Guest essay by Charles G. Battig, M.D.
A flurry of recent publication activity on the health impacts of carbon dioxide by the catastrophic climate change community is evidence that it has now moved beyond post-normal science. That was the philosophical answer to traditional science founded on rational hypotheses, reproducible experimentation, and impartial confirmation of results. Post-normal science was to be the answer to really difficult research problems; it would apply in cases where “facts are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high and decisions urgent,” according to its advocates Funtowicz and Ravetz, 1991. Coincidentally, these same attributes accurately describe the status of climate research. Loosening the traditional standards of acceptable proof to include some postulating and science conclusions based on consensus and opinion would expand the universe of available answers desperately desired by governing bureaucrats and environmental activists.
Financial linkages between E.P.A. funded researchers and their reported influence on E.P.A. policy advocacy is a step beyond, and vindicates President Eisenhower’s admonition (1961):
“The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present – and is gravely to be regarded. Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”
The community of man-made, climate-change catastrophe advocates has been smarting for lack of catastrophes. Droughts, tornadoes, sea level rise acceleration, coral reef sinking have all failed to increase dramatically on schedule, even as atmospheric carbon dioxide has increased about 10 per cent over the past eighteen years. Most annoying to the alarmists has been the plateau in global atmospheric temperatures over this same time period. They have proffered an array of imaginative excuses for the lack of observed global atmospheric temperature rise. No catastrophes means bad news for the United Nations plans for its Paris conference on climate mitigation and wealth transfer later this year. It would seem even more outrageous to the public at large to pay for a non-problem. The transfer of wealth from the developed nations to the less developed nations to combat a non-existent climate problem becomes that much more embarrassing without the drama attendant to scary numbers portending global disaster.
Just-in-time advocacy science has now produced a paper which claims to have the data to show that there has been no pause in the global temperature. The global fever has been there unabated all these eighteen years. It was hiding in a variety of data sets just waiting to be found, much like Michelangelo’s David hiding in a block of raw marble. Singer, Michaels, and others have analyzed the claims of the paper, and unlike David, what has been revealed is not a thing of scientific beauty, but a construct of dubious data doctoring portending that climate disaster is right on schedule.
I propose a new label for science papers which attempt to challenge established concepts by refashioning data banks to achieve a desired conclusion. Borrowing from the fashion world, I term such science efforts as “bespoke science.” Made-to-order…made to measure…made to fit the desired outcome by selective data trimming, adjusting, and stitching together. Be ready to see much more tailoring of data to fit the U.N. agenda as December approaches.
Charles G. Battig, M.S.,M.D., Piedmont Chapter president, VA-Scientists and Engineers for Energy and Environment (VA-SEEE). His website is www.climateis.com
“Made-to-order…made to measure…”
… just like
the Emperor’s New Clothes. (thanks for the set-up, Dr. Battig)
Danny Kaye “The Emperor’s New Clothes” (youtube)
“… the very least the king has ever worn.” lololololol
Notice the intricately kriged stitching ..
…and the doublet made of green.
Heh. 🙂 REALLY. Some say it is blue.
That story never made logical sense. Why would the emperor parade down the street knowing that the unrefined riff-raff in the crowd would see him naked?
Because he was a believer in the l1e: “only a fool cannot see the clothes.”
Mr. Best (coined by Eliza, heh): “Oh, SURELY you believe in glooobbaalll warming. Only a Cretan would deny what kriging tells us is true.”
LOL.
Oh, and the logical part, Mr. Cranch (oops!) — the king knew he was a fool but, being one, figured everyone else was not.
Some possible synonyms:
“Tailored Science”,
“Customized Science”,
“McScience”,
” Pay-no-attention-to-the-man-behind-the-curtain Science”…
If it isn’t broken don’t fix it, should apply to any measures to stop this imaginary threat.
According to the warmists theory, if it is broken, falsify it.
They make me totally and utterly sick, they want us to return to the Dark Ages, they have not got the intelligence to realise that if the world economy goes belly up, then so do the hopes of the less advantaged, who they pretend to care for and represent in their Orwellian socialist utopia.
Rant over!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am with you all the way Mr. Harding and I am often more angry than your good self !
They (the Great Global Warming swindlers) however, do NOT even “think” or imagine that they could possibly be in the wrong because they are all on the Great Global Warming Gravy Train: the cartoon drawing in Jo Nova’s “Skeptics’ Handbook” (page 10) illustrates their entire belief-system which is a cancer spread by governments and local councils (here in Great Britain). They live off our tax-payer monies all the time.
The cartoon caption is …
“Hands up. Who thinks greenhouse gases have no effect, and therefore we all need new jobs ? Anyone ?”
You and I, together with the many here have the power to stop it.
The thing(s) that will stop it are EVENTS: that is, events on a grand scale such as the collapse of financial control systems of the United (cannot get off the hamster wheel) Nations and also the European (not democratic at all) Union, or; a successful, accurately documented, powerfully dramatic and easy to understand “viral” type movie (which is “downloadable” in many languages) which EXPOSES the entire CO2 nonsense.
Such a movie, in my humble opinion, would need to be perfectly presented at the outset by a movie star who can command the respect of most people on earth: I wonder who can it be ?
Clint Eastwood, I’d say; consummate actor, experienced director, very widely known; former public officer (mayor, I believe, of a town in California); and not taken in by liberal-left propaganda. I would go to see such a film directed by him.
@Andrew Harding – The progressivists have never cared about the disadvantaged, only their votes. Agenda 21 is their vision of the future. That agenda is not possible without destroying billions of humans. There are Democrat progressivists in this country who are as ruthless as Hitler, Stalin, and Mao, their heroes. Some have been quoted in the past as saying that starvation is as good a way to accomplish this task as any.
They (progressives) are almost like a cancer on a society. I think they fail to realize the when they kill their host they will be gone too.
I’m being encouraged to sign on here, but science theory advances when previous notions break. The ‘pause’ broke previous notions, so there’s nothing at all out of line or improper for the field to get busy and try to deal with it. It’s what we should expect and encourage from science theorists.
But if this is a valid bit of ‘bespoke’ science, then one of a few consequences follow:
1) This is more correct than all the other data products. Ergo, all the other data products should be discarded, and all the conclusions arising from the use of those data products reworked. That is, none of the previous conclusions can any longer be stated to have validity.
2) This is equally incorrect as other data products. It just differs in when along the timeline that its excess errors occur and when its lesser errors occur. Ergo, the set of data products — including this one — represent the current limits of error in theory and measurement. Ergo, the pause is still within the bounds of error and science can neither say that the pause exists or does not.
3) The data products are not scientific, but represent only the opinions of the given researchers. Taken as a whole then it is nothing more than a measure of the ‘range of expert opinions.’ This is the same as asking a panel of Economists what they think the market will do in the coming months. But in so saying, we are no longer talking about natural laws, but each climate team’s ability to prophesy. In which case, the litmus test is the same as that used for psychics: Discard those that cannot predict the future. If we find a climate team that can predict the future adequately, then we can dignify them as having been properly and personally skilled in the matter. But we have not yet attained the point that there intuitions or psychic thermometry has reached the non-personality based level of scientific theory.
But for that last, every opinion is valid and it is impossible that this paper is not a valid data product. But then too, so would any data product be. Even if it’s theoretical existants were microscopic dwarves and its modelling inputs the rate of penguin respiration in May. For we are now looking only to the validity of the Prophets in question, and not the reality accessible to any and every one.
So we should explore the bronchi and alveoli of the penguins rather than their intestines? We’ve already jettisoned examining their flight patterns. It wasn’t a very good predictor.
=================
.jquip ..you blather on in nonsense. IMO. Try taking a scientific writing course. Brevity, conciseness, and clarity of word matters most.
You’re confused.
This is nothing new. Look up “Heath Monkey Study asphyxiation”.
Three Legged Stool of CAGW: 1) Anthropogenic 2) Radiative Forcing 3) GCMs
Leg the 1st
Anthropogenic CO2 added to atmosphere between 1750 and 2011
What was the source of the increase in ppm and kg between 1750 and 2011? How does anybody know what these values were? Could be oceans outgassing as the oceans warm. Could be limestone weathering. Lots of possibilities. Permafrost melting. Forest fires. But how to lay all of this at the feet of industrialized man?
Per IPCC AR5 – 1750 to 2011
Anthropogenic carbon contribution, PgC: 555 (How do they know?)
Not CO2, Carbon. To convert to carbon multiply by 3.67, 44.01/12.
Some CO2 is absorbed in various natural sinks. (How do they know? Wag?)
Anthropogenic carbon atmospheric residual, PgC: 240
Percentage residual: 100*240/555=43.2%
Institute for Green and Sustainable Science uses 1850 to 2000 and 40% residual.
World Bank 4 C report uses 45% residual.
Some use PgC. PgC = E15 g = E12 kg
Some use GtC. GtC = E9 tonne = E9 * E3 kg/tonne * E3 g/kg = E15 g = PgC
Some consensus.
CO2 residual, kg…….2.40E14*3.67 = 8.81E+14 kg
Residual as percentage of 1750-2011 delta…….100.3%
How fortuitous! How coeenkadental! How convenient! How totally dry lab-bed! These numbers are all made up! 150 of the 260 years have zero reliable data. Wags, estimates, approximations, somebody’s judgment call! The uncertainty on these must be a barn door wide! However they clearly were selected and adjusted to match the foregone conclusion! Anthropogenic = 8.81E+14 kg.
Forget LWIR, SWIR, CO2 molecular oscillations, sea levels, ice caps, warming. Dismantle this highly dubious leg and that’s one done and down.
“Bespoke science” … There’s a better pre-existent 3-letter word for that, beginning with “L” and ending with “e.”
For the sake of brevity one could form a 2 letter descriptve term by taking the first letter of each from Bespoke Science.
“Just-in-time advocacy science has now produced a paper which claims to have the data to show that there has been no pause in the global temperature.”
Huh.. that is not what the paper claims. The paper identifies possible artifacts ( they are correct) in the records and offers an approach to de bias the record accordingly. It’s not the last word. No specialist in the field thinks it is the last word. You guys are so easily threatened by one paper.
big boy pants.
get a pair.
put them on.
write a paper showing a better way of handling the known artifacts.
I think the time has come to ignore you Steven. If you want to carry on being a prat please feel free to do so but don’t expect any interaction. You have literally gone from the sublime to the utterly ridiculous. So sad.
Name a “Consensus Journal” that would publish it.
Has the discipline of Science fallen so far from any relation to reasoned thought or measurment that ‘raw data’ is an answer that requires a paper to be written, argued over by scientists, and then recommended for publication only after corrections are made to ‘raw data’?
Raw data can be wrong…
Then certainly you have a method to present. One that take the data we have and converts into the data we would have had, had we had it, had we not had our instruments present things we wish they hadn’t.
it is not a question of “wish they hadn’t”. It is a question of trying analyze the data collected to get a better understanding of what is happening. That means correcting for known errors as best as possible, whether that is urban heat island effect, time of observations changes, ship vs. buoy discrepancies, orbital decay of satellites etc. etc.
Analysis is an ongoing effort and improvements/changers are expected. People can discuss how to correct for biases, which methods/ algorithms are more accurate etc. But it doesn’t make sense not to make adjustments when necessary no matter which way they go.
David, you’re off on a tangent. I don’t care what things you want the data to say. Nor do I care what utilitarian goals you have; no matter how utopian or dystopian. None of that is germane.
If it is all possible that the raw data is wrong: then what is your method for making the measurement that was not made on the basis of an instrument that measured something that did not exist.
Either the data from an instrument is simply the data from an instrument or it is not. And if it is not, then it is incumbent on you to show me the scientific procedure to accomplish a remeasurement. And look, I’m pretty flexible. If you want to state that Scientists slide down a fire pole, jump in a time machine, and non-interactively remeasure past measurements that resulted in an outlier? Knock yourself out.
Fundamental methods of analysis of (imperfect) climate measurements (temperature/ precipitation etc) have been widely documented for years. This is not new.
“Raw data can be wrong…”
Altered data can be wrong in all the ways [it] may have [been] wrong to start with, plus wrong due to the alterations.
Altered data can be wronger…
David Sanger
Name those changes that have occurred the past 18 years to change the surface temperature record and “create” a decrease in average global temperature measurements. Come on! NAME THE CHANGE that occurred the past 18 years worldwide that changed every thermometer record
David, I’m not talking analysing climate, I’m talking about Science. You are saying that raw data can be wrong. So be it. Give the process to correct it that is valid to the entire range of scientific discourse, interest, and inquiry.
Quote “The future is known, it’s the past which keeps changing”
Steven Mosher, IPCC AR5 Box 9.2 documents a summary of the conclusions of the papers that disagree with this remarkable paper.
This paper is an outlier. This paper is so far an outlier it belongs with the ‘Ancient Astronauts’ and ‘Atlantis in Antarctica’ papers.
Stand by it if you want to. But, in compassion, I urge you not to.
The adjustments of buoy data to match ship data whilst acknowledging that the buoy data was more liable – that alone is laughable.
“This paper is so far an outlier it belongs with the ‘Ancient Astronauts’ and ‘Atlantis in Antarctica’ papers.”
No. The evidence for ‘Ancient Astronauts’ is more believable that the crap this paper uses. And when the Mosher shows up to defend a warmist paper you know it is garbage.
markstoval, it may be more logical.
But the evidence is not more believable.
It makes perfect sense though. The heat disappeared in the oceans and then it was “disappeared” in the oceans! Its an old Mafia method… concrete shoes, the deep six, sleeping with the fishes etc! 😉
No SM. There is no ‘threat’. In fact, far from it. Only fulfillment.
I have written that somehow, somewhere, someway, a reconciliation between the travesty of IPCC modeled climate and empirical obs. would take place…would be manufactured.
I also said it wouldn’t be pretty.
And indeed it isn’t. And just ‘in time’ for Paris too.
Bespoke science – the precautionary principle, which may be invoked and supported merely on the basis of speculation.
“write a paper showing a better way of handling the known artifacts”
I did that (869.8 KB pdf) but your big-boy pants aren’t big enough to understand it.
See also the follow-up paper (1 MB pdf), that shows the standard practice of ignoring systematic measurement error artefactually imposes huge and unrecognized uncertainties on the global averaged air temperature record.
See also this paper, that shows similar gross negligence is the standard of practice throughout consensus AGW climate so-called science.
@ Mosher,
So we should all put on big boy pants, and get ready to invade Paris (France) with our plans to save our self from our self ?
How many times must we do this ?, I think they are getting tired of it.
Steven Mosher
June 7, 2015 at 11:44 am
“Just-in-time advocacy science has now produced a paper which claims to have the data to show that there has been no pause in the global temperature.”
Huh.. that is not what the paper claims……….
“In summary, newly corrected and updated global surface
temperature data from NOAA’s NCEI do not support the
notion of a global warming “hiatus.” As shown in Fig. 1,
there is no discernable (sta
tistical or otherwise) decrease in
the rate of warming between the second half of the 20th
century and the first 15 years of the 21st century. “
I wish you were right, Mosher, and these guys were “so easily threatened by one paper”.
If these guys were so easily threatened, the “conversation” would have ended two decades ago.
If these guys were so easily threatened, there would have been no need to deny the awful performance of models.
If these guys were so easily threatened, there would have been no need to deny the pause for years.
If these guys were so easily threatened, there would have been no need to finally acknowledge the pause and then proceed to justify it in dozens of ridiculous ways.
If these guys were so easily threatened, there would have been no need for this paper to “flip” the data so as to once again deny the pause and consequently the admission of its occurrence as well as its ridiculous justifications.
If these guys were so easily threatened, there would have been no need to hire sadists such as you that camp around here with no interest in disseminating information yet unapologetically trying to cause grief through the systematic harassment of folks that, allegedly, are so “easily threatened”.
If only you were right, Mosher…
So: A paper,
identifies ‘possible’ artifacts,
which are correct in the records.
It offers an approach to de bias the record. accordingly.
____
abstrus.
____
Hell, no: the paper is the confession of data falsification. Dokument forgery.
___
Hans
Steven Mosher —
Well, you could start by adjusting the bad data to mimic the good data rather than adjusting the good data to mimic the bad data.
But if they did that it would not be climate science would it? The adjustment of good data to mimic bad data is a long established practice in climate science.
You are like the two year old who has decided to wear his dirty diaper as a hat.
Eugene WR Gallun
Re: “dirty diaper as a hat”
Indeed. “… their glory is in their shame… .”
Philippians 3:19
That’s not shoe polish, it’s face cream.
==========
mmm. Mosher calls the kettle black I think. Seems that research folks getting upset over criticism that someone has found supposed artifacts in the temperature series is, to put it mildly, having the shoe on the other foot. I find that interesting. To say the least. I think there are enough big boy pants around for everyone to get a pair.
exactly…..wonder if this means that Mosh’s BEST temp series is also wrong? Guess it means it has to be wrong now…
“Berkeley Earth combines our land data with a modified version of the HadSST ocean temperature data set. The result is a global average temperature data set.”
I think it has been amply demonstrated that it is the warmistas who are the thin-skinned crybabies.
Those who find fault with the scaremongering, the transparently corrupt data manipulation shenanigans, and all the rest of the warmista jackassery, have endured years odious opprobrium, heaped scorn, and tireless argumentation, in order to bring some attention to and shine some light on the Gordian knot of tangled lies and BS of the CAGW meme.
Easily threatened?
So silly it is not even laughable.
“warmista jackassery”… there’s a phrase.
http://treasure.diylol.com/uploads/post/image/320352/resized_bear-grylls-meme-generator-feeling-cold-better-wear-some-baggy-clown-pants-bc2f0d.jpg
That Science mag journal editors would allow written claims at the p=0.10 level on climate science speaks volumes of the depth of political corruption that has invaded the US Science Academies.
That’s certainly not what the author has been saying. He says emphatically there has been no pause in global warming and that he has proved it.
Did you leave out the part where he ADJUSTED weak data?
So, Mosh, what do you think of the progressive mixing of portions of two discrete data sets in a way that adds more and more of the higher temperature values, as so clearly exposed by McKitrick’s charts, to turn a Rest into a Rise? A Pause into a Plus? A Laze into a Raise? Or my favourite, a Stop into a Step? Shades of Tom Lehrer’s ‘Magic E’.
Keep your big boy pants on for a moment lest you regress.
It is bespoke science by cheating.
The putative ‘trend’ that results from Karl et al’s ‘work’ is not representative of the temperature or the heat content or anything else. At least Michael Mann tried to hide his cheating. Karl et all have done it with full disclosure!
To me it is a sign of the arrogance of the warmist crowd’s ‘high confidence level’ that reviewers and journos will not call their bluff. Thankfully we have Climate Audit and WUWT.
Darwin’s Age of Earth guessing was taken down by Lord Kelvin who did no more than ask good questions. Kelvin’s Age of Earth was taken down by the transmutation of elements and good questions. Karl et al is taken down by Karl et al. Has such a thing happened before?
The lady ‘scientist’ on the BBC re-spouted it. Though the science was ‘created from nothing’ she is not a creationist, we need a new word. She is a fabricationist. She believes in fabricated results in the common sense of the term. If she doesn’t really believe Karl et al, then she deceives intentionally. Call that what you will.
Yepper, Climate Audit, that is a real funny one. Ive been reading it and find it very amusing. Like comparing Moon data to Sun data..
Mosh sez: “You guys are…”
—————
Outing yourself again, eh Steven?
You are separate/distinct from “You guys”?
“big boy pants.
get a pair.
put them on” Unfortunately anti CO2 activists have turned Climate Science into Political Science. Big boy pants are no longer needed to jump in the game.
So, Stephen
Do you have anything in mind? I am sure there are alot of people out here that is searching for ideas. Maybe it all can start with you..
We need to create some “corollaries” to Ike’s statement. I think one is: the rate of publication of “confirming results” by government funded scientists varies directly with the timing of policy making events.
+1
I’m still wondering if the taxpayers get their money back for the 62-plus papers that claim to have found the missing heat that apparently they don’t feel is missing anymore.
Yeah, no, because “seepage”.
The missing heat got sucked into the center of the earth and is lurking around in there, somewhere, just waiting to seep and creep and slither out when called upon by the mad, mad, evil, bs scientists when the time is right. Probably sometime before December.
Jim Watson — good one — Eugene WR Gallun
Just-in-time advocacy science has now produced a paper which claims to have the data to show that there has been no pause in the global temperature
=====
But they changed the data that was used to run the climate models….that gave the result they are trying to qualify by changing the data
Unless they are trying to say that climate models have not been run since WW2………
I prefer; Policy based evidence manufacturing.
What better example of ad-hoc, global warming is affecting a new species, the joshua tree (Yucca brevifolia):
http://www.latimes.com/science/la-me-joshua-20150607-story.html
First:
“Climate change is taking an enormous toll, and the current drought has hastened the decline of a species that is regarded as the symbol of California deserts.”
Then:
“With funding from federal wildlife officials. . .”
Skipping lightly over:
“During the 1980s, development in desert boom towns such as Lancaster and Palmdale replaced about 200,000 Joshua trees with housing tracts and shopping centers. Many more were removed over the last decade to make way for renewable energy facilities.”
Coming to the bespoke conclusion, ignoring the latest from NOAA NCDC:
“Now, the biggest threat is climate change, which most of the trees may not be able to overcome. The globe’s average temperature is expected to rise roughly by an additional 5 degrees to 7 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century, scientists say.
“Computer models depicting the distribution of suitable habitat after a roughly 5-degree Fahrenheit rise show Joshua trees retaining just 2% to 10% of their current range, according to studies led by Barrows and published in the scientific journal Biological Conservation.”
Not to worry. There are many closely related species of yucca, including the one described in this article: Albrecht, Gustav. “The Schuss-Yucca (Yucca shiplei, var. schuss)” Scientific Monthly 75, no. 4 (October 1952): 250-252. More information is found here:
http://tinyurl.com/ndvzauy
Definitely worth the Pulitzer for Explanatory Reporting. Oops, better make that Editorial Cartooning. They did forget the /sarc at the end of the article didn’t they? I guess we just need to consider the source on that one.
There are many species of yucca which are now planted far and wide, including several cultivars of brevifolia. I have some growing on my place. In fact, they are all over Florida. I am fairly certain they are now all over the world.
Nothing says “plant me” like being a drought resistant and interesting looking ornamental.
Cry about something else, yuccas will be around long after we are all gone.
BTW, they make about the most secure living hedge one can imagine.
Those darn things are scary sharp, and painful to touch.
If you want to keep people off of your place, or make sure they come in through the front…plant a row of these around your perimeter.
Planting is easy…just cut any piece and stick in the soil.
Done.
The finding of arguments for a conclusion given in advance is not philosophy, but special pleading. — Bertrand Russell
Oddly here is that the ‘Correspondence Principle’ is just such a condition. So is every search for a new theory when an old one is upended, say Phlogistons. By this Russel is calling Physics, and indeed all of science, a practice of Special Pleading.
Though I find it amusing to imagine that he would object and say that Science is obviously different, without stating why.
It is not so much policy-based evidence-making, as fantasy-based evidence-making. Bespoke tailoring of the emperor’s missing clothes.
To the scientific method as outlined;
(1) rational hypotheses, (2) reproducible experimentation, and (3) impartial confirmation of results.
To these 3 criteria we need to add
(4) humble and continuous acceptance of the critique of peers and detractors.
How many points does AGW fail on? In My (not so Humble) Opinion ( IM H O) all 4 of them.
The Science is NEVER “In”.
Results Management comes to mind.
There seems to be an issue with your website. Sometimes I see scrambled text, like this:
http://a.pomf.se/fxnfyw.png
My operating system is Linux Mint 17.1 and my browser is Firefox 38.0. Anyone else having this issue?
Bishop Hill (a British Sceptic site) has been hit with a malware attack too.
What a coincidence!
What’s up with
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/06/06/gavin-says-the-funniest-things/
NO comments ?
or at least on my pc it is blank after this :
“In the meantime…
http://www.woodfortrees.org/graph/rss/from:1997/plot/rss/from:1997/trend
Dear Matt,
This little housekeeping sub-thread seems like a permissible place to wish you a hearty
on your recent wedding. Your dad said it came off beautifully.
And a song #(:)) for you and your bride:
“Wonder of Wonders” (“Fiddler on the Roof) – youtube
In the years to come, may you always be able to look deep within your hearts and find strength to go on in the joy that is yours today!
And for those times (they happen in every marriage where there are two intelligent people with wills of their own) when the ride gets a little rough… hang on tight and remember …
“That’s What Love Is For” (Amy Grant) — youtube
“Love is a daily decision.” Joni Eareckson-Tada
With a handful of salt, a loaf of fresh bread, and a bottle of wine, I give you BEST WISHES!
Your WUWT ally for science truth,
Janice
“What’s up with
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/06/06/gavin-says-the-funniest-things/
NO comments ?
or at least on my pc it is blank after this :
“In the meantime
http://www.woodfortrees.org/graph/rss/from:1997/plot/rss/from:1997/trend”
Mods, I also see no conversation, just a long blank page, on this thread.
Is there a comments thread re Gavin saying the funniest things?
[Oddly, even the “edit version” of this “formatted wordpress” page has no link to allow new comments – Thus, we are (temporarily at least) bewitched and befuddled by your query into this quandary. Alass and alack! We lack a link to the last. .mod]
My guess is a pre-emptive strike for decorum. I was certainly about to let down my hair and get cozy.
==========
There’s an accidentally appropriate comment kinda off to the side: Ten Celebrities Who Are Not Aging Well. Mebbe it’s just an ad.
===================
Kim, I saw that too!
Although, I think Gavin falls somewhere well short of celebrity status.
I think few outside of the climate outrage community have ever heard of him.
And even fewer would recognize a photo.
He would do better to accept a few of the debates he has been challenged to.
Nothing says “forget me” quite like the guy who stalks off the stage of The Stossel Show, just when the conversation is about to get interesting.
Possibly Gavin’s most memorable and emblematic image. And then she turned to search for the Stossel video.
====================
I get that fairly regularly on both Mac and Windows 7 OS’s, also using Firefox. Refreshing the page generally banishes the problem.
https://wordpress.org/support/topic/display-problem-in-firefox-38
Yes. Sometimes I have to reload my page due to the same problem. I have Windows 7 and I am using the Chrome browser.
The site takes a minute or two to load–unusually long.
Thomas Szymczak:
I’m running Mint 17.1 FF38 and have not seen that problem with either Cinnamon or XFCE.
Considering that it does not seem to be platform specific, I imagine you’ll just have to live with it for the time being.
I occasionally see it with my 32 bit windows 7 pro and Chrome Version 43.0.2357.81 m. Usually it clears with a reload.
Yes, sometimes I have this stacked text.
(For some time now – at least months)
I think it is a rendering problem.
I have Firefox 31.7 on Windows 7.
Usually I just reload the page and it render correctly.
Rarely I had to restart the browser.
But is always reloads properly after.
You think you have problems. Once all of the words on WUWT started following my mouse.
(My son was pretty little when he did that.)
When this happens, I just refresh the page.
I’ve seen this many times too. One refresh fixes it.
I have a different issue. Several posts show no comments and I am still unable to comment 24hrs later. I have the latest OS and have tried several current browsers. I hope somebody is looking into this. 😉
I just experienced an odd Firefox problem w/Linux Mint 17 too (after it updated Firefox). Seemed to be a problem w/Noscript messing w/the page format (it would not word-wrap & the page extending past the right-border was not viewable) as it showed a dialog of script refusals. Had to “reset” Firefox w/o add-ons, reinstall the add-ons & setting Noscript to NOT show those top-of-page dialogs.
Don’t know if that’s your issue or not…..
No, comments are just invisible on some posts. “Gavin says the funniest things!” is a particularly suspicious example! Tech support, tech support!!! (Admin in current parlance)
WordPress has some pretty egregious AJAX, that can do that if everything doesn’t happen exactly right, and in exactly the right order. It’s not your OS or your browser. This site does seem to work OK with no javascript. You might want to install a JS blocker into Firefox. I’m using Opera under PCLOS with the “JS block” extension, and haven’t had any real problems with WUWT.
Try doing a page refresh. I notice something like that, when I don’t allow the page to fully import, before I start scrolling down through it.
I (rarely) have a problem on WUWT – and never on other WordPress sites. The problems described here indicate a server problem with high volume; WUWT is the highest traffic WP site I regularly visit. Particularly the blowing up when something is done with the page before it fully loads (you’re getting AJAX postbacks whenever you do something – which can interrupt the stream).
Ah, just checked. Yep, all of the in-page script is at the end. Yuck, just noticed an iframe tag. Several of them, in fact. If you want trouble with your page…
“(4) humble and continuous acceptance of the critique of peers and detractors.”
That was the Way of science. Amazing how fast money corrupts.
I’m amazed at the brilliant foresight of Eisenhower.
When I first ever heard it years ago, I didn’t really understand his warning about the military-industrial complex or the science-technology elite.
I understand now.
From the NY Times:
“However, Russell S. Vose, chief of the climate science division at NOAA’s Asheville center, pointed out in an interview that while the corrections do eliminate the recent warming slowdown, the overall effect of the agency’s adjustments has long been to raise the reported global temperatures in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by a substantial margin. That makes the temperature increase of the past century appear less severe than it does in the raw data.
“If you just wanted to release to the American public our uncorrected data set, it would say that the world has warmed up about 2.071 degrees Fahrenheit since 1880,” Dr. Vose said. “Our corrected data set says things have warmed up about 1.65 degrees Fahrenheit. Our corrections lower the rate of warming on a global scale.””
Two other things: Isn’t one of Watt’s ideas that the records in the US are too hot be of siting problems and _should_ be adjusted?
And the other, why was there any hand wringing when the _entire_ UAH record was modified last month?
I think you need to slow down, I got nothing out of that.
Care to try again ?
You need to speed up and pay attention to the science. That too hard? Maybe.
Excellent Mike. Thanks. Those graphs say it all.
The latest meme seems to be that there is a clear and distinct ‘biotic change’ caused by CAGW and this proves that the temperature adjustments to remove the pause are correct!
Nevermind that ‘biotic changes’ have multiple causal factors…
I have trouble to distinguish a post-normal science from a normal fraud.
+1
Hell I have trouble telling the difference between a climate scientist and that fortunate teller who bilked some idiot out of $700,000.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/06/07/new-york-man-says-fortuneteller-scammed-him-out-fortune-paid-her-more-than-700g/?intcmp=latestnews
Pamela, the difference is that the crooked furtune tellers know that fraud and lying are wrong.
And they generally ashamed of themselves for their lives of deception, but they cannot help it.
Climate “scientists” ( the gubnamint kind) are proud to lie, and have no shame.
The alarmists don’t see it as a fraud, but merely as a little necessary “white lie” in order to fight for their “Noble cause”…
Just as the former socialist Swiss Minister and President Moritz Leuenberger said in a public speech some days ago (concerning a former lie about a CO2 reduction law):
“Now I believe a lie is justified if it will produce a good outcome.”
I have no idea what “post normal” means.
And you have no idea what fraud means.
Who are you talking to ?
That is because you are totally clueless.
POST NORMAL; SCIENCE THATS BENT TO AFFECT SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC LIFE THAT ARE JUSTIFIED IN ODER TO CONTROLTHE PEOPLE AND SAVE THE EARTH.
Go and read the Ravetz paper then
Troll identification complete, Captain Watts. Doesn’t even bother to read his *own* gurus before wandering around bashing random citizens.
Targeting, targeting – fire! http://isecoeco.org/pdf/pstnormsc.pdf
Normal fraud does not rely on scientific corruption.
It must be post-normal fraud then.
A little off topic but instructive..
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=N6RWWWjE2Rc
Milton Friedman on the long term effects of Keynes, which extend to the current debate.
I have been afraid of the twisting of biological science to “prove” that beneficial substances like CO2 are bad. Now it is happening. Real research on CO2’s effects on Terrestrial vertebrates are vital; and falsifying the science will shorten our lifespans.
Mr. Battig mentions “the transfer of wealth from the developed nations to the less developed nations” but, in reality, the money moves in many & various ways:
7 June: UK Telegraph: Christopher Booker: Insane, crazy – the riddle of the sands in Swansea
The Government’s determination to push through the Swansea Lagoon scheme as fast as possible is sheer lunacy
Last week’s Prime Minister’s Question Time produced yet another twist to what is one of the strangest political riddles in Britain today. A Tory MP was put up to ask David Cameron what he thought about the £1 billion Swansea Tidal Lagoon project, in which it had just been announced that ***a giant Chinese firm, the China Harbour Engineering Company, is to take a £300 million stake…
They will require constant back-up from fossil-fuel power stations for all the many hours when they are producing little or no power. In return for the developers receiving a mind-boggling £168 per megawatt hour for electricity, including a subsidy of 240 per cent, even more than that for offshore wind, we shall on average get just a derisory 57 megawatts. Yet the £1 billion gas-fired power station recently built down the coast at Pembroke can produce 35 times as much electricity, whenever needed, without a penny of subsidy…
Yet the project is tipped to be given the go-ahead by our new Energy and Climate Secretary, Amber Rudd, possibly as early as Wednesday. The real mystery crying out for an explanation is why the Tory establishment should seem so recklessly hell-bent on pushing through a project the experts seem to think is ludicrously impractical, absurdly costly, environmentally damaging and utterly insane.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/11657474/Insane-crazy-the-riddle-of-the-sands-in-Swansea.html
7 June: UK Daily Mail: David Rose: The UK’s £1billion carbon-belcher raping US forests…that YOU pay for: How world’s biggest green power plant is actually INCREASING greenhouse gas emissions and Britain’s energy bill
Drax was once Britain’s biggest coal-fired power station. It now burns millions of tons of wood pellets each year, and is reputed to be the UK’s biggest single contributor towards meeting stringent EU green energy targets.
But astonishingly, a new study shows that the switch by Drax from coal to wood is actually increasing carbon emissions. It says they are four times as high as the maximum level the Government sets for plants that use biomass – which is defined as fuel made from plant material that will grow back again, therefore re-absorbing the CO2 emitted when it is burnt…
At £80 per MW/hr, Drax’s biomass energy is two-and-a-half times more expensive than coal – a cost passed on to customers. Last year Drax soaked up £340 million in ‘green’ subsidies that were added to British consumers’ power bills – a sum set to rocket still further. Without these subsidies, its biomass operation would collapse.
Perhaps most damningly of all, its hunger for wood fuel is devastating hardwood forests in America, to the fury of US environmentalists, who say that far from saving the planet, companies like Drax are destroying it…
***The disgraced former Energy Secretary Chris Huhne was a key political architect of Britain’s drive for biomass – and is now the European chief of a US pellet company which is seeking UK markets…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3113908/How-world-s-biggest-green-power-plant-actually-INCREASING-greenhouse-gas-emissions-Britain-s-energy-bill.html
Find out who the parties are that backing this fiasco.
For example:
ITC Holdings Corp. One of the largest electric transmission companies in the U.S.
Source of information:
NEB/National Energy Board Canada
Application for the Lake Erie Connector Project which is a 1,000 MW underwater, HVDC line between Ontario and Pennsylvania.
http://www.neb-one-gc.ca/pplctnflng/mjrpp/lkrcnnctr/index-eng.html
Scroll down to : ITC Lake Erie Connector project folder [2680096] > 2015-05-22 Application for the Lake Erie Connector Project.
Part 3, Section 3.6.4, p.3-14
“Development of an Ontario cap-and-trade scheme could further spur the trade of RECs or REC-like products between Ontario and other jurisdictions, including PJM. The project will facilitate such trade.”
Post-rational science. The wisdom of the well-meaning crowd.
Reg. Blank
Post-rational science — good one. i may steal that one.
Eugene WR Gallun
Yep, excellent. We must distinguish ‘post-rational’ from ‘pre-rational’, also. I shot an arrow of time into the sky, it fell to earth past all knowing.
================
Well I’m no scientist, but when I see a table of old and new, and every single instance of the new is >= the old, it makes me say “Hmmmmm”.
Always remembering, however, inertia:
http://neurotheory.columbia.edu/~ken/cargo_cult.html
Of course Feynman was talking about a falsifiable hypothesis. These guys seem to be suffering cognitive dissonance because dogma upon which they have based their entire careers is turning out to be false. So instead of saying “How interesting!”, they double down.
And remember, Feynman never brushed his teeth because he didn’t believe it prevented tooth decay; hence his eloquent descriptions of all the upstream things which had to happen in order to drive his dentist’s drill. 😉
Thanks, Mr. Battig.
Here we are. Up sleet creek without a paddle.
That’s anthropogenic catastrophic global warming/climate disruption/climate change community. It loses something without the purported cause and community history.
Could not have said it better. Dr. Battig is RIGHT ON!
Anthony —
Global warming ‘hiatus’ challenged by NOAA. Heat-trapping emissions of Carbon dioxide were soaring. NOAA found the data constructed by them that shows hiatus in global temperature is due to inaccurate data and thus to remove hiatus in global temperature they made adjustments to data series of global temperature after 19 years of slumber. The hiatus has not occurred for the 1st time, it happened twice earlier. NOAA hasn’t bothered to look at satellite and radiosonde data series before attempting to mutilate the data. On the missing heat with 19 years hiatus, several theories were put forth in several top journals after peer-reviews by the so called eminent peers. Thus, with NOAA’s data cooking up, all those ‘peer-reviewed’ research publications in the so called top journals on ‘heat hiding in deep oceans’ have turned in to “Garbage”. Thus, the credibility of those scientists and journals are at stake!!! At the coming summit in Paris, UN must give top priority to pollution [water, air, soil & food] control over carbon dioxide as pollution has it impact already on life-forms on the Earth; and concentrate on natural variability in meteorological parameters and ecological changes that are of concern at local and regional scales. This will provide a better weather forecasting tools.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
It is easy to prove that the “global warming hiatus” is and is not happening, thus providing support of a bogus kind for the position of pseudoscientists of all stripes. There is not the need for “adjusting” the data after the example of the NOAA thus risking a stay in a federal penitentiary This is accomplished by mislabeling a mathematical relation to imply it is a functional relation when it is not functional. This relation is that one that our error-prone colleagues call the “global warming” in the context of the “hiatus” aka “pause.”
The good doctor knows this ‘made to order science’, this narrative is a neoplastic growth on the body politic. It has grown dysfunctionally, it has metastasized, it has invaded every organ and system of government and policy. Is the pathology ultimately consumptive, leading through cachexia to cadaverous, or will the body develop the will to sustain an immune response which will ultimately heal? I’d bet on the resilience of the body politic. Nature trumps Narrative.
Hey, Doc; in the film version aliens supply the anti-serum.
================
Bespoke, you say? Make mine an off- the- rack Brioni of a dataset, the good old RSS.
Documentary film of tireless and brave comrades at NOAA dutifully saving the world from poisonous CO2:
http://youtu.be/oe9I0QhV08w
Not only that, chocolate rations are up, too!!!!
A visit to the petrol station for chocolate and fuel may become more expensive if proposed revisions to European financial market rules are implemented, industry executives have warned.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ae3910d0-0acd-11e5-98d3-00144feabdc0.html
Chocolate rations are up.
Comrade Simon– Yes, our brilliant and courageous EU central planners are considering putting restrictions on commodity futures trading.
The glorious US Ministry of Food shows the wonderful results of its 1958 ban on onion futures trading vs. evil crude oil price stability (with evil futures trading):
http://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/onionsoil4.jpg
This is just further empirical evidence showing our glorious central planners must fix ALL commodity prices for the common good, in the same manner they “fixed” our temperature records!
Remember, comrade Simon:
War is Peace!
Freedom is Slavery!
Ignorance is Strength!
National Energy Board correct link…. neb-one.gc.ca, not neb-one-gc.ca /mark
Climate Change: Sunglasses, hat and coat. Problem solved.
It all started with the fall of the Berlin Wall when nascent political and ideological threats were emerging and ‘traditional’ academic disciplines began searching for new languages, tools and answers to their interdisciplinary problems-
http://web.archive.org/web/20130408215829/http://www.pacinst.org/publications/20th_anniversary/page2.html
Basically lefties needed to be sustainable in their darkest hour so they morphed into watermelons and bespoke their new jingoistic paradigm to cover up their past ideological bankruptcy. It’s worked a treat but it’s falling apart as usual, because while compassionate seeming and utopian dreams work for a while, their doing relies on measurable, accountable outcomes.
Walter Russell Mead nailed them all some time ago-
http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/2010/07/12/the-big-green-lie-exposed/
Yup. Something for climate voyeurs.
“The transfer of wealth from the developed nations to the less developed nations to combat a non-existent climate problem”
The transfer of wealth from poor people in developed nations to rich people in less developed nations to combat a non-existent climate problem.
there fixed it for you.
gbee makes an important clarification. Transfer of wealth to the smaller economies of the world can only happen legitimately through trade.
Aid ensures that the worst in the society rise to the top to get that easy money rolling around. Trade rewards the ones who really produce something.
Trade not aid.
“stitch-up science”, another fashion metaphore. Both science and us are being stitched up.
“Intellectual Impostures” by Alan Sokal.
A message from NOAA to the policy makers of planet earth.
It has come to our attention that a small number of people have begun to notice that a range of datasets show no significant global warming since 1997.
It certainly is very worrying that nothing especially worrying has so far happened.
We hereby wish to explain that our own data-set could be made to show some slight warming since 1997 if we messed about with how we interpreted temperatures of the ocean derived from buoys and ship intakes.
Back in the 1980’s and 1990’s we kick started the alarm by exaggerating the cold in the early century, exaggerating the warmth of the 1990’s and by suppressing the naughty 1940’s blip.
However, we would like everybody to know that if we now do another bunch of messing, then some the warmth of the early 1900’s pop’s back but we can get a bigger rise since the 1990’s.
The first “interpretation” was really only intended to panic the people of the 1990’s.
This new interpretation may help you to panic the people of 2015.
We hereby submit our hiatus killing variant, for approval. We hope that you like it.
There is some other shit that we could possibly adjust in the future, but we don’t want to do all the adjustment in one go, because then our data won’t match Hadley, RSS, UAH, Argo or the Radiosondes. And then maybe the smarter liberals will start asking awkward questions.
Wishing you all the best with your plans for reshaping the world economy.
Eternally your servants, Karl et al.
P.S. Thanks for all the grant money. We spent it on really cool stuff.
There is a better description than ‘Bespoke Science’ – ‘Fraud’
When you start by tampering with the data that is no more science than the ‘Find The Lady’ trick
This seems like a perversion of the old high-risk, low-probability scenario. The question asked is whether it is worth the cost mitigating a potentially severe problem even though it is unlikely or unclear. The answer is usually based on cost amount. Spending $1000 @ month for life insurance for most young couples is not reasonable, $30 may be a more acceptable mitigation against the risk, and for some their budget and priorities does not support spending for an unlikely but catastrophic life event.
With life insurance death is certain, time of death is uncertain and costs are balanced against that uncertainty. With climate science both the timing and type of catastrophic event is uncertain. And of course climate science irresponsibly ignores cost.
Post-normal science sounds a lot like “chicken-little the sky is falling” science.
Post-normal science sounds a lot like “chicken-little the sky is falling” science.
Agreed, the principles of or for Post Normal Science are actually only mental states generally expressing or trying to induce panic: “facts are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high and decisions urgent…” lead directly to “Bespoken Science” because of the panic, which necessarily and even admittedly abandons the principles of Real Science in favor of…Lo and behold!…Pronouncements by the self-anointed Elites, many of whom have just conveniently come to occupy positions of power within our Institutions and are bolstered by their Flocks of willing and congenital ignoramuses. The latter comprise a group I’ve been calling “Perfect Totalitarian Fodder” because they seem to need and even crave a system which gives them enough “On Authority” certainty in many important areas, real and fabricated from reality in some way, so that they can live life comfortably in so far as not having to think about them.
Dear Alx,
I do agree with your last sentence:- Post-normal science sounds a lot like “chicken-little the sky is falling” science.
Re: Post-Normal Science (PNS) – February 2003. (by S.Funtowicz and J. Ravetz).
I have just clicked onto the “link” – http://isecoeco.org/pdf/pstnormsc. pdf –
which was kindly provided here yesterday in the comment posted by Reality Observer.
The ten pages of self-righteous gobble-de-gook by Messrs. Funtowicz and Ravetz are CONVOLUTED beyond description ! (It has also NOT been proof read by the authors).
I rather fancy that they were both paid a very large sum of money for their so-called PNS definition, by the “European Commission Joint Research Centre” (note the spelling of Centre) and I expect the MONEY came from the coffers of the European Union.
Now, I admit that I haven’t seen “Star Wars” (or whatever it is) and I may well be a little behind the times (my Hungarian valve steriogram – record player still works nicely everyday) but I assure you that I am literate and I also know where the rats live.
My thanks to Reality Observer: his words are most appropriate “Targeting, targeting – fire!” and may I say, the life assurance situation you describe is indeed spot on.
Regards,
WL
On behalf of sceptics everywhere thank you Karl for your latest offering. You have no idea , i suspect , how pleased we are with it .
You have demonstrated that for the past 20 years global warming has not been in stasis as so many of your colleagues believed , but in gradual progression . At the same time of course , food crop yields have increased , hurricanes decreased, the arctic ice loss has stabilised , the Sahel has become greener and life in Northern europe winters is more comfortable.
In short there is nothing to fear about AGW but , to quote a distinguished compatriot of yours : “fear itself”.
In fact for some of us if this what a little AGW does , lets have some more of it please.
Thank you also Indefatigable frog for allowing me to pass on this message. .
The IPCC’s global warming supposition is dependent entirely upon the concept of ‘atmospheric greenhouse effect’ and the IPCC’s fabrication of “back-radiation”.
But why are these concepts held on a pedestal, as indisputable scientific fact, when these term do not even occur in any fundamental work involving thermodynamics, physical kinetics, or radiation theory?
This is not science as scientists have come to accept under the scientific method. This is pseudo-science … Mickey Mouse science …. and it should have no place in the field of science.