Guest Opinion: Dr. Tim Ball
The minute a small cabal hijacked climate for a political agenda it determined that setting the record straight required political answers. Naomi Klein admitted it wasn’t about the science directly. That fighting climate change was necessary to combat capitalism. This was the objective all along and expressed in 1993 when Senator Wirth admitted,
“We’ve got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing …”
The “right thing” is achieving Maurice Strong’s objective of getting rid of the industrialized nations.
Too many skeptics continue to think that scientific points are going to change the public understanding. Most of the public don’t understand, but, more important, don’t want to understand. I doubt the 75% who failed the Yale Education Climate Change test lost any sleep. Polls, such as those of the Pew Center and overall analysis of trends indicate global warming or climate change are not a concern for most people. I suspect they don’t care because they don’t understand or want to understand. They also know how about the unreliability of weather forecasts, and that is all the science they need. One Pew poll confirms that the public believes global warming is a political issue. Because of this, politicians and environmentalists with political agendas continue to control the story. James Delingpole puts the amount of money wasted because of this control at $4 billion a day.
Because science is ideally amoral and apolitical most scientists avoid politics, which results in a failure to provide necessary information to open-minded politicians and media. They need this to counter the pseudo-science of the IPCC proponents. They knew what to do from the start. Stephen Schneider set it out succinctly in Discover magazine a year after Hansen appeared before Wirth’s Senate committee and put the entire issue into the political realm.
On the one hand we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but& which means that we must include all the doubts, caveats, ifs and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists, but human beings as well. And like most people, we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climate change. To do that we have to get some broad-based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This double ethical bind which we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.
If this sounds familiar today, it is because it summarizes the words in the recent Encyclical of Pope Francis. Schneider is wrong. There is no decision about right and wrong, which is why the Pope’s connection with climate deceivers contradicts his central role as upholder of truth and is so deeply troubling. It is the rationale Naomi Klein and other use, which is why they brought her on board. It is basic Alinsky; the end justifies the means.
I spoke about the need to counter the false science from a political and social perspective, in my presentation at the First Heartland Conference in New York ten years ago. I pointed out that Gore’s movie was a brilliant piece of propaganda. A view supported by Justice Burton the UK judge who ruled on its use in the classroom.
It is now common ground that it is not simply a science film – although it is clear that it is based substantially on scientific research and opinion – but that it is a political film, albeit of course not party political.
Justice Burton recommended teachers provide balance by also showing The Great Global Warming Swindle. I proudly advised producer Martin Durkin and appeared in the movie. I also warned him that the US media would not run it, as proved the case, although it is now generally available. The problem is that only a small percentage of people watch documentaries on television. Gore bypassed that by using Hollywood to make the movie but also to market it through all their traditional venues. They knew how to achieve Schneider’s goal of getting “broad-based support” and “capturing the public’s imagination.”
Skeptics have, for a variety of reasons, avoided the “Hollywood” approach. It is a major error. We need to realize that tactics are tactics, and that the adage that you fight fire with fire is true. The first thing to do in any strategy is define the problem and the second is to determine the target and thirdly use tactics appropriate to the situation.
The problem is a failure to explain climate science and its abuse in a way a majority can understand. The following points are gleaned from my experience with media interviews, school visits, questions after a presentation, and questions via email. They represent the issues I confront every day. They are the real challenges anybody trying to offset the misinformation about climate and climate change must consider. They are the political dynamics that influence how you help people understand and deal with science issues.
1. People can’t believe a small group of people could mislead the world. Nowadays, the explosion of conspiracy theories because of the Internet, make the idea even more remote and unpalatable. They need to heed world-renowned anthropologist Margaret Mead’s observation.
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
This comment implies that “thoughtful” and “committed” are pursuing positive changes. History indicates they are never positive as power centralizes and corrupts and people lose freedoms.
2. People can’t believe scientists would distort, manipulate, or do anything other than proper science. They accept the view that science and scientists are amoral and apolitical. As Mary McCarthy said,
“In science, all facts, no matter how trivial or banal, enjoy democratic equality.”
This is reinforced by the practice of most scientists to avoid politics. The public assumes the silence is a tacit agreement with what is in the media about global warming.
3. It is mostly the politicians who talk about the 97% manufactured consensus. The public asks as happened to me twice on radio this week,
“How come thousands of scientists believe there is global warming and climate change?”
The simple answer is, very few are familiar with the science. They, like most of the public, assume other scientists would not distort, manipulate, or do anything other than proper science. When scientists find out, they are shocked as exemplified in Klaus-Eckert Puls comment.
Ten years ago I simply parroted what the IPCC told us. One day I started checking the facts and data—first I started with a sense of doubt but then I became outraged when I discovered that much of
what the IPCC and the media were telling us was sheer nonsense and was not even supported by any scientific facts and measurements. To this day I still feel shame that as a scientist I made presentations of their science without first checking it.
IPCC proponents promoted and perpetuated this deception through science societies as I explained.
A particularly egregious exploitation was carried out through science societies and professional scientific groups. They were given the climate science of the IPCC and urged to support it on behalf of their members. Certainly a few were part of the exploitation, but a majority, including most of the members simply assumed that the rigorous methods of research and publication in their science were used. Lord May of the UK Royal Society was influential in the manipulation of public perception through national scientific societies. They persuaded other national societies to become involved by making public statements. The Russian Academy of Science, under its President Yuri Israel, refused to participate.
4. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, “Never in the history of mankind have so many been deceived by so few, with so few facts.” The more you try to counteract what the public knows using scientific facts, the more you lose the battle. If you use scientific facts you must couch them in terms and analogies everybody understands. I know this from 25 years of teaching a compulsory science credit course for Arts students. The abilities and techniques I developed there of explaining climate in ways the public understand made me a double threat to IPCC proponents because I was also qualified.
5. Most people don’t know what is “normal” or “natural” in nature. This made it easy to imply or infer that they were abnormal or unnatural. It works well with the modern practice of “sound bites” in which information is presented without context. Climate change is innately historical and demands context. There are two basic options to counter the problem. Publish the context for each story as soon as possible after it appears. Publish stories of true facts that are outside of people’s comprehension using analogies. For example, alarmists add human scale to stories with analogies. One year they reported Arctic sea ice melted more by an area the size of Texas than the previous year. Texas is 695,662 km2, which is approximately 4.6% of the total Arctic ice of 15 million km2. The change is within the natural annual variability, but Texas is big so it must be a problem.
6. We tell people CO2 isn’t causing the warming but fail to explain why. This is for people who don’t know what a greenhouse gas is or that water vapor is far more important. (Figure 1)
Figure 1 Source: Yale Education Climate Change Test.
We then fail to explain what is the most likely cause. As politicians learn to their peril, you can’t just be against something.
Today they push the global warming claims with increasing deception because the 21st Paris Conference of the Parties on climate is scheduled for 7-8 December 2015. They consider it imperative to pass a Kyoto type set of policies. Ironically, one thing that diminishes their chances is continued economic decline, the very objective of Wirth, Klein and the gang. It is ironic because politicians will reset their priorities to promote development, growth, and job creation because they don’t want angry voters. What they will get is angry global warming activists with a political agenda.
We need to realize that tactics are tactics, and that the adage that you fight fire with fire is true.
Perhaps. Yet we need to be careful not to confuse that with fighting poison with poison. (Incitement to riot is one thing, but it is not an excuse for riot.)
You are assuming a great deal. You do not have any idea what Dr. Ball has been through.
Sure you’ve seen some of the nastiness on the net, but you have not walked a mile in his shoes, therefore you make a moral judgement without knowledge.
Dr. Ball’s repsonses have always been measured and calm despite the flak fired at him.
Poison? Really, evanmjones?
Great article Dr.Ball…..spot in!
Hopefully the Fall release of Marc Morano’s film will use a true Hollywood style production to expose the frauds for who they are.
Another great post Dt Ball – thank you.
The thing that appals me most in this is the role of activist scientists, who constantly stoke the fires of alarmism in the MSM and have the ear of Governments. It is impossible for scientists to maintain scientific objectivity in their work if they are also activists. To claim otherwise is delusional, and yet it is these scientists who hold the floor. To them, as was clear from Climategate, the message is all.
Sorry DR Ball – old stiff fingers.
The sea ice/sheets/caps on Antarctica/the Arctic/Greenland/Iceland are shrinking/growing yes/no/maybe depends on who’s counting.
Polar bears and penguins are endangered/having a hard time/pretty much as usual yes/no/maybe depends on who’s counting.
The sea levels are rising, land is subsiding yes/no/maybe depends on who’s counting.
The global temperatures are rising/falling/flat lining based on satellite/tropospheric/sea surface/land surface with or without UHI/TOB/homogenization/adjustments/bald faced lying yes/no/maybe depends on who’s counting.
Nothing but sound and fury, tales told by people missing the point, signifying nothing. The only meaningful question is what does CO2 have to do with any of this? How are these contentious topics connected to CO2?
IPCC’s dire predictions for the earth’s climate are based entirely on computer models, models which have yet to match reality. The projections began with a 4 C increase by 2100 which has since been adjusted down to 1.5 C.
The heated discussions mentioned above are warmists’ “See we told you so!,” attempts to retroactively validate or refute those models, models driven by the radiative forcing/feedback of CO2 and other GHGs. IPCC AR5 TS.6 says that the magnitude of the radiative forcing/feedback of CO2 “…remains uncertain.” (Google “Climate Change in 12 Minutes.”) Implying that IPCC was also uncertain in AR4, 3, 2, 1.
IPCC is not uncertain about one issue, though, redistribution of wealth and energy from developed countries to the underdeveloped ones to achieve IPCC’s goal of all countries enjoying above average standards of living.
Besides, the greatest threat to mankind isn’t CO2, it’s poverty & hot lead.
+10 ! Succinct
Excellent, but I would add that it not only depends on who, but why. And the Climate Liars or Climatists are the ones who have a vested interest in keeping the CAGW choo choo chugging along. Those vested interests include continued funding, careers, politics, and egos, but now, a new fear of the whole charade being exposed and crashing down around them.
“IPCC is not uncertain about one issue, though, redistribution of wealth and energy from developed countries to the underdeveloped ones to achieve IPCC’s goal of all countries enjoying above average standards of living.” Wrong! They are all about redistribution to their cronies and self promotion and have no concept of raising anyone’s standard of living but their own. Where has collectivism raised anyone’s standard of living outside of their own elite control group? Naked capitalism would take us back to child labor if they could but socialism has failed as well. Proper government controls are needed but never materialize effectively for very long and all large governments seem to verge on a form of fascism or crony capitalism in the end. They lack the requisite variety to deal effectively with the multitude of situations which arise and human nature of those in charge fights against doing what is best for others. Large corporations also fail in this regard and size does matter in both cases. The larger they get the worse they are. Small countries and smaller businesses seem to be more successful at operating in the best interests of both their internal and external constituencies. See Ashby’s theory of requisite variety, originally conceived for systems applications but applies as well for any system.
The opening paragraph is a fine piece of Stalinist rewriting of history. Unfortunately, as is so often the case, reality is not as tidy as ideology would like it to be.
Certainly many socialists now invoke global warming as an argument against capitalism (as though socialist industry would produce less CO2!) but it was supporters of capitalism who, for their own purposes, pushed it into the political arena.
The most important of these was Margaret Thatcher, with ENRON and Al Gore adding to it. You can find detail here.
http://www.john-daly.com/history.htm
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/why-enron-wants-global-warming
http://theforgottenstreet.com/Enron-The-Godfather-of-Kyoto.html
Nor has the current association with socialists stopped capitalist involvement. Shell, BP, and Tate and Lyle still contribute to the Hadley Centre. Private manufacturers and operators of wind farms still make money from the scam. And don’t forget trading of carbon certificates.
And Naomi Klein might be a big name in Canada, but she is small fry in the world as a whole.
The Pope didn’t think she was a small fry. He believes God created and maintains the universe, but capitalism controls the weather on earth. Of course he is the leader of an organization that is one of the largest landowners and landlords on the planet.
These groups want to substantially reduce human population, you can’t do that by “saving lives”, they know the can’t control the climate, but they can influence human survival. Keeping this in mind explains most if not all of their prescribed policies.
I know your pain Dr. Ball.
For years I was a science student, and then they told me I had to take at least a few classes in the arts in order to graduate.
*shudder*
Just kidding about the shudder.
I love sculpting, and architecture was interesting too.
But they had to make me take them…there were still some science classes I had not taken yet.
WUWT, you should write an article on Environmentalists and the Democrats that support their policies HATE black people and minorities. Here are the recent headlines.
Because most people on welfare are single mothers, you can also claim that Environmentalists and the Democrats that support them HATE Women.
You can also claim that Environmentalists and and the HATE Coal Miners, Steel Workers, America, The Third World, Chinese, Indians and Africans. Basically you can claim Environmentalists and the Democrats that support them HATE mankind in general. Environmentalists and Democrats are the true “HATERS”….And be right.
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-truth-about-ddt-and-silent-spring
Environmentalists, Democrats, Planned Parenthood and Acorn, see the pattern, the pattern of pure unadulterated EVIL?
Undercover Video Reveals Planned Parenthood Exec Selling Aborted Baby Organs
http://spectator.org/blog/63445/undercover-video-reveals-planned-parenthood-exec-selling-aborted-baby-organs
MALARIA VICTIMS: HOW ENVIRONMENTALIST BAN ON DDT CAUSED 50 MILLION DEATHS
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=1259
ACORN Fires its Child-Sex-Slave-Smuggling Czar Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/media-blog/30075/acorn-fires-its-child-sex-slave-smuggling-czar-greg-pollowitz
13 Things You Probably Don’t Know About Planned Parenthood Founder Margaret Sanger http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/22/13-things-you-probably-dont-know-about-planned-parenthood-founder-margaret-sanger/
The preferred Lefty terminology is: “War on ______” (fill in the blank).
They”re waging a war on poor people, a war on women. a war on sick babies. etc. etc.
Dr. Ball certainly knows enough about science to write a science article with lots of math.
He’s also smart enough to know climate change is not about science — it’s a false boogeyman — a political strategy to scare people and gain power for leftist-run governments — and the left-wing climate modelers are just well paid props (useful idiots).
Climate change replaced many other past boogeymen that the public lost interest in: DDT, acid rain, hole in the ozone layer, global cooling …. and climate change will most likely be followed by another false boogeyman when people eventually notice the current climate is great, and stop being scared.
Dr. Ball gets one strike for believing the UN’s IPCC at a age when he should have had more wisdom, but credit for admitting his mistake.
Here’s the wisdom Dr. Ball should have had by age 40:
When a leader (religious or political), or organization, claims a catastrophe is coming, assume they are lying — the claim of being able to predict the future, and seeing a catastrophe ahead, is an old and clever strategy used by smarmy leaders to gain power and control the not very bright people who believe them.
… If I had lived in 1850 and was somehow given the power to specify the climate in 2015, for the benefit of the Earth, I would have have cautiously moved in the right direction: I’d have increased CO2 in the air by 30% to 50% and increased the average temperature by one to three degrees F.
That’s actually what happened, and it has been great news for green plants and people.
If today, I was again given the power to specify the climate in 2115, for the benefit of Earth, I would specify another 30% to 50% CO2 increase and another one or two degrees F. increase.
It was great the first time, from 1850 to 2015, so I’d want more of the same from 2015 to 2115 !
A primary problem that holds back ‘deniers’ ( but not “ultra-deniers” like me ):
Many ‘deniers’ are too frightened of character attacks and ridicule to speak the obvious truth about the climate:
(1) A few degrees of warming since 1850, after many centuries of cool weather, was great news.
(2 ) More CO2 in the air since 1850 has been great news for green plants and the animals and people who eat them.
(3) The climate in 2015 is better than it has been in over 500 years.
When you speak the truth about the better climate in 2015:
– Doesn’t matter if CO2 is the only climate controller, or a minor variable, as I believe.
– Doesn’t matter if there is a pause or not (I don’t believe measurements are accurate enough to know).
– Doesn’t matter if July 2015 was the hottest July since July 1880, or not.
More CO2 greens the Earth
Give us more CO2
Warming makes people happy and healthy.
Give us more warming.
Bad climate news would be lower CO2 levels, slower green plant growth, and global cooling.
Who in their right mind would want that?
… Free climate blog with no ads;
Designed for the average guy.
And the only climate blog with a climate centerfold.
http://www.elOnionBloggle.Blogspot.com
Perhaps you should include this on your blog:
http://www.iau.org/news/pressreleases/detail/iau1508/
Thank you.
But it doesn’t matter what has caused the warming since the cold Maunder Minimum years.
Warming is good news even if scientists have no idea what variables are most important in determining Earth’s climate — and they HAVE no idea — CO2 is certainly a minor variable per 100 years of scientific work done by geologists — yes, they study the climate too !
Manmade CO2 can’t be too important either, given the cooling from 1940 to 1976, and the flat trend from 1998 to 2015, while manmade CO2 supposedly rose rapidly every single year.
It seems the average temperature is in an uptrend only a small percentage of the time while manmade Co2 is allegedly rising every year — that doesn’t make manmade Co2 seem very important.
15,000 years ago my Michigan property was under a mile or two of ice.
Did coal power plants and SUVs start the warming and cause all that ice to melt?
No they didn’t — that we know for sure.
Must have been natural climate changes.
Did 4.5 billion years of natural climate changes suddenly stop in 1976?
Then ‘bad boy’ CO2 took over as the only “climate controller”?
Most things said about the climate are speculation or very rough estimates.
Predictions of the future climate are only speculation.
The average temperature estimates are so rough, and so often “adjusted” to show more warming, it’s possible the average temperature today is really the same as in 1880 — not degree or two higher , based on buckets thrown over the sides of ships, and other dubious measurements.
Nevertheless, give me more Co2 and more warming — they are both good news for Earth and the living creatures on it !
Thank you Lief for correcting the records. That allows a false lead to be discarded(unless proven otherwise of course).
Other solar influences are still in play, such as magnetic fields. We shall see.
The magnetic field varies just like the sunspot number.
E.g. http://www.leif.org/research/SSN/Stenflo.pdf
and Slide 27ff of http://www.leif.org/research/Reconstruction-Solar-EUV-Flux-1781-2014.pdf
Leif,
It is NOT about the science -never was. It’s about an unaccountable intergovernmental organization hijacking a branch of science for specific political, economic and social purposes. In that sense, what Strong and his colleagues did is no different than what Lysenko / Soviet Communist Party did or even more closely to the point, eugenics.
As M Mead observed, a small dedicated group of people with a clear goal can change the world. History has a good number of examples of groups like this succeeding beyond their wildest dreams [ 1776 and 1789 ].
Strong and his ilk fit the profile nicely.
And I am not “blaming” Strong -too easy and off the mark. It’s just that he knew what institutional tools he had at his disposal to get things moving and how to use them. If blame needs to be apportioned, its with our everyday politicians who in various unholy alliances sought to use the green wave to further extend the reach of government.
Keep your eyes on Germany because that’s where the Strong & Co vision is becoming reality: de-industrialization; no nuclear, no fracking, $1trillion subsidies into wind and solar, a complete distortion of the energy markets with as the cherry on the cake coal as the major energy source for what’s left when industry is gone. If there is any hope for some sanity, it’s to be found in Australia, Canada and the UK, countries whose current governments have all taken in what’s unfolding in Frau Dr Merkel’s backyard.
If blame needs to be apportioned, its with our everyday politicians who in various unholy alliances sought to use the green wave to further extend the reach of government.
If you want to apportion blame, blame the voters [the man in the street] who voted for those politicians. Strong hasn’t ‘accomplished’ anything. The people has voted for the green disaster, because the people believes in it. Strong has nothing to do with anything. Has not ‘enabled’ anything. Has no influence on anything.
I’d like to add that, only part way through the article, one can see it is a brilliant analysis of what is necessary for persuading and convincing the public that we are not doomed by an immediate crowd made disaster. Skeptics are at a disadvantage for the lack of big time celebrity and media allilances, but it needs to be recognized and addressed before any shift of public opinion is possible (without endless and probably futile toiling in the scientific vineyard). Where are you John Wayne and William Randolph Hearst when we need you?
Thank you very much, Tim Ball.
:”Alliances!” I always make a typo, dammit.
I think you’ve made your print . . . point.
How about kidnapping Neil DeGrasse Tyson and not releasing him until he sees reason? . . . Ours. Or we could capture Donald Trump. He wouldn’t even have to be tied up, just offered a new way to raise cain.
The caps make it clear you mean what you say.
Unfortunately, they also make it too obnoxious to pay attention to.
You might want to consider that.
Dr. Ball’s column may be more useful for its description of his epiphany on being fed lies and distortion from a source he didn’t expect that from. Strong and the Club of Rome need to be kept in the mix so people can see that these guys are not at all abashed about the consequences of the policies that they promote. They do it with full understanding that genocide on an unheard of scale is required to return the population level of human beings on earth to the “ideal” sustainable eco-friendly collection of cultures or tribes living “in harmony” with nature. These folks are not some pathetic group of hippies fantasizing some kind of Avatar like ideal. They are movers and shakers in Industry and academia and the ideas have been around for a long time. Just read HG Wells, Orwell, and Huxley to see how long these ideas have been stewing among the intellectual and social elite in the salons of the world.
What’s most scary is an intelligent person like Ball went for many decades before realizing a basic fact of life:
When governments and politicians are involved, lying and misleading are the standard operating procedure.
Even worse when a ‘world government’ (UN) is involved !
I would have thought anyone who lived during the Vietnam debacle would have realized you can’t trust the government.
Liberal used to think that.
Now they LOVE the government
Richard: precisely all the same people who were aghast at how overreaching the government spying was in 1967 are now all on board for violations of civil rights way beyond that. Weird!
I would have thought anyone who lived during the Vietnam debacle would have realized you can’t trust the government. Liberal used to think that. Now they LOVE the government
Now they that are entrenched in the government, it’s different; as The Who said “parking on the left is now parking on the right.”
Richard Greene August 23, 2015 at 1:15 pm says;
“What’s most scary is an intelligent person like Ball went for many decades before realizing a basic fact of life:
When governments and politicians are involved, lying and misleading are the standard operating procedure.”
You presume a great deal.
Of these 24,210 peer reviewed papers on AGW: http://jamespowell.org why is it that we find only 5 that reject AGW, and none authored by anyone posting on WUWT?
1) There’s a global conspiracy against WUWT
2) There’s a global conspiracy against those that reject AGW
3) No one on WUWT thinks its important enough
4) They have no data
5) They haven’t bothered, but they could if they thought it was important
6) Science is too hard
I vote for #4. Any other votes out there?
The real question…Of those 24,000+ pal reviewed papers, on re-examination how many are fraudulent?
“Of these 24,210 peer reviewed papers on AGW: http://jamespowell.org why is it that we find only 5 that reject AGW?”
Since many skeptics agree that human activities may affect climate, those numbers don’t mean a lot. (Even though the 99.98% level of agreement does sound suspiciously like the results of a public opinion poll on satisfaction within North Korea with the government.) The relevant issue is what percent of those 24,210 peer reviewed papers claim that the global warming is very dangerous or will be “catastrophic?”
The methodology seems follow this reasoning:
Does A cause B?
1 demonstrates there is causality
98 have no opinion or don’t demonstrate causality
1 says no causality
Therefore 99% don’t refute it so it must be true.
Seems odd to me.
Dr. Ball is on target. I’ve stated many times that the population won’t be turned with real science facts. The presentation is most important; the words/graphs used must be clear and simple. Use the truth but be slick using professionals and technology. I.E., similar to An Inconvenient Lie, but use truth.
Presentation is somewhat important — you just have to keep the message simple.
Much more important is who presents the message, how often it has been presented, and at what age the climate change brainwashing starts.
Note how many school teachers, professors and media writers are leftists.
Brainwash the kids, starting in elementary school, that humans are destroying the Earth, and CO2 is a boogeyman .. and nothing will change their minds after college.
The same brainwashing is turning the US into a socialist nation, with an actual socialist doing well in the Democrat primaries.
Only unusually cold weather for many years will change minds.
That’s our last hope to slay the CO2 boogeyman.
And then another environmental boogeyman will take the place of Co2 — but the “solution” is always the same — more power to government, halt economic growth, halt population growth, end capitalism, and redistribute wealth.
Now Rich, you are going overboard. We shouldn’t be worried in the USA about socialism, it will never happen here. And a bit of social justice will not harm us.
Reply to van loon
The US government took over student loans and control many real estate loans.
Quite a few banks and auto manufacturers have been declared too big to fail, and rescued.
My medical insurance specifications were taken over by the government, causing my medical plan to be cancelled, and my monthly premiums to triple in 2014. Ten million other people had similar experiences, and many were forced to accept government handouts to pay the much higher premiums.
All we need now is single-payer medical insurance and the US will be just as socialist as any European nation, except France.
“Social Justice” is a term no one can define … it appears to mean bureaucrats want more power to micromanage people’s lives, and transfer wealth from successful people to unsuccessful people.
Socialism is a slow growth, high unemployment economic system that favors government bureaucrats and crony capitalists who gain their favor, such as the highly subsidized solar energy and windmill industries.
Socialism worked “so well” in Cuba, Venezuela, China, eastern Europe, and the former Soviet Union, that leftists want more. It’s easy for bureaucrats to spend other people’s money, but impossible for them to micromanage an economy from Washington, D.C.
I totally agree with Dr Ball, we need to broaden out approach to fighting this issue. Simply arguing the facts won’t do it, and the warmists can manufacture countless studies full of garbage to keep those truly seeking the truth chasing their tails. The scientific truth doesn’t matter to the warmists, the dollars attached to the political agenda is what really matters. A multifaceted approach would include:
1) The establishment of a Scientific Data and Conclusion Verification and Validation Agency that will perform unbiased double blind and computer and statistical based analysis to verify that the tax payer funded research is based upon sound science and not politics. “Scientists” whose conclusion and methods are not validated by double blind analysis would be required to return the funding and/or face prosecution for fraud, malpractice or ethical violations. Bottom line we have the EPA, FDA and SEC to ensure honesty in certain fields, we need to apply the same rigorous standards to tax payer funded research that is used to form public policy and spending priorities.
2) The EPA, FDA and others must include cost benefit analysis in their decisions, and/or turned into advisory bodies instead of regulatory bodies. The EPA and IRS are no longer public servants, they have entered the realm of tyrants. Out public servants must be held accountable.
3) Environmental Groups that willfully publish inaccurate and misleading research for the sake of raising funding and donations should be prosecuted for fraud. Point #1 can help with the verification of the research.
4) The EEOC should be turned on our Universities. The reason we have fallen as far as we have into such a corrupt cesspool is because all the conservative voices have been run off. Larry Summers lost his job at Harvard for daring to suggest differences may exist between men and women. Science is not PC, and the liberal have tried to make it such. Colleges that show a lack of Conservative educators, or political bias in their staff would lose Federal Funding. We simply can’t afford Universities acting as activists, we need a balanced educational system and academic freedom.
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2005/1/14/summers-comments-on-women-and-science/
Gordon Gee lost his job at OSU for making a simple joke.
http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/9342172/ohio-state-gordon-gee-retire-wake-controversy
Political Bias in University Staffing.
Liberal bias in academia is destroying the integrity of research
http://nypost.com/2014/10/12/liberal-bias-in-academia-is-destroying-the-integrity-of-research/
Survey shocker: Liberal profs admit they’d discriminate against conservatives in hiring, advancement
‘Impossible lack of diversity’ reflects ideological intimidation on campus
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/aug/1/liberal-majority-on-campus-yes-were-biased/?page=all
5) Gains from environmental lawsuits must be given to the public, and private law-firms can not benefit from crimes again nature. Environmental issues should be settled in Federal Courts, with Government Lawyers being the ones that argue the case. We must remove the profit motive from just science lawsuits. Lower pays laws would also be beneficial.
6) Lesson plans that apply the scientific method in the proper manner should be created for our Educational System, and “Common Core” curriculum. Simply testing the Ice Core Data and analysis of the construction of the Hockeystick and how the IPCC is run and the outcome of the IPCC models would go a long way. If all people are taught is that CO2 is the cause that is all they will know. We must provide alternative theories.
7) Climate regulations are estimated to be $4 billion/day as mentioned in this article. We need to provided better alternatives for $4 billion.day. Almost anything is better than pouring $4 billion/day down a rat hole. We need to expose environmentalists’ as irresponsible on a biblical scale when it comes to the public treasury and undeserving of the public’s trust.
http://townhall.com/columnists/pauldriessen/2015/08/22/climate-crisis-inc-n2042164
8) The “benefits” outlined by the EPA themselves must be used in the education of the public. 1 or 2 ppm CO2 reduction is inconsequential to the climate, and yet environmentalists are willing to spend $4 billion/day OF OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY for the next 85 years to reach that goal. That is pure folly and irresponsible on an epic scale.
9) We must communicate in the childish, immature and satirical manner that resonates with the left. Portray the EPA and Environmentalists as “racist” “sexists” because their policies hurt blacks, the poor and women the most.
http://www.mrctv.org/blog/epa-chief-admits-low-income-minority-families-will-be-hardest-hit-new-climate-regs#.oi3yub:SaQR
10) For some Orwell, Rand, Vonnegut, and Bradbury offered warnings, to others they offered an instruction manual. Eisenhower warned us about what was going to happen in his farewell speech. We are surely headed for a totalitarian hell if these trends aren’t reversed.
http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=90&page=transcript
11) The media must be held to account. The bias of their reporting exposed, and validity of their claimed verified. The “Big 3” have been defacto been granted a monopoly of the 1st Amendment through the licensing of the airwaves. Like we did in the 1940s to the “studio” system we need to break up the network Oligopoly to competition. Networks should be forced to divest of local affiliates and local affiliates should be allowed to broadcast any news or program they choose. PBS should be privatized and NPR be turned into 24/7 talk radio and re-titled the “Voice of America” or “Radio Free America”.
12) Corporations should be feel threatened for doing research, and their research should be included in the public conversation
13) Lawyers that use misleading and fraudulent data and conclusions to win lawsuits and sway juries and judges should be prosecuted for fraud.Lawyers must be held to account.
14) Congress should hold public hearings where climate “scientists” are forced to explain questions like
A) Why did the Hockeystick not include thermometer data when it was available?
B) Why are the IPCC models so wrong
C) Why did you not inform the public that the Mt Kilimanjaro Glacier is know to be disappearing due to sublimation not warming?
D) Please explain the “Trick to Hide the Decline”
E) How does CO2 warm the oceans?
F) Why does every ice core demonstrate that the past 50 and 150 years of temperature change is within norm? Why do they show that we aren’t at the peak of the Holocene?
Media CEO’s should be required to answer to their bias, and University Presidents must answer for turning a blind eye like they did to Michael Mann and Dr Lonnie Thompson.
15) All data compiled by tax payer funded research must be made available to the public that paid for it. Dr Thompson and others should not be allowed to hinder access to their research, especially if that research is used to promote public policy.
Bottom line, we need a multi-pronged approach to fight this well funded and organized propaganda campaign of the left.
Everybody is preoccupied by the climate change, but it is useless to discuss only the future whithout understanding the main cause of the climate transformation. My opinion is that the ocean and human activity on the ocean (mostly naval wars) has a big contribution in the matter. Aren’t we ignoring that? Shouldn’t we pay more attention to the ocean from now on? Climate is mainly affected by human activity. And it hasn’t started now, it started long ago and continues today. We still have naval war and harmful activity at sea. Take a look here, at http://www.1ocean-1climate.com, to see proofs of our impact on climate change.
Smamarver,
If the earth were smooth, no wrinkles, our 70% water covered world would be totally covered about 6000 ft deep in water. The oceans do, indeed, play a huge role in climate. Wars and naval operations I don’t think. The immensity of the oceans is hard to fathom. Pun intended. Our puny impact hardly noticeable.
@ur momisugly Jim G1. There is something in what smam says, you know the “butterfly effect”. Who knows what the churning up of convoys between Canada, the USA to the EU during WWII did to the NA Ocean’s surface (or the Pacific as well). Did it kill some tiny microbe’s reproductive cycle? Or prevented evaporation because of oils slicks when dozens and dozens of ships went down? Who knows what the CME’s from the atomic blasts did during the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s ( and is that why they all signed onto a non space based Nukes Treaty?). That to me me is why this few points of CO2 in the earths atmosphere is such a none issue.
And the one thing that never seems to stop amazing me is how our planet repairs itself although that is not a reason to not take care of it.!
Considering the immensity of the oceans, one should not ignore that the average temperature of the oceans is only about plus 4 degrees Celsisus, and it is hardly to accept that there was a global warming (1918-1939), and a global cooling (1940-1970) which would not have happen without the enormous influence of the oceans, and simuteaniously the impact naval war activities have had on the oceans at those time periods, as discussed in detail http://www.1ocean-1climate.com.
I’m still waiting for someone to explain how CO2 and the 13 to 18µ IR it absorbs warm the oceans. Chirp chirp chirp. Still waiting.
The data to prove CO2 has no effect on average global temperature already exists.
The relation between mathematics and the physical world mandates that, for a forcing to have an effect, it must exist for a period of time. The temperature changes with time in response to the net forcing. If the forcing varies, (or not) the effect is determined by the time-integral of the forcing (or the time-integral of a function thereof).
The atmospheric CO2 level has been above about 150 ppmv (necessary for evolution of life on land as we know it) for at least the entire Phanerozoic eon (the last 542 million or so years). If CO2 was a forcing, its effect on average global temperature (AGT) would be calculated according to its time-integral (or the time-integral of a function thereof) for at least 542 million years. Because there is no way for that calculation to consistently result in the current AGT, CO2 cannot be a forcing.
Variations of this proof and identification of what does cause climate change (R^2 > 0.97) are at http://agwunveiled.blogspot.com
Ball has it right in the beginning.
“Climate change” is as much about saving the planet and humanity as communism was about protecting laborers.
This is about control over capitalism free markets, industrialization and economic growth. They have figured out that if they can control energy they can control all these things. This we must explicitly stop.
@ur momisugly carbonucus, +100. It means educating our families and neighbors!
I couldn’t seem to understand how my otherwise intelligent colleagues in the VFX industry could fail to understand or change their minds on CAGW once I showed them irrefutable scientific evidence that it was wrong. These are people that are into science as well.
Now I realise that it’s not a scientific issue in their minds, they’ve well and truly been brainwashed into the liberal religion. They’re entrenched in the way of thinking and it has become a core of who they are after it has been intentionally engineered into them by the global elite via it’s packaging as a trendy, hip feelgood ideology in the media and pop culture.
Herd mentality and the desire to fit in is a major component and in many industries now with social media , increased networking and massively increased top-down control of entire industries by the new world order many are too scared to think and speak counter to the status quo for fear of losing their job.
Facebook, (an NSA project) posts all your comments to your friends as a means of community self censorship as people are too fearful to post articles indicating the truth of the world for fear of being labelled a denier or conspiracy theorist by work colleagues and harming their career prospects.
This is obviously an undesirable function and one that either shouldn’t be there or should be easy to turn off but the evidence is overwhelming that Facebook isn’t there for us, it’s social manipulation and information gathering
Emotion is the best way to manipulate and control populations which is why education is being dumbed down and why feminism is being pushed by the power elite. Men are more likely to challenge authority, and are physically more dangerous. Masculinising women and feminising and subjugating men serves to make male/female relationships hard to form and thus destroys marriage and the family, their key goal. Devotion to family before the state is a major barrier to tyranny, also with fragmented or non-existent families children have less parental influence and can be brainwashed by the state. It’s basic divide and conquer, an ancient strategy, set the genders, religions and races against each other and they can’t unite against you, the destruction of social cohesion is paramount.
It’s unfortunate that my smart colleagues are so easily swayed by emotion. The irony is that they love to mock religion mercilessly for inconsistency with science and intolerance yet they’re engaging in exactly the same thing, except far worse. The liberal religion is logically fallacious in the extreme.
Unfortunately awareness of the science is not going to help when you’re dealing with zealot adherents to a cult. It’s hard to see a way to change the path we’re on other than assassinating the central banking/corporate oligarchy and their cronies (which of course I would never advocate)
From an article in The Atlantic written by Daniel Sarewitz and Roger Pielke Jr. in 2000.
Senator Wirth’s statement in1988: “What we’ve got to do in energy conservation is try to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, to have approached global warming as if it is real means energy conservation, so we will be doing the right thing anyway in terms of economic policy and environmental policy.”
According to the authors Senator Wirth was talking mostly about an energy policy, when the USA was still vulnerable to oil price shocks after the oil cartels forced major price hikes in the price of crude oil back in the 70s and 80s.
Of course the environmentalists got all over it at this point – with religious fervor – leading us to today, Climate Change is now a religion and skeptics are the agnostics. You expect fundamentalists to listen to reason/science?
Did Strong invent the panic over progress?
No. There is something inherent in educated intellectuals that makes this concept obvious and compelling, although unrealistic.
If you spend some time, you will see a pretty clear line of intellectual thought, with the thinkers even acknowledging each other along the line.
A lot of the foundation of our modern intellectual thought was laid down by recognized figures such as Hobbes, Rousseau, and Hume.
A significant force in driving intellectuals to explore human nature and the ontology of morality was the question of what to so with ne’er-do-wells – vagrants, bums, the poor who kept having kids they could not support, and so on.
This is in history in rhetoric and literature all over the place, and is clearly addressed by the emergence and evolution of the Poor Laws, and associated law such as vagrancy laws.
The driving issue is thus the problem of us in the established, stable classes having to figure out what to do with those who bother us by requiring our charity.
Consider this: in America, while African Americans were slaves, white slave owners were happy for African Americans to have a lot of children; each represented even more wealth.
After slavery ended, we in the U.S. went into major population-control overdrive, especially focused on African Americans.
The issue is dependency on the rest of us.
From those philosophers of human nature, noted above, the intellectual line progresses to Darwin’s cousin, Galton. Galton used “science” and statistics to provide a supposedly scientific basis for why the ne’er-do-wells were differnt from the rest of us.
“Evolution” gave Galton the scientific underpinning for eugenics.
In our modern day, most of us are hardly aware of what eugenics is, or that it was a MAJOR focus of academic population, demographics, and science solidly from the 1900s until Hilter made eugenics unpopular. Since then, it has gone undercover.
This issue of what to do with ne’er-do-wells morphed into the issue of “overpopulation,” beginning with Malthus. The planetary collapse idea smoldered along, but really took of once the “holistic” idea began to be promoted after being promoted by Jan Smuts in “Holism and Evolution.”
Thus, we get the idea of Gaia and of the spectre of planetary collapse.
Directly leading to the modern day mix of “overpopulation” and ecological collapse is Harrison Brown, a 1950s atomic scientist whose atomic bomb experience qualified him to speculate on the fate of mankind.
Brown was DIRECTLY acknowledged by Paul Ehrlich as a great influence. Ehrlich’s co-author, John Holdren, served as science czar in the Obama administration, so the political influence is obvious at that point.
There is a clear line of overpopulation alarmists from circa 1900 onward. The American Eugenic Society had leadership including many notable names, and a good handful of wealthy industrialists, for some reason, helped take the overpopulation concept from our Anglo world to the rest of the world. This includes Ford, Rockefeller, and others. They supported individuals such as Frederick Osborn and institutions such as WHO and UNPF in their efforts to stem world population growth.
Utopian/Marxist thought is a parallel line of influence. We are now in a crossroads of history where the eugenics/overpopulation movement, the environmental movement, and Marxism have intertwined.
I stumbled into all of this in my attempt to understand how my American Democratic party went Marxist. I have had plenty of schooling, an have been a reader all my life, but no one ever tells these specific stories. Even as I read these and other philosophers while in philosophy classes.
What to do with ne’er-do-wells? I don’t know. I know I don’t agree with pressuring other nations with population goals, or with forced sterilization.
The Atmosphere is definitely NOT an Ideal Gas, He2 is very very close to being an Ideal Gas, but it isn’t. The atmosphere isn’t Ideal under natural conditions, that pesky water and water vapor changes phases so easily.
Leif
No one more blind than those who do not want to see.
Without Strong the mastermind [he was, have ample evidence for that] no UNEP/IPCC. Without UNEP/IPCC no red/green NGOs. Without the red/green NGOs the voters would not have been brainwashed a la Inconvenient Truth [plenty other examples]. The voters voted for the politicians because they got no other message than the CAGW/CACC through the co-opted MSM -including such august newspapers as NYT, The Economist, FT, BBC, CBC, ABC, etc., etc.
This concerted media onslaught is generally referred to as propaganda and it has been incessant in its message and intensity – Leni Riefenstahl [the Triumph of the Will] and Sergei Eisenstein [Potemkin] would have been awed. Without UNEP/IPCC and the red/green NGO monster this propaganda would never have worked. Ask yourself once more: who got all that going? The verb for providing for the circumstances that allow things to happen is: “to enable”. Fits Strong’s role on this very costly mess like a glove.
Without Strong the mastermind [he was, have ample evidence for that] no UNEP/IPCC. Without UNEP/IPCC no red/green NGOs. Without the red/green NGOs the voters would not have been brainwashed a la Inconvenient Truth [plenty other examples].
All of those are unsubstantiated suppositions. About seeing: you only see what you want to see, not what is actually there.
What is an NGO: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-governmental_organization
There are millions of them. Red/green NGOs: people make those regardless of the UN and the IPPC. E.g. to support labor movements and ‘struggle for freedom and liberty’ and go back more than a century. The notion that Strong is the ‘enabler’ of this is absurd.