Guest essay by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D. (reprinted with permission from his blog)
That tireless ecological zealot over at The Guardian, Dana Nuccitelli, took the opportunity of our 25th anniversary of satellite-based global temperature monitoring to rip us a new one.
Comparing John Christy and me to “scientists who disputed the links between smoking and cancer”, Dana once again demonstrates his dedication to the highest standards of journalism.
Well done, Grauniad.
I prefer to compare us to Barry Marshall and Robin Warren, who rejected the scientific consensus that peptic ulcers were due to too much stress or spicy food. While they eventually received the Nobel Prize after years of ridicule and scorn from the medical research community, we have no illusions that we will ever be credited for our long-standing position that global warming fears have been overblown. I’m sure the UN’s IPCC will find a way to take credit for that, and get another Peace Prize for it.
(I wonder if Marshall and Warren were being paid off by the spicy food lobby?)
The “97% of all climate scientists agree“ meme that Dana bitterly clings to has been thoroughly discredited…. as if scientific consensus on something so poorly understood as climate change (or stomach ulcers 15 years ago?) really means anything, anyway.
To prove that Dana should probably avoid trying to interpret simple graphs, let’s examine this chart he so likes, which allegedly shows that our (UAH) global temperature dataset has been continually adjusted for errors over the years, resulting in an increasing warming trend:
Now, setting aside the fact that (1) we actually do adjust for obvious, demonstrable errors as soon as they have been found (unlike the IPCC climate modelers who continue to promote demonstrably wrong models), and (2) RSS gets about the same (relatively benign) warming trend as we do, let’s examine some other popular temperature datasets in the same manner as the above graph:
Looks a lot like Dana’s plot, doesn’t it?
Do you want to know why? Is it really because all those other temperature dataset providers were also busily correcting mistakes in their data, too?
No, it’s largely because as the years go by, the global temperature trend changes, silly.
About the only thing Dana got reasonably correct is his article’s tag line, “John Christy and Roy Spencer are pro-fossil fuel and anti-scientific consensus.”
You’re damn right we are. But not because we are paid to say it, which we aren’t. (What are you paid to say for The Guardian, Dana?)
We are pro-fossil fuel because there are no large scale replacements available, wind and solar are too expensive, and you can’t just cut fossil fuel use without causing immense human suffering. Yes, I’ve talked to some of the top economists about it.
And indeed we are “anti-scientific consensus” because the consensus (which mostly just follows the average of the IPCC climate models) has been demonstrated to be wrong.
Finally, if Dana objects to me tiring of being called a “global warming denier” (with the obvious Holocaust connotations) for the last seven eight years and fighting back, read this and then tell me where I am wrong.
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Does Diana Nutti Celli work for a fossil fuel company anyway? Poor boy life must be so difficult when you simply do not understand things but cling to beliefs.
Beliefs – exactly. Meanwhile, in Nuccitelli’s just-released “Climatology Versus Pseudoscience: Exposing the Failed Predictions of Global Warming Skeptics” book (https://books.google.com/books?id=mKigBgAAQBAJ&pg=PP1 ), on page 54 he cites a variant of the same “reposition global warming as theory rather than fact” ‘leaked memo phrase’ ( http://gelbspanfiles.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Nuccitelli-Gelb.jpg ) that Al Gore spelled out full screen in his 2006 movie, and that Naomi Oreskes cites as smoking gun proof of skeptic scientists’ industry guilt ( http://gelbspanfiles.com/?p=2009 ). But as I’ve described at length in my blog ( http://gelbspanfiles.com/?p=1480 ), nobody who accuses skeptics of being ‘paid industry shills’ has ever proved that the “reposition global warming” phrase or anything else is evidence of an industry / skeptic conspiracy to lie to the public about global warming.
Tell me you didn’t buy his book…! Uggggg. Just promise to use it as toilet paper to to soak up oil spills in the future and I’ll be ok….
Freeman Dyson recently stated that of course AGW is a fact. But he thinks man-made global warming is not an important fact.
The important questions are: How much is man warming the climate? (Not much.)
And is AGW good or bad? (All that extra CO2 in the atmosphere is good for both plants and animals.)
I would add that mankind benefits enormously from land-use changes that have built cities and increased agricultural production.
My grandparents were born in Canada during the same decade as the American Civil War. Their generation was privileged to have a huge boost in standard of living compared with their grandparents and compared with people living on other continents. They passed away before 1960 and therefore had no inkling what great improvements in lifestyle would be enjoyed by their grandchildren and now great-great-grandchildren, nor how the health and welfare of people have improved on other continents.
The puritans in the US, the UK and Europe may well continue to self-flagellate over their good-fortune, but let them not expect the majority of people to accept their efforts to dismantle the modern economies of their countries.
It’s not going to happen for the reasons Lincoln gave: You cannot fool enough people into believing that a degree or so of warming will harm them more than destruction of their industrial society.
And too many people still remember that great experiment inspired by Marx to accept that capitalists are worse bogeymen than bureaucrats,
He understands. He is paid to denigrate cheap coal so as his employer (an oil company) can boost profits.
Or maybe he’s a complete idiot.
Hmm.
Knave or Nutter?
To be honest, I shouldn’t have commented. I can’t make that call.
” He is paid to denigrate cheap coal so as his employer (an oil company) can boost profits.
Or maybe he’s a complete idiot.”
^Both
“Knave or Nutter?”
^Both
There, now you don’t have to make the call.
Time is running out for the global warming alarmists and they know it. I’m afraid they will just get uglier and uglier. It’s really pathetic.
But the finish line is in sight – 5 months away from Paris 2015.
They’ve been counting down the days since 500 in Mid July 2014
Fortunately for the US, Obama, in his arrogance and spite for the US constitution, won’t submit the signed treaty to the US Senate for ratification. Without that, essence it will possibly go the way of Kyoto, the US will not be a party to the final agreement.
I think it’s actually 7 months 😉
Kerpow.
But, regrefully, being right is no longer relevent. Having facts (RS vs. UVA) does not mean acceptance.
This is what bothers me most about the state of modern scientific communities and circles. Gentlemen scientists of prior years didn’t need to fight so furiously over their ideas and pet-hypotheses because most scientists were from reasonably wealthy back-grounds.
I’m sure the human element has always played a part but it’s very much alive and well. Certain fields of science have become heavily politicized and influenced by ideological lobbies.
It’s nothing new for a scientist to get too attached to his/her pet ideas but in this day and age political lobbying, funding and career building influence current scientists far too much. It’s WAY too easy to get sucked into the cycle of building up your own career, collecting your own accolades, fighting over and securing funding for yourself. Funding from people with their own ideas about what they think should be scientific truth, rather than simply what is.
It simply doesn’t promote an environment for the exchange of free ideas, despite the lip-service paid by these very same members of manufactured consensus, like the ‘AGW crowd’.
It’s ironic that anyone who raises criticism of AGW or whatever it’s being called today gets labelled a corporate/lobbyist shill.
The ‘pro-AGW’ community for lack of a better word is rife with ugly ad-hominem tactics, of ideological underpinning and fanaticism, but worst of all, genuine worst of all, bad science.
Bad methods and bad behaviour within the scientific community and towards anyone who has the outrageous gall to promote good science and a healthy environment for it by questioning ideas and knowledge when there is grounds to regard it as mistaken.
That goes along the spectrum from simply challenging perceived mistakes in the data to outright fighting tooth and nail ugly and outright unacceptable non-scientific personal attack, harassment and censorship.
As in all things, often our greatest challenge is ourselves. Human nature.
Perhaps one day, even soon if it can be helped, we can mitigate human vice from the scientific method.
The balloon data supports their satellite data which should go a long way in proving the satellite data is indeed correct in my opinion. This confirmation has been in place for years between the two independent data sources.
Judging by a recent issue of National Geographic Magazine; which just might be the most highly respected and read magazine in existence, they too have taken a page out of Scientific American, and have started carrying straw man articles designed to cast catastrophic global warming skeptics, and researchers like Christy and Spencer, as simple inebriates.
Dr. Roy mentions Nuccitelli’s likening his team to the folks who pooh pooh the linkage of smoking to cancer.
A behavioral psychologist friend of mine, has said: “There’s a body of evidence linking lung cancer to cigarette smoking. There’s also a body of evidence linking children to sex. The cigarette data is much more robust.”
But back to Nat Geo. Their recent article likens global warming skeptics to those who claim the “moon landings” were filmed on a sound stage in Hollywood, and also to folks who believe that the earth is a flat square plate, with all we know on one side of it.
I’ve never met or heard of anybody besides National Geographic, who think the earth is square, let alone flat. Everybody knows it is like a pizza, round and crusty on the other side, where the Australians and Kiwi’s live.
This penchant for such juvenile ad hominem aspersions on MMGWCCC realists and skeptics, shows just how low the print media have sunk, in trying to maintain their influence in the dead tree media.
I’ve never subscribed to Nat Geo; only for the reason that I have never been in a position to spend discretionary income on something which ultimately will get thrown away. (yes in the recycle bin).
But if they are going to follow Sci Am down into the sewers of print media, then I won’t even bother to read it, when I happen on an issue, when I’m in the Dr.’s office.
For Prof Christy and Dr. Roy, I can only say: you know you are over the target, when you have flak all around you. They don’t waste ammo and tracers on things that are no threat to their propaganda.
And Just remember the OLD pilot’s mantra:
Tracers work equally well in both directions.
Go get ’em John and Roy. We’ve got your back.
Nat. Geographic used to be good, but I’d nominate it for the Josef Goebbels Prize, now. It’s become a propaganda organ. I must admit I still buy old issues from the 50’s and hide them among the 6-month old magazines in my dentist’s office.
I dropped my Nat Geo subscription over their pseudo-scientific political positions some time ago. Looks like there is no good reason to go back.
I lost respect for Nat Geo over their being taken in on an obvious fake story about a modern Stone Age tribe some years back. Sceptics, they ain’t.
We have a large collection of Nat Geo’s but most of them are old and all we keep them and share them for is for the excellent photography from those days and some of the supporting texts. But the last ten years or so even the photo’s are more and more political and have very little to do with geography, so we quit buying and collecting them, which in it’s own is a sad statement.
I call the natgeo TV channel “the global warming channel 1″… with Discovery being #2. And I really mean number 2.
At one point in time the “flat-earthers” represented the scientific consensus. Those who did not “believe” were the deniers and skeptics. Skepticism is the bedrock of science and skeptics are the only true scientists.
+11
Excellent!!
Just today I noticed this climate.gov site: https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/2012-state-climate-temperature-lower-stratosphere
“A long-term cooling trend in the lower stratosphere is one of many signs that increasing levels of greenhouse gases are changing our planet’s climate. ”
But the stratosphere hasn’t cooled for 20 years! Yet CO2 has risen every year.
So what happened? Is the heat escaping into space?
Bart, you can use a newer graph:
?itok=e3kGJ5sc
It’s worse that that, Jim…
Wow, talk about inconvenient truths!
But where does that graph come from? Just asking.
“””””…..“A long-term cooling trend in the lower stratosphere is one of many signs that increasing levels of greenhouse gases are changing our planet’s climate. ”…..”””””
IF in fact it IS occurring,….. ‘A long-term cooling trend in the lower stratosphere is one of many signs that there is …..’A long-term cooling trend in the lower stratosphere.’
There’s no proven science that it is evidence of anything else.
Neville, the graph appears to come from NOAA. That’s what my browser says anyway.
Right from the horse.
yeah, the satellite portion of that graph probably comes from RSS.
while the lower stratosphere is not cooling, it is shown by the AMSU portion (1998 on only) that it is still cooling in the mid and upper stratosphere. but from – http://www.remss.com/measurements/upper-air-temperature
“The AMSU-only datasets (C10-C14, C25) are relatively early in their development process and should be considered preliminary, or in the case of C13 and C14, experimental.”
they probably are correct, but it doesnt say much about the troposphere with the lower stratosphere not changing for 20 years. there is no warming in the top of the troposphere (TTS), nor is there warming in the lower troposphere for the last 18 years. this really is all that should be expected from natural warming (surface warming/cooling) with ozone changes.. where is the co2 influence? like magic it bypass the atmosphere an goes straight to the lower oceans?!
Banana Nutty-celli deserves any brickbats thrown at him, he is a thoroughly disreputable and dishonest individual.
Dang Admad!!!! I used to like that song, ( but a nice twist)
Personally, I prefer “Refusenik” to “denier.”
Ooh, that’s good. But Nutty will NEVER learn. In my 55 years I have seen it time and again; some people just do not learn.
Yeah, but just as the title suggests, even after the corrections to the false CAGW proclamations are made, it is somewhat too late and the false statements become “truth”.
Just like “the “97% of all climate scientists agree“ meme that even President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry keep repeating.
Well done, Roy. As soon as I saw Dana’s post at TheGuardian and SkepticalScience about your 25th anniversary, I’ve been waiting for your rebuttal. The obvious has always eluded Dana.
Cheers.
Hear hear!! Like the quote int the original article, number are numbers.
You should thank him for exposing himself as a complete nutter while exposing you to a larger audience. You’ve been given an unlimited opportunity to educate through solid science those people curious enough to follow up. I wouldn’t worry too much about the incurious who won’t follow up. Nobody can reach them because the truth and the facts require more than 160 characters and that is the limit of their twittering attention span. A lie requires no facts.
Dana…larger audience…nah!
You don’t have to look at the GCMs performance out of sample (aka projections) to see their failure. Figure 9.8 of IPCC AR5 conveniently shows the range of absolute temperatures each model produces over the base period 1961-1990. The GCMs range from 12.6 – 15.3 C. HadCRUT4 (est. actual) is shown as 14 C.
What is happening to phase transitions (eg ice to water, water to steam) on this range of planets?
Does Canada must freeze to the American people understand that we ended up the warming in North America?
Care to re-phrase that, perhaps trying English this time?
Be glad.
If this the state of artificial intelligence we don’t need to fear the Matrix just yet.
Or he might just be in his cups.
I don’t think English is Ren’s native language. Posts he(?) has made on other sites while usually very good, are sometimes difficult to understand. Certainly far better than my paltry skills with other languages I’ve tried (and failed) to learn.
Sorry.
My mistake.
Our Polish friend ‘ren’ is getting frustrated with the language barrier and the fact that I’ve been way too busy on other stuff (PRP and UKIP) to get to grips with what he is trying to tell us about his ideas concerning the effect of cosmic rays on ozone. So far as I can tell he thinks the polar vortex is also influenced by the position of Earth’s magnetic north pole.
Please could the readership help untangle his recent comments and contribute to his discussion so he doesn’t feel ignored. A lot of his linked plots are interesting, so please take the time to have a look. I have asked ren to write an article in Polish we can have translated, but I do not know if he has understood the request. Any Polish speakers out there who can help as intermediary? Thanks.
https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2014/02/17/ren-cosmic-rays-ozone-and-the-polar-vortex/comment-page-1/
I would think that translates to ” Does Canada have to freeze over before the American people realize that the warming is over?”. That is what my Universal Translator is showing.
Is that the real Ren?
Is it possible that Canada freezes over?
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/10hPa/orthographic=-129.46,71.09,395
Thanks.
http://oi61.tinypic.com/kd4r9u.jpg
http://sol.spacenvironment.net/nairas/index.html
Ren says —
“Does Canada must freeze to the American people understand that we ended up the warming in North America?”
This seems to say —
Must Canada ice over before the American people understand that warming has ended in North America?
Eugene WR Gallun
As an Immigrant to Canada and having to deal with “translating” concepts in my head from my native language into our new country’s language as I was speaking sometimes there are things that just do not “translate”, I also married a person from another background so I had to then deal with three languages, cultures, humor, religious differences etc . I can tell you there were times I might have agreed with “gun control” when in conversations with the three sides. So I can understand Ren’s occasional “trips” as far as language is concerned, I have had quite a few of my own.
I love it when alarmists compare climatology to medical science, it clearly demonstrates that they don’t have a clue. Climatology as a science is what, 50-60 years old? Medical science is what, about 3,000 years old? I suggest that any warmist using the “you wouldn’t ignore 97% of doctors” meme should try using Sumatran medical practices because after all it only takes a few decades for the science to become settled.
Lol Sumatran should be Sumerian, my apologies to any Sumatrans.
What! no apology to those of us who have ancient Sumerian genes in our ancestry?
autocorrect gave me a difficult time when trying to text in Spanish about a used-car for sale. Be careful out there, Niebuhrs.
Perhaps climatology IS comparable to medical science in some cases There has been plenty of fraud where government supported research is concerned.,
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/deception-at-duke-fraud-in-cancer-care/
http://www.bumc.bu.edu/irb/files/PDFs/Fraud%20in%20Medical%20Research%20T.%20Colton%202-21-07.pdf
and as Roy Spencer pointed out above, Barry Marshall and Robin Warren were a minority of two who went against the consensus on spicy foods causing ulcers.
And people were having their digestive systems partially removed in the name of the consensus. I guess that was a form of insurance. Just in case we’re right, we need to remove your colon.
Another example of a dubious consensus in medical science is the relationship between saturated fat and heart disease. I think trans fats really are very bad, and the ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 is very important, but check out this article regarding saturated fats and heart disease:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303678404579533760760481486
It also shows they don’t have a clue to what routinely happens in medicine. Since the early 1990s, the consensus has been shown to be wrong about the cause of ulcers, dietary cholesterol, and now it appears, dietary salt. I’ve been around a lot longer and could reel off a long list of medical mis-steps I’ve seen (starting with ‘mentholated cigarettes are soothing for your lungs’).
Hormone replacement therapy protects women against heart disease – oh, wait – it increases risk for heart disease. Sorry about all that.
My experience with “medical science” is that it is filled with unwarranted consensus.
Where do you see global warming?
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat-trop/gif_files/time_pres_TEMP_ANOM_ALL_EQ_2014.gif
Warm (>+0.5oC; red stippled line) and cold (<0.5oC; blue stippled line) episodes for the Oceanic Niño Index (ONI), defined as 3 month running mean of ERSST.v3b SST anomalies in the Niño 3.4 region (5oN-5oS, 120o-170oW)]. Base period: 1971-2000. For historical purposes cold and warm episodes are defined when the threshold is met for a minimum of 5 consecutive over-lapping seasons. The thin line indicates 3 month average values, and the thick line is the simple running 7 year average of these. Last 3 month running mean shown: December 2014 – February 2015. Last diagram update 6 March 2015.
ren asks, “Where is the global warming?”. I swear I saw it, years ago, for a while, and then it was gone, and I haven’t seen it anymore – like a bigfoot sighting. Heard it was hiding in the deep ocean, but there’s no evidence for that. Heard it was going to come back and “get” us later on someday, but again no evidence.
I’ll keep looking for that global warming… it’s supposed to be hiding out there in plain sight- so I hear from the loud shrill voices screaming about it from on high.
Apologies to you ren, as I didn’t see your article from February at the time you posted it at https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2014/02/17/ren-cosmic-rays-ozone-and-the-polar-vortex/comment-page-1/ until today, so I’m sorry I wasn’t much help to you there then.
Current temperature in Canada.
http://pamola.um.maine.edu/DailySummary/frames/GFS-025deg/DailySummary/GFS-025deg_NH-SAT1_T2.png
I’ve always thought that one of the most amazing aspects of climate science is how it manged to elevate some oil & gas industry consultant into a suppossed expert on the subject matter. Or for that matter a cartoonist.
Our little Scooter has come a long way.
Or a politician. Or a journalist. Or an historian. Or a…..
Or even third rate scientists (a certain fellow from Penn State being the poster child) …
You do not quite understand. It is the internet that has transformed everyone. Nearly everyone is now an expert on practically everything.
And when the actual trained professionals demonstrate, for all to see, that one can be a well respected and highly paid nincompoop with hardly any effort, well then, why shouldn’t every else who wants to be one as well?
Did you have Travesty Trenberth in mind when you wrote that ?
In the case of the Rolling Stone the narrative came before the facts, geez, that can’t happen at the Guardian, can it?
And certainly not in the “climate science” field.
/cynic
Interesting to watch them now, their religion (of warming) is crumbling, they are spraying venom so mad are they.
Exactly, and showing themselves up evermore clearly as intolerant and dictatorial. They don’t seem to realize how much this turns ordinary people off. Then they wonder why support at grass roots is disappearing.
What? According to Dana Milbank at the Chicago Tribune, it’s the skeptics that are in retreat.
Those denying climate change in retreat
http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/daily-southtown/opinion/ct-sta-milbank-climate-st-0408-20150407-story.html
Maybe it has something to do with the first name?
Thank you for your scientific integrity, Dr. Spencer and Dr. Christy, and your tireless efforts to maintain rational dialog with others who are not so well grounded. You will win in the end.
At this point, hacks like Dana are only preaching to the choir, anyway. Don’t let it get under your skin.
True.
Every time I comment on Dana’s delusions the moderators start deleting comments (partially or selectively) to make him look less loony.
So I don’t go to his columns anymore. The comments are now all a tedious echo chamber.
And thus nobody now goes there ,except to be suckled in the milk of amnesia and blissfully forget the challenges of the real world.
I did make the mistake of going over to read the Guardian piece. He plugs some book he has out and makes many, many references to his own further Guardian pieces as support for dredging Dr. Spencer and Dr. Christy. Circular, for sure, but getting truly desperate if you can only quote yourself.
I used to drop by there occasionally for the argument, but I can no longer stand the rabid voices there. It becomes a pointless endeavor to try debate with them. So for my sanity,s sake I will never go there again. I even deleted their link from my computer.
“milk of amnesia” – sweet!
“milk of amnesia” … does that make you $h!t and forget???
Good job, Dr. Spencer. Dana is a pathetic paid troll. Don’t waste more time on him lest you find yourself pig wrestling.
Pathetic is a good descriptor for Scooter. Along with nasty, obnoxious, unpleasant, unqualified, …
“… any warmist using the “you wouldn’t ignore 97% of doctors” meme should … ”
In reality it’s worse than this: Not long ago, 99% of all doctors claimed that cholesterol-rich diet is very bad for you. And now that former and nearly totally accepted consensus is declared officially to be absolute nonsense…
But eco-stalinists like Nutty & co will never learn from the history of paradigm shifts in science, unfortunately.
Your post reminded me of a story my sister told me. About 10 years ago she drove our 84 year old father to the local Veteran’s Administratioin clinic for a check up. When his doctor advised him to eat more fruis and vegetables, he replied,
“Look, I’m 84 years old! How much longer do you expect me to live if I start eating that crap?”
My father is still living 10 years later, still has a drivers license, and as far as I know, hasn’t increased his intake of fruits and vegetables. Heredity plays a much larger part than lifestyle choices like exercise and diet.
How right you are. And, a good doctor will know it. There was a nasty cold that went around recently where I live. Because I got it, and I already have a lung condition, I lost 10 pounds which I can’t afford to lose.
I saw the doctor a week ago. The intern recommended fats and proteins. I told my doctor I love Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. He told me, “As your doctor I recommend you eat plenty of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.”
Tom J recommend melted lard with garlic and raspberry juice.
I like to remind people that 50% of all doctors graduated in the bottom half of their class. I get the impression that 97% of climate scientists graduated in the bottom half.
“Not long ago, 99% of all doctors claimed that cholesterol-rich diet is very bad for you.”
In a similar vein, several months back I was reading a story about the results of a very large and well designed study that was set up to give a definitive answer to the link between salt and high blood pressure.
The gist of it was that the study proved conclusively that salt does not raise the blood pressure of anyone, except for a tiny group of people with a very rare condition.
Amazing news, given that it has been dogma among the medical profession for decades that salt will kill you if you have high blood pressure, and if you do not have HBP, salt will cause you to get it.
Several interesting points were raised and explored in the article, among them that people with the lowest salt intake actually had more chance of heart disease that those who consumed the most salt, that a low salt diet had never eased blood pressure in a single person, and yet this was never taken to indicate a problem with the supposed link. In fact, the link was so firmly established in many minds that it was not called a theory, or anything like that…it was taken to be a simple fact…like the sky is blue and water is wet.
The origins of the whole myth were discussed as well. It turns out that there were never any studies, not a single one, that showed a scientific causal link…or any link at all. It all started with someone saying it, and others repeating it, and the idea took on a life of it’s own, and subsequently everyone just pointed to the appeal to authority rationale to perpetuate the myth.
The important thing to note, in my view anyway, is that this was not a single out of the blue study. There have been many studies done, and each failed to find a link to back up the assertion that salt causes HBP. The most recent study was done to settle the question, once and for all. The result showed that people who eat a lot of salt will drink more water, and the salt is flushed out by the kidneys.
Then came the real surprise to me (I had always doubted a link, being a salt nut with perfectly normal BP even though I am very nearly over the hill, although not quite back down the other side): After learning of the results of the study, and acknowledging that no link between salt and blood pressure could be established, not one but two major US medical organizations reiterated their recommendation for people to minimize salt intake! And for people with high blood pressure to avoid adding salt to any foods whatsoever!
So, what does this all say about so called experts, settled science, and cherished advice?
I leave it for each to decide for themselves., while I stroll over to the kitchen for another bowl of salty nuts.
Toodles.
The latest study I read was just a few days ago. It found that for some people, adhering to the government’s recommendation of daily salt consumption (1500 mg?) was too low, and INCREASED their chances of heart problems.
I never did cut back on salt (latest BP measurement was this week : 106/68. No medication of any kind, no supplements, 65 years old), but after these latest revelations I’ve added fat and cholesterol back in my diet. I’m just watching total calories to keep my weight where I like it.
Indeed. There are a bunch of muppets here in the UK campaigning for a reduction in salt intake. They are on the BBC and in the Guardian a lot (quelle surprise). The main campaigner is a cardiologist…
Hence the expression (which I first saw on this site) that putting ‘climate’ in front of ‘scientist’ is like putting ‘witch’ in front of ‘doctor’.
Chris Snowden at http://velvetgloveironfist.blogspot.co.uk/ calls out these people, who have no evidence of their beliefs at all. Sound familiar?
Roy,
Look at the bright side. Characterizing you as a person denying a link between cigarette smoking and cancer onset is the last refuge of a desperate nazi hack. It is desperate because calling you a “climate denialist” is now harmless, maybe even a compliment considering the latest Gallup polls in the USA.. If this is the state of journalism, “Rolling Stone Fake Rape” du jour amongst the left, I suggest you prepare a defense for more contemporary unfounded social faux pas accusations. The climate nazi’s will likely resort to accusations that you thought the word “n*gg*r”, or you made advances on a child, or you ordered a pizza from Memories Pizza in Indiana.
Dana Nuccitelli is a goose stepping nazi leftist thug who, like most leftists, will lie about everything to anyone who will listen. She and Sabrina Erdely of UVA Fake Rape fame, are liars pushing politics and YOU are in the way. They will stop at nothing.
You may need a GoFundMe page.(If you don’t have tenure}
Scooter (aka Dana) is a guy. A real peach of a fellow.
More clickbait from The Guardian.
I’ve been following a few stories in the Guardian recently. It all started because I was looking for UK newspapers without annoying pay walls.
Oh boy. If you think Nuccitelli is a bad actor, he’s nothing compared to the commenters on the Guardian’s various stories relating to Climate Change, Iran and their pet disinvestment campaign.
If its deniers, nuclear, Republicans, Israel or UK’s Conservatives; the hatred just boils off the screen.
The only word for so many of their commenters is Rabid.
One other, rather less immediately obnoxious, issue that so many there experience. I was querying the feasibility of their Keep it in the Ground campaign. [The ‘it’ being fossil fuels]. As an aid to understanding I was quoting energy consumption by fuel source from B.P.’s 2014 Statistical Review of World Energy. The big takeaway being renewables contribution globally is about 2.2% in that report. I suspect that the posts were ignored as soon as some unpalatable numbers appeared in them. I have a growing feeling that even the Guardian’s more measured commenters just don’t like numbers that actually represent reality or maybe just don’t understand numbers in general.
They are a bizarre crowd.
Hello, I’m a Guardian commenter.
And if you think the righteous anger you’ve witnessed so far is fiery…
Wait until you see an article on UKIP’s plan to cut foreign aid. I’ll show you righteous anger then.
We on the left can combine compassion with rage.
That means you must be a guardian reader?… very sad.
I am a Guardian reader.
I also read the Telegraph for balance (it’s free online in the UK).
But my political bias is to the left. Don’t my numerous comments make that clear?
It’s not sad to read.
I try not to let political bias influence how I read a person’s comments. While I think it isn’t hard to figure out which side of the balance you generally are on, your comments are worth reading.