Social science provides a lot of useful insight as to why logic and data rarely convince warmists.
Guest essay by Matt Manos
Many of the posters and readers at WUWT have expressed frustration at convincing warmists. Using facts and logic seem to fall on deaf ears. There are some interesting social sciences theories on why warmist are unresponsive. I know the social sciences aren’t a favored science with this group but if you’ll bear with me, you’ll hopefully see how social science can be useful in describing why warmists are unreachable. And possibly, what to do about it.
In their latest speeches on global warming, Obama and the Pope weren’t trying to convince skeptics that CAGW is real. Instead, they were sending signals to their supporters on what “all right thinking people” should be saying. This is classic in-group/out-group communication. Obama and the Pope were setting up the talking points for their in-group members to use to determine who can be considered part of the tribe and who should be rejected for being outside of it. This is a process called Othering. Othering turns political foes into non-beings. Others have no value. Others can be discounted and ignored. Others can be mocked.
Obama and the Pope are examples of bellwethers; the sheep with the bell that the other sheep follow. Bellwether is not a derogatory term, it’s a descriptive term. The job of a political bellwether is to indicate the position that their followers should take in their everyday conversations. Obama and the Pope’s latest speeches function as position papers for the delegates of all right thinking people. You meet these people at work, church, school, at the coffee house, etc. The delegates will mirror the words that the President or the Pope used to identify other in-group members, normalize beliefs and mock out-group members. One of the main themes of both speeches was shame. Shame on those who aren’t right thinking people. Shame that they aren’t as intelligent and capable as “us.”
That type of smugness is almost impossible to penetrate. When a skeptic questions a warmist’s view on global warming/climate change, the warmist hears something vastly different than what the skeptic is saying. A skeptic might say, “The models don’t match the actual measured results.” What the warmist hears is how stupid deniers are because that’s what John Stewart told him he should think. If the warmist doesn’t prove that he thinks skeptics are stupid then he might be confused for a denier! And no one wants to be identified with being a denier because they’re mocked, don’t get tenure and don’t get invited to the right parties. No amount of science can penetrate the ROI the warmist has internalized in believing in CAGW.
Many of the warmist are running on pure rational ignorance. Rational ignorance is a belief that the cost/benefit to researching every issue is so low as to be a net negative in time utilization. Thus the ignorance is rational and everyone utilizes this mental process on certain topics. People who are rationally ignorant about global warming look to bellwethers that support their gut stance. Rationally ignorant warmists would look to world leaders, mockutainers and warmist scientists for guidance on how to communicate their position on global warming.
Penetrating rational ignorance is tough because the position warmists have taken isn’t based on logic. Their position is actually based on an appeal to authority. To question the rationally ignorant warmist is to question the field of science as a whole (to be a science denier) or to question the leadership of their favorite bellwether personalities. This will cause the rationally ignorant warmist to become defensive and try to stand up for their favorite bellwether. The rationally ignorant will also point to their favorite bellwethers and say, “Who am I to doubt all these intelligent people?” It’s intellectually offshoring. It’s lazy. It’s human nature.
The scientific method rejects outright in-group/out groups, Othering, bellwethers and rational ignorance. A scientist is supposed to follow the results on an experiment even if the results don’t support his hypothesis. The scientist is clearly not supposed to rig the data to ensure he gets invited to a party with the right people or continued funding. But science has a poor track record on controversial topics. It often takes decades to accept new theories that are clear winners (e.g., continental drift).
Scientists are still social animals. Social animals follow hierarchy and incentives. If you really want to win the debate on global warming, change the opinions of the bellwethers. Change the economic incentives for the global warming scientific paper mill. Otherwise you’re stuck debating only the people who are unable to change their minds because it would cost them personally to do so. Rare is the person intellectually honest enough to bite the hand that feeds or is willing to violate social norms to speak the truth.
instead of psychological engagement, let’s pose some simple questions and then the flip:
If CO2 is so dangerous, why is it a commodity traded for profit rather than outright banned?
Just how will paying taxes control global warming?
What is your understanding of carbon based life on Earth?
Use their “what if we’re wrong emotional appeal” – Sure Scientists (love that) tell us that CO2 will produce some global warming, but Scientists also tell us that it has enhanced plant life – and therefore animal life – 30% or more over the past decades. So, perhaps it will get warmer, but should we take the chance and threaten the welfare of all Earth’s plants and animals?
Plants are very happy at 280 ppm of CO2. Animals do not care as long as they can eat plants. It is us humans that are going to be affected by rising CO2 levels.
You can have too much of a good thing. Think chocolate.
“Plants are very happy at 280 ppm of CO2.”
Hey, Grasshopper, here’s your homework; find out about the difference between C3 and C4 plants. Bonus points if you find out what happens to the CO2 level in the immediate proximity of a photosynthesizing corn plant on a non-windy sunny day. More bonus points if you find out about the function and density of stomata depending on CO2 content, and how this affects the plants ability to grow in semi arid conditions.
There will be fewer semi-arid conditions if CO2 levels are lower.
You’re obviously ignorant of how commercial greenhouses supplement CO₂ for the betterment of their plants. If I remember correctly, the sweet spot is around 1000 ppm. In reality, the increase in atmospheric CO₂ levels has resulted in the greening of the planet.
You call yourself a physicist and you can’t differentiate between carbon (soot) and CO₂? If you believe CO₂ is a pollutant, stop exhaling.
… said no plant ever.
Humans are animals, so your distinction between them w.r.t. CO2 levels is illogical. And you think 0.04% (400 ppm) CO2 is “too much of a good thing”? Your irrationality is obvious, and seemingly not constrained by any common sense. You are a blatant, self-deluded, “educated” idiot (miseducated, as 2 whole generations have been, by other educated idiots)–a bellwether (or classic example) of the climate alarmist group, which I (a lifelong independent and non-joiner, who nevertheless voted Democratic through 8 straight presidential elections, before the rise of the Islamic Manchurian Candidate, Barack Hussein Obama) know as “The Insane Left”. You are marching, like a lemming, toward real, general, and thoroughly unnecessary war, totally on behalf of the politically insane, and entirely by virtue of your scientific incompetence and unquestioning belief in what is merely your preferred dogma.
Here is the definitive evidence against your university brainwashing–the comparison of two detailed planetary atmospheres:
Venus: No Greenhouse Effect
And I agree with you about the strength of the consensus, only I would put it like this:
97% of climate scientists (and even skeptics) are scientific incompetents. There is no valid global climate science, and no competent climate scientists (because you all ignore or dismiss the definitive evidence).
Unlikely; there is a poor correlation between atmospheric CO2 concentration and global temperature anomalies. If even there were a causal relationship, though,, the history of Bond events shows that cooling, not warming, is associated with aridification.
Mr. Huffman,
There are few absolute truths in life, and few statements which contain pronouncements of an absolute nature are valid.
(Apologies to Rocky Balboa)
Climate Pete
May 24, 2015 at 7:49 am
“There will be fewer semi-arid conditions if CO2 levels are lower.”
What gives you that idea? Do you think the Sahara only came into being once humans started exploiting rock oil? Think for a moment please.
Let us assume that your idea that rising CO2 leads to a higher surface temperature were correct (and ignore the fact that the last 18 years prove that idea wrong, at least for measly sub 1000 ppm levels).
So, higher temperatures would lead to higher evaporation, higher water vapor content (as even the warmunist modeler dolts say), a general acceleration of the water cycle – and obviously more precipitation, not less.
A warmer world is a moister world. Hothouse Earth periods in the past prove that. They also had way higher CO2 contents, coincidentally.
Well but anyway. You ignored my assigment, now go back to your studies.
You are fast destroying your credibility,when you make silly statements of this kind, “Plants are very happy at 280 ppm of CO2.”
Reality backed by HUNDREDS of published papers,and by the Nursery industry, showing plants far happier with much higher levels of CO2 than 280 ppm. Greenhouses regularly elevate the levels to around 1500 ppm.
If plants grows so much better and faster at 400 ppm ,than 280 ppm, it is clear that 280 was not high enough.
Pete,
If you understood elementary physics and chemistry, you’d know that warmer means wetter and cooler means drier. This isn’t hypothetical. It is what geologists and paleoclimatologists actually observe.
During the warmer than now Holocene climatic optimum, to take but one example, the Sahara was verdant. The Green Sahara, Neolithic Subpluvial or Holocene Wet Phase lasted from about 9500 to around 5000 years ago, or a slightly shorter interval within that range. It was interrupted briefly by the Younger Dryas-like cold event c. 8200 years ago.
Full glacial conditions are dry, as shown by the dust pile ups during those intervals, creating global loess zones, such as the one upon which I live.
Pete,
All trees and most other plants are far from happy at 280 ppm. Why do you suppose that real greenhouses keep CO2 at 1000 to 1300 ppm?
If there is an optimum CO2 for most plants, it’s 800 to 1000 ppm or more. Unfortunately, the world will probably not get over 600 ppm until the current Ice House phase ends millions of years from now.
“Plants are very happy at 280 ppm of CO2”
Oh really? Please explain why greenhouses pump in CO2 to about 1,200 ppm then. And while you’re at it, why the vast majority of plants have been shown to grow better, faster, needing less water and nutrients and with better resistance to most pests and diseases when CO2 levels are significantly higher than present day levels.
“There will be fewer semi-arid conditions if CO2 levels are lower.”
Oh really? Please explain how you figure that when warmer air is able to hold more water vapor. Also please explain how you imagine that happening when in fact over the past 30 years the planet has been greening, and major desert areas such as the Sahara have been shrinking, not growing.
Pete doesn’t listen to the shrieks from the asphyxiating plant kingdom. It’s a little like a rabbit in peril, but much higher pitched, and drawn out over millennia. Oh, the agony.
Someone, please stop the torment! The sun and the biome inevitably conspire to almost irreversibly sequester carbon from that same biome; the earth cannot sustain an adequate atmospheric concentration of CO2. It’s a turribul problem.
Well, no wonder the horror seems to recede with each increase in greening. Someone’s taken care of the job. How about a little thanks and gratitude for this incidental miracle worker. If man did not exist, it would be useful to invent him.
We are deities from the DNA machine, and Gaia adores us.
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You mean like how the Sahara Desert is shrinking/greening? http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/07/090731-green-sahara.html
Bubba Cow. USA pays billions in taxes to subsidise fossil fuel operations and the world pays trillions in taxes to clean up from burning them. China has hundreds of thousands of deaths each year from air pollution. US ten thousand or so. Use all these existing tax handouts to build pollution free renewables generation instead.
If you want to make it as economically efficient as possible just raise a net neutral carbon tax where the revenue is returned to individuals and companies as a tax rebate. Then you can leave market forces to do the rest as long as the carbon price keeps going up. Companies can plan ahead and select the best investment for them.
“USA pays billions in taxes” – that means me, not some abstract country.
Should we prefer to subsidize bird blenders – or excellent sources of plant food?
You got the semi-arid completely backwards.
Climate Pete, it is so good of you to come to this web site to educate us non PHD Physicists (expet for all the posters on here who are of course).
So can you confirm for us that you believe in AGW and CAGW, you know the Catastrophic version?
Mr. Doctorpete,
Do you believe that receiving a tax deduction is the same as a “tax handout”?
In other words, that every dollar one does not pay in taxes is a dollar that is given to one by the gubmint?
And please provide a detailed accounting of the “trillions of dollars” that the world pays to clean up from burning fossil fuels?
Because otherwise, many would rightly think that you are, you know, just making stuff up out of thin air and off the top of your head.
Thanks in advance.
Where did you study physics? Universal Class? Ha ha…….:-)
Accelerated depreciation of capital expenditures is not a tax subsidy. You parrot things you know nothing anything about.
“The US pays billions to subsidise fossil fuel operations”?? “…the world pays trillions in taxes to clean up from burning them”. Someone much more cynical than me might conclude from those assertions that you are not educated by a university but by activist organizations such as WWF or GreenPeace. (Another homework assignment: look up the “linear, no low threshold” fallacy. If that assumption were true, we’d be stacking up Asthma patients in all the ERs as CO2 climbs, but fortunately the rates are actually reducing.) To paraphrase your earlier comment , “too much chocolate can be bad”; although too much salt will kill you, so will too little.
The same cynic might conclude from your remarks that you don’t understand the difference between CO2 emissions and particulate pollution. (The latter is very similar to the water pollution that occurs in China and probably will continue until at least 2030 based on agreements the IPCC and now the US President set with China.)
BTW, I’m sure you didn’t fall for the latest nonsense from the activists that a “subsidy” consists not of the dollars/pounds paid to the oil/coal companies, but rather the “uncollected” societal “costs” they impose. (Which again uses the logical fallacy of “begging the question” since it assumes that one agrees that CO2 is a pollutant and has harmful rather than beneficial impacts.)
Absolute rubbish!!! The Big Oil PAYS ~40% in taxes and then stockholders pay on the dividends a SECOND time. (The small oil exploring outfits would pay even more if not for rapid write-offs for their drilling costs.)
Federal government and Big Oil are PARTNERS. Throttling supply increases prices which makes more money for Big Oil and their parasite partner – federal government. It’s the whole basis for CAGW hoax IMO.
Forbes Magazine:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2012/04/16/which-megacorps-pay-megataxes/
The bit about subsidies is false. In fact on a per unit energy produce basis, “renewables” get vastly more subsidies than fossil fuels do. Furthermore, the vast majorities of what are often claimed to be “subsidies” are nothing more than the same tax breaks every other industry gets – or they’re payments to the poor who can’t afford energy. Meanwhile, cheap, abundant fossil fuels have raised massive numbers out of bare subsidence poverty and into the highest average standard of living in mankind’s history – not to mention saved vastly more lives than it’s ever taken from air pollution.
What’s more, “renewables” are from from “pollution free.” Try looking up what mining the required rare earths has done to China. Or consider all the concrete necessary to build them, and the space necessary to dispose of them once no longer safe/useful. They’re also vastly more expensive, far less reliable, and have a bigger environmental footprint.
Taxes can be thought as the “price” for a set of services (note the violation of antitrust principles, notably forced bundling of unrelated items) provided by the State.
What gov service does Big Oil need? The Navy?
Bellweathers can be changed. We have a democracy which enables a party that is failing to be replaced with a party that understands reality that proposes solutions that work. Bellweathers cannot convince the public to accept real scarifies for no benefits. People are confusing silly talk with real policies that have implications.
The Electorate, the Pope, and the next US president all want jobs rather than sky high unemployment (see EU where the average unemployment is 11.4%, no change year by year) which require an expanding economy. The EU policies are not connected with reality and are ineffective. The EU is failing. Spending money on green scams that do not work, is one of the reasons why the EU is uncompetitive, is one of reasons the EU is failing. German consumers pay three times more for electricity than the US consumers. German can pay three times more for electricity as they have hogged all the EU jobs, due to a common currency. Germany has the highest positive trade imbalance in the world. The US has one of the largest negative trade imbalances in the world. The US and most countries of the world do not have sufficient funds to waste trillions and trillions of dollars on green scams that do not work.
Abrupt planetary cooling coinciding with an abrupt change to the sun is going to be a top media story. Media competes with Bellweathers, changes Bellweathers. The Pope, the next US president, and the US electorate are not going to support spending trillions and trillions of deficit dollars on green scams that do not work when the planet is abruptly cooling.
To actually reduce world CO2 emissions by let say 50% would require a complete change of the world electrical generation to nuclear power and a banning of tourism air travel. i.e. Significant CO2 emissions reduction would require real sacrifices and changes that the public will not accept.
http://www.cfact.org/2014/12/16/germanys-energy-transformation-unsustainable-subsidies-and-an-unstable-system/
Germany Energiewend Leading To Suicide By Cannibalism. Huge Oversupply Risks Destabilization
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/02/08/weekly-climate-and-energy-news-roundup-167/
By Fred F. Mueller, No Tricks Zone, Feb 4, 2015
http://notrickszone.com/2015/02/04/germanys-energiewende-leading-to-suicide-by-cannibalism-huge-oversupply-risks-destabilization/#sthash.8tE9YRDj.PSllYaQF.dpbs
In 2006, I started selling Renewable Energy for homes & business. At that time there were ~5 methods to store electricity.
In 2013, the USA Dept of Energy released a report of ~50 different methods in varying degrees of implementation. The latest is Tesla’s home battery system, but my favourite is Underwater Compressed Air in huge balloons pumped full by surplus Wind & Solar then released during heavy demand periods.
As in all fields, invention is Rapid these days.
Germany also uses a method that uses surplus wind to make hydrogen to pump into their natural gas system (thus reducing dependence on Russia a tad).
We in the US elected Obama TWICE. Just sayin’.
Very good essay, though on ground I find disconcerting.
A scientist is supposed to follow the results on an experiment even if the results don’t support his hypothesis.
To wit, Fall et al. We went forward with publication even though it disputed our central hypothesis. The ability to adduce that fact has been a powerful weapon in the hostile context of my travels.
(And now we again dispute ourselves, but that’s what our new results are. As the prior grim expressions become relaxed smiles.)
Reblogged this on Climatism and commented:
“A skeptic might say, “The models don’t match the actual measured results.” What the warmist hears is how stupid deniers are because that’s what John Stewart told him he should think. If the warmist doesn’t prove that he thinks skeptics are stupid then he might be confused for a denier! And no one wants to be identified with being a denier because they’re mocked…”
Good read. Spot on.
I am a skeptic because I am a physicist who understands enough detail of atmospheric physics and climate change to know that CO2 emissions in theory cause an energy imbalance at the top of the atmosphere which never have been validated through observations (the uncertainty in the measurements is larger than the quantity measured). This theoretical imbalance must at some time be corrected by increased heat emission to space thus reducing any surface warming, whether now or later. And all the signs are that no warming is to be seen in despite of the current El Niño.
It is noteworthy that those not questioning climate change are almost always liberals in English-speaking nations. And many are trained and published climate science experts with connections to Greenpeace, WWF etc. That says to me that endorsing and defending AGW is due to primarily political and not scientific findings, especially since less than 3% of mainstream climate scientists even mention their stance on AGW. Further the more a non-climate scientist gets to know about climate science the more they will tell you climate change is real and but less likely entirely caused by humans. This is exemplified by the attitude among meteorologists, 90% of whom believe the earth is warming (which all skeptics agree to as well) and that we don´t have a major influence on the climate
So the reason why it is difficult to convince skeptics is that they know that there are quite a few who are real published experts in the subject thinking the human factor is exaggerated, including climate experts who are liberals, and they can readily see that the uncritical worshipping of AGW only influences one half of the political landscape of non-experts.
Neat response to Pete 🙂
Well, ‘deniers’ deny catastrophic future warming, and affirm catastrophic present policy.
C’mon, they are dying by the millions from the green madness. It’s about time to stop that. There will be no regrets.
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+1
“Many of the posters and readers at WUWT have expressed frustration at convincing warmists. Using facts and logic seem to fall on deaf ears.”
I have said it before but it apparently needs to be said again. It is simple sales 101. People do not change their minds to buy something or into something on facts and logic. They buy on emotion and what’s in it for me, especially those that are less informed. It really is that simple. Look at how we got to this point. The AGW crowd has done an excellent job of selling their side based on what? The emotion of fear, the emotion of helping save the planet, the emotion of making things better for “the children.” Add in that their side claims to be in the majority and you have the recipe for success. So by accepting their point of view a person gets rewarded with self importance and self worth. Only when the emotion and greed are overcome by disastrous consequences will people turn to facts and logic. In most sales the disastrous consequences is loss of money which can be overcome by making better decisions. But in the case of climate the disastrous consequences of the warmist’s folly will be real destruction of the human condition.
The only way I see to change peoples minds is to pound them with how financially destructive these anti carbon policies will hurt them personally. It must be made personal for each individual.
How to go about this is a matter for another discussion as it is now time for me to get going to the Nav-A-Gator Grill & Marina for an afternoon of tasty food, cold drinks and good music.
Enjoy – and let’s not forget to Memorialize. I think of my Dad (WWII) and Grandfather (WWI).
I have to go to town, buy liquid carbon, feed the tractor and mow the grass and dandelions (true renewables), put clippings on the raspberries … all this anthropogenic CO2 is turning Vermont into a jungle.
Yes, tomorrow my wife and I will attend a Memorial Day service in the AM at Veteran’s Park. I will honor my buddies lost in the early 70’s.
Not just personally. The impact of proposed policy on the UDCs is horrible to contemplate. Lay that one on too. And don’t forget to mention how much more destructive the UDCs are on the environment than the DCs — development by fastest means is ecologically imperative. Wind it up with the diminishing returns on CO2 forcing (a fixed amount per doubling — we may double, but we will never, ever redouble).
…..and to continue to point out how destructive the alarmist policies are to the people of the 3rd world.
I believe it boils down to a desire to control others. Beliefs that require others to be controlled are desirable to those with the type views of “I know what’s best for you”.
The population of humans has always been fairly evenly split between people who seek control and want to appropriate rent from others for their activities (the scribes) and those who create value through their actual value add activities (the farmers).
Those who create value through activities are always resistant to controls or restrictions placed on themselves and others – these people derive much self esteem and pride from their visible productivity.
Those who prefer to influence or control others usually are not productive in the basic working sense (on the farm) but derive value and self esteem from administration, advertising, writing (lawyers & journalists), politics, academic pursuits and teaching. The appeal of a “planet saving” cause is irresistible to these types as it hugely increases the value of what they do or say. It allows them to feel better about themselves compared to productive people (as there is always a nagging doubt that their role in society is not as visibly value adding)
Anyway these battles have been playing out for thousands of years. During times of strife these battles literally can be become real battles – persecution of producers or value add people or vice versa persecution of academics or intellectuals.
I have no axe to grind as both types of personality are necessary for civilization to function. The danger is when Barak Obama starts characterizing deniers as a security threat and nobody in the media & public seems to find this position unacceptable. This is one step towards totalitarian state and ultimately potential genocide of one side by the other. Not to say that we are anywhere close to the divisive extremes reached by Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin and many others but just to say it is shameful that nobody is attuned to this growing risk. All that is required in the mix is a strife or a depression – like a financial crisis. Perhaps the next financial crisis (inevitable) will be so big that Qe4 and QE5 are unable to prevent severe economic depression and in this context the kind of statements by the leader of the free world start to sound like a rallying cry towards totalitarianism.
“.. both types of personality are necessary for civilization to function”
There is no compromise between the truth and a lie. I don’t care whether a person is a “producer” or an “administrator”, I want them to be HONEST! The fewer dishonest people there are – the better off we all are.
And really, the best administrators are generally those who have already demonstrated their ability as the best producers and are therefore even MORE productive directing others how to be their best. That is what sickens me the most about Obama, in 2008 he had ZERO demonstrated ability at running anything at all except his own mouth. Six years later it appears that on the job training isn’t working out so well either.
It is hard to convince warmists because it is near impossible to believe that the radiative theory could have a simple flaw at its heart. It has taken me 8 years to isolate despite having known the basic principles for decades. There has been so much obfuscation going on that the basic simplicity has disappeared from view.
Alarmists think that a surface at 288K must radiate photons upwards at a rate commenurate with a temperature of 288K even if there is ongoing conduction and convection.
They apply S-B to an interface sandwiched between the grey bodies of planet and atmosphere without taking conduction and convection into account.
S-B can only be applied to a surface from which the observer is separated by a vacuum so that no conduction and convection is involved. The appropriate location is therefore outside the atmosphere and from that position Earth does indeed comply with S-B by emitting at 255K.
The existence of the Dry Adiabatic Lapse Rate proves them wrong.
They think that a non GHG atmosphere will become isothermal, even Roy Spencer thinks that. In reality there will always be uneven surface heating leading to density differentials in the horizontal plane so convective overturning and a decline in temperature with height is inevitable even with no GHGs.
As one descends into greater density then conduction and convection reduce photon emission upwards. That is the defining flaw in AGW theory.
The decrease in probability of upward photon emission as one descends into greater density also puts a stop to any surface thermal effect from back radiation.
Every photon sent downwards by one GHG molecule is absorbed by the next GHG molecule beneath it and there is a reduced probability of re-emission.
The result is that as one moves downward any back radiation from GHGs is steadily reabsorbed molecule by molecule and integrated into additional convective overturning which converts that back radiation to potential energy within enhanced convective uplift.
In due course that potential energy returns to the surface as kinetic energy beneath the nearest descending convective column and is promptly radiated to space by the surface via the full range of wavelengths thereby by passing the blocked wavelength for the GHG that caused it in the first place.
The surface temperature never changes because the enhanced convective uplift cools the surface beneath it exactly as much as the extra potential energy in the descending column warms it.
But it is too little to measure in any event because the entire process is mass based and GHGs have very little mass as a proportion of the entire atmosphere.
One sees far greater changes from solar and oceanic variability.
You forgot one important heat transfer mechanism, convection with phase change. Evaporating water cools the surface, which convects to higher up in the atmosphere and releases heat through condensation.
In any water cooled nuclear power reactor, changing from heat transfer due to phase change to radiative heat transfer is a really a BAD THING.
I didn’t forget convection with phase change because I was considering non condensing GHGs such as CO2.
The interesting thing if you involve a phase change such as the condensation of water vapour is that the condensate radiates rapidly to space during ascent but exerts no influence on the DALR in descent because it has either precipitated out during the ascent or dissipated back to vapour during warming in adiabatic descent.
The difference from the non condensing scenario is that condensing GHGs distort the DALR in ascent but not in descent and in ascent the distortion below the point of hydrostatic balance from the GHG vapour is offset above the point of hydrostatic balance by the radiative capability of the condensate.
Admit it, Matt; You sent “climate pete” here to provide a textbook example of what you were talking about.
That thought did come to mind, however the column is mostly dealing with the typical non-scientists warmist so this isn’t really a “textbook example”. Unlike “Climate Pete” the average person doesn’t claim to be a physicist and to therefore supposedly have some understanding of the topic. Many scientists don’t hold views that are as rationally considered as they’d like to believe and do fall into the realm of what the column discussed, but that doesn’t seem to be the first assumption to make. At least in theory they might be more reachable via appeals to reason, or at least that seems like its something more worth attempting than it might be with the general populace.
Unfortunately it may sometimes be even harder to take such an approach since some scientists will hesitate to question what they have been told is the work of other scientists. If a scientist is competent and in a discipline with a healthy scientific process, they may be more inclined by default to give the benefit of the doubt to climate researchers to view them as being competent and in a field with a working culture that self-corrects problems rather than tries to dismiss them. They may struggle to realize the differences between climate research and other fields. They may also struggle to realize how much of an early work in progress climate research is compared to some other fields that have results that are more robust since they’ve been tested and beaten on for a long time (partly because they can be tested experimentally).
Of course in other cases someone claiming to be a “scientist” is part of the dysfunctional climate research community and doesn’t grasp its flaws, and may be “in denial” and not wish to face them.
I’m not smart enough to have thought of that!
GOOD article, it helps me understand the psychology of the warmist mind, how they compartmentalize the thinking, and we all do such things in different areas to varying degrees, it is being human. But the warmists are being hypocritical when they want others to sacrifice, but not themselves.
Why It’s So Hard to Convince Warmists?
Because the deep-seated need to believe that humans are inherently wicked and a blight on the Earth has served some fundamental function for millennia.
Climate Pete
May 24, 2015 at 7:13 am Please don’t tell the world that because the Conservatives have won the election that they are conservatives. They are small l liberals and the money is being made by the warmists who spread the panic and largesse to the subsidy farmers with the windmills. The most prominent politician’s father-in-law gets £1,000 a day from rent for a vast wind farm on his land. And that’ just for starters. The ordinary people away from the liberal elite are the ones who see through it and have a laugh about it down the pub. My considerable experience by meeting many, is that anyone with a PhD is entirely lacking in common sense. You see, Pete, none of Al Gore’s great forecasts of some years ago have remotely come true. The weather changes in the tropics are found to have happened because they have cut down the jungle or rain forest if you prefer. The new snobbery in the UK is that the Liberals are on top but can’t realise it that the great mass of people (like me) who knew the country when we had different values seventy odd years ago — are laughing at them. The GWPF spread plain common sense information without emotion.
I’ve been busy and didn’t realize WUWT had published my piece. Wow, what an amazing response. Thanks to Anthony for providing a forum and doing what he does so well.
Some interesting comments, some more insightful than my essay. I’m enjoying seeing people using the social science terminology. I hope we can now figure out the next, harder, step of how to shift rational ignorance and bellwethers against CAGW.
thanks for your piece
I had already copied your comments about this from the other day
Matt, thanks for your piece; its value can be judged by the number of comments. Although I agree with others that “Climate Pete” is just your insane alter ego designed to increase the comment count. (JUST KIDDING!!!)
SOCIAL SCIENCE??
That was social studies back when I left school.
A boring pseudo science attempt to ascribe motives to other peoples actions.
Never mind human nature, somehow this new touchy feely babble would change the world.
Well 40 years later it sure has.
We have all these opinion orientated pyscho-babble experts all claiming to be scientists of the first order, yet none seem capable of describing the basic scientific method and more importantly they deliberately refuse to define their terms.
The noise level has increased exponentially.
The level of information is approaching zero.
Social science needs to be replaced with the fairy tales it supplanted .
As the folk tales focussed on human nature as it is.
Social Studies imposes a filter of stupidity .
In my twisted opinion the only cure for the true believers of this Cult of Calamitous Climate, is to give them what they insist on.
People this gullible are now a demonstrated threat to society.
Every bit of leisure and wealth they accumulate is used to attack the productive members of society, in the name of doing good.
These are the financiers of the Green Gang .
AKA international extortion in the name of saving the world.
Gang Green are a blight, corrupt, dangerously stupid and absolutely convinced of their own divinity.
Warmists could be said to be the latest gangrene of the body politic..
Mopst young people tend to go for fads like AGW, socialism, ect. That’s why eventually AGW will simply fade away as people get older and wiser.
The main failing in this article is that it makes the inference that this behavior is in some way unique to the warmists. Of course, this isn’t true. There have been a few similar articles explaining why “climate deniers” are so difficult to convince.
Simply put, people make an investment into their beliefs, without regard to their validity. The more community support they get for holding those beliefs reenforces those beliefs and the investment grows. Once the investment is too great, the person will actively protect their belief despite any contrary evidence. Each time they successfully defend their belief, the investment grows. Eventually, it becomes impossible to even entertain the concept that the belief could be false, because to admit that the belief is wrong would bring shame and embarrassment in the same magnitude as the investment.
“The main failing in this article is that it makes the inference that this behavior is in some way unique to the warmists. Of course, this isn’t true. There have been a few similar articles explaining why “climate deniers” are so difficult to convince.”
I’m reminded of a Tolstoy quote:
“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
I think in this specific case, his quote can be replaced with “All CAGWers are alike- they all defer to “politically correct” authority, each skeptic is skeptical in his or her own way”
For instance, Stephen Wilde’s post above seems to be making a “sky dragon” argument.
Others’, like Dr Roy Spencer state the greenhouse effect is real, but the results from increases in CO2 would be small., overwhelmed by cloud and water vapor changes.
Those articles would be classic examples of psychological projection then. The skeptic/climate realist argument is not a set of beliefs, but is rather one based on what is rational and follows scientific principles. The Warmist side is irrational, and based more on emotion.
What you wrote is true for religion but.. not for science. Science is not about “belief”, it is about empirical evidence and reproducible results. There is zero evidence that CO2, all CO2 not just our tiny contribution, is causing any significant increase to global temperature. The models are modeling something but it ain’t earth’s temperature.
Alan, I am most definitely not making a sky dragon argument.
I am accepting that CO2 has a thermal effect but that other features of the atmosphere change to negate it. My argument is based on standard meteorological principles that seem to have been overlooked.
Nor do I suggest that the greenhouse effect does not exist. It surely does but it is a function of mass density, conduction and convection and not the radiative characteristics of constituent molecules.
I agree with none of the alarmists, the lukewarmers or the sky dragon proponents and have put forward a perfectly correct proposition based on sound, established meteorological science which has either been forgotten or never learned by the current generation.
(Pssst… make better science), plus the remaining 2 cents…
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2015/05/how-to-win-an-argument-with-a-scientist.html
Cheers… M
I wish we would stop calling the warmist camp “liberal.” I consider myself, and many here, to be liberal (as outlined below) and resent it. Left, progressive, radical, green, elitist the warm flock may be but liberal? Never in our lifetime.
Russell (1872-1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, social critic, political activist, and highly regarded and outspoken liberal. His standards posted earlier here, I think, are:
1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.
2. Do not think it worthwhile to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.
3. Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed.
4. When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.
5. Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.
6. Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.
7. Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
8. Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.
9. Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.
10. Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool’s paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness. . . . That falls a little flat. Here’s my cobbled together (plagiarized) alternate:
10a. “Do not trust any excuse that closes debate; it means the debate is raging and whoever is saying it is losing.”
Sorry, that’s Bertrand Russell. Haste makes, etc.
“Russell (1872-1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, social critic, political activist, and highly regarded and outspoken liberal. ”
It’s too bad that Russell also was a Fabian Eugenicist genocidal nutter willing to sacrifice 10,000 of innocents for his beloved one world government dictatorship.
http://www.schillerinstitute.org/fid_91-96/943a_russell_lhl.html
Was he absolutely certain about Number 1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.
The leftists appropriated the word “liberal” long ago. They used to call themselves “progressives” – when that term/identifier became widely looked down on, they relabeled themselves as supposedly being “liberal” in the most Orwellian fashion. They’re not classic liberals at all. And now that “liberals” are being looked down on by many, some are trying to play the rebrand game and are going back to calling themselves “progressives” when again, it’s Orwellian and they’re anything but progressive.
“If you want to anger a conservative, tell them a lie. If you want to anger a liberal [leftist], tell them the truth.”
Remember: A liberal [leftist] will always defend your right to your opinion – so long as it matches his own.
A really heavy threat.
What about critical distance.
About scientific objectivity.
Coming Thursday we have to cope with one another.
In real live.
Hans
Is this “Climate Pete Comedy Week”?
This article misses a key point about the complacent acceptance of “The World is Doomed” story.
It’s that most people accept it as True because it is Science.
And they can’t do Science. So they have to accept the experts view and cannot question it.
Yes, try to change the bellwethers. But the issue is now so ingrained that even if the bellwethers change then science itself will lose face.
So every institution is committed to sticking to their guns and hoping that climate sensitivity is high enough to be noticeable.
What we should do is offer a get out route for those institutions that could be about to lose status. They need a second viewpoint committee – and they need to be told they do.
Interesting. Perhaps one route to convince the scientific community is to change their incentives. Keep the funding in place for climate science, just shift the focus to be against CAGW. How would you do that? In the US congress could pass budgets that shift NSF priorities and funding. It wouldn’t be easy but it could somewhat mute the university-industrial complex complaints if they kept their funding.
Matt, the research and technology agenda is set in the White House.
Asking presidential candidates about that is essential.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/ostp
GUILT. Don’t forget a very important driver for the willing acceptance of Bad Ideas and doomsday scenarios is ….. guilt. Guilt, in earlier times, was exploited by organised Christianity – “if you engage in any of these forbidden activities (most of which were both sexual so-called misdemeanours, and also deeply embedded, genetically inherited behaviour patterns) you will go to hell and suffer eternal blah blah blah”. Well, that was individual guilt for individual sin. It’s a bit outdated now. But it did have the magic ingredient – that you got to feel guilt about having urges that you had no control over.
DOOMSDAY: Then doomsday scenarios became part of almost everyone’s individual consciousness (and of the collective consciousness) in the 1950s when it when it was fairly clear to anyone with half a brain that we were all (at least the lucky ones among us) going to die in a nuclear holocaust in the very near future. It never happened of course (although I have a suspicion that if today’s imbecilic politicians had been running the world in the 1950s, it would have). The post-nuclear apocalypse was a horrifying concept, and most of us were only able to tolerate it by thinking about it quite seldom, and then only looking at it in short, oblique flashes.
GUILT AND DOOMSDAY TOGETHER! In the 1960s, the environmental movement got under way, and it quickly latched on to exploiting collective guilt for collective sins – and it learned to use the “imminent doomsday” meme (which was by now firmly implanted in almost every brain in the world) as a powerful tool for getting people’s attention – “if you don’t stop polluting the (you fill it in) we are all going to either die in a vaguely defined apocalypse or live in a post-apocalyptic world where you will shoot your next door neighbour for his half of a rotten potato”. The beauty of this guilt (for those promoting it) is that you individually feel the guilt but you are unable, individually, to do anything about it. At least in 1762, a young guy could choose not to masturbate, and thereby avoid going to hell (I’ve heard that it’s theoretically possible) but in those 1960s, you could start to feel guilty just about being a member of the human race – and there was absolutely nothing you could do about it. I remember it well; it’s a powerful emotion and it has an addictive quality – it’s almost as if there was a guilt-shaped hole inside me, just waiting for something to come along and fill it.
SURVIVING GUILT. Somehow, I managed to get over the guilt. It could be that repeated indulgence in psychoactive drugs played a role in that particular recovery, or it may have had to do with getting a good education. Whatever, I’ve done plenty of things to feel bad about (and I do) but that guilt-shaped hole remains empty. Lucky me?
AFTER THE GREEN: The trouble with the environmental movement is that, as Patrick Moore has eloquently pointed out, it was very successful. Every one of us is a green-eyed environmentalist compared with our theoretical alter ego from 1955. And governments have adopted all sorts of environmental laws and regulations, and industries do all sorts of cleany-greeny things that they swore would bankrupt them when they were first mooted. Governments caught on because they knew that the public mood was changing and (as we all know) politicians base their campaign slogans on what they think the public wants to hear.
WARMING HELPS GREEN TO GROW: So the environmental movement, which is now a multi-billion industry, needed new doomsday scenarios, and warmism gives it a really good one. It has the magic ingredient – “you individually cannot do anything to remedy the guilt that we are making you feel”. Somehow, warmism has metastasized far beyond the Greenpeace/Save the baby seals community and has thoroughly permeated governments at all levels, government agencies, media outlets and universities, throughout the western world. And I am fairly sure that guilt is one of the fertilizers for this rampant growth of what should be a pretty fuzzy idea set.
HEART-WARMING END OF THE WORLD? Another thing about doomsday nightmares, which might have a role here, is that they have become less terrifying. The nuclear doomsday of the 1950s was too painful to confront directly, and most of us did get by without confronting it directly, most of the time (I was there, I remember how it was done). The 1960s-era environmental doomsday typically involved the collapse of civilised society, planet running out of food etc., in addition to bad air and bad water, and that was something that was hard to contemplate, best not to think about it too long. BUT the warmist doomsday is really rather pale by comparison. What, the world will be 2ºC warmer in 20 years? OMG, sea level will rise 6 metres!! Did you hear? winters will be longer and colder!! (still don’t quite get that one). These are pretty tame end-of-the-world scenes, so if you are a believer, you can think about them as often as you want without losing your sanity. And you can still drive your SUV, fly to Vancouver for a meeting, turn up the air conditioner, and stroke your personal guilt as you are doing all those bad things. Perhaps it’s comforting to know how the world will end.
Deeply embedded ideas are hard to get rid of. Once they have a certain critical mass, they take over, then you’re a heretic if you criticise them. Perhaps all we can do is wait till they wither away, like Christianity, the kind that controlled you from cradle to grave, did. Or implode, like the Stalinism that promoted Lysenko, did.
By the way, I’m sick of this left-right business. I am a warming sceptic, and I’m also an old lefty who believes in a lot (not necessarily all) of public ownership of Important Things. I have watched with horror the progressive thatcherization of my old country, and take comfort in having moved to Canada. Where, by the way, we have a government that is doing as little as it can humanly do (basically: nothing) to confront climate change. Pity they’re a bunch of right-wing nutbars! I suppose we must take our friends where we find them.
Might it just be straight old psychological interdependence?
You know … “I’m told to recycle my plastic, glass, metal, paper, electronics, batteries” … because the world needs all of us (collective reasoning) to do the right thing for the environment. No one likes to do it really (being honest), except my friends that are perfectionists, and get all uppity when I fail to follow the code (being even more honest, identifying a fundamentalist core). THIS, in the context of being belittled by one’s ecologically right-thinking (self-ascribed) friends, goes a LONG way to describe why it is so hard to get thru to warmists.
To connect the dots: WHEN a person begrudgingly takes on recycling of everything, every meal, every day … for the “good of the planet”, then one really has been cowed into reciting the litany of the religion. It is a very, very short step from “and, 97% of scientists are agreed that Man’s dumping of vast wasteful amounts of carbon pollution are going to ruin what we’ve been working for with our recycling!”
See?
Its why my somewhat idiotic better friends censure conversations at dinner that venture into wondering what tangible effects of global warming we’re seeing. One doesn’t bring up Muslim theological ethics in a Catholic household over dinner. Same thing: recycling stuff, buying economical cars, investing in electric lawn mowers is the “daily prayer” of people who have no more idea whether AGW is true, than they have that Jesus was the Savior, or God is a Girl.
But boy, don’t EVER try to tell a religiously convicted person that their prayers are for naught, or that their god(s) is/are a myth, or that no loving god would condemn any bunch of mucks to death-by-pillars-of-salt. Nah… talking down AGW just undermines the religion. For that, a hundred tongue-lashes! Fingers in the ears. I can’t hear you, nyah, nyah, nyah!
GoatGuy
“But boy, don’t EVER try to tell a religiously convicted person that their prayers are for naught,”
Hey no probs with that. We are forgiving.
The Charter of Sarasota County Fl, now requires recycling. This isn’t merely a law that could be changed by the county commissioners, this is the charter, it is much harder to amend. I don’t necessary disagree with recycling, but there are arguments against it and if those argument become stronger the County commission would not have the option to stop the recycling program. That sort of group think is nuts.
Tom, It’s old, and perhaps dated, but you may enjoy reading this:
Recycling Is Garbage
By John Tierney
Published: June 30, 1996
http://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/30/magazine/recycling-is-garbage.html?pagewanted=1
What does recycling have to do with CAGW?
I am as much of a climate realist as there is, but I recycle willingly.
Why not?
It just makes sense.
Similar to my use of energy saving light bulbs, switches, fans to enhance A.C., humidifiers to enhance heating, and other such things.
Some things make sense, and some things do not.
“It just makes sense”.
Recycling only makes sense for a very few things, like aluminum. For the rest of it, there is no return on investment (ROI) – it costs more to recycle the items than to simply bury them.
The use of disposable anything has come under attack by misguided environmentalists. Styrofoam cups, disposable diapers, and (so-called “one use”) plastic shopping bags are good examples of useful items that have been demonized by the superficial-thinking green zealots.
I think it depends greatly on where one lives and what use is made of the recycled materials, and other economic factors.
Here in Lee County Florida, I believe they are doing it right.
All recyclables are discarded in one container, with yard waste collected separately.
My understanding is that the materials collected are used to offset the cost of collection.
Example:
In many places, trash to steam could pay for trash collection, but the whole concept is/was quashed by NIMBY objections.
In other places, people who know what they are doing and make rational decisions are in charge.
One must look at the big picture. In some locales, landfill tipping fees make reducing the trash stream very desirable.
In some places, landfills are made into bioreactors, and recovered gas lowers the costs tremendously.
“One must look at the big picture.”
Exactly. The big picture is that feel-good green enterprises like wind, solar, and recycling cost more than they are worth, and so become a constant drain on our resources.
We can’t afford these bleeding wounds on our economy, which not only threaten the poor, but especially also our middle classes, which I think are the real target of the green agenda, because in the middle class reside many intellectuals, some of whom are much less likely to have the wool pulled over their eyes than are the huddling masses.
By the way, beware humidifiers, which can be nasty.
Dirty reservoirs and filters in humidifiers can quickly breed bacteria and mold. Dirty humidifiers can be especially problematic for people with asthma and allergies, but even in healthy people humidifiers have the potential to trigger flu-like symptoms or even lung infections when the contaminated mist or steam is released into the air. Steam vaporizers or evaporators may be less likely to release airborne allergens than may cool-mist humidifiers.
http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/common-cold/in-depth/humidifiers/art-20048021?pg=2
It is much simpler and more cost-effective to set out, or boil, some water to increase humidity in an enclosed space. I often have oatmeal for breakfast – the old fashioned kind with rolled oats boiled in water – and I occasionally enjoy a cup of tea. Bathing, showering, doing laundry or dishes, and other common household chores also usually raise humidity to a higher level in an enclosed space.
But to get warmer – in addition to having a cup of tea, or bowl of oatmeal – I put on more clothes first.
Things that cost more than they are worth are not such a great idea, on that we agree.
And it is also true that some things may not particularly cost effective to recycle, but at least combining them all for collection minimizes this. Metals are almost surely worth recycling, but glass is almost surely not worth it.
Plastic, I suppose it depends…they do sell that plastic lumber substitute decking and other crap made from recycled plastic for top dollar, so it may be that someone is profiting from it.
I am not really exactly sure about the precise value of certain types of scrap, but I do know it varies a great deal from place to place and time to time, even for the exact same material.
I have made quite a tidy sum recycling scrap metal that others just throw out. Especially anything containing copper, or copper alloys. Steel was getting a high price by historical standards back before the economic collapse, when scrap went from over $10 per hundred weight to less than a tenth of that. I stopped following the price of steel more recently, but it had gone below $80 a ton for a little while there at least, or so I believe.
For many years copper bounced around but rarely got above $1.00 per pound for very long, but it seems to want to gravitate closer to $3.00 in the past few years. At that price, even insulated wire and scrap motors fetch a price well worth the trouble of throwing your scrap in a heap until you have a few tons and then heading down to the yard.
As for aluminum, have you seen how many cans it takes to equal a pound these days? They have made them lighter and lighter, and aluminum is well under a dollar a pound, so an entire pick-up trucks worth is barely worth enough to buy a cold drink.
But here where I live, whether one wants to or not…you have to. They will not collect trash if they see recyclables in it, and will not take your recyclables if they note the wrong sorts of stuff mixed in.
But one of the keys to making scrap materials worth the effort of collecting them is to have a sufficient amount and a steady supply. Then the economics can change for items at the margin.
I think there are places that have programs I place to recycle, but no one is making sure that it pays to do so.
The situation is different here than where I used to live. For example, here in SW Florida, they collect yard debris for free, and then turn it into mulch and compost. The mulch they give away, although you have to go pick it up, but they sell the compost, and at a discount to buying it from nearly any other supplier. Many are unaware of these facts and so, as with many things, those in the know get a better deal in life that those not paying attention.
One man’s trash is indeed another man’s treasure. It just depends on who you are, what you know, and how shrewd you can manage to be.
Interesting essay. Man-made global warming/climate change alarmism is a religion. And just like the faithful followers of any religion, they all have the religious disease of certainty. To identify the infected ask them this question: If in 20 years or so irrefutable evidence is produced that proves beyond a shadow of doubt that human influence on our climate is insignificant, will you be pleased? If their answer is anything other than an immediate and emphatic “yes”… you’ll know they’re infected!
Most will not answer such questions as asked.
Unless they are a dim bulb to begin with, they will see what you are getting at and refuse to go along with your scheme to expose their hypocrisy.
Similar to how Galileo could not get his detractors to peek through his scope.
“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.”
– “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds”, Charles Mackay, 1841
I have yet to make up my mind with regard to global warming: Mostly because I have not done the necessary reading and, in a counter-point to the problem discussed above, am not going to jump to conclusions based on what e.g. Obama says.
Indeed, one of my personal main beefs with the current political debate in countries such as the U.S. or my native Sweden is the strong propagandizing of claims and ideas that I have over time understood to be at best presented incorrectly, at worst outright wrong. The realm of political correctness (in general) and feminism (in particular) is especially depressing: As a child I fully believed claims like “men hit women” or “women earn x cents on the dollar”. As an adult, I have seen plenty of statistics that show domestic violence to be a 50–50 issue and know that the “x cents” does not consider factors such as full- or part-time work, education, number of work-years, …
Like the boy who cried wolf, politicians should not expect to be believed in area A, when they are known to lie (or themselves be grossly misinformed) in areas B and C.
Like you at one point I was on the fence. I started with the theory “CO2 causes global warming” That took me to web site “Real Climate” which give me an over view of the “theory” Then I found an other web sites that poked holes in the “theory” and climate models such as “hot spot”, “amplification number” and “positive feedback” “heat trapping clouds”. Then I research on now and when “Co2 causes global warming” funding got started. I would have been more impressed if weather balloon data detected the troposphere warming faster than the surface temperature and somebody wonder why than a “theory” as to why Venus had a “run away Co2 induced warming” to its present day atmosphere. About that time I came across web site “Climate Audit” and the debate about the “hockey stick” graph which lead me to web site “Surface Station” and Anthony’s “new” web site Watts Up With That.
Thanks Anthony