By James Cook (no relation)
DENIAL 101x is a University of Queensland MOOC being promoted as helping people understand the new phenomenon of “Science Denialism”, led by John Cook, a career drumbeater for Global Warming. According to the narration, Denialism is distinguishable from normal Scientific Skepticism by fact that the evidence is considered after one makes up one’s mind regarding the science. This implies that one’s position on a particular fact or a group of facts is right or wrong (regardless of the outcome) is based on the order of one’s thinking, which as a scientist and philosopher, I find a hard pill to swallow.
Not considering all of the evidence is the mark of a pseudoscientist. Many scientists today are pseudoscientists, taking the lazy road of rerunning “established” models over and over again in order to “prove” aspects of climate and geology completely unrelated to the original purpose of the models, which was to discover a hotter temperature, which of course never did occur. Much of what John Cook calls “consilience of evidence” is this very phenomenon, where data derived from atmospheric composition models used to predict warming, which doesn’t occur, is reused to verify that other loosely related predictions, or statements that can be made to sound like predictions, which can then be proven.
At this point, I realize I have been confused and confounded by the point of the movie, which is to mix up liberal hangers-on and some of the most arrogant scientists into a circle of “Liberal Angst” directed against what they call, “Doubt”, So you will see me “drop my gloves”, and begin to draw generalizations on my own side.
Perhaps the wildest error made in one of these episodes is the juxtaposition of a couple of renowned climate science groupies, Stephan Lewandowsky who has written on the psychological illness of climate skeptics, and Peter Doran, who wrote the paper that first described the “Climate Consensus” as 97%. Doran skillfully explains how through tremendous attention to reduction, he was able to create 97% out of 50%, through a process of restricting the number of participants over and over until it was exactly at maximum, self-described climate scientists only, and only those who had published climate science. Then Lewandowsky comes on and complains about the “rest of us”, who aren’t the scientists owning the 97% consensus, as if he were ever one of them, himself, using Doran’s reductive algorithm! What hypocrisy, what hyperbole!
Sceptics are portrayed here by Liberals posing as Scientists and Scientists portraying themselves as Liberals for being morally inferior. There is obviously no possibility whatever that these types of bullies can themselves be morally superior to anyone. The essential purpose of scientific skepticism is to improve the science and improve understanding of the wide body and debates that rage inside of all of the sciences, on a constant and continuing basis. Public skepticism raises interest in science and has never posed any threat to any honest scientist.
Concern that Liberals pose about skepticism is often poised in their rhetoric against conservative beliefs. They state that they are afraid that Conservatives can’t believe Global Warming because Conservatives enjoy the idea of the free market. The free market has ramifications for ideas as well as goods. If goods are exchanged freely on a free market based on demand, price, and supply, then the ideas individuals have will also be accepted, rejected, taken up and used, or discarded based on their value to a larger multitude ready to pay in order to be informed correctly. This Liberal attitude, that ideas have no net worth, is what fuels their psychotic fear of contradiction.
The other complaint Liberals pose is that people’s lack of shared scientific belief, or “denial” as they prefer to call it, is based on vested interests, such as Farmers, Producers, and Suppliers, for example, not wanting to be affected by social constraints on carbon emissions. However, by this definition, “vested interests” could go much further in terms of an industry in which one is occupied, or terms of one’s lifestyle, such as the size and power of the vehicle one can drive being affected. And it can simply mean the opposite, that people with reasonably good engineering and investment skills can get into the “renewable energy” market, invigorated through strong (and generous) governments and fearful populations and make a killing. This is not to mention the thousands of scientists who ride on this, ‘one-trick pony’, and receive over $6 billion in grant money (not to mention NASA’s $1,700 billion Earth Science budget) even before their Apocalyptic view becomes fully funded.
When all is said and done, however, all of this maneuvering and accusing can be wasted energy, since all types of fossil fuel replacement technologies really need to evolve with time, and time, in a democracy, is along with many other things, is primarily controlled by events, the majority, and the market, and not the “consensus of climate scientists”, as this team, and their group of fanatic followers claim to wish. The only saving grace I found in the series was the wish of some scientists interviewed, that a few ‘high-quality’ books available (Merchants of Doubt was mentioned.), could possibly change people’s minds about the issue.
Like I said before, the North American glaciation was the Wisconsin glacier that all the way down to SE Wisconsin. Glacial till on the farmland and over 2 feet of great loam in the fields was pushed down by the glacier. When the glacier melted, it gave us the largest fresh body on the planet, the Great Lakes. What melted the glacier from SE Wisconsin to well above the arctic circle? Duh!
As I have noted here before, the most recent N. American glaciation took place during the Wisconsin glacial episode when the ice reached its maximum southern advance in the states of Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, but a large part of SW Wisconsin was not glaciated.
During the earlier Illinoian glacial episode, the ice reached as far south as Carbondale, Illinois, which advance marks the southernmost extent of glaciation in N. America.
http://geophysics.ou.edu/geol1114/notes/glaciers/moraines.jpg
Map credit:
Dr. Judson L. Ahern
University of Oklahoma
Nice map!
While the extent of glaciation reached far south into the U.S., just as interesting as that small pockets of Carolinian forest as far north as London, Ontario were left untouched in Canada.
I think you would agree Judson, that the last glacial period did not reach as far south as it had during previous ice ages. To my knowledge, in UK, the ice sheets in the last glacial period did not reach LONDON as before but – the same I suspect can be said of other regions. SW England and France/Spain allowed some humans to exploit and live there even if they were nomadic. One only has to think, they only lived maybe 50 years at most, and it would be possible that for some years were warmer than others and glaciers retreated just a few miles or so, and people could cross the channel on foot. They could cross the Mediterranean too to North Africa were conditions were much more hospitable to humans and mammals. Although no human habitations have been found in North America until possibly 11,000 years ago, there was in Australia and South America.
Well said, Mr. Cook!
+1
So basically, it’s essentially the same train wreck, the same passengers, the same railroad only on a MOOC scale? Pretty much what everyone anticipated it would be.
And worse — there’s at least two dozen real students taking the class!
It’s alarmism run amok I tell yah!
Hey, the students just have to nod their heads in agreement and will get an A for the class.
Easy GPA boost
I am no scientist and I am no philosopher. But I knew from day 1 that it would be the philosophers that would destroy the CAGW belief system. Either them, or maybe a hundred years
And historians
I wouldn’t be so sure that the CAGW belief system will ever be completely destroyed. To the cagw faithful, global warming is the messiah that will return to destroy the earth and punish the wicked. People are capable of waiting thousands of years for such to happen.
Nice analogy – so true!
just a thought- If the “science is settled” on something as complex as AGW for the warmists how is it not settled for Nuclear Power? The whole waste issue is a straw dog since we are still building weapons, and power plants (for everything from power plants to air craft carriers and satellites). The waste will have to be dealt with anyway.
The waste issue could be easily dealt with by employing readily available reactor designs which burn today’s waste as fuel.
“Running spent uranium rods through Gen-IV reactors would allow the energy in those rods to be extracted almost completely. “Instead of extracting 5 or 6 percent of the energy out of the fuel, you could get much closer to 95 percent or so,” says Paul Genoa, senior director of policy development at the Nuclear Energy Institute” – Source: http://nautil.us/issue/7/waste/our-nuclear-waste-is-a-goldmine
My understanding is we would have about 5% of today’s waste left afterwards, with a half-life of about 300 years. The only thing standing in our way are ignorant politicians, sensationalist news media, and an uneducatable, scientifically illiterate voting public. In other words – it’s hopeless.
Gordon “…scientifically illiterate voting public.”
You could have left out ‘scientifically’
I think our solution to the nuclear waste issue is particularly dumb. First, we need to reprocess, recycle and reuse. Next, we need to store what is left over.
The nuclear power industry has paid into a fund (mis)managed by the federal government for decades. Spent nuclear power rods are mostly kept onsite at the reactors. Many years ago, a political decision was made to store nuclear waste at the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada.
I live in Nevada. This is a hot-button issue in this state. The political leadership is dead set against it. The chicken little faction of the population is apoplectic over the issue. The more sensible people think we should open negotiations on how much the feds should pay the state to store the waste here.
Believe me, storing nuclear waste in Nevada is no danger to anyone. Have you ever visited the state outside of Las Vegas? There is nothing here is a whole bunch of nothing. Bring it on. Nobody will know it’s here.
Apparently, the vast bulk of nuclear waste is no more radioactive than the glow in the dark hands on your watch, The really radioactive stuff can all fit in a bucket.
The sad fact is that the reason we have a grossly inefficient nuclear fuel cycle in the USA is the fear of nuclear waste being turned into nuclear weapons, a fear most heavily promulgated by a group at Princeton University led by Frank von Hippel (now retired, I think).
The reality is that no nuclear weapons country has gotten there by using spent fuel. Why? Because the nucleonics are against you. Plutonium for nuclear weapons is generated by exposing U-238 to neutron flux for a relatively short time in a purpose-built reactor (the design that blew up in Chernobyl was a civilian adaptation of exactly such a reactor). If you irradiate U-238 for too long, you get a lot of Pu-240 and other even-numbered isotopes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium-240 . Too much of that makes the Pu too unstable to be used in a weapon design, and the Pu in spent fuel is more than a quarter Pu-240. In fact, one of the ways weapons-grade Pu-239 stockpiles are made unusable is to blend it into reprocessed spent fuel, in order to deliberately contaminate it with Pu-240.
These isotopes are extremely difficult (although not “technically impossible”) to separate, because the mass difference is only 1/3 that of U-235 and U-238, which are currently separated mainly by gas centrifuges.
So we have shied away from the most efficient use of nuclear energy due to unreasoning fear of a scenario that turns out to be bogus. Sound familiar to anyone who’s a regular on WUWT?
Maybe Lewandowski et al find these exercises in projection to be a form of release for pent-up anger. Were they bullied as children? Did their mothers cruelly curtail their breast-feeding? Did tantrums ensue? Some of the smartest people (imo) can be some of the most imbalanced in terms of their blinkered view of science, (again, in my opinion) boils down to warmists finding the evidence to support just what they want to believe. Gads, the subject brings the narcissists crawling out of the mirrors!
Be careful not to confuse “smart” with being wily enough to CONVINCE people you are smart. If they were smart, it seems to me that they would not have a “blinkered view of science” in the first place. Climate science, it seems to me, is a profession filled to the brim with people who have educated themselves beyond their IQs and then spend most of their energy appealing to people to pay attention to them because of their credentials (and appealing to people not to pay attention to the other guy with the ideas and actual data).
Bruce
I didn’t confuse these two. Intelligence does not preclude neurosis. Nor does venality (“wiliness” in the search of gain) drive all warmists’ views of the science. They CAN be smart in terms of bearing all the traditionally-accepted, top-of-their-class, test-verified credentials, positions and academic honors, and still be completely unable to see outside a narrow perspective of reality. I conclude that some have been genuinely frightened by something, and have unconsciously taken to projecting this angst onto the big canvas. I know this is pure armchair psychology, but… just trying to theorize what goes on inside their heads. The need to manipulate mobs doesn’t afflict all of them, either, btw. Some just wring their hands.
“Be careful not to confuse “smart” with being wily enough to CONVINCE people you are smart.”
Powerful computers and sophisticated software sadly make this easier for impersonators.
I have never seen any group of people try so hard…..to convince everyone that the tooth fairy really does exist
It’s not a benign fairy they (claim to) believe in – it’s a goblin or troll. It is, like all those creatures, a “fairy TALE”. I’ve watched some people quite close to me shivering with these apprehensions, and it appears to be a shiver of delight, as though they were hearing a ghost story with a really good ending – here, the End of the World. What does one do to mitigate one’s own fears? One takes up the tale and perpetuates it, telling it with even more sizzle. It must be a thrill to seed terror. But eliciting the sympathetic shudder comes fraught with its own set of dangers. A skeptic (“denier”) in the audience, who refuses to be cowed, presents a real threat to those who stake their credibility and job security, and self-image on their ability to weave the fabric of the spell and send forth newly-clothed converts. Ultimately it is the storyteller’s ignorance which is laid bare, and this requires ever-more-lurid and frightening stories, which we have seen over the past few decades. Let me see…
After decades of our profligate desecration of Mother Earth, the final climate doom had descended upon the face of the planet, and those few remaining believers who had foreseen the End, now lived in perpetual fear. As we shivered, alone in our solitude, a sound arose outside in the perpetual gloom. Across the dark and stormy moors, footsteps were approaching. They came nearer…
Christians.
Really? I can’t remember all the system journalists clogging their papers with Christian proclamations years on end. Thankfully, after trying to peddle warmunism, (and lately some other equally egrerious propaganda), those papers are now dying and laying off hundreds of useless eaters, at least here in Germany.
Why single-out Christians? How are they different from any other belief system based on paranormal phenomena.
Best comment on this is on Bishop Hill, from Mike Jackson: “In the course of a long life, I have come across drivel and I have come across complete shite but this really, really, really is in a class of its own.”
The fact that warmists spend so much time and energy trying to convince every one else that they are correct rather than offering up real proof (that doesn’t exist) should be a tell tale to the average person that they are hiding something. As more proof disproving their theory is uncovered the more shrill and frantic their bullying and shaming tactics become.
just fyi
one non-believer’s description and opinion of 1st week with back reference to a WUWT post:
http://www.debatepolitics.com/environment-and-climate-issues/222798-new-mooc-university-course-climate-denial-4.html
With the typical thoughtful response by the Climate Clown instructor.
Thanks for sharing, BUBBBBBBAAA! (I just love writing that name in funny ways, so I did — since it’s not your real name…. ??….. Uh, oh. Sorry (lol).)
Actually I am the Tooth Fairy and I resent Latitude’s Attitude above ;>(
I lost a tooth about a year ago.
You owe me a quarter.
I’ve got your picture –
http://www.sadanduseless.com/image.php?n=1407
$1,700 Billion is 1.7 Trillion; so, I think you meant $1,700 million?
Anthony, you may want to check your NASA Earth Science budget figures. It can be described as 1,700 million for those in the UK or as 1.7 billion for those of us who are used to the term “billions”. 1,700 billion, which would be 1.7 million million or 1.7 trillion, is right out.
Billion have different meaning in different regions.
It would solve the problem if you use the scientific notation, also called the standard form.
One way to write it: NASA’s earth science budget is 1,7 E9 $
“Not considering all of the evidence is the mark of a pseudoscientist. Many scientists today are pseudoscientists, taking the lazy road …”
In my opinion, almost all climate “scientists” are pseudoscientists. They don’t respect the laws of thermodynamics, look at real data, or follow logic. They certainly don’t look at any evidence that might challenge their idiotic claims of CO2 being the climate’s “control knob”. It is beginning to look like the era of real science is coming to a close.
When did Lysenko become a role model? It seems that the modern “consensus” is just what he would have loved.
When the hot air stops scaring people, there will be a new false boogeyman to scare them.
.
This has been going on since the false DDT boogeyman in the 1960s.
.
Remember the hole in the ozone layer, acid rain, and all the other boogeymen now long forgotten because they stopped scaring people?
.
The climate astrologers count on the ignorance of people who are not willing to spend one hour of their lives to learn the basics about Earth’s climate (it’s always changing).
.
The climate astrologers count on the willingness of people to accept scary predictions of the future climate simply because some of the people involved have advanced degrees (of course they play computer games all day, which is not real science because no real data are involved … and they take handouts from the government to play those games — essentially they are well-dressed welfare bums, who would rather play computer games than look for a real job that benefitted the economy)
Climate knowledge and environmental politics for non scientists:
Learn more about the climate than Al Gore will ever know in just ten minutes — five minutes if you read fast!
http://www.elOnionBloggle.blogspot.com
Don’t forget the alar poison apple scare and who knows how many flu types they have threatened to kill us with.
Several different bird and swine varieties plus aides and Ebola…and the list goes on.
MOOC – Mediocre Open Online Course, Misleading OOC, Moronic OOC.
Get those thesauri (thesauruses?) warmed up.
Malicious Offensively Odoriferous Cartoonist
Warmism truly is a new form of mental illness. They have created a world of make-believe science they call “the science” which they strongly believe, with little actual evidence, and those who refuse to believe, or worse, criticize are defective people in any and all manner of ways.
“According to the narration, Denialism is distinguishable from normal Scientific Skepticism by fact that the evidence is considered after one makes up one’s mind regarding the science. ”
Your web ref is useless; it goes to a wiki article on MOOC.
I found web site info here:
https://www.edx.org/course/making-sense-climate-science-denial-uqx-denial101x#!
but it bears no correlation to the story you tell. Are you just making stuff up or do you have a ref?
“This implies that one’s position on a particular fact or a group of facts is right or wrong (regardless of the outcome) is based on the order of one’s thinking, which as a scientist and philosopher, I find a hard pill to swallow.”
because it would only be wrong half of the time? Or because one should always make up their mind before the data is in? Really, why look at the data at all?
The funny point is that is the warmists post normal method. To decide the result, then fit the data using the excuse that any observation skews the data anyway.
Thanks for your criticism. It was the only one I’ve found after going through half the comments, so it’s lovely. The wiki was not mine, I didn’t have a reference, so it must be Anthony’s. If you like the course, and you agree with some or all of it, I’m happy for you.
Regarding thinking ahead of evidence and behind – We all do it. It’s just that we are better and scientists especially, when we look at the data iteratively, in other words are willing to reinvestigate the facts we know, seek new facts on new evidence, and especially not restrict our knowledge to evolving new legends and claims about what we already claimed in the past.
I’ve often wondered how hurtful is the ridiculous diversion of all the capital that could be going towards the very technology evolutions that would make all this bogus “CO2 is the climate control knob” talk moot. Imagine if all that capital was in the hands of entrepreneurs and technologists! That’s what used to happen in our wonderful republic and it is precisely why we’ve become the world leader that we
arewere. It is my opinion that the US federal government is actually making technology evolution harder, slower and more costly by picking “winners” that are clearly losers (e.g. large scale solar power, wind power, ethanol, etc.)I must disagree that there is anything significant in our US version of democracy that is controlled by the majority. I believe it’s a small fringe that is controlling most things here in the US–to the detriment of our society. The more liberals get to be in charge, it seems the worse things get for everyone. It is especially the fringe liberals that we are all letting lead us into oblivion because we’re too busy to pay attention, we don’t appreciate/realize what we have (and will soon lose) in terms of liberty because most of us did nothing but inherit it, and we have largely been brainwashed to believe things that simply are not true (socialism, Keynesian economics, multiculturalism, CAGW, etc.).
Bruce
Don’t be too harsh on liberals – a bunch of Dem’s are against the disastrous TPP Fast Track and a lot of Rep’s are for it. Unfortunately, we have a Fascist Oligarchy where both political parties are captured for whatever policies the international corporations desire. I just happen to dislike Rep’s, but have an immense dislike for Dem’s/liberals.
kokoda,
If I read you correctly, think we are in agreement that both major political parties (D’s and R’s) in the US are horrible, but that one (Democrat) seems even more consistently disastrous than the other (Republican). That’s why I can’t in good conscious affiliate with either. The attaching of either name of these parties to a politician has become almost meaningless (which it seems we agree on as well). Liberals, however, are not fit to govern in my opinion due to their strong desire to possess my naturally-obtained liberties and due to their heads being filled with stuff that is false and has been shown in practice repeatedly to not work (but they keep trying it–which is the definition of insanity).
…and to bring it back to my main point above, which still stands…
I believe strongly that the US government is significantly slowing progress in the area of energy by continuing to needlessly intervene and over-regulate markets, by directing capital to grossly inefficient purposes and by consistently picking loser technologies.
Boulder, look here how nuclear-fuel-fearmongering almost killed the three Apollo 13 astronauts when they were practically home:
http://www.universetoday.com/120124/13-more-things-that-saved-apollo-13-part-13-jim-lovells-90-degree-wrong-turn/
Bruce Corden?
Hear Hear!
I wrote the following letter to the Vice Chancellor of UQ a week ago:
Dear Professor Hoj,
I completed some post-graduate studies at the University of Queensland in the early nineties. I was thankful then for the opportunity to study in an environment in which creativity and critical thinking were encouraged.
Recently I enrolled in the online course Denial 101x organised by John Cook, Dana Nuccitelli and others. I hoped that this might be an opportunity to explore the evidence for dangerous anthropogenic climate change, and to consider differences of opinion within the scientific community.
Sadly, this is not the case. The course organisers begin with name calling (anyone who disagrees with them is a denier), move on to mischaracterising the debate (it is not about climate denial, whatever that could be, but about the extent of human influence on global climate, whether that influence is negative or positive, and if negative, the cost of attempts at prevention versus mitigation), and move on to straw man arguments.
Disagreement at any point appears to be verboten.
One of the videos posted is of psychologist Stephan Lewandowsky claiming that anyone who opposes the “consensus” must be driven by paranoid, conspiracy theory thinking.
I posted the following comment on that video:
“I am an idiot. Clearly the way I thought science works; making observations, forming hypotheses, making predictions, testing theory and predictions against reality, is completely wrong. What makes for progress in science is agreeing with the status quo.
However I take some consolation from the fact that Richard Feynman must also have been an idiot, as was Thomas Kuhn.
More disappointing is that many of those I thought of as heroes; Ignaz Semmelweiss, Newton, Pasteur, Einstein, Planck, Barry Marshall and Robert Warren, anyone who opposed Lysenkoism, were not heroes at all. They were deniers, conspiracy theorists.
Or Lewandowsky could be wrong. It’s a tough one.”
That comment was removed within an hour of being posted.
I have no objection to Cook, Nuccitelli, Lewandowsky or anyone else having a platform from which to express their views. I would object if they did not. But universities, and surely the University of Queensland with its proud history of research and learning, are not meant to be cosy echo chambers where currently popular dogmas can be repeated without challenge, and where anyone who thinks critically is insulted and excluded.
I urge you not just to allow, but to encourage, genuine debate on this issue, perhaps by inviting some well-known Australian scientists to contribute to a similar course in which the evidence can be presented and discussed in an open way. David Evans, Ian Plimer, Bob Carter, Murray Salby, and Jennifer Marohasy are just some of those who spring to mind.
With best regards,
Peter Wales
“But universities, and surely the University of Queensland with its proud history of research and learning,”
UQ only lately became a nuthouse?
“I am an idiot. Clearly the way I thought science works; making observations, forming hypotheses, making predictions, testing theory and predictions against reality, is completely wrong. What makes for progress in science is agreeing with the status quo.”
Absolutely beautifully written. Awesome !!!
If I recall, UoQ was involved in the introduction of the cane toad. Now, they are messing about with quolls from the Northern Territory that seem to be immune to the poison the toads secrete and importing them into Queensland.
What could possibly go wrong there?
Peter, Thank you so much for posting your sympathetic and informative letter here. I sincerely hope the Vice Chancellor understands the importance of your message.
As a “Liberal” in many areas of politics, CAGW politicians should understand that they have lost my vote for as long as they persist with this great deception.
That’s right. Liberals have a essential duty here not only to expose and humiliate science hangers-on such as Nuccitelli, Oreskes, Cook, and their propaganda machine, but let the politicians that play this game know that they are playing on the wrong side.
Denial is when any group accepts a hypothesis and then either: 1) The hypothesis cannot be tested. That is: “Isn’t even wrong” or 2) The predictions made by their hypothesis are at variance with future observations.
The escathological cargo cult of the CAGW contains both elements of this sort of denial or lack of scientific rigor.
I would like to offer a course on The Rise of the Korsine Budale (Useful Idiots) as a counter course to the one on Science Denialism. The course would include examples of bad science used to forward political agendas such as Eugenics and Global Warming.
If you were a relation, you’d likely be the “white sheep” of the family! 😎
While it is true that not every leftists supports this AGW nonsense, it’s also true that almost everyone who does, is a leftist.
Deal with it.
Proff Lewendowsky aka “Goebbels with graphs”
[ h/t Bishop Hill ]
Don’t you mean, ““Goebbels with graft”?
Lewandowsky. What a vulgar mind. His contribution to intellectual advancement has so far been the spread of a kind of disgusting mental vomit that tarnishes all things that it touches.
And then like a naughty child he delights in the discovery that his deceitful imitation of science irritates many good people – and so he turns the study of the irritated reaction into his next “performance piece”.
On top of which, he appears to genuinely believe that he is very clever, when he is clearly one of the most self-deluded nit-wits on the planet.
It’s so sad that Bristol University, of all places, could fall for his particular variety of turgid crap.
At some point, you’ve got to begin wondering why the D-word seems to have such power to these people that they throw it around at every chance, as if it were a magic talisman capable of enchanting all with its bogus glow.
Now we’ve got science denialism, and even WP doesn’t like that last word, and gives it a red underline squiggle, which I hereby christen word denialism.
Recently on US network news, the POTUS was holding forth on his daughter’s asthma, and spoke of climate deniers, as if anyone denies that there is a climate, or disputes that climate changes, or that the Earth sometimes warms, just as it sometimes cools. Skeptics know that the mechanism for these changes remains elusive, but most of us doubt that the beneficial trace gas carbon-dioxide – CO₂ – plays any role as an agent of climate change on planet Earth. CO₂ lags temperature.
Emotion-laden terms may bewitch ignoramuses, but skeptics want to see hard, empirical, and incontrovertible evidence of man-made global warming. Since there is none, we may safely conclude that the entire CAGW kerfuffle is merely a ruse.
I look at the people who have made millions off of books and speeches on global warming not as scientists but as salesmen, or more harshly, scammers. You can’t show them any science that will change their minds because they don’t care if they are right or not, they just want to keep the gravy train of money going as long as possible. AGW is a product to them, and it has made them famous and rich. Truth is irrelevant, like guys selling “We faked the moon landing” tapes, you create a market with a catchy presentation then keep the sales going as long as possible. Science and measurements are of no interest to them unless it is a prop they can use to make the act more marketable.
Seems a lot of tomes of advice tend to follow the model of that not so well known book
“How to do it and not get it”
Written by
“One who did it, got it and can’t get rid of it”
‘that the evidence is considered after one makes up one’s mind regarding the science.’
Unlike climate ‘Science’ where evidenced tis created after one makes up one’s mind regarding the result.
+10
One must ask: Why is so desperate a war waging to convince the other 3%. Hell, if you have 97%, go with it and forget about unanimity. My take is the real doubter D#nyers are the CAGW guys and gals. The “pause” moved into their midst like the bubonic plague and scores of them wound up on psychiatrists’ couches in deep depression, no longer working on the meme. The D#nyer part is the classic kind around which classic therapists design their therapies to get their patience to face reality in order to be cured. On top of the aversion (D#nyal) to have to look at and accept a full academic career and life has been wasted chasing phlogiston (the sick ones are of a certain age – the young are lowering their climate ‘sensitivities’), they have to eat crow pie served up by the people they spent their careers putting down, marginalizing, and laughing at. For many of these, there is no coming back. Only one in a million can say, gee, I’ve been wrong for the last 40 years. The only one I ever heard about doing that was Fred Hoyle, British astronomer and physicist. Interesting guy, who didn’t get the nobel prize (I no longer capitalize it) for discovering nucleosynthesis in the stars that built up heavier elements of the periodic table – it was a political decision by the nobel committee. Hoyle also named “the big bang theory”
” In Nature (scientific journal), editor John Maddox called it “shameful” that Fowler had been rewarded a Nobel prize and Hoyle had not.[37]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hoyle#Nobel_Physics_Prizes
Its all projection. Denialism is what the AGW proponents are engaged in. And indeed much of the Left.
It took me many years to realises that the hate that drives the left is the fear of what they would do themselves if they were in a position of wealth or power.
My parents told me I was related to:
“Captain James Cook, the great English explorer and navigator, is murdered by natives of Hawaii during his third visit to the Pacific island …”
Something like my grandmothers maiden name was “Cook” (which it was).
Then a fun fact…..
My sister (named Elizabeth) was born on Queen Elizabeth’s birthday (a true fact).
========
What exactly am I to do with all this info ???
Besides be a pest at WUWT ?
Wow. Heartland.
Defenders of second hand smoke and anything corporate America will pay them to do. And they sent “scientists” the first on their list is a creationist, and the others, well, not scientists. People like Lordy Mockton who is limited to only satellite records for his monthly “no warming since the last super El Niño” copy and paste.
And you people call your selves “skeptics”.
What a joke.
Before you attempt to write anything else, may I suggest a remedial course in English?
Take a breath.
There is no imminent catastrophe, unfortunately.
I read PK’s words looking for an imminent apostrophe, but that’s one error that wasn’t in his fact-free comment.
u.k.(us)
FYI, contrary to your assertion that writing in all caps is (figuratively) screaming and that it “never helps”,
my eye was caught by those sentences and the emphasis reflects my own frustration with the obtuseness of the pippen kools of the world.
We could all write in all caps all the time, cus our thoughts need to be noticed, too.
But that might lead to ……
You miss the point.
You said it never helps. I’m saying that sometimes it does.
That’s in the context of most of what we write not being in all caps.
Actually, I generally share your distaste for the technique . (Sorry, Janice)
What ?, there was a point ?, then yep I guess I missed it.
Pippen Kool —
Do you remember the idiot who claimed that last year was the hottest on record thus the pause was ended? He used ONE data record, land based, to claim that last year was hotter by .04 of a degree than any other year — except it then came out that he finally had to admit that there was only a 32% chance that was true — meaning that there was a 68% chance that what he said was false? All the other temperature records said last year was not the warmest year on record with as close to absolute certainty as it is possible to get.
Satellite records are acknowledged by all to be the best data set. The other land based data sets also show the pause at various lengths — the shortest being almost 15 years. The longest is almost 20 years. Mockton used the best data available.
Now as far as one of those going to Rome being a “creationist” — I will accept your word on that — BUT YOUR DUMB ASH THEY WERE GOING TO THE VATICAN!!!!!! — THE POPE IS A CREATIONIST!!!!! ALL THE PEOPLE AT THE VATICAN ARE CREATIONIST!!!!!
And all the peer reviewed literature agree that second hand smoke is harmless. Are you anti-science refusing to believe the peer reviewed literature?
Eugene WR Gallun
Screaming never helps, just an FYI.
“Satellite records are acknowledged by all to be the best data set.”
Not really. But anyway, they don’t measure the surface temps, you know, the place we are. BTW, didn’t I just see somewhere, maybe Sou’s site, that the RSS is at its highest value for the last 5 years?
And actually, not really sure about the Pope being a creationist. Not that that matters.
U.K., you may be right (and I could use that advice myself, no doubt)…
BUT, I FOUND MR. GALLUN’S EXCELLENT ESSAY (full of powerful facts) RESOUNDINGLY REFUTING PIP REFRESHINGLY ROBUST!
GOOOO, Gallun!
#(:))
(and Go, U.K., too. You’re alright, U.K. (Mark? or Mike? sorry I forgot))
trafamadore says:
…not really sure about the Pope being a creationist. Not that that matters.
Oh, but it does matter. A lot!
The Pope is 100.0% religious.
The purveyors of man-made global warming are 100.0% religious.
See the connection?
@ Janice,
James Colbourne
Elk Grove Village, Illinois.
Nope. You can be religious and not a creationist. And understanding the reality of AGW is not a belief. It’s more like understanding the reality of the keyboard you are using at the moment. Or the computer.
Dear James,
Sorry about that! Thanks for the reminder to this forgetful person.
Janice
Somewhere, (Pacific Daylight Time) USA
@ Janice,
I’m guessing Seattle ??
Do I even have the state correct ?
Pippen Kool writes:
“Defenders of second hand smoke and anything corporate America will pay them to do.”
You need some help in grammar. The above is an incomplete sentence. Have you ever heard of the terms “subject” and “verb”?
Your next sentence is a “run-on” sentence. Your third sentence in paragraph two is an incomplete, or maybe run-on sentence. Have you heard of the term “punctuation”?
Is your only sentence in paragraph three a statement or question?
Your fourth paragraph’s only “sentence” does not have a subject or verb.
Your whole diatribe is a complete and utter grammar fiasco. I suggest you purchase the following book:
http://www.amazon.com/English-Grammar-Dummies-Geraldine-Woods/dp/0470546646
Shakespeare should read it too: “Who wouldst thou serve?”; “To who, my lord?” (King Lear l.iv.24, V.iii. 249)
English has changed quite a bit since his time.
Fortunately your side’s argument is so weak that all one needs to refute it is a basic understanding of the Scientific Method, ‘Pip’. What do the models say? Warming. What’s it doing? Not what the models say. Next hypothesis please, ‘Pip’.
P. Kool says:
“Wow. Heartland.”
Heartland operates on a shoestring budget, very different than the rent-seekers that PK believes in. But PK is still greatly annoyed by Heartland’s existence. Why?
The answer is simple: Heartland is a pro-America think tank that punches well above its weight. It has more influence than any alarmist organization twice its size. The reason is because Heartland has truth and logic on its side, and PK’s crowd are merely deceptive propagandists pushing their carbon scare narrative.
And finally, PK wouldn’t know a real skeptic if one bit him on the a… nkle. He doesn’t understand anything about skepticism. Scientific skeptics are the only honest kind of scientists. But PK doesn’t know anything about that.
Pippen Kool
May 7, 2015 at 4:53 pm
“People like Lordy Mockton who is limited to only satellite records for his monthly “no warming since the last super El Niño” copy and paste.”
Satellite measurements suffer way less from violating the Nyquist theorem than isolated thermometers on the surface, Pippen Kool, so they deliver a much better product. Also, The theory of CO2AGW posits that warming should be MORE pronounced in the troposphere than on the ground, so the satellites would be the first to notice it. Every warmist would therefore look to the satellites first to get a warning about the impending warming, Pippen Kool. Why do you not understand this? I guess it is because you are not at all interested in observations but you are part of a political movement that wants to gain absolute control over energy production globally to erect a technocratic world government.
Gavin Schmidt?
Its the New Age Science
Of the Progressive Alliance
I got the data
I got the data
I got the data in me
When the global warming theory is finally abandoned due to the stability of temperatures in another 15 years or so, will the leaders of this on-line brainwashing attempt:
– admit they were wrong;
– move on to the latest environmental craze; or,
– drink the kool-aid.
I will be here on that day and all of us need to commit to do the same so we can stop this madness of the crowd sooner than 15 years rather than later.
Bill Illis
May 7, 2015 at 5:12 pm
…..”I will be here on that day ….”
============
Don’t tempt Her with predictions 🙂
No! As we enter the next glaciation be blaming the cold and ice on CO2.
Which they gotta save us from.
It is easy to prove that the “global warming” in a given period of time is multi-valued. Consequently, though it is true that it has not changed in 18+ years it is also true that it has changed in this period. That it has done both violates the law of non-contradiction. Thus, there is not the need to wait 15 years before abandoning global warming theory. It can be done today.
Wow, I think the author “nailed it.” Global warming alarmists are science “deniers.” Any attempt at ration discussion with them will immediately devolve into sophomoric rants, claims that you are in the pay of “big oil”, claims of an unquestionable “consensus” of 70 people out of over 11,000 and the classic “fingers in ears” while chanting “la, la, la…” when new data suggests they are wrong.
Not to worry, once someone comes up with a “new” environmental crisis that “appears” to be solid they will finally drop global warming. Perhaps if the Thames freezes over again, then we’d be hearing the warnings about a new ice age.
Okay, the sarcasm is a bit much, but it’s been a long day for me.
When global warming is confirmed to be over, the Liberals will take credit for it!
John Cook’s basic problem is that he thinks institutionalized thinking is near perfect, so he believes that propagating institutionalized conclusions is a sound way of doing science.
A Darwinian approach could immediately pick a hole in this.
If ‘institutionalized thinking’ is ‘near perfect’, this will immediately attract people who will use it’s ‘near perfect’ record for their own selfish purposes and agendas, therefore making it less than perfect.
Its very existence in being excluded from public scrutiny, and it special role as an authority on knowledge, makes it inevitable that it will succumb to hawks within the Darwinian process.
Sereda, you are correct, it will be all the wind and solar and energy efficiency efforts that ended AGW, despite the evidence it is all natural variation.
Eugene WR Gallun May 7, 2015 at 5:32 pm
It’s best to discuss one idea at a time. Second hand smoke has nothing to do with catastrophic man-made climate change. Nobody is right about everything, not even the Heartland Institute.
I strongly disagree with Heartland Institute’s stand on second-hand smoke, and it pains me to see skeptics here defending it.
Tobacco smoke is nasty. According to the CDC:
Tobacco smoke contains more than 7,000 chemicals, including hundreds that are toxic and about 70 that can cause cancer*
* U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Health Consequences of Smoking—50 Years of Progress: A Report of the Surgeon General. Atlanta: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Office on Smoking and Health, 2014 [accessed 2015 Feb 5].
http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/secondhand_smoke/general_facts/
As a former smoker occasionally exposed to second hand smoke, I can assure you that the nasty fumes cause me physical distress, including coughing, gagging, sneezing, shortness of breath, sore throat, congested nasal passages, watery eyes, and runny nose.
As a chain smoker, I can say it comes with the territory.
Nobody gets out alive.
But some “get out” before others.
As a long-time tobacco & nicotine addict, I’ve had all the rationalizations and justifications many times over, so don’t come at me with that crap.
I can only tell you that good health is precious, and it is also yours to squander or nurture as you see fit. You do have the opportunity – don’cha just love that phrase? – to give yourself a precious gift.
The triumph of the will over King Nicotine is a great accomplishment, a tremendous personal achievement, and a very proud possession, just in case you feel like struttin’ your stuff a little.
The “crap” I came at you with, was fueled by alcohol.
So now what ??
All of my parents and grandparents smokes into there 70s and 80s. The latest casualty was my grandmother who died of smoking at 90 years old. I was exposed to second hand smoke all my life. I am perfectly healthy. So from what I’ve experienced, I would say that the whole thing is overblown.
It is a nuisance smell.
“smoked” typo
In the CAGW debate, leftists have near monopolistic control over the: language, culture, funding, communication outlets, history, education, governments, courts, regulations, economy, raw data and institutions.
About the only thing leftist don’t control is Mother Nature, and even with this, they have the hubris and taudacity to think they hold dominion..
Throughout human history, any movement that held such overwhelming control of all these things was successful in obtaining their objectives, but not this time; not yet anyway…
Ultimately, the leftist CAGW movement will fail because their hypothesis simply doesn’t work. All people need to do to confirm this is to look out their window and see the sky is, in fact, not falling down…
The fear that was instilled by leftists is slowly changing to indifference that will eventually evolve into ridicule then anger and, hopefully…..change.
I hop people will learn the valuable lesson that any leftist government that has the ability to provide all your needs, also has the power and control to take all that you have.
Nobody can face reality when they are nearly 100% wrong. Many of these people are RIGHT on the value of carbon sequestration in the soil. Not because of the warming nonsense, but because the other name for soils rich in organic matter is “fertile.” Let them help on that, and after 10 years, the alarmism can be dropped because their successes will be more interesting.
I STILL don’t know what denying climate means but I will assume John Cook is an expert in the subject.
The vagueness of CAGW is the truly evil aspect of “Climate Change”.
When the left controls the narrative, semantics and the vocabulary, “Climate Change” means whatever the left wants it to mean. It’s non-nullifiable; you can’t prove a negative.
The more vague the concept, the more difficult it becomes to disconfirm, and the more a lie is repeated, the more people believe it be true; it’s Orwellian NEWSPEAK on steroids.
“Climate Change” will tautologically always be “true” because climate always has and always will change.
Of course CAGW apologists will claim “Climate Change” means human induced warming of > 2C per CO2 doubling, but even this most fundamental criteria will be changed once it is shown to be unobtainable….
It’s like trying to nail mercury to a wall…
Eventually, more and more people will realize all the logical fallacies of CAGW and it will eventually be laughed and eye-rolled into obscurity.
Just be patient. CAGW is quickly falling apart like a cheap suit.
Truth is the daughter of time. ~ Sir Francis Bacon
A more apt descriptor than “newspeak” is “double speak” aka “equivocation.”
Well see, that’s your problem, you just don’t know anything about the subject of climate, so you wouldn’t know what denying climate means.
You septic are just too easy.
Very insightful, you got us figured out.
I do know something about climate, and I understand perfectly why CAGW alarmists use ad hominem logical fallacies because that’s pretty much all that remains to defend their indefensible hypothesis…
Actually, by definition, skeptics (not “septics”) are skeptical, so it’s very difficult to convince us of anything…. Skeptics need empirical evidence that agrees with hypothetical projections within 2 SDs to convince us the CAGW hypothesis is a viable hypothesis.
Since the CAGW hypothesis continues to fail miserably on just about everything to meet that criteria, we skeptics will remain very skeptical…
I’ve been observing Climate Change, Anthropic Global Warming or
whatever its practitioners, priests and bishops want to call it, from
the sidelines for about thirty years.
So far, I have yet to see any of the promised “tipping points,”
catastrophes, and other predictions made, come true. Even snow is
still present in England during winter in quantities no child could miss.
When predictions are made which do come true, appear in my lifetime,
when, where and how they are predicted, then I might consider re-
examining the evidence, reworking my reasoning and accepting the
conclusions I arrive at. If those conclusions differ from my present ones,
I will change my mind. Voluntarily, not because some MOO-Cow says
I’m in denial.
Over fifteen years ago, I thought AGW could be true. It warranted
examination. I held no opinion about it when I started looking. The
more I looked and pondered, the worse it looked and performed.
Prediction after prediction after prediction failed. Eventually my
conclusions could not be denied.
I didn’t deny them. I accepted them. They just aren’t the conclusions
some seem to think I should have arrived at. Oh dear, how sad, too
bad, never mind.
My apologies to the NASA Earth team. I incorrectly added zeroes. They feel they can do all of their magic with only $1,770,300,000 this year.
So you’ve taken it upon yourself to cut NASA’s budget, ‘eh?
/sarc
“….More false claims being made just to keep us afraid,
And dare question you become a denier;
A shocking display to use fear in this way,
But remember that fear is a liar!….”
“….A “consensus”, how absurd, that’s no scientific word,
And “settled”, the one thing science is never.
Our ignorance being used, and science being abused,
By politicians in their dishonest endeavour.”
Read more: http://wp.me/p3KQlH-FY
These people clearly never read George Orwell’s 1984. The definition of being psychologically unwell is not you believe something different to me!
Goldie yes of course, but in room full of fools a wise person is a fool, eh? But it is a disaster if universities have shut their doors to alternative research and hypothesis. It’s a bit Russian eh?
With science, if something is unclear, it’s the science that is weak, not the mind that questions weak claims.
This is copy and paste from the video on week 1 “Five characteristics of science denial”:
“What’s the difference between skepticism and denial? They can look similar because denial arguments are often presented as if they were real skepticism. But when you look under the surface, they’re actually polar opposites.
Skepticism is at the heart of the scientific method. A genuine skeptic doesn’t come to a conclusion until they’ve considered the evidence. That’s why it took many years for the scientific community to accept the fact that the Earth is warming because of human greenhouse gas emissions. Scientists were skeptical until the evidence became overwhelming.
In contrast, someone who denies well-established science comes to a conclusion first, and then rejects any evidence that conflicts with their beliefs.”
Before you mislead and misread, please take a second look. A true scientist (also skeptical) wouldn’t make up or confuse things as you are posting here. Those who don’t believe me can easily access the edX MOOC or even watch the video from youtube and make up their own minds:
‘Denialism is distinguishable from normal Scientific Skepticism’
so their djihad evolves to downscale scepticism to a church against green believers – elevating them into a new clash of civilsations.
Brave Hearts.
johann wundersamer
Your contention that “so their djihad evolves to downscale scepticism to a church against green believers – elevating them into a new clash of civilsations.
Brave Hearts.” sounds to me like utter nonsense. If it makes sense to you please explain.
STOP PRESS. My MP in New England (Oz) still doesn’t know UWA has refused to entertain Bjorn and rejects the 4 mil grant. I am about to ring his PA in Canberra.