From the Fabius Maximus website. By Larry Kummer
Summary: This, my 305th post about climate, explains what I’ve learned so far. I believe that climate science as an institution has become dysfunctional; large elements of the public no longer trust it. The politics of climate change are polarized and gridlocked. The weather will determine the evolution of US public policy. All we can do is learn what went wrong so we can do better next time, and wait to see the price we pay for our folly.
Scientists tell the UN about the coming disaster in “When Worlds Collide
” (1951)
Contents
- Why doesn’t America lead the fight against climate change?
- How do scientists alert the world to a catastrophic threat?
- Case study: the pause.
- The most incompetently conducted media campaign ever?
- My personal experience.
- The broken climate debates.
- For More Information.
(1) Why doesn’t America lead the fight against climate change?
Why does climate change rank at the bottom of most surveys of what Americans’ see as our greatest challenges? (CEOs, too.) Since James Hansen brought global warming to the headlines in his 1989 Senate testimony, activists for action on this issue have had almost every advantage. They have PR agencies (e.g., Hansen’s new paper, the expensive propaganda video by 10:10. They have all the relevant institutions supporting them, including NASA, NOAA, the news media, academia, lavish funding from foundations and charities, even funding from the energy companies (also here), They have support from the majority of scientists.
The other side, “skeptics”, have some funding from energy companies and conservative groups, with the heavy lifting being done by volunteer amateurs, plus a few scientists and meteorologists.
What the Soviet military called the correlation of forces overwhelmingly favored those wanting action. Public policy in America should have gone green many years ago. Why didn’t it?
(2) How do scientists alert the world to a catastrophic threat?
“Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion.”
— Harsh but operationally accurate Roman proverb.
We have seen this played out many times in books and films since the publication of When Worlds Collide![clip_image001[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/clip_image0011.gif "clip_image001[1]"){kind=small}
in 1932 — A group of scientists see a threat. They go to America’s (or the world’s) leaders and state their case, presenting the data for others to examine and answering questions. They never say things like this…
In response to a request for supporting data, Philip Jones, a prominent researcher {U of East Anglia} said “We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?”
– From the testimony of Stephen McIntyre before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce (the July 2006 hearings which produced the Wegman Report).
They don’t destroy key records, which are required to be kept and made public. They don’t force people to file Freedom of Information requests to get key information; the response to FOIs is never like this…
The {climategate} emails reveal repeated and systematic attempts by him and his colleagues to block FoI requests from climate sceptics who wanted access to emails, documents and data. These moves were not only contrary to the spirit of scientific openness, but according to the government body that administers the FOI act were “not dealt with as they should have been under the legislation”. {The Guardian}
The burden of proof rests on those warning the world about a danger requiring trillions of dollars to mitigate, and perhaps drastic revisions to — or even abandoning — capitalism (as in This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate![clip_image001[2]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/clip_image0012.gif "clip_image001[2]"){kind=small}
and “In Fiery Speeches, Francis Excoriates Global Capitalism“).
Steve McIntyre has documented the defensive and self-defeating efforts of climate scientists to keep vital information secret, often violating the disclosure policies of journals, universities, and government funding agencies. To many laypeople these actions by scientists scream “something wrong”. It’s not how people act when they have a strong case, especially with such high stakes.
(3) Case study: the pause
Starting in 2006 climate scientists began to notice a slowing in the rate of atmospheric warming. By 2009 there were peer-reviewed papers about it (e.g., in GRL), and the pace of publications accelerated (see links to these 29 papers). In 2013 the UK Met Office published a major paper about the pause, which shifted the frontier of climate science from the existence of the pause to its causes (see links to these 38 papers). In the past few years scientists have forecast the duration of the pause (see links to 17 forecasts).
During this activists wrote scores, probably hundreds, of articles not only denying that there was a pause in warming — but mocking as “deniers” people citing the literature. The leaders of climate science remained silent, even those writing papers about the pause. While an impressive display of message discipline, it blasted away the credibility of climate science for those who saw the science behind the curtain of propaganda.
Eventually the tension grew so great that public mention of the discrepancy became acceptable, such as this mild note in Nature Climate Change (August 2014)…
“Climate science draws on evidence over hundreds of years, way outside of our everyday experience. During the press conference, scientists attempted to supplement this rather abstract knowledge by emphasising a short-term example: that the decade from 2001 onwards was the warmest that had ever been seen. On the surface, this appeared a reasonable communications strategy. Unfortunately, a switch to shorter periods of time made it harder to dismiss media questions about short-term uncertainties in climate science, such as the so-called ‘pause’ in the rate of increase in global mean surface temperature since the late 1990s.
“The fact that scientists go on to dismiss the journalists’ concerns about the pause – when they themselves drew upon a similar short-term example – made their position inconsistent and led to confusion within the press conference.”
Referring to the “so called pause” is typical message discipline, use of scare quote despite the scores of papers using the term. Another example of message discipline is the successful effort to conceal from the public that most forms of extreme weather have not increased during the past decade (data here, and here).
(4) The most incompetently conducted media campaign ever?
“Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it.”
— True when journalist Charles Dudley Warner said it in 1884. Still true today.
A kerfuffle occurred over claims that 2014 was the “warmest year” on record, with harsh denouncing of people pointing to substantial qualifications of that claim in the NOAA and NASA presentations (“it was more unlikely than likely”). Equally successful was the massive media campaign that convinced the public that California’s drought results from anthropogenic climate change, despite numerous studies showing that it is a minor factor. These are two in a long list of information operations by climate activists (see section 7 here).
The goal is always the same: keep the message simple, crush dissent (no matter how well founded). These propaganda successes required the complicit silence or active participation of scientists. This does not mean that the climate change threat is a Potemkin Village. It means that many climate scientists behave as if it is one. Hence the public policy gridlock.
Now many climate scientists and activists are doubling down on these failed tactics. Stronger denunciation of critics. More extreme headlines such as “The beyond-two-degree inferno“ in Science and “Halfway to Hell” in New Scientist. I doubt these change any minds.
(5) My personal experience
I first wrote about climate change 7 years ago, and have written 305 posts since. Most defended the IPCC against Left and Right (see my recommendations here). I found the climate a subject of interest as an important public policy issue and a test of our ability to see and respond to severe but long-term challenges.
In my 35 years in finance I’ve often relied on scientists for advice (in both the physical and social sciences), and developed methods for successfully engaging with them. These failed with most climate scientists. First, they were more reluctant to engage than in any other field I’ve worked with — including those doing secret work in defense and biotech.
Second, and more important, their responses were unlike anything I’ve seen before. A few responded in typical fashion. For example, I ask Roger Pielke Sr. a question and receive a full package of citations — which he’ll explain in detail, if asked. It’s the usual practice of scientists.
But in climate science a more common response is a probe to determine my tribe — us or them? Oddly, either way I often get snark (friendly or hostile, depending upon the how they ID my tribal identity). Probing, however careful, meets with empty rhetoric or outright hostility (i.e., classification as “foe”). The conversations often quickly became strange, and do not build confidence in their institutions.
(6) The broken climate debates
“The time for debate has ended”
— Marcia McNutt (editor-in-Chief of Science, next President of the NAS) in “The beyond-two-degree inferno“, editorial in Science, 3 July 2015.
I agree with McNutt: the public policy debate has ended. Climate science as an institution is broken, the larger science community applauds its dysfunctionality, and a critical mass of the US public has lost confidence in it. As a result, the US will take no substantial steps to prepare for possible future climate change, not even preparing for the inevitable re-occurrence of past extreme weather.
The weather will determine how policy evolves. All that remains is to discuss the lessons we can learn from this debacle so that we can do better in the future.
(7) For More Information
For more information see The keys to understanding climate change and My posts about climate change. Especially see these…
- An example of the mad climate change debate, showing America’s dysfunctionality.
- Texas warns us that we’re unprepared for normal weather.
- Is our certain fate a coal-burning climate apocalypse? No!
- Testing Skeptical Science: is Roger Pielke Sr. a climate misinformer?
- The 97% consensus of climate scientists is only 47%.
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There’s a very simple problem with climate and it’s this – academics are entirely the wrong group of people to advise government. Unlike commercial consultants or engineers who know they have to be cautious about what they say and only assert things that can be substantiated (or at least won’t do harm), academics have engaged in an orgy or unsubstantiated assertions. Some for good reason, but many because of the liberal green agenda that prevails in Universities have seen this as a way of “getting back at the private sector and industry”.
And industry itself doesn’t care about academics – because they make money from whatever daft schemes the government dreams up from the advice of politically active academics. But the people who do pay, are the public, our society and perversely academia and science because no one who had the misfortune to get tangled up in this climate debate on the sceptic side will ever trust another academic again
Academics who are employed by the government that wants them to endorse a vote catching ideological position are exactly the right people to advise governments…If the desired outcome is votes.
@bobthebear
Climate change is one instance of a class of problems which are global, in that, no one country on its own can solve them, and I for one would really like to see a world where a kid’s chances in life are not dictated by where they happen to be born on the planet. So there is a theme of “uniting humanity”. But climate change has been pushed well beyond its data, and into a sort of, global grass-roots socialism, and the trouble with that is, it is an outdated system, a system of politics which ties in with tribalism and authoritarianism.
Yes, one day humanity may integrate globally, but it won’t be via socialism. It’ll be something new. And it may not be for a thousand years. But instead of facing that political and ethical question, how and why to move forward, they took an old politics and hid it inside a science theory. Then they tried to use that to usurp everyone else.
Protesters hold up signs against building a new runway, saying “we come armed only with peer reviewed science”, whilst same protesters hate GMO, even whilst there isn’t peer reviewed consensus on it being bad. It is obviously all about their cause, and not about science. And they know they are doing this.
As one environmentalist explained to me, when I asked, what if CO2 isn’t a big problem, she said, “It doesn’t matter if CO2 isn’t a problem, because by forcing people to cut CO2, you’re forcing a cut in production, and a cut in consumption; it is about reducing GREED.” Perhaps she thought I was part of the tribe, in divulging that. Perhaps she thought I didn’t look like a greedy person.
Well, fine, but science and ethics are two different domains, and if what one wants is a truly ethical advance, it has to be discussed as an ethical question, not as a pseudo-science claim to force people into complying.
Fabius Maximus,
What an insightful essay. Thank you.
Your point about the lack of preparation for future “normal extremes” is something I see as one of the greatest costs the climate obsessed have imposed on us all. It is my belief that if one were to review the net impact of the climate community’s policy ideas, research work, treaties, laws and expenditures, one would find little if any actual benefit. Can you list any positive accomplishments by the climate community?
Hunter,
That’s a thought-provoking questions. It depends how one sees the players, the process, and what’s happened. Here’s my view.
Climate science has made much progress (paraphrased as “the mills of science grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine”). They’ll make more, and answer many of our questions eventually. I prefer to look at science as a social process, usefully described by the schema developed by Thomas Kuhn in his “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”. A field like climate science has a paradigm. The mainstream defends it against attackers. In that sense nothing unusual is happening.
Looking at a different an larger playing field, the public policy debate in America is dominated by activists, which we can loosely describe as “left” and “right”. Some are scientists. They have politicized climate science for a complex mix of reasons. The opportunity to play in the “great game” of politics has attracted many climate scientists (to varying degrees), as it offers benefits: fame, research money, lucrative jobs, fun conferences at nice locations, etc.
There is nothing wrong with this. It’s one way society mobilizes resources to address a problem. Unfortunately the process has gone sour, with bad results for our politics and the institution of climate science. The additional resources given climate science have produced some valuable results, but not proportional to the sums. Activists have drawn attention to the effects of climate on society. That could have been good, helping prepare us for the repeat of past weather and future climate change — but instead we have poisonous gridlock.
Except when the paradigm consumes the process, as happened, tragically, with eugenics.
What’s next in the climate wars?
Let’s try a thought experiment (I’m writing a post about this). Five leading climate scientists are in a bar and one asks “How do we fix this mess?” What might people do who really believed the world were at risk (i.e., the safety of their grandchildren were more important than their careers)?
My suggestion: ask for outside intervention. Like the NAS “North Report” in 2006, but on a much larger scale. Ask for serious money to fund an blue ribbon review of climate change by a multi-disciplinary team of outside experts. More like the process for drug approval than the IPCC. I suggest 3 core projects.
(1) Have a team of software engineers, mathematicians, and scientists examine a few climate models.
(2) Have a team of experts examine the paleoclimate reconstructions. Dendochronologists, statisticians, etc — specific experts in the relevant fields.
(3) Have a team of experts (meteorologists, statisticians, etc) examine the modern temperature databases: ocean, surface, and upper troposphere.
Activists will protest the time lost to the climate fight. But since nothing substantial is happening, nothing is lost. Some might object to the money spent (a modern version of the “know nothings”). IMO it would be money well spent to resolve this issue.
Comments?
Follow-up note: John Christy (Prof of Atmospheric Science U AL-Huntsville, Alabama State
Climatologist) has proposed this. As here, on 20 March 2014 (probably not his first mention):
“As important as models can be for problems like this, it is clear we have a long way to go. And it is troubling that current policy is being based on these computer models, none of which has been validated by a formalized, independent Red Team analysis.”
http://www.centredaily.com/2014/03/20/4093680/john-r-christy-climate-science.html
Bruce,
“The entire field of “climate science” has been so corrupted”
That’s why I recommend asking for “outside intervention”. There are no neutrals, but there are (excuse the pun) “cooler heads” at the NAS and AAAS. A more balanced view is also possible if this comes from Congress.
And these “experts” would be chosen by whom, and on what basis? The entire field of “climate science” has been so corrupted by the so-called “consensus” that it can’t be fixed. It has to fail catastrophically.
Bruce,
I replied — but hit the wrong “reply” button. See my response above your comment!
Great idea in general, but the devilish detail is that the climate catastrophist meme has infected/infested a growing circle of disciplines. As Jennifer Marohasy pointed out about a year ago, and you have inferred here, what is needed is a new paradigm. The new paradigm, as you also infer, would involve “yes, the climate is changing and mankind is influencing that change in multiple ways, but no crisis is happening or likely to happen”. But that does not inflate political egos or financial parasite bank accounts. And thta paradigm could hold them accountable for the years of dereliction in resource and infrastructure management.
Climate science is currently not much better in either quality of science or freshness of ideas than is Ufology.
The climate obsession has become a search for the Holy Grail: endless, mythical expensive, and fruitless.
My take at this point is that the only way one can say that “manmade climate change” is of any significance at all is to change the “A” to “Anthropomorphic” and study it at as a social science experiment run badly out of control.
Our pitiful little aliquot of fossil CO2 can only net benefit the globe, the biome, and humanity. A warmer world sustains more total life and more diversity of life. Paleontology has never shown the upper limit of benefit from warming and always shows the detriment of cooling.
There, the paradigm your grandchildren will understand.
=================
Fabius Maximus – Excellent post!
My recent experiences on Twitter with several visible climate scientists [Gavin Schmidt; Doug McNeall; Victor Venema; Bart Verheggen; Chris Colose; Andrew Dessler; Peter Thorne] on twitter illustrates how dysfunctional and ineffective seeking to debate the climate issue has become.
I have tried to move them from attacking me to an open constructive discussion of the questions I raised with Gavin Schmidt months ago – e.g. see http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/05/19/nasas-dr-gavin-schmidt-goes-into-hiding-from-seven-very-inconvenient-questions/
Instead,they have launched a team attack to defend Gavin [who, unfortunately, launches his own personal attacks].
My request to Gavin Schmidt as Director of a federal NASA lab [GISS] for information is standard practice in the USA.
In the USA system, federal managers are supposed to respond to taxpayer requests, despite Gavin’s claim to the contrary. Indeed, the Congress can mandate it in their Hearings and follow on. As a taxpayer it is expected. Typically, of course, they do not answer themselves, but their staff does. This is even true of the President’s office. Whether the answers have any value is another issue. 🙂
In air quality work, there is a difference between Europe and the USA, In Europe, there is a need to demonstrate a need to know (regarding pollutants emitted from a factory), while in the USA there is a right to know. Gavin must not know the policy history in the USA concerning communication to the public and others.
Cochran, L.S., R.A. Pielke, and E. Kovacs, 1992: Selected international receptor based air quality standards. J. Air Waste Mgt. Assoc., 42, 1567-1572
https://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/r-167.pdf
Here is an extract from that paper
“‘Need to Know” Versus “Right to Know” In compiling this information, we found it easier to access the regulations from some countries as opposed to others. There is a major political difference between public rights to air quality information. In the United States, for example, the federal law mandates a “right to know,” while the Seveso Directive (#67/548) of the European community permits access based on a “need to know.” This fundamental difference provides further impetus for an ambient based standard, in addition to emission based standards, since the public and other interested parties could monitor air quality at the property boundaries of an industrial facility.’
Now that CO2 is a “pollutant” in the USA, there is even more reason to insist on communication between policymakers and the public on the climate issue.
I am going to repeat my questions here from http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/05/19/nasas-dr-gavin-schmidt-goes-into-hiding-from-seven-very-inconvenient-questions/ [note I left out the one question that Ken Rice and I address at ATTP – https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2015/06/22/assessing-anthropogenic-global-warming/
*********************************************QUESTIONS******************************
1. From http://webster.eas.gatech.edu/Papers/albedo2015.pdf
“Climate models fail to reproduce the observed annual cycle in all components of the albedo with any realism, although they broadly capture the correct proportions of surface and atmospheric contributions to the TOA albedo. A high model bias of albedo has also persisted since the time of CMIP3,mostly during the boreal summer season. Perhaps more importantly, models fail to produce the same degree of interannual constraint on the albedo variability nor do they reproduce the same degree of hemispheric symmetry.”
Q: How do you respond to this critique of climate models with respect to the GISS model?
2. From https://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/1116592hansen.pdf
“The Willis et al. measured heat storage of 0.62 W/m2 refers to the decadal mean for the upper 750 m of the ocean. Our simulated 1993-2003 heat storage rate was 0.6 W/m2 in the upper 750 m of the ocean. The decadal mean planetary energy imbalance, 0.75 W/m2 , includes heat storage in the deeper ocean and energy used to melt ice and warm the air and land. 0.85 W/m2 is the imbalance at the end of the decade.
Certainly the energy imbalance is less in earlier years, even negative, especially in years following large volcanic eruptions. Our analysis focused on the past decade because: (1) this is the period when it was predicted that, in the absence of a large volcanic eruption, the increasing greenhouse effect would cause the planetary energy imbalance and ocean heat storage to rise above the level of natural variability (Hansen et al., 1997), and (2) improved ocean temperature measurements and precise satellite altimetry yield an uncertainty in the ocean heat storage, ~15% of the observed value, smaller than that of earlier times when unsampled regions of the ocean created larger uncertainty.”
Q: What is the GISS update to this summary including the current estimates for the imbalance?
3a Q: What is the quantitative skill of the multi-decadal climate projections with respect to predicting average observed regional climate statistics?
3b Q: What is the quantitative skill of the multi-decadal climate projections with respect to predicting CHANGES in observed regional climate statistics?
3c Q: What is the quantitative skill of the multi-decadal climate projections with respect to predicting observed regional extreme weather statistics?
3d Q: What is the quantitative skill of the multi-decadal climate projections with respect to predicting CHANGES in observed regional extreme weather statistics?
4. Q: Can regional dynamic and/or statistical downscaling be used to increase the prediction (projection) skill beyond that of available by interpolation to finer scales directly from the multi-decadal global climate models predictions?
5. Q: Since it is claimed that a large fraction of the heat from human input of CO2 and other greenhouse gases has been going into the deeper ocean over the last 10-15 years (as an attempt to explain the “hiatus”), why is the global average surface temperature trend still used as the primary metric to diagnose global warming?
6. Q: What is the relative role of land use/land cover change relative as well as added aerosols with respect to added CO2 and other greenhouse gases in affecting local and regional climate and changes in regional climate statistics?
7. Q: What is your conclusion on the role of changes in extreme weather as they affect society during the last several decades?
I invite Gavin Schmidt, Doug McNeall, Victor Venema, Bart Verheggen, Chris Colose, Andrew Dessler,and Peter Thorne (and others) to engage here or on another website to discuss with me and others.
Roger A. Pielke Sr.
Here’s a question. If there is an increase in radiation onto the surface of earth that raises the actual surface temperature by 1 deg C what will be the eventual increase in the temperature of the centre of the earth and how long will it take to get there? What are the consequences for models, climate and missing heat?
Check out Doug McNeall’s twitter stream, @dougmcneall
In the last two days he’s sent over 40 sneering bullying tweets to Roger Pielke, without a single one addressing any issue of scientific substance.
So far [August 19 2015 1250pm MDT], no interest to engage on science by Gavin Schmidt, Doug McNeall, Victor Venema, Bart Verheggen, Chris Colose, Andrew Dessler,and Peter Thorne. For those who thought that science involved vigorous, but cordial and open debate on issues, this experience with these individuals shows that when their view is the politically dominate one, they just ridicule and ignore any need to discuss the science.
This is a particular problem with Schmidt since as a federal senior manager, he is, in my view, ignoring one of his responsibilities to USA taxpayers for NASA GISS [Schmidt or member(s) of his staff] to respond to a request for information.
They know those questions won’t go away, so, the flak.
Heh, there are waves of bombers, called reality.
==========
‘They don’t destroy key records, which are required to be kept and made public. They don’t force people to file Freedom of Information requests to get key information; the response to FOIs is never like this…’
If as urgent has claimed , if as settled has claimed if as all important has claimed , the last thing you would see would be smoke and mirror operations because their use make it less not more likley for you to get the types of changes it has claimed ‘must happen’ on this type of scale .
And yet climate ‘science’ and CAGW followers are the world’s leader in the production and usage of such approaches has they act far more like a religion trying to cover for the reality that is not ‘settled ‘ ,therefore far from clear how ‘important’ it is or if it is ‘urgent ‘ at all.
Sorry to have to remind people, but before you go ‘Green’ have a quick look around one of their official sites(1). There is little there about ‘the environment’ excepting where it happens to bolster other goals.
These (the leadership at least) are the people that think that Communism is a great idea … if only we could try it properly.
I would lapse into serious depression if I truly believed that America had gone ‘green’. I have always believed that you lot had more sense. As in the good ol’ days of the Cold War, the rest of the ‘West’ looks to America as an alternative to destructive, half-thought out, (five year) planned visions of the future. That way lies North Korea.
(1) http://www.gp.org/what-we-believe/10-key-values
“The weather will determine the evolution of US public policy.”
I fear this may be true. And because most people have very short and unreliable memories, any large weather events, however normal statistically, will serve the warmist purpose. Politicians may be very smart in some ways, but they will continue to be unable to put such events in their proper context. We’re going to need a significant DOWNTURN in global temperatures, not just an absence of large warming, before the movers and shakers start to move and shake in a different direction. Sorry to be rather pessimistic…
mothcatcher,
Nicely said! I agree. Any extreme weather in the next few years will be described as the result of CAGW. As we see with the California drought, despite it being quite typical for the region.
It need not even be visible normal weather, as we see with hype last year about the Super Monster El Nino (that never arrived) and this year’s {predicted} Godzilla El Nino — skillful propaganda can work gullible people into a frenzy about something existing only in their minds.
Prediction: in October (before the Paris Conference) we’ll see the mother of all alarmist campaigns when 2015 is declared The Warmest Year Even. All those expensive satellites will get dropped down the memory hole, their inconvenient truth ignored.
Why is WUWT not on the Fabius Maximus blog roll?
Hansen threw CAGW against the wall and it stuck.
Now reality is it peeling off.
Their conclusion?
There is something wrong with the wall.
Dear Larry Kummer,
Re your first paragraph ending in … “All we can do is learn what went wrong so we can do better next time, and wait to see the price we pay for our folly.”
No ! That is NOT the answer. The time for “sitting on the fence” has long gone.
Here (below) are words from a respected Australian geologist who, last year, put things into perspective about carbon-dioxide (which is the ENTIRE basis for the Great Global Warming CON !).
COPY AND PASTE start.
Ian Rutherford Plimer is an Australian geologist, professor emeritus of earth sciences at the University of Melbourne, professor of mining geology at the University of Adelaide, and the director of multiple mineral exploration and mining companies. He has published 130 scientific papers, six books and edited the Encyclopedia of Geology.
Where Does the Carbon Dioxide Really Come From?
PLIMER: “Okay, here’s the bombshell. The recent volcanic eruption in Iceland . Since its first spewing of volcanic ash has, in just FOUR DAYS, NEGATED EVERY SINGLE EFFORT you have made in the past five years to control CO2 emissions on our planet – all of you.
Of course, you know about this evil carbon dioxide that we are trying to suppress – it’s that vital chemical compound that every plant requires to live and grow and to synthesize into oxygen for us humans and all animal life.
I know….it’s very disheartening to realize that all of the carbon emission savings you have accomplished while suffering the inconvenience and expense of driving Prius hybrids, buying fabric grocery bags, sitting up till midnight to finish your kids “The Green Revolution” science project, throwing out all of your non-green cleaning supplies, using only two squares of toilet paper, putting a brick in your toilet tank reservoir, selling your SUV and speedboat, vacationing at home instead of abroad, nearly getting hit every day on your bicycle, replacing all of your 50p light bulbs with £5 light bulbs ….. well, all of those things you have done have all gone down the tubes in just four days.
The volcanic ash emitted into the Earth’s atmosphere in just four days – yes, FOUR DAYS – by that volcano in Iceland has totally erased every single effort you have made to reduce the evil beast, carbon. And there are around 200 active volcanoes on the planet spewing out this crud at any one time – EVERY DAY.
I don’t really want to rain on your parade too much, but I should mention that when the volcano Mt. Pinatubo erupted in the Philippinesin 1991, it spewed out more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than the entire human race had emitted in all its years on earth.
Yes, folks, Mt. Pinatubo was active for over one year – think about it!!!!
Of course, I shouldn’t spoil this ‘touchy-feely tree-hugging’ moment and mention the effect of solar and cosmic activity and the well-recognized 800-year global heating and cooling cycle, which keeps happening despite our completely insignificant efforts to affect climate change.
And I do wish I had a silver lining to this volcanic ash cloud, but the fact of the matter is that the bush fire season across the westernUSA and Australia this year alone will negate your efforts to reduce carbon in our world for the next two to three years. And it happens every year.
Just remember that your government just tried to impose a whopping carbon tax on you, on the basis of the bogus ‘human-caused’ climate-change scenario.
Hey, isn’t it interesting how they don’t mention ‘Global Warming’ anymore, but just ‘Climate Change’ – you know why? It’s because the planet has COOLED by 0.7 degrees in the past few years and these global warming bull artists got caught with their pants down.
And, just keep in mind that you might yet have an Emissions Trading Scheme – that whopping new tax – imposed on you that will achieve absolutely nothing except make you poorer. It won’t stop any volcanoes from erupting, that’s for sure.
But, hey, relax……give the world a hug and have a nice day!!
COPY AND PASTE end.
Tribalism isn’t just rampant in climate science but pretty much everywhere. According to the Framers of our Constitution, political factions was never mentioned nor embraced:
“There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This in my opinion is to be dreaded as the greatest evil under our Constitution.”
-John Adams
Personally, I believe it’s a primal instinct for humans to naturally fall into factions (tribes) since after all, civilization has only existed for 0.02% of our existence…We’d like to think of ourselves as modern humans but I still think we have a long way to go in riding ourselves of primal instincts that are detrimental to not only modern society but apparently the planet as well.
Dog,
Yours gets my vote for Best of Thread. It raises a problem probably more important than the climate issues in my post. Tribalism is an illness that has America by the throat, bleeding away the social cohesion that has been one of our great strengths — and we have fought hard to maintain (and recover, when we’ve lost it).
I see this in my small pond. The FM website has gained and lost audience several times since opening in 2007. We’ll run articles that attract readers from Left or Right, then change to a new focus offending their tribal truths and — bang, gone.
That’s happening right now. We’ve run articles about our dysfunctional politics, broken financial markets, and growing inequality — gaining readers from the Left. A few articles about climate — largely supporting the IPCC against activists who have abandoned it as “too conservative” — and our West coast traffic has been cut in half. Fast,
Which brings up an interesting thing about our host, Anthony Watts. He runs a website with one of the widest range of viewpoints of any among the large climate-focused multi-author shops. Most have the range of perspectives like that of a cult. That’s he resists this pattern is impressive, in my book.
This is the problem. Democrats will protect and reward corruption. The Green Industry is good for Democrats. They will go so far as intimidate whistle blowers.
Congressional Democrats probe group that revealed Planned Parenthood videos
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/aug/20/congressional-dems-probe-group-revealed-pp-videos/
The reason why the field of climate science has been so badly tainted, and many climatologists and academic and scientific institutions have become corrupted, is simple … green politics and money.
The only thing that will expose this disgraceful period of corrupt science will be time. Time will reveal the indisputable truth about the climate changes that lie ahead. And based on some good science, I believe the following video reveals what is most likely to be:
It’s not obvious from your post that you have learned a lot about climate science. Perhaps you are an expert in finance. Are you telling everyone to buy stocks now? Few people would be capable of being an expert in two unrelated subjects, such as finance and climate science. Perhaps you have some wrong opinions about “climate science”? Of course, I could be wrong.
“Climate science” is a term seized by a small subset of people with science degrees who would more accurately be called climate modelers.
Geologists, astrophysicists, and many other scientists, are excluded from the climate science “cult”, even though their work is often about, or related to, Earth’s climate
Based on a strategy developed by Roger Revelle, scientists learned that getting government grants was much easier if you declared with great certainty that an environmental catastrophe was coming, and additional study was needed.
Climate modelers are people who enjoy playing computer games in air conditioned offices, making scary predictions that gets them media attention and government grants, and doing “work” (playing computer games ) that allows them to tell others they are working to ‘save the Earth’.
That sounds pretty good to me — getting high pay to play computer games, and then saving the Earth like a super hero !
In fact, climate modeling is not science at all:
– Predicting the future is not science, and
– Computer models are not data — without data there is no science.
Computer modeling is a methodology to convert wild guess predictions of the future into complex reports that appear to be scientific because a lot of math is used.
But, in fact, the output of climate models is nothing more than opinions of the people who control the assumptions.
And those people have no idea whether future decades will be cooler or warmer.
After all, they have 40 years of wrong climate predictions so far — how many decades of wrong predictions are required before the predictions are ignored?
On your website you appear to promote more money spent on climate science.
That would be a mistake.
Has the taxpayers’ money invested so far given us:
(1) un-biased “climate science” (no), or
(2) accurate predictions of the future climate (no), or
(3) scientists with open minds and integrity (no) ?
So why “invest” more money in “climate science” when the prior investments are returning nothing of value? In fact, the scary climate predictions lead to slower economic growth through the false demonization of CO2.
The government should spend much less money on “climate science”.
Cutting losses is basic investment finance.
Calculating an average temperature is a waste of money, for one example.
In fact, after many billions of dollars spent on climate science, all we really know is:
– Earth’s climate is always changing
– Causes of those changes are unknown …
(but range from the sun’s irradiance, the sun’s magnetic field, cosmic rays, extra-terrestial dust, the Earth’s core, Earth’s magnetic field, Earth’s albedo changes from building cities, soot in the air, and soot on the Arctic snow and ice, etc. And maybe CO2 and methane probably have some effect too.)
“Climate science” as performed by climate modelers is 99% politics and 1% science.
Computer games are not science.
Scaring people to enable left-wing politicians to gain political power is not science.
Earth’s climate in 2015 is better than it has been in hundreds of years, and much better than 15,000 years ago when my property in Michigan was covered by a mile or two of ice:
– Slight warming after the Little Ice Age centuries has been good news for humans,
– More CO2 in the air has been good news for plants, and the people and animals who eat them,
– More warming, and more CO2 in the air, in the future, would be even better news, and
– The slight warming and additional CO2 since 1850 has been accompanied by the most prosperous and healthy 165 years for humans in the history of our planet — so where’s the bad news ?
My free climate blog for the non-scientist:
http://www.elOnionBloggle.blogspot.com