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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how come an honest person can prefer temperatures you can cross check to a temperature from stations and bucket of water????
Politicians are very adept at moving the goal posts so that there opponents end up arguing in an area that they have defined.
The original argument was about CATASTROPHIC AGW that model were predicting – up to 6 degrees C per Century.
When this did not occur the debate changed from Catastrophic Global Warming to “ANY WARMING AT ALL”, no matter how small. Needless to say, all of this warming is attributed to burning fossil fuels. If ice is melting due to geothermal activity, the innuendo is always that this is due to CO2.
Now that it is pretty obvious that the climate models are all broken and that CAGW is not taken place, the Global Warming Oriental Carpet Store has gone out of business and has reopened under a new name – the Catastrophic Climate Change Oriental Carpet Store.
Not having any scientific arguments to back up their claims, they have now upped the ante on their masterful use of fallacious arguments.
In this case Roy Spencer is attacked for his opinions in a totally unrelated area. (Previously, he has been attacked because he is a Christian.)
Unfortunately, most scientists do not have the most effective comebacks at their fingertips – (politicians preparing for debates are trained and coached in this respect).
WUWT should start a section on best retorts to fallacious arguments – which seem to be rampant.
Here are a few examples – I’m sure someone else can come up with better arguments.
Attack: Scientist John Doe believes in God.
Reply: When Isaac Newton developed the laws of motion he wrote that he was “trying to understand the mind of God”. Does this invalidate the laws of motion?
Attack; Scientist John Doe has unorthodox or even crackpot scientific beliefs. (Does not believe in Darwin’s Theory of Evolution).
Answer: Sir Isaac Newton was a great proponent of Alchemy. Does this have any bearing on the validity of the laws of motion. Sir Isaac Newton proposed the corpuscular theory of light which turns out to be wrong. Does this have any bearing on the validity of the law of gravity? We can also add the views of Albert Einstein on certain aspects of Quantum Mechanics.
“Comparing John Christy and me to “scientists who disputed the links between smoking and cancer”,
I always get in trouble at this point because I am quick to point out I haven’t seen studies on tobacco use itself, rather the studies we have are on cigarettes the tobacco in which is often not tobacco at all but a heavily processed item with even up to 100s of carcinogens on it. We don’t have the data as far as Ive ever seen and I looked but this is potentially as drastic as comparing coca leaves to cocaine. Heck we even have entire nations of heavy smokers who use tobacco not cigarettes who do not have the expected lung and heart issues. Trust me, this is VERY unpopular to bring up. Close to 100% of those I mentioned it to as best I can tell think it is an insane point yet we literally studied cigarettes not tobacco and as I said have examples, large numbers in fact of people without the expected issues. Science used to have things like control groups, and reproducibility of results. Apparently that is out dated.
Randy:
My father was a heavy smoker and I grew up in a house with a visible inversion layer a few feet above the floor. He died in his 70s of cancer-of-the-everything. His PET scan lit up like a christmas tree. However, they detected no cancer in his lungs. My father’s explanation was that nicotine provided a “protective coating” in his lungs. I think he would have made an excellent climatologist.
That being said, the correlation of smoking (and dipping) to lung cancer (oral cancers) is extremely strong. Nevertheless, despite the strong correlations, most smokers do not get lung cancer (although many more suffer from other smoking-related health problems). In my opinion this is due to the remarkable “repair” capabilities of the human body and not the benign nature of tobacco.
On the other hand, EPA (and others) use much weaker correlations to justify campaigns against second-hand smoke, radon, etc. Their statistical manipulations are accepted by the media and “public health” advocates as unassailable truth. Perhaps advances in medical treatment will provide a “pause” (analogous to the climate debate) in the public fear of cancer sufficient to allow for more reasoned discussion of the costs and benefits of such regulatory overreach.
Add in the EPA’s statistical masturbations for determining what are harmful exposure levels to mercury.
Reblogged this on gottadobetterthanthis and commented:
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Reason looks at facts and accepts them. The facts are, CO2 is good for earth, and earth is not warming any differently than it has many times before humans might have been a small part of the causes.
Why should skeptical scientists be used as clickbait by the Guardian/
For the same reason that every person who is not a climate toady is banned from commenting on their site. So much for free speech by this neo Nazi load of brainwashers who you cannot even complain about as they refuse to join the press standards association and are not even bound to try and be honest in their reporting. At least that is what the press standards people told me about both these papers when I tried to refer an article in that and another in the Independent.
In fairness to the Guardian, I am not banned there any longer.
I sent them an email requesting to know which rule I’d broken and to show me the offending comment. They decided that my ban was over.
And I am not a climate toady.
At a higher altitude even more you will see that is repeated in the south polar vortex pattern of the previous year. Will be inhibited south of Australia.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat_a_f/gif_files/gfs_z100_sh_f00.gif
From the article/Blog Post…
“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…”
Not to be splitting hairs or being too nit-picky, but I’ve never really ‘bought in’ to the term “fossil fuel”. I’m more of a “hydrocarbon” kind of guy.
From my understanding, coal may be the closest to being fossil origined but it, along with all the different oils, methanes, etc are hydrocarbon in their molecular structure and is a more accurate term, IMHO.
I think the fossil-based theories are in the same group of science as the medical-oriented salt, cholesterol, trans-fat, carbohydrates issues and the climate issues & was theorized back in the 70’s (if I recall) to communicate how ‘limited’ the supply was so we had to ‘conserve’ it’s use. However, in relation to this article, it’s terminology not that big of a deal. I would just hope the good Drs. Spencer & Christy would be more up-to-speed on that.
…just my $.02
According to RSS, March 2015 averaged 0.255 degrees C. ( 0.46 deg F.) above the 1981-2010 mean for the globe (70 deg S. through 82.5 deg N. latitude). This makes March 2015 tied for 9th warmest March on record. The RSS satellite measured records go back to 1979.
Image courtesy of RSS.
http://vortex.accuweather.com/adc2004/pub/includes/columns/climatechange/2015/590x321_04061914_rss_ts_channel_tlt_global_land_and_sea_v03_3.png
http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-blogs/climatechange/march-2015-global-satellite-me/45194068
Skeptics come join the Dark Enlightenment
For all of you that are interested….
I posted some comments on skeptical science.com about how I felt that the climates models are unreliable….go to the site and at the left under most used climate myths then climate models are unreliable…the so to the last page of the comments.
I presented a strong case that the models are unreliable. Then I got a barrage of comments from the climate scientists contributors. They started quoting this and that but none of dealt with my assertions why the models don’t work….
I didn’t question the input….I dont have the technical expertise to question that….just the results… Which I do have the technical expertise. All these scientist could not put one argument together why I was wrong. Eventually the resorted to censoring comments that I was making….
They’re so hung up on being correct that their not even willing to listen to opposing arguments
Jamie: I think that sooner or later everyone discovers the truth about the ‘Skeptical Science’ website. I found that they selectively ignore points which they don’t wish to discuss, and certainly aren’t as ‘scientific’ as they claim.
Their style is arrogant and obnoxious. I haven’t bothered going to read anything on their website for a long time.