Global warming has become a religion
This is the opinion of Nobel Prize Winning Physicist Dr. Ivar Giaever , Prof. Richard Lindzen, and many others. Climate change alarmism has a surprising number of attributes of a medieval or even ancient religion. Nevertheless, real religions have some pre-requisites, like a tradition spanning at least few generations. So the proper name for climate alarmism is a cult. And these are the telltale attributes:
1) Climate alarmists pretend to possess indisputable truths about the past, present, and future. From minute details of the paleoclimate to the world state 200 years in the future, alarmists know everything.
2) The alarmist movement stubbornly refuses to debate its dogma, calling it “settled science” and viciously attacking its critics. The attacks are not limited to name calling but include prohibiting scientific research that contradicts this dogma. Significant figures within the movement call for criminal persecution of those who publicly disagree with the dogma and, in some cases, for those who do not follow it. Proposed punishments for “heretics” and “infidels” include prison and even death.
3) The alarmist movement has a formal doctrine-setting body — the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The reports and summaries by this body are considered by the alarmists to be the main source of authority on all things related to climate, energy, the biological cycle, and consequentially, everything else. The cult followers (individuals, organizations, and even governments) regularly quote these unholy texts and use them to justify their decisions.
4) The alarmist movement has its own priest class: taxpayer-funded impostor “climate scientists” who have no independent (of the climate alarmism) scientific achievements.[1]Frequently, they do not even have scientific degrees.[2] The alarmists sincerely believe that only members of the priest class are capable of understanding and seriously discussing “climate science.” Physicists, biologists, meteorologists, engineers, mathematicians, and other outsiders need not apply.
It is worth noting that this priest class was appointed by politicians (mostly from developing countries) and is completely disconnected from the eminent scientists who founded climate change research at the peak of their scientific careers and produced the most results prior to 1985. All the eminent scientists who have publicly spoken on the topic since the early 1990s strongly opposed climate alarmism and were attacked or defamed by the alarmists. The list of these “sceptics” and “deniers” includes Freeman Dyson, William Nierenberg, Frederick Seitz, Richard Lindzen, Fred Singer, and Roger Revelle. None of the founders of climate change research support the alarmism.
5) The climate change cult appears to worship the computer models that its shamans built with their own hands — literally man-made idols. Needless to say, much of the content of IPCC’s texts comes from these computer models.[3]
6) The alarmists deny, ignore, or distort elementary scientific facts, some of which should be known even to kids:
– Photosynthesis. Plants grow by converting atmospheric CO2 into biomass. Significant parts of the world agricultural output are due to additional CO2 fertilization.[4]
– Archimedes’ principle. Melting of Arctic ice cannot increase the sea level because Arctic ice floats in water.[5]
– Sunspots and the effect of solar activity changes.[6]
7) The alarmists appeal to medieval science errors. These errors can be described as beliefs that nature has existed forever in some unchanged state. The inability of a common man or a medieval scientist to observe such changes was the cause of these beliefs. The alarmists revive these errors by denying, ignoring, or underestimating natural climate change; evolution (including species’ disappearance and adaptation); higher CO2levels in the geological past; natural sea level increases in the current interglacial period; tectonic movement; the complex trajectory of the Earth’s motion around the Sun; and the astronomic observations of stars similar to the Sun.
8) The alarmists have created and spread climate mythology, sometimes intentionally modeled on archaic misbeliefs that many alarmists attributed to religion. The common logical fallacy can be described as an appeal to everyday experiences, not applicable to the discussed natural processes (the “Flat Earth fallacy”). Some samples:
– Incorrect association of CO2 with warming because of the word “greenhouse”—the mother of the global warming scare. Most city dwellers only know that greenhouses are warm and contain elevated levels of CO2 and easily led to believe that CO2 causes warming. Most farmers also know that CO2 is added for fertilization and does not cause greenhouse warming. This is why states with many farmers (like Oklahoma) are skeptics of the climate change cult and states with many professors (like Massachusetts) arebelievers.
– Incorrect claim that (allegedly anthropogenic) global warming causes glacier melting or Antarctic ice sheet collapse. Ice cream does melt faster in a warmer room, but glaciers and ice sheets are influenced by totally different physical processes and on a totally different timeframe. See West Antarctic glacier likely melting from geothermal heat and The Arctic is especially sensitive to black carbon emissions.
– Incorrect claim that global warming causes droughts. Droughts are popularly associated with high temperatures but not caused by them. See Weaker solar activity means colder, and colder also means drier.
– False attribution of wildfires, New Orleans’ devastation from Hurricane Katrina, current California water shortages, and various disasters to global warming. These disasters are caused by environmentalist politics, not by global warming. Hurricane Katrina was only Category 3 upon landfall. New Orleans was supposed to withstand all hurricanes up to the highest Category 5, but the required barriers were not built because of the resistance by environmentalists.
– Time scale confusion. Processes that take hundreds of years are described as if they happen overnight.
9) Like an established religion, the climate change cult has its own “start of the time”—usually 1880 (sometimes the 1880s), which is allegedly the beginning of instrumental temperature records.
10) Climate change cult has its own eschatology—calamities, catastrophes, and the end of the world caused by global warming. To avoid this horrible end, we have to repent (i.e., accept the climate change cult dogma), stop sinning (releasing CO2), and generously pay whomever the IPCC or UNFCC will tell us.
11) The climate change cult calls its dogma science but fails to make any scientific (i.e., non-trivial and testable) statements. For example, “Climate change is real” is a trivial statement. The statements about temperatures in 2100 are not practically testable. When alarmists were making testable statements (such as the infamous 1988 James Hansen testimony before Congress and early IPCC reports), they were proven to be incorrect.
12) The climate change cult seeks and actually exerts control over governments.
To add to the above, the climate change cult has survived multiple exposures of its frauds—something that a normal fraud cannot survive. Nevertheless, many cults involve fraud, and even true believers are not against profiting from their position in their cult. The climate change cult has been elevated by the Obama administration into state religion. Both the White House and NASA appear to have converted to this cult.
References
[1] James Hansen may be the only possible exception. But he is an outlier among “climate scientists” in many other respects. His climates fantasies are not approved by the cult mainstream. If the cult were not state sponsored, he would become a schismatic.
[2] See Donna Laframboise, The Delinquent Teenager Who Was Mistaken for the World’s Top Climate Expert.
[3] This may sound extravagant, but this is the actual state of “climate science” today. 25 years ago, there was a clear distinction between the science and the misrepresentation of the science. For example, the IPCC First Assessment Report reviewed the science, while its Summary for Policymakers misrepresented it. Since then, the quality of the science has been steadily deteriorating, apparently both through intentional fabrication and the race to the bottom in the competence of the “climate scientists.” Existing physical models were used outside of their applicability space, and new models were developed and applied without proper validation. Some models were intentionally fabricated to produce politically desirable outcomes, other models were developed by “undistinguished scientists” through incompetence, impatience, and ideological zeal. One might guess that there was some amount of competition between the models, leading to their evolution and the survival of the fittest (models and modellers). The fitness criteria was conformance to the alarmist agenda. Apparently, the surviving models were then compared and then tweaked to better match each other. In parallel, the models have been tweaked to accommodate real-world data. When tweaking individual models was not enough, “ensembles of models” were created. Model runs were called experiments. New models were developed and parametrized based on the output of such “experiments,” then “verified” against existing models. The output of the new models became new “data” and so on. Today, the climate-related models are not understood by the modellers themselves, the models lead their own lives and describe their own imaginary worlds (like the latest Hansen paper). Today, much of the peer-reviewed literature in the “climate science” (including IPCC AR5) simply does not distinguish between the real world and computer models. This is more appropriately called worship than scientific research. This is not limited to global circulation models but permeates many parts of “climate science.”
[4] Yes, some “climate scientists” are photosynthesis sceptics (and the rest have not heard of photosynthesis). From National Geographic, published by The National Geographic Society: High CO2 Makes Crops Less Nutritious. Another one, from the University of Gothenburg: Increased carbon dioxide levels in air restrict plants ability to absorb nutrients. Photosynthesis skepticism is a booming research field! The leading alarmist websitecalls the fact that CO2 is plant food “a climate myth” and explains that “Too much of a good thing can be a bad thing.”
[5] The claim that the melting of “polar ice” causes the sea level to rise has been frequently accompanied by evidence that the Arctic ice area was shrinking, especially in the periods when the Arctic ice area was really shrinking. The Antarctic ice cap has not been shrinking. I am not trying to figure out who among alarmists are ignorant of the Archimedes’ principle and who intentionally mislead the public.
[6] A few weeks ago, Sun sceptics struck again. International Astronomical Union announced: Corrected Sunspot History Suggests Climate Change since the Industrial Revolution not due to Natural Solar Trends. “Corrected Sunspot History” sounds like something from Orwell when it appears on Discovery News, CBS News, and Nature News. I understand that as an acknowledgement that the uncorrected sunspot history suggests otherwise and that Dr. Willie Soon has been correct. Of notice, the history was corrected based on a pdf file uploaded to arxiv.org, not on a peer-reviewed (or even pal reviewed) paper. Dr. Nir Shaviv has called the paperirrelevant to 20th century warming because there are other proxies confirming the increasing solar activity over the 20th century.
“That’s why James Hansen’s peers at NASA couldn’t stand him and said REPEATEDLY, to people that…”
=========================
Link please
“Climate Change (née Global Warming)” – You missed one: “extreme weather”, which has been doing the rounds lately. It was obviously needed because it has become obvious, even to ordinary people, that the climate hasn’t actually changed.
Global warming, (aka, climate change) is a religion for the non-religious. A secular religion for the uber-left, social justice racket, Caucasian-Western guilt crowd. Nothing more. Also, it’s a revenue generating stream for universities and their tenured (pampered) professors; a good way to access taxpayer money.
Reblogged this on gottadobetterthanthis and commented:
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That environmentalism in general, and climate alarmism specifically, is the religion of the secularist is such an obvious fact, it seems trivial to point it out. However, it is worth pointing out. One must prepare for the faith-driven vehemence of it.
Comments from dbstealey, August 26, 2015 at 3:28 pm, are worth extra attention.
http://www.amazon.com/State-Fear-Michael-Crichton/dp/0061782661
My reference to dbstealey’s comment was on this page, above. The link to Amazon is for the book, State of Fear, by Michael Crichton. The comments dbstealey quoted were from an address Crichton gave, REMARKS TO THE COMMONWEALTH CLUB by Michael Crichton – San Francisco – September 15, 2003.
This post describes quite a few behaviours that can be interpreted as symptoms of dogmatic or religious convictions.
What is not addressed, and remains a major mystery to me, is WHY.
1. Why is it absolutely necessary to convince ourselves that the Earth is sick [solely] by the [bad] action of mankind?
2. By what mechanism is someone taking distance from the science that she or he practices to lie selectively, to make boorish exaggerations, and to pronounce unfounded oracles?
3. How such inventions are gotten transformed into a totalitarian “pensée unique”?
4. How and why did governments decide to appoint experts, giving them the mandate to provide an irrefutable dogma and to dictate priorities ? (a wish for number 3 above?)
5. Why Western politicians, including the Pope, cultivate faithfully this dogma and show themselves deaf in any scientific, philosophic, or simply practical discussion about the climate?
I have tried some explanations, however I remain stuck with the fundamental motivational question.
In French only:
http://blog.mr-int.ch/?p=2372&lang=fr and http://blog.mr-int.ch/?p=2381&lang=fr
Follow the money.
It’s all about empowering supranational government unaccountable to a mere electorate, IMO.
CAN I HAVE AN AMEN!!!
It is more like the Axis Alliance in WWII. Different parties finding common cause to achieve their own agenda. Academics want status and funding, Naomi Kline seeks to bring down capitalism, the UN wants sovereignty over the governments of it members, the Pope wants socialism (the redistribution of wealth). Developing / Poor nations see a potential windfall, perhaps some wealthier nations believe the hype and want to relieve their guilt. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend”. So they unite. Ironically, an unholy alliance.
Problem is they all want different outcomes so in the end they will fight one another. After WWII the West ended up in a cold war with the USSR, our former ally, and ended up with the former Axis Powers as our allies. Go figure? Who knows where the ACGW movement will take us in the end?
Michel:
The explanation to which I come ( http://wmbriggs.com/post/7923/ ) is that the populace is divided between those who dupe (twd) and those who are duped (twad). The primary weapon of twd is application of the equivocation fallacy. Using polysemic words that include “science,” “model” and “predict” twd construct numerous equivocations – arguments in which a word changes meaning in the midst of the argument.
Twad mistake these equivocations for syllogisms – arguments whose conclusions are known by their forms to be true. Thus twad are led to believe that the conclusions of the equivocations of twd are true when in fact they are false or unproved. Demonstrating that they have been duped, twad vehemently denounce the opponents of twd for moral degeneracy when it is twd who are the moral degenerates.
The Climate Cultists even have their own sexual deviant High Priest pornographer and serial masher Pachauri. Still have to go a way to catch up with the big leagues, though:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/29/world/europe/jozef-wesolowski-polish-ex-archbishop-accused-of-child-sexual-abuse-is-found-dead.html?&moduleDetail=section-news-0&contentID=WhatsNext&module=CloseSlideshow®ion=SlideShowTopBar&version=SlideCard-1&action=click&contentCollection=Fashion%20%26%20Style&pgtype=imageslideshow
And just like a real religion, the Cult of Climatism already has its deviant High Priest/Pornographer in Pachauri, although maybe not quite ready for prime time in the pedophile big leagues:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/29/world/europe/jozef-wesolowski-polish-ex-archbishop-accused-of-child-sexual-abuse-is-found-dead.html?&moduleDetail=section-news-0&contentID=WhatsNext&module=CloseSlideshow®ion=SlideShowTopBar&version=SlideCard-1&action=click&contentCollection=Fashion%20%26%20Style&pgtype=imageslideshow
Please excuse the duplication.
I believe those kinds of deaths are called fauxicides.
These happen soon after conviction of pedos high up. And there are lots of those, because the sexual revolution never had any any boundry.
Strange though that the sexual revolution so affected the Roman Catholic Church, which opposed the Pill, but apparently promoted same sex pedophiles at the same time.
The scientific framework known as the Anthropocene Age is in fact a scientific paradigm. In this paradigm, all human economic activities upset “tipping points” in ecosystems on the “fragile earth.”
This scientific paradigm shift began to occur in the 60’s, and changes in weather because of human emission of greenhouse gases is only a subcomponent.
It is a scientific paradigm shift which includes extraordinary, nearly psychotic phobias against any and all chemical compounds–and even ELEMENTS–now used to grow food, preserve food, or to mass manufacture anything. These chemicals are all studied in scientific institutions with the sole purpose of convicting the chemicals of being carciongens or of tipping the balance of some system in nature. It is also largely a scientific paradigm shift which assumes overpopulation as an axiom and includes eugenics/transhumanism/birth control as an over-riding concern for the “environment.”
This scientific paradigm shift was top-down, it involved a new language to describe the harmful effects of all chemicals and fuels, and it also involves re-writing the past in light of the new paradigm shift by the expert practitioners of science. It is a poster child for Thomas Kuhn’s ever so Structured Scientific Revolution. And in this scientific paradigm, if any chemical can be found to be harmful in large amounts, it must be reduced to zero exposure in the environment.
It is not a religion as the author points out. It is a scientific paradigm, and has cultic aspects because cults can never, ever resist quoting the scriptures to deceive the simple and for personal advantage. A religion at minimum does concern itself with the afterlife, and all spiritual traditions I have read consider the human soul to be eternal. For example, the Bible says that in heaven, there are countless people, a “great multitude from every nation, tribe and tongue.” People from all the families of the earth will be there. Thinking about the future must also entail thinking past your own personal death date. And we all have one of those.
Teach me to know the brevity of life, that I may gain a heart of wisdom:
http://insideiim.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/regret.jpg
Beautiful.
If we were all eternal, why not watch reality TV all day?
Given finite time, there is much to do.
Time is of the essence!
Not a moment to lose!
linked from the excellent article:
This is also a terrific illustration of the approach to science which Thomas Kuhn cunningly devised in his Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
In science, he assumes that a group of expert practitioners of science are able to make a paradigm shift when the old paradigm has too many incommensurable facts. The practitioners then decide on a new paradigm, and as these paractitioners of science share a language and a framework, they are able to re-examine and re-interpret, and re-adjust the past in light of their new scientific paradigm.
The benefits continue for scientistific practitioners when they declare a structured scientific revolution. They also control the questions to be asked, the data to be gathered, the tools to be used, the interpretation of the data, and the interpretation of the past — all activities they share in order to complete the picture for their new paradigm.
It’s how progressive scientists roll. And Karl Popper had much to say about the enormous inadequacies of what Kuhn was hawking.
[6] Sun sceptics struck again. International Astronomical Union announced: Corrected Sunspot History Suggests Climate Change since the Industrial Revolution not due to Natural Solar Trends.
The sun is driving earth’s climate and weather. Plenty of scientists have worked on this question and there are still many questions about how solar activity is linked to our ionosphere and to the radiation belts surrounding earth.
However, “the practitioners of science” have instead chosen an anthropogenic “paradigm” and are busy correcting the past to show how the duck was really a rabbit!
This shows how the questions they ask all revolve around “How does human activity affect this ecosystem, that ecosystem, this region, etc..”
And the past will come into line with the newly adopted paradigm; that is part of the perks of having a Structured Scientific Revolution.
ref: Kuhn used the duck-rabbit optical illusion to demonstrate the way in which a paradigm shift could cause one to see the same information in an entirely different way. wik
Zeke says:
…Karl Popper had much to say about the enormous inadequacies of what Kuhn was hawking.
Where they differ, Popper was correct and Kuhn was wrong.
Popper’s basic insight was the absolute necessity for testability (falsifiability). The job of skeptics (actually the job of every honest scientist) is to falsify a hypothesis if at all possible. That is any scientist’s #1 job. As Feynman says to scientists, you are the easiest person in the world to fool.
This is the biggest problem that the climate alarmist crowd has. Everything stems from their failure to heed Popper and Feynman. That’s where confirmation bias, noble cause corruption, and all the rest of the fallacies come from.
When all attempts to falsify a hypothesis (or a Conjecture, Theory or Law) have failed to undermine or destroy it, then what remains is considered the current state of science (since nothing can ever be proven in science).
So far, nothing in the climate science conjecture/hypothesis of ‘man-made global warming’ (AKA: AGW) has withstood falsification. There are no testable measurements of AGW. That means that while some sort of AGW may exist, it is completely unquantified.
AGW does not alter what would be called natural variability; the system has not been changed in any observable or measurable way. Therefore, the climate Null Hypothesis has never been falsified by the alternative hypothesis: AGW. A measurable change is necessary to falsify the Null Hypothesis, but no change due to AGW has ever been measured.
This is somewhat esoteric for the average person, who is subjected to a constant media drumbeat of “Man-Made Global Warming!!” 24/7/365¼. As a result, alarmist propaganda has been very effective.
But in the end, the truth matters. Eventually the MMGW scare will be defeated. But it is tenacious, supported by $billions. We have to be equally tenacious.
Check, mate! 🙂
The revision of the sunspot numbers is not a paradigm shift, but simply an improved data set, correcting known errors and deficiencies.
Here is a typical example http://www.specola.ch/drawings/2015/loc-d20150617.JPG
This is from Locarno which was the global reference observer: all other observers was scaled to [normalized to] Locarno’s sunspot number, which for the day shown was 108 = 5 * 10 + 58 [5 groups and 58 spots]. Now the spots were counted with ‘weighting’, i.e. large spots were counted more than once. The reported spot count for each group [numbered 150-159] is given in the table at the upper right in the column ‘f’. For example, group 150 near the limb at the left is counted as three spots, although there only is one spot visible. This way of counting was instituted around 1947. For the past year, the Locarno observers [at my urging] also report [in the right-most column ‘LW’] the actual number of spots visible, which for the five groups totals 40, so that the real sunspot number should be 90 = 5 * 10 + 40. The ratio 108/90 = 1.20 shows that the weighting inflates the sunspot number by 20%. This affects all values since 1947 and must clearly be removed as an artifact as the sunspot count was not systematically weighted before 1947 [the inflation factor varies a bit with the sunspot number in the range 1.1-1.25, with a mean of 1.20]. Such is the nature of the revision. I think that nobody in his right mind could object to this.
Nice sophistry mate
Funny that you people talk about billions spent supporting a legitimate scientific finding through research (not communications), while ignoring the vast amounts of money that oil industry is spending to convince highly biased, scientifically illiterate people like you to be their spokespeople.
The oil industry consists of shareholders. That’s entirely different from the rent-seeking government scientists who keep flogging the ‘dangerous man-made global warming’ scare.
If shareholders don’t like how a company spends money, they can sell their shares. But taxpayers are in a different boat: we are forced to support the ‘dangerous AGW’ HOAX.
I guess Some guys can’t see the difference.
“the vast amounts of money that oil industry is spending to convince”
Have you measured that?
No?
I guessed it.
What it boils down to is the detailed explanation/corrections/adjustments of the counting methods of sun spots is nothing but an attempt to erect a veneer of pseudo scientific legitimacy to essentially meaningless, useless data pulled out of some “experts” wazoo. Same for sea levels, sea/land temperature anomalies, sea/sheet ice, etc.
Reblogged this on Climatism and commented:
Great read.
The other benefit of being ‘green’ or a card-carrying member of the climate “cult”, is that you no longer have to tell the truth. Any falsehood or exaggeration you utter is just a sign of your commitment, not of your deceit.
Right.
So much stupid in that article, it made my brain hurt. I thought that it satire, but no it was not the Onion, just more echo chamber obfuscation and sophistry.
Some guy:
Do you have an argument to make? If so please present it.
Terry there is no reason to debate any of this, it is just a stupid from top to bottom. There is a mountain of research on climate change, agreed upon by scientists across the globe; all of which is completely misunderstood and disregarded by the scientifically illiterate, conspiracy theory believing saps trolling this site. These deluded folks would rather believe the effluent of an elaborate propaganda machine funded by petrochemical industry (i.e., Heritage Foundation), who spew their talking points into the fake news machinery (i.e, FOX “News”). Why? Because the propaganda agrees with their ignorant biases that they do not want to change to comport to reality.
As Oliver North said, it is like arguing about whether owls exist. Pointless waste of time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkBvsCMxrNU
Terry Oldberg,
No, ‘Some guy’ doesn’t have a coherent argument to make. He says:
There is a mountain of research on climate change, agreed upon by scientists across the globe; all of which is completely misunderstood and disregarded by the scientifically illiterate, conspiracy theory believing saps trolling this site. These deluded folks…&etc.
That isn’t an argument, that’s just pointless ranting. What is this “climate change”? The climate always changes. ‘Some guy’ sounds like he’s mad about something. Maybe it’s because the endlessly predicted runaway global warming never happened? Or that there has been no global warming for almost 20 years? No wonder he’s angry. His belief system just took four or five torpedoes; it’s goin’ down.
‘Some guy’ makes no scientific argument at all. If he wants to defend that statement, I challenge him to produce a measurement quantifying the fraction of man-made global warming (MMGW), out of total global warming from all causes, including the natural recovery of the planet from the recent Little Ice Age.
Science is all about data. Measurements are data. If some guy has any measurements of MMGW, let’s see them. Otherwise, MMGW is nothing more than a conjecture. A belief. An opinion.
Some guy: are you a troll or a pathetic deluded know-nothing I-am-better-than-you “liberal”?
You people are non-scientists arguing about science that you clearly do not understand. Why would anyone want to waste time argue with you?
What are YOUR qualification, troll?
Do YOU understand the “science”, troll?
What part of the “science” do YOU understand, troll?
When is it science when “scientists” refuse to release data, troll?
When is hiding the decline (or anything) “science”, troll?
Even a 8 years old could recognise a rotten egg, or a climate scam.
Some Guy,
Some of us are scientists and we understand climatology better than the computer gamers who get grants to run worse than worthless GIGO models in the attempt to advocate for a falsified hypothesis.
But if you don’t like commenters here, then how about taking some education from scientists whose opinions you might find more credible, such as the heir to Einstein at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study Freeman Dyson, his colleague at Princeton physicist Will Happer, MIT Emeritus Professor of Atmospheric Sciences Richard Lindzen or CSU Emeritus Professor of Atmospheric Science Bill Gray, the “Father of Hurricanology”? To quote the late, great “Father of Climatology” Reid Bryson, “You can go outside and spit and have the same effect as doubling carbon dioxide”.
I believe that Michael Crichton was the first to make a comparison between CAGW alarmism and religion. There is an excellent article on the topic on John Brignell;s Numberwatch website.
I am wondering why the author does not use his full name.
The author’s last name is “Hubris.”
hu·bris
ˈ(h)yo͞obrəs/
noun
“excessive pride or self-confidence.
synonyms: arrogance, conceit, haughtiness, hauteur, pride, self-importance, egotism, pomposity, superciliousness, superiority; More
antonyms: humility
(in Greek tragedy) excessive pride toward or defiance of the gods, leading to nemesis.”
Hubris is a word which Catholics use to describe the uppity peasants who question the interpretations of the professional interpreting caste. That is a total misuse and misapplication of the meaning of the word hubris.
What is the author showing “superiority” to? The author is pointing out that the claims of the scientists and experts are both excessive and in error. ” 1) Climate alarmists pretend to possess indisputable truths about the past, present, and future. From minute details of the paleoclimate to the world state 200 years in the future, alarmists know everything.” He takes pains to support this with various metrics used in the field.
It is not hubris to point out that the practitioners of science claim knowledge they do not possess.
Zeke, somehow the anonymous author has amassed more knowledge than the consensus of thousands of climatologists (i.e., experts with PhDs) across the globe by cherry picking from articles and random studies
floating around the Internet? That is hubris. It has nothing to do with Catholicism, but of the author’s pomposity.
Gloria Swansong, if you really understood how science works, you would not rely on individuals to but rather the consensus of experts in a given field. In the one-sided controversy that defines the politics around anthropomorphic climate change, dissenters all have personal motivations for their opposition to the scientific consensus, but they generally fall under two categories. The first are retired professors whose life work has been eclipsed by newer data, with no one is citing them anymore their glory days are over so they are letting their ego run rampant. The second group are more interested in the petrochemical money so they become corporate shills (though in practice these camps overlap tremendously).
Why do you think Big Oil doesn’t love Big Alarmism?
Clearly I’m a lot more familiar with how real science works than are you.
Consensus is anti-science. All that matters is what can be shown false. That includes the repeatedly falsified hypothesis of catastrophic, man-made global warming.
The consensus was that the sun goes around the earth. The consensus was that phlogiston causes combustion. The consensus was that an imbalance of humors cause disease.
As Einstein said, “No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.” In the case of “global warming”, every experiment shows the fanciful conjecture wrong. Science isn’t done by an anointed priesthood issuing declarations ex cathedra that the hoi poloi must accept.
As Feynman said, “Science is the belief in the ignorance experts.” On climate there are no experts, in any case. Computer gamers are not climatologists.
Plainly, you have no regard for the centuries long development of the scientific method.
Wrong!
The latest data, as with the earliest data, show that your conjecture is totally without merit.
Older scientists are freer to express their disagreement with the government-funded orthodoxy.
The mendacious megalomaniac Michael Mann is not a pimple on the posterior of a real scientist, good man and great American like Reid Bryson.
You people foolishly think that government grant money is tainted, but petrochemical money is blessed by God. You also fail grasp that governments around the globe are funding the same research and getting the same results. What this is about is your hatred for our government and for environmentalists (which you conflate). It has nothing whatsoever to do with actual empirical data, just your biases. So you seek self-styled experts writing books to line their own pockets and then cherry pick data taken out of a global context. That is why you are ignored by the scientific community. Your are grasping at straws. You got bupkus for an argument.
“You people foolishly think that government grant money is tainted, but petrochemical money is blessed by God”
You are making up sh*t because you have nothing.
“You also fail grasp that governments around the globe are funding the same research and getting the same results”
They expect the same results. They want the same results.
The researchers know what they need to do to get grants. Even a 8 years old would get that.
Some guy.
Hmmmn.
9 replies the past few hours.
6 of those 9 demand “we” listen to and concur with the “authorities” and government-paid bureaucrats, even though the data and the measured results prove them wrong in the past 18 years, and dead wrong in every prediction they have made since Hansen heated up that Congressional room back in 1988. How many government-paid self-selected anonymous peer-reviewed star chambers can you buy for 92 billion dollars in government money spent in only three years? How many anonymous unknown government-paid bureaucrats can you buy for billions every year since 1988?
The remaining 3 simply insult us.
None of you are addressing the fact that there is more incentive for petrochemical companies to develop propaganda, that you buy into, than there is for researchers to make up data. Science is not done by “anonymous unknown government-paid bureaucrats,” it is done by well known (within their field) academic researchers (i.e., experts) operating with peer review at the international level. Also, they get their grants whether they find that there is human influence or not. But petrochemical companies lose if people wake up. You are following the wrong money.
Also, none of you have tried to explain how tens of thousands of scientists operating in counties all over the world, in many different fields of research, with various funding sources, all (97% , at least) agree that humans are causing the climate to change. Moreover, all governments and relevant scientific bodies around the world agree that humans are causing the climate to change. A conspiracy theory that vast is ludicrous and you should hang your head in shame for believing such silliness.
And lastly, none of you seem to care to follow the money from so-called experts writing books that you quote from. First, they make money from their books, whereas researchers do not make a cent more from their work, no matter what the outcome. I have followed the money on every famous denier. They are all petrochemical shills. To make a fine point of this, they get paid to deny climate change.
As for you non-climate change experts quoting data out of context that you do not understand, there is nothing good to say about your efforts and no reason to try an counter them. Read the IPCC report.
‘Some guy’ says:
None of you are addressing the fact…
Listen up, SG: you have yet to post a single verifiable scientific fact. You’re just some unhappy guy who hates the fact that you’re on the losing side of the “dangerous AGW” debate. We like to argue facts and evidence because they show that the climate alarmist crowd has been flat wrong from the get-go.
So stop your juvenile attacks, and either debate scientific facts and evidence — and be prepared to back it up with more than your discredited appeal to authority logical fallacy and your baseless assertions — or just go away and let the adults discuss facts and evidence.
Berating everyone else because you’ve lost the debate shows your immaturity. You’re only like that because Planet Earth herself is falsifying your cult’s multitude of failed predictions. If you had a good scientific argument, you would use it instead of falling back on your insults and name-calling.
Gloria S says:
Clearly I’m a lot more familiar with how real science works than are you.
That’s obvious from all the “Some guy” comments. He just began posting here, and every comment is invective and insults. No scientific data at all.
As Terry Oldberg wrote above:
Do you have an argument to make? If so please present it.
‘Some guy’ has no credible arguments. None at all. This site has the internet’s highest traffic numbers for a good reason: science is discussed here. No comments are censored because of their scientific arguments, no matter how wacky they might be. So readers can view all the comments, and decide for themselves which arguments most closely align with the current understanding of what we regard as scientific truth, and which arguments are nonsense.
Then there is a third type of comment: ‘Some guy’s’ endless appeals to corrupted authorities and his data-free assertions. Those aren’t scientific arguments. ‘Some guy’ doesn’t even attempt a reasoned argument. He posts no data and he never uses logical, fallacy-free reasoning. He just insults everyone he disagrees with, not understanding how pathetic that looks to the mostly highly intelligent, well educated audience here.
‘Some guy’ is arguing now about the author’s last name; a clear example of an ad hominem fallacy. The reason is obvious: ‘Some guy’ has no credible data to support his eco-religion.
Here are my arguments:
1) None of us are climatologists here, so we are not the people and this is not the place for comparing data. No one here has the training to evaluate the data. My argument is about critical thinking, not data.
2) (Related to #1) There is a consensus of experts (which aren’t you or I) around the world, based a mountain of evidence, that the climate is changing and humans are significantly involved in that change.
3) You are following the wrong money (i.e., real influence).
4) Because you do not “believe” the “science you call those who accept the science a cult. I wish you could see how ironic that is.
5) You believe that this is hoax, but fail to address how or why such a hoax could be perpetrated at in international level (hint: it couldn’t).
I have leftist friends who are against vaccines and fluoridation because they also do not trust our government. But they are as wrong as you people.
‘Some guy’ makes this so easy I’m almost embarrassed to refute him. But since I enjoy pulling the wings off flies, here goes:
1) No one here has the training to evaluate the data.
Climatologists such as Prof. Richard Lindzen of M.I.T., Dr. Roy Spencer, and many others with similar expertise comment and post articles here. To assert that “this is not the place to be comparing data” only shows that you have no credible data. We do. Sorry about that.
2) “Consensus”?? Science is not about consensus. But if you insist on making the ‘consensus’ argument, there are more than 31,000 professionals with degrees in the hard sciences, including more than 9,000 PhD’s, who have signed their names to the statement that CO2 is harmless, and beneficial to the biosphere.
I have regularly challenged those who make the ‘consensus’ argument to post the names of even 10% of those numbers, educated in the hard sciences, who contradict that statement. No takers, ever. So then I challenged anyone to post the names of even one percent of similarly educated folks who disagree with that statement. Still no takers.
Therefore, the ‘consensus’ argument (for whatever that’s worth in science; not much) is overwhelmingly on the side of skeptics of ‘dangerous man-made global warming (MMGW).
3) You are following the wrong money.
OK then, what is the ‘right money’? Money and influence have no place in empirical, testable science — something you avoid mentioning.
4) …you call those who accept the science a cult.
Yes, I do. Those who believe with your religious fervor that ‘dangerous MMGW’ is happening act exactly like members of a religious cult. You believe, but you cannot produce even one measurement quantifying MMGW. You have no credible data to support your religious faith. Thus, you are ipso facto part of a cult.
5) You assert that I “…fail to address how or why such a hoax could be perpetrated at in international level (hint: it couldn’t).”
I have repeatedly addressed that: the reason is money, and lots of it. $Billions in federal grants are handed out every year to “study climate change”. That loot is not given to scientists who state the obvious: that there is nothing either unusual or unprecedented happening with global temperatures, and that there is no correlation between the rise in CO2, and any subsequent rise in global T. In fact, the only correlation shows that changes in CO2 follow changes in global temperature. There is no evidence that CO2 is the cause of global ∆T. Therefore, the “carbon” scare is scientifically unsupported.
Finally, you end with one of your usual baseless assertions: “…they are as wrong as you people.” But you have posted no evidence showing that scientific skeptics of MMGW are wrong in any way. The fact is that your alarmist crowd has been flat wrong in every alarming prediction you’ve ever made. At some point, even you should start asking yourself: why is that?
If your CO2=cAGW premise was correct, your predictions would be generally correct. But they’re not; they are all 100.0% wrong. Thus, your conjecture is wrong. You just won’t admit it to yourself, even though everyone else here can see it.