temperatures from 255K by 33K. The net effect of our radiatively cooled atmosphere is surface cooling. 71% of the surface of our planet is ocean, an extreme UV/SW/IR selective surface. Incident solar radiation alone would drive it to 335K were it not for cooling by our radiatively cooled atmosphere.
But you are only partially correct with this –
“The cloud can reduce the rate of cooling of the surface”
Both water vapour and especially condescended water (cloud, the strongest emitter of LWIR in the atmosphere) can reduce surface cooling rates at night, but only over land. Land only accounts for 21% of our ocean planet’s surface. Some wet vegetated areas of this would experience no measurable effect. And over the oceans? Empirical experiment consistently shows that incident LWIR emitted from the atmosphere has no effect on the cooling rate of the oceans.
How on earth did the inane climastrologists come up with that utterly incorrect 255 K figure for “surface without radiative atmosphere” on our ocean planet? They used the Stefan-Boltzmann equation! It doesn’t work for solar illuminated water. It can not possibly work for 71% of our planets surface!
Seriously, you cannot use the S-B calc for materials that are SW transparent, LWIR opaque that are being intermittently SW illuminated. To claim otherwise you would have to be completely scientifically illiterate or a Climastrologist.
I have checked this with multiple empirical experiments. My claim – “97% of climastrologists are assclowns” is scientifically correct, and unassailable. 😉
Richard 12:30am – MikeB’s 1:01am link works thru to correct conclusions you asked about based on/traceable to the scientific method as laid out by Dr. Feynman. The ref.s I’ve included below also do so. The 3:33am comment does not demonstrate using the scientific method, has conclusions based only on political science as discussed in top post. Willis’ recent post I’ve added shows that S-B is reasonably applicable to calculate sea surface temperature (SST) from satellite radiometer data because oceans test out both as near black body surface and selective surface as demonstrated by numerous scientific method testing. Comment at 3:33am experiments all corroborate those tests. Top post quote works:
“Oh for the days when we talked about science.”
——-
Ref. 1: http://faculty.washington.edu/dcatling/Robinson2014_0.1bar_Tropopause.pdf
Ref.s 2: Bohren, C. 1985, 1998, 2006 Chapter 1, p. 33
Ref. 3: Willis E.: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/02/21/the-tao-calculated-surface-datasets/
February 25, 2015 12:46 am
…As a Lukewarmer I cheerfully accept the science explaining how our high emissions of CO2 have contributed to the current warming period….
That’s not how science is done. That’s laying yourself open to being conned. Because science is about scepticism and examining the evidence for an assertion critically…
…As a liberal progressive I support large-scale (government and NGO) efforts to address the pressing problems of today. …
That’s not being a good citizen. That’s laying yourself open to being enslaved. Because being a good citizen is about holding governments to account and checking that each government power really is essential and properly administered…
He’s demonstrated that he isn’t a great thinker. After 100 years of evidence, anyone who believes that govt is capable of solving the pressing problems of any era, just isn’t paying attention.
Heck, he even believes that “renewables” are capable of supplying more than a trivial fraction of our energy needs.
February 25, 2015 12:46 am
“Because none of this is about science. It is about controlling the levers of power, making sure the right message is fed through the media channels and that funding for the right issues is uninterrupted.” Unfortunately a great deal of this is actually about hypocrisy, control of the lumpen proletariat and central command and control of resources by the “worthy and wise” (in their view).
MikeB, The repeated personal moral failings of those who claim the moral high ground on environmentalist grounds… they make the hypocritical greens look silly. But you are right that wrestling with pigs makes anyone dirty.
Still, the post makes a good point.
It is worth noting that Gleick’s forgeries are considered normal practise by the climate science establishment… and that hypocrisy for personal gain (Gore) is accepted and rewarded.
So why are ancient allegations against Soon brought up? Allegations that even Monbiot has had to apologise for. Well, other than the fact that the paper can’t be faulted so the author must be targeted, obviously.
Perhaps because these working practises are so embedded amongst climate “scientists” that they assume everyone else is corrupt too?
Still, the post makes a good point.
It is worth noting that Gleick’s forgeries are considered normal practise by the climate science establishment… and that hypocrisy for personal gain (Gore) is accepted and rewarded.
————————————-
Peter Gleick was the head of the Ethics Committee (and may still be?)
Ethics, lying and stealing are unrelated.
A liar and a thief are the same.
Some advice my dad passed on to my brothers and I from our grandfather.
“Never give someone reason to call you a liar, a thief or a cheat.” The actions Tom Fuller relates above speak to the lack of integrity of the individuals named and those organizations that fail to speak up. Now Embarrased, integrity may not be important to you. If so, they perhpas this is all silly. I prefer to go with my grandfather’s advice.
February 25, 2015 1:07 am
The bleating of AGW proponents and alarmists has become more insistent and earnest. In the absence of any obvious climate catastrophe, let alone the slightest evidence, I can only conclude that the alarmists understand at some level that are losing the “debate,” such as it has been. The greenhouse theory was always nothing more than a house of cards built upon computer models that were never any match for the infinite variables and their chaotic interactions which make up our climate systems. Mother Nature, herself, is destroying this global warming delusion.
February 25, 2015 1:31 am
Re: Dr. Soon’s Graphs
Here is Dr. Svalgaard’s contribution to debate
http://www.leif.org/research/Temp-Track-Sun-Not.png
Here is Dr Schmidt (RC) contribution to debate
http://www.realclimate.org/images/soon_update.jpg
I would suggest that all three, however well respected scientists (Soon, Schmidt & Svalgaard) are partially wrong, because:
There is also geomagnetic ‘solar forcing’ with identifiable effect on the Arctic polar vortex.
I thought that GISTEMP does not have actual temperature measurements above 64N, they are all calculated from stations a considerable distance away. If that is the case, I don’t know that you can objectively say that the ‘increasing’ Arctic temps are ‘real’. At the very least any temperature reconstruction should have the error bars clearly displayed.
Vukcevic contribution to debate:
N. Hemisphere climate is under control of polar and sub-tropical jet-streams, whereby the long term zonal-merdional positioning of jet streams depends on the extent and strength of three primary cells (Pollar, Ferral and Hadley).
Since Equatorial temperature changes little, it is the Arctic temperature which moves jet streams latitudinal location.
It is true that the Arctic temperatures are not particularly accurate, but trend along polar circle (where Pollar & Ferral cells meet) is an acceptable representation, in that respect it is correct that Dr. Schmidt draws attention to the Arctic temperatures.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/AT-GMF1.gif
Strong correlation between the Arctic temperature anomaly and averaged strength of the geomagnetic field (R2>0.8) is not necessarily proof of causation, but it is stronger than what Dr. Soon proposes, on the other hand Dr. Schmidt and Dr. Svalgaard, pursuing their own different agendas, may wish to discredit.
A ‘little’ matter of mechanism
Solar magnetic activity reaches the Earth’s poles in form of geomagnetic storms. NASA: “a two-hour average sub-storm releases total energy of five hundred thousand billion (5 x 10^14) Joules. That’s approximately equivalent to the energy of a magnitude 5.5 earthquake”
This is in form of the electric current ionising upper layers of the atmosphere, whereby the flow of atmospheric flow is affected by the strength of the magnetic field (Lorentz law). Assuming that the sun varies little over centuries, the Earth’s field (i.e. magnetospheres shielding) is not constant (currently loosing its strength), weaker the magnetic field, stronger the solar incursion, stronger the effect on the climate.
The effect can be clearly seen in the graph above.
There is obviously a relationship between the Sun and earths climate. To think not, you’d have to be brain dead. There is a relationship between CO2 and our climate, to think not you’d have to be brain dead as well. The problem is there are an enormous amount of factors involved and we do not understand their relationships and importance in the mix.
Predicting climate behavior by fabricating correlations with little understanding of the system as a whole does require certain parts of the brain to go dead. I think it’s the parts related to rationality and common sense.
So the search for the “ONE” climate factor that controls everything, is akin to searching for the holy grail.
February 25, 2015 1:44 am
…That seems like a pretty good reason for being an Alarmist to me. I think I’ll change sides….
There’s a much better one.
If you’re a Global Warming Alarmist people will queue up to give you money and Nobel prizes. And you don’t actually need to deliver anything. Just keep saying that humanity is doomed…
February 25, 2015 1:45 am
Great modding! This is an article by Tom Fuller – a not very good one – and it is immediately hijacked by Bevan and turned into a rehash of all the arguments for/agin Soon that have been rehearsed ad-nauseum on other threads. I bet Bevan is feeling very smug.
However, back to Fuller. He says: “As a Lukewarmer I cheerfully accept the science explaining how our high emissions of CO2 have contributed to the current warming period” What warming period? Don’t you mean the last (20c) warming period?.
Then: “As a liberal progressive I support large-scale (government and NGO) efforts to address the pressing problems of today.” Well, of course you do, Tom. That’s what Liberals do: seek control. Especially when such control will benefit your personal welfare, derived as it is from solar. And, of course, it’s not enough that you accept control from elected government, you’re happy to accept control from unelected NGOs. How does that sit with your conscience?
If Tom Fuller was to use the God-given intelligence he had he wouldn’t spout such claptrap.
Evan: You being a ‘liberal progressive in many ways’, does that mean you believe in “…[supporting] large-scale (government and NGO) efforts to address the pressing problems of today.” as Fuller says he does? And if you you do, does that inform your work? I would not have thought so based on what I have read of your comments at WUWT.
Sir, you have never in my experience sounded remotely like Mosh. You have not, to my awareness regularly insulted the entire skeptical community with straw man statements, then refused to engage in rational discussion when called out on the illogic of your statements. I believe you pointed out that the homogenization process apparently adjusts the good stations to the bad.
What do you think of what homogenization did to the Iceland stations?
February 25, 2015 1:58 am
…As a Lukewarmer I cheerfully accept the science explaining how our high emissions of CO2 have contributed to the current warming period….
Supposing I could give you a mathematical proof that climate problems are of such an order of chaotic complexity that the last thing that can be said is that they have an external cause?
“As a liberal progressive I support large-scale (government and NGO) efforts to address the pressing problems of today. ”
Supposing I could give you a mathematical proof that social problems are of such an order of chaotic complexity that the last thing that will work is large scale government intervention?
In short your no doubt admirable intentions and impeccable logic are based on two fundamentally flawed assumptions:
– that climate change is caused by an external influence rather than just being ‘what climate does, anyway, all by itself’.
– that the problems of society at large can be solved by channelling huge amounts of money not through the decision making processes of the individual whose problems you are trying to solve, but through a vast bureaucracy controlled by a de facto elite who are not necessarily acting in anyone’s interests but their own, don’t necessarily listen to the real problems of the individual, and even if they do, don’t understand enough about the actual situation to make any difference at all?
You seem a decent enough chap: Consider this. The purpose of what we mildly libertarian chaps here call ‘cultural Marxism’ is to place beyond question the fundamental proposition that big government is the answer to everything. You have swallowed that line.
I have not.
But then I trained as an engineer and the control of large complex dynamic systems is something engineers have to deal with on a daily basis, and I know that the only way even a mildly complicated mechanism like – say – an aircraft – works, is by having many many systems of localised command and control. So that in the end, central government – the pilot – really only makes a few top level decisions like where the damned thing is going to land.
Now if you had asked me, or any other engineer, what to ‘do about climate change’, and we had gone away and analysed it, the answers would have been as follows.
1/. Climate change is endemic to the climate system, and is beyond our control.,
2/. Carbon emissions probably have very little effect on climate, and are unstoppable at a practical political level short of nuking the whole of India and China anyway.
3/. If you want the most cost effective way of reducing them in the west, a 100% nuclear powered society is way the best and cheapest option.
4/. Renewable energy so called is an engineering cul-de-sac because it relies on so much non-renewable energy to make it work.
5/. Ergo, in terms of energy generation the most effective central government response would be to tear up the stifling regulations on nuclear power and start again, allowing nuclear plant to be built cheaply, efficiently and safely.
6/. Insofar as climate change goes, the real science suggest that natural variation of ± 2°C is to be expected from within the dynamics of the system itself, and that ice ages of considerable depth and length are also well documented. Within the smaller variation the policy objectives are simple. Have some contingency funds in place to deal with the short term effects but don’t waste time trying to control the climate. It can’t be done (yet) and the possibility of making things much worse if you try – or simply wasting a huge amount of money and achieving nothing are considerable. If the ice age cometh, all bets are off anyway, and as far as the West is concerned, its genocide on the races inhabiting the warmer places, cultural suicide, or massive deployment of nuclear power to keep civilisation going in (under?) permafrost and ice capped regions.
The above are the rational scientific responses to climate change the scare story.
If people who really know are essentially promoting faux remedies to a non-existent problem, that doesn’t mean that the problem is real. It means they have other agendas than the solution of the non existent problems.
Why don’t you just give us a mathematical proof Leo?
The fact that problems are complex or chaotic doesn’t mean that you have turn your brain off. The movement of gas molecules in your lungs , their direction, momentum, collisions are beyond calculation. But, when your diaphragm raises you will breath out. I can predict that. Similarly, if the Sun’s intensity were to double, the temperature here would increase. I can predict that in spite of the climate system being chaotic.
….and, if CO2 concentrations increase, the surface temperature of this planet will increase, because that is simple science and the fact that you don’t understand it will not change it.
You can predict a living person breathing? Wow that’s impressive. Can you forecast what happens to a dead person breathing too? Careful now, consider your answer, we have machines that can keep a persons lungs breathing well after they are dead.
No one is turning their brain off except for those fixated on CO2 being the one singular lever that affects climate and humanity is the one singular variable that affects CO2 concentrations.
CO2 concentrations have increased but the warming is no where close to the relationship projected. Where have you been the last 20 years or so?
Mike,
You wrote, “(I)f CO2 concentrations increase, the surface temperature of this planet will increase, because that is simple science and the fact that you don’t understand it will not change it.”
But the science isn’t simple. Your assertion has already been repeatedly shown false. CO2 rose from 1945 to 1977 & the world cooled. It rose from 1978 to 1996 & the world did indeed warm slightly. But then it kept rising from 1997 until now, as global temperature stayed the same or slightly cooled.
The science isn’t simple because our planet is homeostatic. CO2 doesn’t rise in a vacuum. Earth responds. Besides which, humans also do things that have the effect of cooling the planet, although both our warming & cooling activities have negligible effect worldwide, although more pronounced locally.
@MikeB…
NOW… let us get to some facts about the atmosphere and Carbon Dioxide [CO2].
The atmosphere is: [approximately] 78% Nitrogen; 21% Oxygen; 0.04% CO2 and the rest made up of other trace gasses. Water Vapour varies from 1% to 4%
Amount of CO2 in the atmosphere = 0.04% which = 0.0004 of the atmosphere.
Man-made CO2 is 3% of that which = 0.0004×0.03 = 0.000012.
Burning fossil fuels is about 50% of that.
Therefore The amount of man-made CO2 from burning fossil fuels is about 0.000006 of the atmosphere.
It is absurd to think that this miniscule amount of CO2 can control climate.
Re: “… if CO2 concentrations increase, the surface temperature of this planet will increase… .”
Science does NOT say that. There is NO evidence that CO2 emissions drive climate. None.
Dr. Christopher Essex, Chairman, Permanent Monitoring Panel on Climate,
World Federation of Scientists, and Professor and Associate Chair,
Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Western Ontario (Canada)
in London, 12 February 2015
presents the actually state of the physics concisely and clearly here {WATCH THE ENTIRE VIDEO — I did and it is well worth it}:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/02/20/believing-in-six-impossible-things-before-breakfast-and-climate-models/
{video linked in above WUWT article and also here on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19q1i-wAUpY }
7 Key “Impossible Things” Points (listed at ~ 1:07:06 in the video} in Video with approx. times:
{25:17} 1. Solving the closure problem. {i.e., the “basic physic” equations have not even been SOLVED yet, e.g., the flow of fluids equation “Navier-Stokes Equations” — we still can’t even figure out what the flow of water in a PIPE would be if there were any turbulence}
{30:20} 2. a. Computers with infinite representation. {gross overestimation and far, far, misplaced confidence in the ability of computers to do math accurately (esp. over many iterations) — in this section he discuss the 100 km square gaps {specifically mentioned at about 46:00} (i.e., cell size) — e.g., to analyze air movement, the cell would need to be, per Komogorov microscale, 1mm (aersols even smaller, microns)) — in climate data,
at about 44:00 His discusses the fact that even IF the basic equations were known, there isn’t enough time since time began to calculate even just a TEN – year forecast, even at super-fast speeds it would take approx. 10 to the 20th power years (the universe is only 10 to the 10th power years old)}
2. b. Computer water and cultural physics {also in Intro through ~14:50}.
{19:40} 3. Greenhouses that don’t work by the greenhouse effect.
{14:50} 4. Carbon-free sugar.
{15:40} 5. Oxygen-free carbon dioxide.
{passim} 6. Nonexistent long-term natural variability.
{49:00} 7. Nonempirical climate models that conserve what they are supposed to conserve {that is, they do not do this}.
**********************************************************
Further, Dr. Murry Salby and others have good evidence from ice core proxies that strongly indicates that temperature drives CO2 emissions, not the other way around.
Dr. Salby, Hamburg lecture, April, 2013 (youtube)
“The above are the rational scientific responses to climate change the scare story”
Whoa! We can’t be having any of that now, can we?
/grin
“3/. If you want the most cost effective way of reducing them in the west, a 100% nuclear powered society is way the best and cheapest option.”
Probably a good idea anyway. I mean, really, isn’t this the 21st Century? Why not act like it is?
You have an erroneous idea about what a liberal progressive is. I am one. I am just as concerned about a big government as you are. It is just that we disagree as to why. My concern is that big governments are run by an a oligopoly who has bought the government lock, stock and barrel. The politicians are just their puppets. It is foolhardy to blame the puppets when we should be blaming the puppeteers.
February 25, 2015 2:41 am
…Carbon emissions probably have very little effect on climate, and are unstoppable at a practical political level short of nuking the whole of India and China anyway….
Er…nuking the whole of India and China (and probably much of the rest of Asia, Europe, and the Americas) would result in a HUGE carbon pulse, and lots of extra heat.
Besides, NASA satellites show major carbon outflows coming from the rain forest, so you’d better nuke that as well…
February 25, 2015 2:52 am
…As a liberal progressive I support large-scale (government and NGO) efforts to address the pressing problems of today….
…When a political cause gains traction among those in power, a curious thing happens. Conventional ideas about right and wrong slip in priority and winning becomes so important that criminal activity and sexual impropriety become forgivable…
So, let me get this straight. You believe whole-heartedly in big government addressing big problems. But you also believe that when big government gets involved, it becomes criminal and oppressive?
Hello, Liberal. Welcome to the Libertarian viewpoint. I think you now have two choices. You can either move to the right-wing, or you can argue that the ends justify the means, and adopt National Socialism….
Moving to the right wing is not a libertarian point of view. The right wing increases the scope and power of the federal government just as willy-nilly as the left does, mostly in the same areas with some differences in order to give people an excuse to keep voting.
The two party system sells the same snake-oil with different labeling and flavors. The federal government is a runaway bureaucracy, neither party is interested in fixing that, since that would mean diminishing their power.
FDR ran deficits, Truman ran deficits (but also surpluses with a GOP Congress & rapid defense cuts), Ike had surpluses with GOP Congresses but not with Democrat, JFK ran deficits, LBJ ran deficits, Nixon had just one surplus, thanks to Democrat Congresses, Ford ran deficits under Democrat Congresses, Carter ran deficits, Reagan ran deficits, thanks to his budgets’ being declared “DoA” by Tip, Clinton ran deficits until the GOP took control of Congress & Bush ran deficits, under mixed Congressional control. Despite precipitously pulling out of Iraq, Obama will have doubled in eight years or less the national debt accumulated by all previous presidents, even with the bank bailout of 2008.
timg56 – nice fact-free, drive by comment.
Here’s a civic lesson for you – the budget process starts with the President introducing a Budget request to the House, not vice versa: http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=155
Here is the impact of the deficit by Presidency: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/US_Federal_Debt_as_Percent_of_GDP_by_President.jpg
My point stands, feel free to challenge it, but please provide data sources.
Because no one can hold a candle to what the current resident of 1600 Penn. Ave. has done.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/09/03/yep-obamas-a-big-spender-just-like-his-predecessors/
The truly scary part is imagine what would have happened if the socialists, er, Democrats, had retained total control of government like they had his first two years.
Chris, I noticed you skipped several posts that directly countered your assertion, and ONLY responded to the one gratuitous insult.
I would add that republican politicians have often not represented conservative ideals. (Defining conservative as a belief in small and less intrusive government, as well as the American ideal of protection of individual liberty against any “group power”.)
When you start out extremely conservative, the only compromise is to more statist solutions. To the great harm of the ideals of the Untied States of America, the compromise has now, with the current POTUS, fundamentally transformed the greatest nation on earth. The only question is will the people wake up to the massive coming failures of central statist control, after they have seen the results of such folly and will there be enough of the Constitution left to initiate a recovery.
I used to argue for that Evan, but now I’m not so sure. If science triumphs it will take centuries, as always. The issue has become so polarised with so many interests invested in this billion dollar bandwagon that, for now, politics dominate.
As Max Planck said….
Truth never triumphs — its opponents just die out. Science advances one funeral at a time.
I see that Roger Pielke is now under investigation for his views by the House of Representatives Committee on Environment and Natural Resources. McCarthyism lives on.
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2015/2/25/why-you-cant-trust-climatology.html
February 25, 2015 4:03 am
The Sun plays an important part in our climate, who knew?
Both sides of the debate take money from fossil fuel, who knew?
Character assassination works, who knew?
The best mechanism to spread mis-information is the media, who knew?
The AGW movement easily manipulates the media, because the media is stupid, who knew?
Alarmist only have their stupidest be the first comment on WUWT articles, who knew?
Pachauri’s is morally bankrupt, who knew?
Pachauri’s and Gore have made fortunes off of the AGW hype, who knew?
Climate science wavers between poor science and anti-science, who knew?
Anyone paying attention knows.
Anyone enamored by the toxic stench coming from the morally bankrupt, heavily financed AGW industrial noise machine, not so much.
Alx, your item – “Both sides of the debate take money from fossil fuel, who knew?
If we compare the basic tenets of Political Correctness with classical Marxism the parallels are very obvious.
Third, just as in classical economic Marxism certain groups, i.e. workers and peasants, are a priori good, and other groups, i.e., the bourgeoisie and capital owners, are evil.
From – http://www.academia.org/the-origins-of-political-correctness/
You, and most all of us, have been programmed for 80 years to fall for the Good Group/Bad Group thinking. The Green Blob are not really good and want to either kill or put us back in caves. Just look at their ‘optimum population’ estimates.
The PC origins is an eye-opening historical account.
February 25, 2015 4:07 am
1. I don’t believe there’s a “problem” with climate that needs “solving”.
2. Making energy more expensive and less available is no “solution” to anything.
3. Government pretends to have “solutions” all the time. Name anything in the last 150 years that government has actually “solved”. (Military action doesn’t count)
February 25, 2015 4:30 am
A very good and just essay – Thank you!
Indeed, the ruling double standards of the MSM and the Greens are really sad and should be condemned more openly…
So, why don’t we see such little interest of discussing the alleged “Pachauri” case in the MSM and the warmists blogosphere?
And, why does e.g. nobody ask, why alarmist scientists like Rahmsdorf or Schnellnhuber are allowed to take money from insurance companies which will benefit from the extreme weather panic they propagate? See e.g. here:
http://www.klimaskeptiker.info/index.php?seite=rahmstorf.php
And so on, and so forth… – Hypocrisy is ruling the green movement!
So stop to smear others and mend your own ways first…
February 25, 2015 4:36 am
“Climate change is real.”
Tell us Mr. Fuller which climate on earth has changed in the last 100 years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%B6ppen_climate_classification
“Climate change” is a reification fallacy, a nonsense marketing phrase.
February 25, 2015 4:37 am
@Alx
…”Moving to the right wing is not a libertarian point of view. The right wing increases the scope and power of the federal government just as willy-nilly as the left does..”
I don’t know which right wing you’re talking about. Perhaps the mistaken view of the right wing which the Left have tried to present for ages? In all political theory I know, the right wing look for ‘small government’…
February 25, 2015 5:59 am
So warmists, no longer controlling the Senate with votes, now are intimidating potential witnesses having facts contrary to Global Warming Alarm. That would be witness tampering in a criminal proceeding, but apparently fair game in politics. We can only hope that the other side is as diligent in discovering the extent of environmental activist money funding alarmist research.
Still, anyone deciding to testify in the upcoming Senate hearing better be ready for the hard questions (echoes of the past):
“Are you confused between weather and climate change?”
“Do you accept the writings of the UN IPCC as the scientific truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?”
“Are you now, or have you ever been a member of any organization that believes CO2 is only a harmless trace gas and is essential to plant life?”
“Why is your carbon footprint so large?”
How long have you been taking money from fossil fuel companies?
“Do you advocate the overthrow of the United States Climate by force or violence?”
February 25, 2015 6:24 am
WUWT produces a lot of posts showing that the Climate Models are wrong. However, I think Christopher Essex’s video is a lot more damming. He provides an explanation of not only why the computer Climate Models are wrong, but also why they can NEVER be right. The models are not only broken, but they CAN NOT be fixed. This is why we are seeing all the puerile ad-hominem attacks.
February 25, 2015 6:28 am
hmm.
At least a few comments on Tom’s politics make me want to clarify my position.
I’m right of center and conservative, and I don’t think the government does much of anything well. I most certainly do not agree with Tom here: support large-scale (government and NGO) efforts to address the pressing problems of today. Mostly I wish the government would stay the heck out of it.
This wasn’t his point. He was openly stating his political views so that there be no misunderstanding of where he was coming from, that’s all he was doing there. Indeed, by highlighting that he’s from the left, he demonstrates that political differences need not trump integrity.
It’s hard to argue with that, in my view.
As always, just my two cents.
February 25, 2015 6:35 am
“As a Lukewarmer I cheerfully accept the science explaining how our high emissions of CO2 have contributed to the current warming period.
…
Oh for the days when we talked about science.”
And when we do talk about the science we discover that the exact amount of our “emissions of CO2 have contributed to the current warming period” is very much unsettled. It may be so little as to not be discernable by our modern technology. Indeed, no one has been able to measure and show proof that it is happening.
As for the “…” part of the OP, I suspect most of the skeptical folks would say that the deceptions, half-truths, and manipulated data contributed to their skeptical position.
February 25, 2015 6:35 am
Thank you for this post Mr. Fuller. While I’m not entirely in ideological agreement with you, I have been saying for years that the global warming issue has and continues to do harm to both science and environmentalism. I am a conservative and an environmentalist. No, those are not incompatible. Environmentalism needs to be rescued from this extremely divisive political schism.
February 25, 2015 6:41 am
The fact is the arctic is melting. All this crap for what? Politics? Many things contribute to it including human activities. But let’s be clear the Koch empire has an agenda. Their last scientist had to reverse his findings. So when a scientific report is funded for a particular result and a scientist works backwards to try and muddy the facts it is an issue. When the legislative body says no scientists allowed in a scientific conversation it is a problem.
Frankly I am tired of the corruption on both sides of the question. In the end we have to do what ever we can to take care of this planet to which we can not survive without. How is all that Hot radiation affecting the pacific right now? ……
Too bad it’s politics for corporate interests above human life. Frankly We still need all the energy. However we are allowing Russia and China to build an empire around us including renewable energy. There are good paying jobs in the wind industry. So why should I be worried about a couple of Billionaires, their paid propaganda, or them doubling their wealth? I think they are doing quite well as it is.
What are the solutions to the warming? How can we keep predator business separated from good business in renewable energy? Why are we still buying Chinese goods and letting them overtake us in the solar industry? Why do we let foreign investors take our land, run our country, and even have this discussion? We have a problem. Time to fix it and I do not see any solutions from the Koch empire except their own concern about their profits.
This country and it’s future is more important than the Koch empire or their crazy agenda.
Darnell, relax and listen to the ‘late’ comedian, George Carlin.
The planet is fine. Compared to the people, the planet is doing great. Been here four and a half billion years. Did you ever think about the arithmetic? The planet has been here four and a half billion years. We’ve been here, what? A hundred thousand? Maybe two hundred thousand? And we’ve only been engaged in heavy industry for a little over two hundred years. Two hundred years versus four and a half billion. And we have the CONCEIT to think that somehow we’re a threat? That somehow we’re gonna put in jeopardy this beautiful little blue-green ball that’s just a-floatin’ around the sun?
The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through all kinds of things worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles; hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors; worlwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages… And we think some plastic bags, and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet… the planet… the planet isn’t going anywhere. WE ARE!
See the rest at – http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/george-carlin-saving-the-planet.html
February 25, 2015 7:08 am
I’d like to make the obvious point that we are here and able to observe because we can. Whatever the climate or the conditions the biological thing that is now human has adapted to the conditions so that it can exist. At some time in the future all that is required for human existence will be manufactured from starlight, then we will live in starships flung far from here. Questioning.
February 25, 2015 7:44 am
“As a Lukewarmer I cheerfully accept the science explaining how our high emissions of CO2 have contributed to the current warming period. ”
As a scientist (post-graduate studies in chemical physics – the relationships between chemicals and their physical properties and behaviour) I reject the rhetoric that is used to ‘explain’ how ONLY our CO2 emissions have contributed to the (statistically insignificant) warming, and how only the diversion of all available resources will serve to ameliorate the problem.
The socio-economic “Solution” that was created as the savior of our planet from Carbon Pollution has taken on a life and an agenda of it’s own. It’s subversion is opening the door to fascist world domination and despotic controls. The ‘Great Cause’ doesn’t care what type of science is used to justify it, it only rejects skeptic science as “myths”. It is more important than ever that the public simply believes that the cause is “founded in settled science” and “get in line”, instead of wasting time trying to verify the science, as a consensus has already established the truth.
February 25, 2015 7:45 am
Re troll-feeding: Anonymous characters like ‘Bevan’ are basically agents provocateurs, who either for their own amusement or perhaps as ideologues enjoy disrupting Internet discussions in forums they disagree with. They cast idle remarks and insults gratuitously, expecting regulars to rise and take the bait, thereby derailing a thread by starting arguments. They are best ignored, but failing that may require attention from moderators to keep them in line. Readers of WUWT are confident and well-versed enough in the issues to let the trolls play, without succumbing to the flame wars they seek to ignite. But remember, that’s their aim.
/Mr Lynn
February 25, 2015 8:02 am
Tim Fuller wrote: “Oh for the days when we talked about science.”
Amen.
I only glanced at the enormous number of comments. I am going to try a shortcut. Some are claiming that Soon’s work has been refuted; have they given any references?
Is there any actual evidence that Soon has done something unethical? Not all journals require funding disclosure if there is no conflict of interest. Getting money from companies is not a conflict of interest, unless you stand to profit personally or give them editorial input. And those are conflicts for any funding source, including non-profits and the government.
For the record: I have looked at some of Soon’s papers and I have not been favorably impressed. But I like evidence, not innuendo.
February 25, 2015 8:23 am
Name calling may bring emotion satisfaction for the warmists. It will not however resolve the questions: 1) Why did the planet warmed in the last 150 years, 2) Why does the planet cyclically warms (same high latitude regions, same pattern of warming recently observed) and cools correlating with solar magnetic cycle changes, and 3) Will the planet warm or cool in the very near future. A very effective method to solve holistic physical problems, is to summarize all of the observations/paradoxes/anomalies related to the subject in question and then use the logic of the observations/analysis/paradoxes/anomalies to appropriately adjust/modify existing mechanisms, to develop new mechanisms, and to correct fundamental errors in theory.
It is a fact that the planet has cyclically warmed and cooled in the past and that solar magnetic cycle changes correlate with the cyclic warming and cooling of the planet. What is not known is how the solar changes cause the planet to cyclically warm and cool.
TSI (total solar radiation) changes or changes in greenhouse gases cannot be the explanation for the warming in the last 30 years. As the earth is a sphere due to the geometry of a sphere, the highest amount of TSI the earth receives is at the equator and the highest amount of long wave radiation emitted to space is hence also at the equator.
As greenhouse gases including CO2 are evenly distributed in the atmosphere, the highest amount of greenhouse gas warming should have occur at the equator. The same is true for an increase in TSI. As we are aware there has been almost no warming in the equatorial region, in the last 30 years. The fact that there has been almost no warming at the equator in the last 30 years is the ’20th century Latitude Warming Paradox’. A paradox is an observation that indicates there are one or more errors in the assumed mechanisms and related theories.
http://www.eoearth.org/files/115701_115800/115741/620px-Radiation_balance.jpg
http://www.eoearth.org/view/article/152458/
The majority of the warming in the last 30 years has been in high latitude regions, which supports the assertion that the majority of the warming in the last 30 years was not caused by increases in atmospheric CO2 and was not caused by TSI changes. The warming in the last 30 years is the same pattern of warming (high latitude warming) that occurs in the paleo record cyclically.
The majority of the warming in the last 30 years has caused by cloud modulation effects of solar wind bursts, primarily from coronal holes. What causes coronal holes to appear on the sun, at what latitude on the sun coronal holes appear at, and when in the solar cycle the coronal holes appear at is not known.
The solar wind bursts create a space charge differential in the ionosphere which causes a current flow at the poles and at the equator, with the return path being through the conductive ocean. This mechanism is called electroscavenging. The current flow in the atmosphere changes the amount of low level cloud in the high latitude regions and changes the optical properties and lifetime of clouds in the equatorial region (is the primary reason for El Niño events).
Due to the solar cycle 24 abrupt change to the solar magnetic cycle, the solar heliosphere density has reduced by 40%. The solar heliosphere is the name for the tenuous gas and pieces of magnetic flux that is ejected off the surface of the sun. The solar heliosphere extends well past the orbit of Pluto.
As noted in the 2013, AGU meeting there has been a 40% reduction in the solar heliosphere density. At the AGU 2013 meeting it was also noted that the reduction in the solar wind density has changed rise time of the solar wind bursts (the solar wind burst still occur but the rise time of the wind burst is significant less which in turn will reduce the solar wind bursts effect on the ionosphere, reduce the magnitude of the electroscangening effect.
Temporary offsetting the reduction in the rise time of the solar wind bursts is the temporary increase in the number of wind bursts. For some unexplained reason there have been a large number of coronal holes on the surface of the sun, in low latitude positions during solar magnetic cycle 24, however due to the reduction in the solar wind density the solar wind bursts have less effect on cloud modulation which explains why there has suddenly be an increase sea ice in the Antarctic, a recovery of sea ice in the Arctic, and an inhibiting of the formation of El Niño events.
The coronal holes are now starting to shrink in size on the sun and to move to higher latitude regions on the surface of the sun where they no longer affect the earth. This change in the size and location of the coronal holes on the sun has resulted in less solar wind bursts and smaller magnitude solar wind bursts which explains why there is suddenly high latitude cooling.
http://sait.oat.ts.astro.it/MmSAI/76/PDF/969.pdf
Once again about global warming and solar activity
Solar activity, together with human activity, is considered a possible factor for the global warming observed in the last century. However, in the last decades solar activity has remained more or less constant while surface air temperature has continued to increase, which is interpreted as an evidence that in this period human activity is the main factor for global warming. We show that the index commonly used for quantifying long-term changes in solar activity, the sunspot number, accounts for only one part of solar activity (William: Closed magnetic field) and using this index leads to the underestimation of the role of solar activity in the global warming in the recent decades. A more suitable index is the geomagnetic activity (William: Short term abrupt changes to the geomagnetic field caused by solar wind bursts, which are measured by the short term geomagnetic field change parameter Ak. Note the parameter is Ak rather than the month average with Leif provides a graph for. The effect is determined by the number of short term wind bursts. A single very large event has less affect than a number of events. As Coronal holes can persist for months and years and as the solar wind burst affect lasts for roughly week, a coronal hole has a significant effect on planetary temperature) which reflects all solar activity, and it is highly correlated to global temperature variations in the whole period for which we have data. ….
…The geomagnetic activity reflects the impact of solar activity originating from both closed and open magnetic field regions, so it is a better indicator of solar activity than the sunspot number which is related to only closed magnetic field regions. It has been noted that in the last century the correlation between sunspot number and geomagnetic activity has been steadily decreasing from – 0.76 in the period 1868- 1890, to 0.35 in the period 1960-1982, while the lag has increased from 0 to 3 years (Vieira
et al. 2001).
…In Figure 6 the long-term variations in global temperature are compared to the long-term variations in geomagnetic activity as expressed by the ak-index (Nevanlinna and Kataja 2003). The correlation between the two quantities is 0.85 with p<0.01 for the whole period studied. It could therefore be concluded that both the decreasing correlation between sunspot number and geomagnetic activity, and the deviation of the global temperature long-term trend from solar activity as expressed by sunspot index are due to the increased number of high-speed streams of solar wind on the declining phase and in the minimum of sunspot cycle in the last decades.
Solar wind bursts create a space charge differential in the ionosphere which removes ions from high latitude regions and adds ions to the tropical region, with the return current moving through the ocean. This phenomena is called electroscavenging.
See section 5a) Modulation of the global electrical circuit in this review paper, by solar wind bursts and the process electroscavenging. Solar wind bursts create a space charge differential in the ionosphere which removes cloud forming ions. As the electroscavenging mechanism removes ions even when GCR is high, electroscavenging can make it appear that GCR does not modulate planetary cloud if the electroscavenging mechanism is not taken into account.
http://www.utdallas.edu/physics/pdf/Atmos_060302.pdf
Atmospheric Ionization and Clouds as Links Between Solar Activity and Climate
Apart from the Georgieva et al. paper being poor science itself, the authors go to some length to try to show that solar activity is not the primary driver as it does not not match the temperature evolution since the 1970s: http://www.leif.org/research/Georgieva-Temp-SSN.png
February 25, 2015 9:17 am
Tom Fuller, a constant theme of the Progressive Left is that the fundamental reason why America is not taking effective action on climate change is that action is being blocked by right-wing politicians in the US Congress and in numerous state governments who are being funded by fossil fuel interests to oppose anti-carbon legislation.
However, there remains the fact that the EPA’s 2009 Endangerment Finding for carbon pollution, written under the authority of the Clean Air Act, has been upheld by the US Supreme Court. The 2009 finding enables the EPA to pursue aggressive action against carbon emissions, if the EPA chooses to do so.
The Executive Branch and the EPA now have full and unquestioned legal authority to regulate carbon emissions to the maximum extent possible under the Clean Air Act, and to do so without needing another word of new legislation from the US Congress.
President Obama has said that climate change represents a greater threat to America’s national security than does terrorism. An yet, the Obama Administration has not gone nearly as far as it legally could go in taking strong regulatory action against carbon emissions.
The Obama Administration’s existing climate action plan greatly favors natural gas at the expense of alternative energy resources such as wind, solar, and nuclear. Obama’s current plan guarantees that America will eventually be covered with fracking wells from one end of the country to the other.
The only practical way to reduce America’s carbon emissions to the extent that the Progressive Left claims is necessary is to artificially raise the price of all carbon fuels to levels which will make them uncompetitive in the energy marketplace.
This can be done without a legislated carbon tax through an integrated combination of two major anti-carbon measures administered by the EPA. The first measure would be to directly constrain emissions of carbon pollution through a specified series of local, state, regional, and national emission limits. The second measure would be to impose a corresponding framework of stiff carbon pollution fines which is the functional equivalent of a legislated carbon tax.
As long as the EPA properly followed its existing and well-tested regulatory rule-making processes and procedures; and as long as the anti-carbon regulations were themselves fair and impartial in their application, then this two-prong regulatory attack on carbon emissions could be made absolutely bulletprooof against the threat of lawsuits.
What it all boils down to is this: there exists today a clear and unambiguous legal pathway towards decarbonizing America’s economy, if the Progressive Left wants to pursue it.
Nothing that right-wing politicians could do short of repealing the Clean Air Act could stop the EPA from legally decarbonizing America’s economy, if the EPA were to be given instructions by the Obama Administration to use its full legal authority in pursuing that objective.
So tell us Mr. Fuller, why aren’t the most prominent leaders of America’s progressive left — Robert Kennedy Jr., Al Gore, Elizabeth Warren, Ed Markey, Bernie Sanders, Nancy Pelosi, etc. etc. etc. — why aren’t they all demanding that President Obama and the EPA use the full legal authority the Executive Branch already has in its hands to largely decarbonize America’s economy?
“Nothing that right-wing politicians could do short of repealing the Clean Air Act could stop the EPA from legally decarbonizing America’s economy, if the EPA were to be given instructions by the Obama Administration to use its full legal authority in pursuing that objective.”
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The EPA definition of CO2 as a pollutant, legal or not, is a travesty of politics over science. The EPA is now, nothing but a tool for the progressive agenda. It may be that the US has gone so far down the statist path that the EPA could mandate draconian CO2 cuts, which would have zero discernible affect on global average T, yet the reaction of the US populous would hopefully destroy the power granted to the EPA on the basis of failed alarmist science.
February 25, 2015 9:17 am
Big oil and Big green have a common interest, albeit unspoken.
Limiting the competition for its products makes what they have seem to
be more valuable then it would be in a truly competitive environment.
Promoting wind and solar which can never compete with hydrocarbons
and stopping nuclear promotes big oil.
When a billion dollar investment by any of the major oil companies could make liquid fluoride thorium reactors a reality in a few years, you have to ask yourselves about whether they really care about producing energy or whether they only care about producing a certain kind of energy. Twelve billion dollars on an offshore rig? No problem. A billion dollars to bring a truly different kind of new nuclear technology on line that would change the world for the next several thousand years? Sorry we are not interested.
February 25, 2015 9:24 am
In his lead WUWT post, Tom Fuller said,
As a Lukewarmer I cheerfully accept the science explaining how our high emissions of CO2 have contributed to the current warming period. As a liberal progressive I support large-scale (government and NGO) efforts to address the pressing problems of today. And as someone who has worked in the solar power industry and reported on green technology for over a decade, I believe that green energy can provide a partial solution to some of those problems.”
. . .
Climate change is real. The political struggle over acknowledging the scope and impacts is full of unreality.”
. . .
Tom Fuller,
”As a Lukewarmer I (TF) cheerfully accept the science explaining how our high emissions of CO2 have contributed to the current warming period.” Labels like ‘Lukewarmer’ are pre-scientific gibberish. Consider that one can be an arguably disinterested observer by having reasoned from the climate focused science debate that when compared to the natural variations of all the dynamics of the Earth Atmospheric System (EAS) then there is at most a small and relatively insignificant warming from historic levels of CO2 from burning fossil fuels.
“. . . the current warming period.” You (TF) have not picked a period; your statement therefore is just journalistic overgeneralization and fluff. A specific period when selected causes removal of inappropriate emphasis by allowing comparison to relevant broader periods. Scientific perspectives are important in the discussion of specific periods (not unspecified period as you have done) like the last 18 years compared to the last 36 and like the period since 1850 as compared to natural temperature cycles of the geologic timescales.
”Climate change is real. The political struggle over acknowledging the scope and impacts is full of unreality.” Emissions of CO2 from burning fossil fuel is real whereas claims of there being anything more than barely discernable global warming from such emission is observationally challenged wrt objective assessments of the EAS.
When focused on what you (TF) fashionably (not scientifically) label ‘climate change’, we see politically swayable gov’t sponsored structures (IPCC /NAS /EPA /NASA GISS /NOAA /MET /etc /etc /etc) have created a type of process that isn’t science and which has replaced objective climate related science.
I find the language used in the lead post is a significant issue. Lindzen addressed some of the significant language issues in discussions focusing on climate.
Richard S. Lindzen wrote in a recent book** in the opening paragraphs of a chapter he authored entitled: ‘3 Global Warming, Models and Language’,
“Global warming is about politics and power rather than science. In science, there is an attempt to clarify; in global warming, language is misused in order to confuse and mislead the public.
The misuse of language extends to the use of climate models. Advocates of policies allegedly addressing global warming use models not to predict but rather to justify the claim that catastrophe is possible. . . .
In a further abuse of language, the advocates attempt to rephrase issues in the form of yes-no questions:
– Does climate change?
– Is carbon dioxide (CO 2) a greenhouse gas?
– Does adding greenhouse gas cause warming?
– Can man’s activities cause increases in greenhouse gases?
These yes-no questions are meaningless when it comes to global warming alarm since affirmative answers are still completely consistent with there being no problem whatsoever; crucial to the scientific method are ‘how much’ questions. This is certainly the case for the above questions, where even most sceptics of alarm (including me) will answer yes.
To a certain extent, therefore, this issue cannot be discussed between opponents. We are speaking different languages.
That said, it should be recognized that the basis for a climate that is highly sensitive to added greenhouse gases is solely due to the behavior of the computer models. . . .”
** Book ‘Climate Change: The Facts’: Abbot, Dr John; James Delingpole, Dr Robert M. Carter ~ Rupert Darwall ~; Donna Laframboise, Dr Christopher Essex ~ Dr Stewart W. Franks ~ Dr Kesten C. Green ~; Dr Richard S. Lindzen, Nigel Lawson ~ Bernard Lewin ~; Dr Patrick J. Michaels ~ Dr Alan Moran, Dr Jennifer Marohasy ~ Dr Ross McKitrick ~; Nova, Jo; Dr Willie Soon, Dr Garth W. Paltridge ~ Dr Ian Plimer ~; Steyn, Mark; Watts, Anthony; Andrew Bolt; Dr J. Scott Armstrong; published (2015-01-11). Stockade Books. Kindle Edition.
I think the whole chapter by Lindzen is an important contribution to help undo language problems; I think there are such language problems in the journalistically constructed lead post.
John
February 25, 2015 10:15 am
Climate science is not all that different from other imperfections in the soft sciences, like economics. The models are imperfect and oversold and temporal at best, etc etc. The difference with climate science with its flaws is the division-strength baggage of thousands of agencies, NGOs, governments and a U.S. President pushing daily to extend and enact permanent deals locking in flawed science and snow plowing all concerns to the side with bully tactics. That scale is new and different. It also makes the bill for policy error gargantuan in the process. Jimmy Carter’s subsidized oil from shale rock, ancient solar panels on the roof, and synthetic gas from coal plants just demonstration projects by comparison.
February 25, 2015 10:33 am
Nature weighs in on Soon: http://www.leif.org/EOS/518456-Nature-and-Soon.pdf
There’s more than one way to skin a cat.
There is more to the solar input than the TSI.
See above: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/02/24/the-peril-of-great-causes/#comment-1868388
February 25, 2015 1:48 pm
S&B weren’t the only ones to tackle the schtick or its predecessors. A more subtle response came hard on the heels of Bradley and Jones, 93,94 from a couple of prominent glaciologists: http://faculty.fgcu.edu/twimberley/EnviroPol/EnviroPhilo/Glacial.pdf
(No LIA? Kiss mine.) –AGF
February 25, 2015 2:38 pm
Tom Fuller’s first sentence bothers me:
As a Lukewarmer I cheerfully accept the science explaining how our high emissions of CO2 have contributed to the current warming period. . .
The form is strikingly similar to expressions of religious faith, as in “As a Christian I cheerfully accept the doctrine of the Virgin Birth,” or “As a Zoroastrian I cheerfully accept that ‘the creator Ahura Mazda is all good, and no evil originates from him’.” [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism]
Is cheerful (and uncritical?) acceptance of unproven claims is a tenet of Lukewarmism? It is certainly not the attitude of a scientist. As far as I know no one to date has yet produced any empirical evidence whatsoever that anthropogenic CO2 has contributed a measurable amount of warming to the Earth at any period. This is not to say that it might not have; only that science requires evidence, not “cheerful acceptance.”
/Mr Lynn
February 25, 2015 9:19 pm
Liberal “Progressionist’ are the same people responsible for all the lunacy that anyone can point a finger at in history as well as recent events in our lifetime. They demand changes without giving a single thought to it’s effect or the destruction it causes, let alone the people it will effect and kill. Liberal’s were present at all the major times in history when lunacy and crowd-thought/mentality was required – aka Stalin, Ho Chi Minh, Pol Pot as well as many other murderous individuals come to mind. It has always been the case that not one consideration is ever given to the humans on this planet and yet there they are actually claiming and ‘proudly’ wearing that despicable label like it is some ‘award’. It probably is for moronic behaviour and general ignorance and gross stupidity. Proud to be a Prog Liberal, You have got to be kidding..
February 26, 2015 9:36 am
Sorry..but the ‘climate war’ is for the most part over.
Prior to the year 2000 the cost of extracting coal has been decreasing (in the US Australia and China predominately) at a fairly steady pace. The laws of economics applied…the cheaper something gets the more people will consume.
The cost of extracting coal and delivering it to market, in the US, Australia,China and Europe has since ceased it’s downward trend that was without end and has since headed upwards.
There is nothing left to really argue about…at some point the cost of producing electricity with coal will exceed the cost of the alternatives and the alternatives will be adopted.
Peabody Coal…one of the worlds larger coal producers was trading at $80 a share in 2008. It’s was trading at $8/share yesterday. (Not a typo…less then $10).
The markets have already decided that the ‘future’ doesn’t belong to coal.
The only people left arguing over ‘climate change’ are people with an academic curiosity, true believers trying to ‘prove they are right’ and government bureaucrats looking for something to regulate.
You may or may not be right regarding coal, as new technologies continue to come to the fore. At any rate the bell curve is long, (and we really do not know where we are on it with regard to fossil fuels) and takes decades to impact in a major way especially as new reserves with new technologies continue to come to the fore. There certainly is no real energy shortage and we are not running out of things.
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/05/08/there-is-no-shortage-of-stuff/
.https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/03/20/there-is-no-energy-shortage/
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2014/12/21/unlimiting-resources-basalt-for-a-high-tech-stone-age/
March 6, 2015 10:11 am
FACT: Al Gore was never arrested for sexual misconduct. To claim he has is clearly libel.
It is instructive to note that even though the libel has been pointed out – it has not been corrected or retracted, even though the author has retracted it on his own website. See https://thelukewarmersway.wordpress.com/2015/02/24/the-peril-of-great-causes/
Slurs against the Irish are rather amusing considering 😉
But as a Lukewarmer I see flaws in what has become a Great Cause–to me it seems to often be an excuse for NGOs to ask the public for more money, for politicians to gain easy support and to replace the stock prayer from beauty pageant contestants for world peace.
Climate change is real. The political struggle over acknowledging the scope and impacts is full of unreality.
When a political cause gains traction among those in power, a curious thing happens. Conventional ideas about right and wrong slip in priority and winning becomes so important that criminal activity and sexual impropriety become forgivable by those in service to a Cause.
Peter Gleick stole documents and forged another to attack his political opponents. Despite the gravity of this crime he was welcomed back into the fold of those promoting worst-case scenarios about the impacts of climate change as if he were a hero, not a criminal. This is not unusual in political movements. The cause becomes more important.
Al Gore was one of the first who promoted global warming as an imminent threat to human safety. His sybaritic lifestyle was evident from the first–private planes, living in a mansion, conspicuous consumption. None of that was sufficient to cause the Cause to disavow him. It still is unclear whether it was his arrest for pressuring a masseuse for sex or his sale of his television channel to a fossil fuel organization was the cause of his fall from grace–but that fall was apparently temporary, as he still speaks on global warming before green groups the world over. The rules don’t apply.
And now it is the turn of Rajendra Pachauri. Women are now speaking of a decade-long pattern of sexual harassment. Even before this revelation, Pachauri was involved in misconduct, ranging from suppressing dissent to hiding the income from his foundation. He showed incredibly poor judgment in publishing a bodice ripper of a novel while head of an organization that had been criticized by the IAC–with many of those criticisms calling into question his leadership. But it doesn’t matter. He was a champion of the Cause.
Currently, some bloggers and mainstream media sources are reviving decade-long questions about the funding of a scientist named Willie Soon, that he received funding from fossil fuel sources.
It doesn’t matter that institutions ranging from the CRU and Stanford University have received funding from fossil fuel sources, or that BEST’s Richard Muller actually got money from the Koch Brothers. It doesn’t matter that this information is old.
What matters for the Cause is that headlines of supposed misbehavior hit the news at the same time as Pachauri’s disgrace.
Because none of this is about science. It is about controlling the levers of power, making sure the right message is fed through the media channels and that funding for the right issues is uninterrupted.
Oh for the days when we talked about science.