Dr. Roger Stritmatter writes:
For your information, I pass on this letter, which has just been sent to Anthony Brandon, WYPR station manager. If you think it is suitable, I would be glad to see it appear as a guest blog on Watt’s Up. Thank you for being such an important part of my education on this topic.
WYPR 88.1FM
2216 North Charles Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21218
Dear WYPR:
As a sometime contributor and frequent listener to public radio, I’ve got a gripe. Having put off many times writing this letter, and knowing from experience how almost impossible it is to effectively negotiate the gauntlet of your phone-in process to make a live comment, I’m finally unable to keep silent any longer. Since some things that I am going to say may easily be twisted the wrong way by some, let me clarify something for the record: I’m writing this as a lifelong environmentalist and outdoorsman with a strong environmental ethic. Anyone who thinks to put me in another box is mistaken. My check from the petroleum industry never arrived, and I’m not an apologist for that dirty, violent, and hopefully moribund industry.
With that caveat, let me get to the point: today’s story on Alexander Humboldt (1769-1859) has finally put my patience to the test. Yes, I appreciated a great deal about the story. Like many, I did not know that much about Humboldt – who he was, what he discovered or knew, or what a first-rate thinker and role model he was. I am grateful for the opportunity NPR stations provide content that can productively distract the thinking part of the American (and other) audience from the Donald show, with the rest of the crash cynical opportunists of the Church of the corporation Party of the holier rollers in big money. I will not be voting for St. Fiorini, Dr. Carson, or the man with the expensive toupe and the big ugly mouth, even if I might seem in this letter to adopt a perspective more associated with the “right” than the “left.” In fact I normally admire the way NPR covers controversial topics from a perspective of enlightened impartiality that strives to live up to journalistic standards of excellence, particularly when confronted with interviewees who say things like “this type of interview must end” simply because they lack the informed intelligence or the facts to convince anyone that what they happen to believe in is inevitable and sanctified by God.
There is only one issue I hear discussed on NPR that causes me to routinely turn off my radio because I have learned from experience that the coverage I am going to hear is more designed to scare me than to inform me. Let me explain by way of a single example. In today’s coverage you assure your viewers that the differences observed in the flower and fauna patterns of two Ecuadorian mountains, comparing Humboldt’s data to today’s, are the result of “global warming.” Now it should be obvious that Humboldt’s data set, assuming it withstands today’s peer review standards (which it seems to me, without close study, it probably does), is a great gift to humanity from a gifted mind. That is not the issue.
The unasked, but critical, question is whether those data are being used in a fully scientific way in the present.
I don’t think they are, at least in most discussions.
Let me explain why.
Anyone who has gained a position of authority on the topic of “global warming” within an organization of your type should know very well the history of the four major recent solar minima periods (from 1550 onwards), during which periods global temperatures definitely declined, often with catastrophic consequence, for extended years. There are other significant minima going backwards that are also relevant to this discussion, and surely we all know that if we go back far enough we will emerge on the far end of our current interglacial period and begin to ponder, little more than 12,000 years ago, a world with two miles of ice on top of what is today Manhattan. So let’s be clear. We had nothing to do with the fact that there’s no ice on top of Manhattan in 2015.
Since then the planet has also experienced (among others) periods of intense warming, such as the Medieval Warm Period (MWP, c. 950-1250), when temperatures all over were even warmer than they became during the late 20th century (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/23/the-medieval-warm-period-in-the-arctic/). When one adds to this clear evidence for the coincidence between the flourishing of Minoan and Roman civilizations during earlier climate maxima of our interglacial era (http://www.dandebat.dk/eng-klima7.htm), it begins to become evident how poorly NPR, along with other media outlets, has really been about informing its listeners of the larger scientific context in which these issues deserved to be discussed. It is true that the fact of the MWP, being a scandal to modern “climate scientists” such as Michael Mann or Kevin Trenberth, has come recent under attack as an inconvenient truth. But numerous studies have confirmed, and continue to document, its existence, duration, and worldwide character (http://joannenova.com.au/2012/07/medieval-warm-period-found-in-120-proxies-roman-era-similar-to-early-20th-century/), despite attempts of not-entirely-scrupulous revisionists to whitewash it out of history (http://joannenova.com.au/2009/12/fraudulent-hockey-sticks-and-hidden-data/).
The particular cold snap we might wish consider in relation to Humboldt’s data set on mountain flora and fauna is the Dalton minimum (1796-1820). The previous minima were the Sporer (1460-1550) and — the deepest and most of all in recent memory — the Maunder (1645-1714). All these downturns in global temperature, punctuating our otherwise balmy interglacial, correspond to known periods of human misery. When temperatures go down, disease, starvation, crime and warfare all go up.
The Dalton should interest us immediately because of the close overlap in timing with Humboldt’s life; the episode is usually dated to have begun when he was twenty years old and ended when he was 44. According to the best information I can find, Humboldt’s data were recorded in 1802, six years into the minima.
This raises the distinct possibility that the alleged changes in the data set are not the result of “global warming” at all!
They seem just as likely, on the face of it, to be the result of the fact that Humboldt’s observations were made during a minima, and we are currently nearing the end (most likely) of a maxima. No coverage of “global warming” that is not informed in this manner about the history of climate, and especially its relationship to human suffering or ease (it starts to become apparent that what we really should fear the most is not an increase, but an unanticipated decrease, in world temperatures) is worth your viewer’s time and attention. When temperatures fall, crops fail, starvation strikes, and disease increases. People die in large numbers.
The truth is that the theory and science of “global warming” is a far more ad hoc and subjectively determined affair than NPR ever lets on. Many “climate scientists” were raised on computer models, understand little else, and in the dearth of their own experience ask us to put a faith in them that their own history of inquiry calls into question if not disproving once and for all. Even if one has by now given up counting the number of times the IPPC projections of runaway warming induced by the extension of trends from the 1990s coupled with unwarranted assumptions of positive feedback were wild overestimates that have been securely and repeatedly falsified by the facts (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/25/trenberths-ipcc-claim-of-no-predictions-by-ipcc-at-all-refuted-by-ipccs-own-words/), it might be worth noticing that, by many of the best models, there has been no statistically significant increase in global warming for 18 years and counting now (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/09/04/the-pause-lengthens-yet-again/).
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This is called by some “the pause.” Others, more plausibly in my estimation, call it the peak.
Now of course we all know that the western United States has been in terrible drought. I visited California, Oregon, and Washington this past summer and I’m very aware of the pain that is being inflicted in that region due to the current water shortage and attendant wildfires. If the proposed mechanisms by which Co2 emissions can produce changes in global climate were not in themselves open to so much legitimate doubt, one might be inclined to assume that such a mechanism is the obvious if not certain cause of the drought.
Unfortunately (or, depending on your point of view, fortunately….), there are other possible reasons for the problem. One is natural cycles of western US drought and rain, which we know have varied heavily over the last thousands of years. As one recent survey concludes, “A glance into the history of the Southwest reminds us that the climate and rainfall patterns have varied tremendously over time, with stretches of drought many decades longer than the one we are experiencing now” (http://origins.osu.edu/article/west-without-water-what-can-past-droughts-tell-us-about-tomorrow ).
Another clear contributing factor to the current California drought, as verified by NOAA (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/12/08/noaa-researchers-offer-new-insights-into-predicting-future-droughts-in-california/), is cyclical patterns of Pacific cooling and warming that function, so far as anyone knows, entirely independently of human activity, known as ENSO or El Nino Southern Oscillation.
A third possible variable, although under-studied from what I can tell, is desertification set in motion by chronic greedy over-logging of native timber, a process that seems to have very possibly altered the regional climates of the western United States, since trees store and release large amounts of water, and in the case of Redwoods depend upon, and probably help to create cycles of through their respiration, fog for a significant part of their own water supply. Such biotic processes, by which plants help create the conditions for other life by creating cycles of water flow that cannot exist without them, are well documented in other cases (see, for example, http://www.betterglobe.com/published.aspx/Public/PlantingTrees?aid; for a more critical view of what plants by themselves can accomplish, and suggestion that animals and plants together can modify climates to increase habitability and biomass, http://www.psmag.com/nature-and-technology/seeing-drylands-trees-42998).
A recent spate of studies reports that a decline in California coastal fog now threatens the surviving Redwood populations of the state. These studies usually say that “global warming” it the cause of this decline. But desertification from over-logging, combined with the ENSO, seems like a more probable culprit. One recent study covered in Wired magazine (http://www.wired.com/2010/02/fog-decrease-threatens-coastal-redwoods/) reports that since the early 1900’s the California “temperature difference between inland and coast went down, mainly because the coast was heating up even faster than inland. That reduced the force to pull fog ashore.” But what would have caused coastal temperatures to rise faster than inland ones? Surely not “global warming,” which by definition cannot in itself cause differential warming patterns of this kind. The most likely answer should be obvious: logging off large tracts of the coast forests that cooled these coasts when they were still the homeland of Native Americans, before the great “log off” of the 19th and 20th centuries.
If deforestation is the cause, or, as is more likely, along with ENSO or other natural cycles, part of the cause, of the present drought (as was suggested to me this summer by a northern California colleague) then public resources should be allocated to reforestation, not into policies guided by the assumption that an excess of atmospheric Co2 can be blamed for the problem. Certainly it is a proven fact in other regions that reforestation can make significant contribution to pushing back deserts and creating local microclimates that support life by creating or enhancing water flows through local systems.
Such natural cycles are important to understand, if we hope to understand our own potential to disrupt them. That warming increases global atmospheric Co2 through known mechanisms is one of the most basic features of the natural system that we have allegedly disrupted. But if warming causes increased Co2, what causes the warming to begin with? In focusing on Co2 as the independent variable in the equation, today’s “scientists” would appear to have badly misconstrued the nature of our predicament.
My own evolution from “true believer” to global warming skeptic (please stop calling us “deniers”) started when I became aware that Al Gore, in his Inconvenient Truth, misrepresented the character of the relationship between Co2 and warming signals in the geologic record. Co2 is not the causal factor; in the record, temperatures start to rise or fall several hundred years before Co2 follows them in either rise or decline. This is not rocket science. We know why it happens. When temperatures rise, our oceans outgas Co2, just like a Coke bottle does when you remove it from the refrigerator.
Look, I have no doubt that humanity is capable of seriously disrupting natural systems. What we are doing in polluting our oceans with plastic right now is a good example. Our bees, and with them the entire history of flowered plants and therefore our own agricultural systems, are at great risk now from our corporate-industrial-agricultural practices, which have bred them to become dependent on artificial subsidies of antibiotics on the one hand, and threatened them with pesticide poisoning on the other. Our remaining rainforests are being logged at a precipitous rate, threatening the “lungs” of our planet. If we are not careful, and the nations of the world do not cooperate, we will add to these threats the irreversible overfishing of critical ocean species on which we now depend for food. To my way of thinking, it is shameful when poor science about “global warming” is allowed to dominate our public radio stations instead of programming that could help us to solve these and other real problems as well as contribute to a more scientifically robust debate about climate. NPR needs a higher standard of professionalism, one smart enough to know that there really is a vigorous and valid scientific debate about anthropogenic global warming, contrary to what Mr. Gore assured us at the same time he was misrepresenting the science.
A better science advisor than Mr. Gore (for whom I voted in two presidential elections) is the pseudonymous commentator Lone Pine, at topicx.com, who in a discussion convened — appropriately enough – in the Humboldt County forum on the topic, “What role do you think humans play in Global Warming?” (http://www.topix.com/forum/county/humboldt-ca/TK8OFVLNETQS2HSGA/p200) recently wrote:
Even small changes in the sun’s output are going to have profound influence on weather and crops on Earth, and on the advancement or retreat of glaciers, forests and deserts – perhaps even on trade, architecture, war, human population and the spread of disease. A resting sun – the current downturn is being called a “solar lull”– should be of far greater concern than the chance (and it is only just a chance) that idling SUVs and flatulating cows will alter the atmosphere and, indirectly, increase the frequency and intensity of severe weather.
When we last witnessed a solar lull of similar magnitude [compared to that we are now entering] (in the early decades of the 19th century), our planet had just finished a warming period not unlike that of the 20th century. The onset of what was known as the Dalton Minimum meant harsh, harsh winters in North America, Europe and Russia, along with some intense droughts and famines.
Some have even compared the slow cycles we are currently entering to the granddaddy of all solar lulls, the 17th century Maunder Minimum during which average Northern Hemispheric temperatures were nearly 2C below where they are now.
It seems unlikely temperatures will get as cold now as they did then, or for as long. In addition to greatly reduced solar activity, the 17th century also had more intense volcanic activity than any century since and more than any century dating back 1,000 years before it.
During the 1600s when the sun was weaker, there were also six “climatically significant eruptions” that expelled enough ash and particles to cause lower temps worldwide for a year or more – perhaps even for a decade in some cases.
Politicians and activists need to stop obsessing on manmade climate change and focus on what to do about three decades of COLD.
NPR listeners deserve a less emotional, less alarmist, and more scientifically nuanced discussion of the relationship between climate and human activity, one that starts from acknowledging the existence of very great and still poorly understood patterns of natural variation as well as admitting that numerous unresolved questions of scientific merit are raised by the dependence of “climate science” on assumption, unknown variables, and sometimes highly dubious methodologies. When you report that the difference between Humboldt’s data and today’s is a result of “global warming,” without even mentioning the distinct possibility that there is another cause for it, you are cheating your audience of something you should be defending: the right to consider real alternatives about how both science and politics might operate. I admit, when you look at the Donald Show, it is easy to think that those on one side of this question are the angels and those on the other side are crass opportunists taking handouts from the oil industry to support bad science. Sorry, it’s not so. Above all, we need a discussion that also contemplates the distinct possibility, now supported as likely by an actively growing number of informed scientific observers, that the real risk to the future we want for our children and grandchildren is not warming, but serious, widespread, and potentially disruptive cooling.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely Yours,
Roger Stritmatter, PhD
Professor of Humanities
Coppin State University
don’t care for your political views but that was an excellent rebuttal to the agenda driven NPR
What was fascinating to me was the obeisance, the good Professor felt, needed to be paid to perhaps add that extra oomph to reach the other side. Sort of like the same paid by many peer reviewed climate papers pay to AGW, either in the Abstract or in the conclusion.
Well, I’m quite certain that he has gotten a lot of such accusations, and simply wanted to ward them off from the beginning. Being in the employ of the petrochemicals industry myself, my word has a lot less meaning than that of others, and if I walked into a lecture with a company logo on my shirt, I would be dismissed before I could open my mouth.
I can respect someone who has well thought out their positions and takes reasonable stands to support them, even if I disagree with them on a number of other points. Reforestation is definitely a good goal, and one that, even if it does not have a significant effect on the drought, will have a positive impact on the environment as a whole.
Yes, he was expressing his “right-thinking” leftist bona fides. Interesting he first assures them he is anti-oil and anti-Republicans before praising them for their impartiality. If he felt they were really impartial he wouldn’t need to do this.
If you read translations of Chinese scientific journals from the time of Mao, often as not the articles will open with praise of the Chairman and the essential role of his Thought in the obtaining the results. For all I know, the authors even believed it.
Just another faithful follower of the National Propaganda Radio indoctrination program.
Two points…
Firstly, my experience is that NPR, and specifically “All Things Considered” is anything but impartial. Routinely, I hear horribly leftist interviews of conservatives who have to put put with questions that clearly come from ideology and not a search for knowledge or understanding; softball questions of liberals without any attempt to ask the hard questions (carrying their water); topics that are clearly selective in nature to make one side look bad while a very rich cornucopia of material which exists goes untouched because it would tarnish the left; and absolutely no knowledge of the intent of the US Constitution.
Secondly, this guy is an imbecile if he believes that the Democrat party is filled with a bunch of thinking angels. They are completely corrupt with money funneled from taxpayers pockets through unions and favored connected folks (Solyndra, Google, etc) and screwing working people all along the way. I’ve got plenty of youtube links to people that are complete idiots that continue to believe Democrats are out to help them when nothing could be further from the truth.
Full disclosure, I’m not a Republican, as that party is only marginally better.
One thing I have learned over the years is that if a source is found to be reliable on subjects that you know something about, there is no reason to assume that they are reliable on subjects that you know little to nothing about.
“source is found NOT to be reliable”… In trial law, if a witness lies about one item you assume he lies about all…
JimB, Duzzat mean exactly the same as “the source is found to be NOT reliable” ??
Where you put the ‘not’ is not inconsequential.
g
oops, forgot a “not” in there, kind a changes the whole point.
Mark,.. Actually I find that by leaving out the “not”, your statement is both truthful and profound. For years people have strived to help insure that science is founded on and relies on all research and experiment being continually checked and checked again into the foreseeable future. The history of science and culture attests to this. However those efforts do not make things certain. Watt’s Up With That thrives on this core principle, and I am ever so grateful for its’ existence.
Today Physics itself is on a cusp of a profound change in perception, where years into the future people will stare in disbelief as to how mankind could have ever been so blind, just like we look back on the ancients, thinking that we know the context by judging the way that they spoke about their world.
I have found many examples in my life where those who were reliable on a subject in the past were found to be totally off on other subjects. Most disturbing to me however, has been where previously reliable sources became unreliable do to changes that had occurred in their world. Those changes ranged from financial to social in nature. But most disturbing of all was when I witnessed a source become corrupt due to a deeply buried psychological flaw.
That being said Mark,.. you just may be onto something very important.
I agree with Charlie.
If a source is found to be reliable on subjects that you know something about, there is no reason to assume that they are reliable on subjects that you know little to nothing about.
As it stands, it seems a very useful principle.
Yes, the “not” inserted version seems kinda . . automatic to me. It’s the other version that speaks to the more easily made mistake in attribution of authority where it is not warranted, I feel. The mind-trap that’s more easily fallen into, if you will.
‘Bout time SOMEBODY called them out on it; that said, this would have been more effective cut down by about 3,000 words. Hit your POINT, and hit it hard.
Simple, declarative sentences.
AND if he doesn’t vote for and get the Donald (or similar) elected, the present course of NPR and the globull warmists will not be altered. Ideologically between a rock and hard place.
Yes, as one who sings the “apolitical blues”, I’d rather not have either party in charge, but I know that is impractical, if not impossible to do. so I must try to decide the most important issues and choose based upon them.
Right now it appears that stopping the fiscal insanity wrought by this detour of science into political agenda promotion is the biggest immediate threat to our way of life and neither neocons nor liberal interventionists will bring us back on the proper course of the needed ecological remediation of our environment.
I’ve never even heard any candidate admit that developing the third world will inevitably reduce the global population.
We need a different mindset among those who seek to be servants in the public’s interest.
The good professor almost lost me at;
” In fact I normally admire the way NPR covers controversial topics from a perspective of enlightened impartiality”
I’ve found NPR normally interviews 2 leftist “experts” who compete on who is farther to the left.and considers that to be a balanced discussion.
As to his assertion that Cal. coastal fog is lessened by past Redwood logging, I was under the impression that Redwoods are thriving in their millions from vigorous regrowth. Those groves have more biomass than old growth forests.
Wishful thinking on his part. Either that, or he’s being sarcastic or accidentally omitted a word. I’ve fixed that for him, below:
“…In fact I normally admire the way NPR covers controversial topics from a perspective of feigned enlightened impartiality…”
NPR, where socialists are considered conservative.
And liberals like the author will never admit/believe that those who disagree with them could be thoughtful, logical, reasoned people who just might have things figured out. Keeps them from having to admit that most of what they believe is just plain wrong.
President Ronald Reagan
It’s nice that he confronts NPR with their sloppy & biased approach to “global warming” but I’m actually quite surprised how poorly written it is given that the author is a “Professor of Humanities”. It’s strewn with spelling mistakes and errors of both syntax and grammar.
Still, he got the important parts mostly right. That’s what counts.
Coppin is not the academic mountaintop.
Quite so. I expect all those errors are due to reliance on some computer software coded by ESL programmers. On the other hand he wishes for the end of the fossil fuel industry, having recently visited several western US states. Presumably the good doctor wore grass loin cloths and straw sandals on his trip and foraged for his food while avoiding all roads which might have been constructed by the use of fossil fuels.
Finally, he voted for AL Gore. Twice? Oh, the cognitive dissonance, it burns.
Still, it’s a step in the right direction.
In my 7 decades of life I have voted for only 1 democrat, however I too am concerned about the second-seat that various environmental concerns have taken to the Global Warming Agenda. For example, I live near a university and have walked that campus since the 1960s. The amount of trash left behind after sports events exhibit the following trend: Up in the 1960s; Down in the 1970s for 20 to 25 years; Up for the last 10 years. The student body no longer provides color-coded trash bins in which to sort cardboard, plastic, metal, glass, etc. Could it be that they are so focused on minimizing their “carbon footprints” that they trash their own living space? Or do they think that the “warming globe” is approaching hell anyway, so why bother keeping it clean?
It’s strange and a little sad a professor of humanities would never study Latin. Who learns Latin anymore? Like I said, sad.
We should understand the difference between minimum (singular),and minima (plural). Similar common errors: datum, data; spectrum, spectra; medium, media. The masculine nouns have singular and plurals like locus, loci. And of course, we can argue about Latin pronunciation. The word “loci” around 100 BC would be pronounced low-key, later Church Latin low-chee, and the modern medical/scientific corrupted pronunciation is low-sigh.
There is a well known battle of the Second Punic War, Cannae (kahn-eye). There are also feminine Latin words like lacuna, lacunae (pronounced lah-koo-nigh, not lah-koo-nay). In Republican Latin, the -i ending is pronounced like the name of the letter ‘E’ and not like eye. The -ae ending is pronounced eye, and not like the name of letter ‘A’. Try low-key and la-koo-nigh, instead of low-sigh and la-koo-nay. Since Latin is a dead language, I don’t mind being pedantic and using the pronunciation of 100 BC even if “everyone” today uses a different pronunciation.
Keep in mind also, there was no letter u. The letter v was used for u and sounded like a u or w. The famous “veni, vidi, vici” was spoken by Julius Caesar like weh-nee, wee-dee, wee-kee. And Caesar would have spoken his name as Kigh-sar. The German Kaisar using an ‘s’ and not a ‘z’ sound is derived from “Caesar”, and so is the Russian word Tsar.
We also mess up Greek, phenomenon (singular), phenomena (plural).
The pattern is as follows:
Professor = academic = almost always left wing = Republican despiser = corporations are evil = being oblivious to the incredible benefits of corporations (meds, technology, abundant food) = take as given the taxes, grants and financial benefits from corporations that directly or indirectly fund academic salaries and lifestyles.
And yet, and yet the good professor overcame all these intellectual impediments to see the BS and scientific nonsense fed to the world in the name of global warming.
There is indeed hope for the man.
If you are interested, the full interview on PRI Science Friday of author Andrea Wulf about her new book about Alexander von Humboldt, “The Invention of Nature”, can be found here:
http://www.sciencefriday.com/segment/09/18/2015/a-science-hero-lost-and-found.html.
Professor Stritmatter may have heard this interview or an excerpted version on his local NPR station. Alexander von Humboldt was an amazing person, a polymath, if ever one earns that label.
Science Friday can be heard Friday afternoons from 2 pm to 4 pm on NPR and PRI affiliates, or downloaded as a podcast through iTunes or directly from the SciFri.com website.
The host, Ira Flatow, seems to be obsessed with catastrophic anthropogenic global warming, and he often invites guests who share his pathological obsession. No matter what the topic, he seems to find some way to connect it to CAGW, always with dripping condescension directed toward “deniers” – his word, not mine.
I’m a regular listener, going back 20 plus years. My head has exploded on many occasions, including the present one about which Professor Stritmatter has written.
Many of the guests on this program are biologists/environmentalists who know nothing about natural climate change, yet they assume that their observations of changes in nature must be the result of catastrophic climate change. It would be funny if it weren’t so ignorant.
I suppose one person at WYPR might read all 2800 words, and send a thank you for your comments letter in return, but that’s it before it hits the round file and forgotten.
Steve:
I can only conclude Professor Stritmatter has more faith in WYPR managers and producers than you and I do.
Unfortunately, I think the professor wasted time, although his explanations of his reasoning are quite clear.
Dear Professor Stritmatter,
What a delightful essay! Your humanities-approach is so compelling, with your sword of the word slashing all the mumbo-jumbo of contemporary climate dogma to pieces without a bad word towards anyone, just cold FACTS, The very, very serious message is still there: the danger of cooling. I presume you are acquainted with the research of Prof. Habibullah Abdussamatov at Pulkova Observatory in St. Petersburg? He has warned of imminent cooling alredy for quite some time.
Without a bad word toward anyone? Just cold hard FACTS you say? Perhaps you should reread it, seems to me he went out of his way to make sure NPR understood he was one of them.
Steve, This has been too often a political fight. People think they are helping the poor and the environment with these CO2 restrictions, so they think conservatives are just out to bolster their companies on this.
Attempting to divorce politics from climate has to be one of our primary goals. There are many reasons from both sides of the aisle to eliminate climate alarmism: from helping the poor and the environment to supporting freedom of people and business. We have to get them to listen and see the devestation that they are actually accomplishing.
As a faithful listener of NPR, the only time he feels compelled to turn off his radio is when NPR spreads disinformation and untruths about CAGW. Yet NPR is assuredly honest in all of it’s other left leaning propaganda.
And Prof Abdussamatov is not alone. Others have been saying the same thing.
Which does not make it true. Abdussamatov has already been falsified by Mother Nature not cooperating:
http://www.leif.org/research/Abdussa3.png
Lsvalgaard
Abdussamatov predicts global cooling starting 2016 – a tad early for that to be falsified.
Odd that we don’t hear you using the word “falsified” in regard to the failed solar cycle predictions of – for instance – Hathaway (cycle 24 to be the biggest evah). For him its “give the guy a break, solar prediction ain’t easy you know”. Why treat Abdussamatov differently to Hathaway?
Abdussamatov predicts global cooling starting 2016 – a tad early for that to be falsified.
You apparently didn’t take the trouble to look at the Figure I supplied. Here it is again:
http://www.leif.org/research/Abdussa3.png
His prediction was based on an assumed decrease of TSI from 2008 on. that decrease did not happen as shown on the insert with the blue curve. In fact TSI is now significantly higher than it was in 2003 [when the reliable data begins]:
http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-SORCE-to-Now.png
Odd that we don’t hear you using the word “falsified” in regard to the failed solar cycle predictions of – for instance – Hathaway (cycle 24 to be the biggest evah). For him its “give the guy a break, solar prediction ain’t easy you know”. Why treat Abdussamatov differently to Hathaway?
The difference is that Hathaway knows and has admitted his mistake and we know he was wrong, but [to my knowledge] Abdussamatov has not and apparently people still do not know he was wrong [do you?]. And I don’t ‘give the guy a break’, I came down on Hathaway like a ton of bricks during our deliberations on the Sunspot Cycle Prediction Panel and in public. And once you have a stable polar field, solar cycle prediction is easy.
lsvalgaard,
Where is your Figure I from? Thx.
http://www.omicsgroup.org/journals/grand-minimum-of-the-total-solar-irradiance-leads-to-the-little-ice-age-2329-6755.1000113.pdf
It must be so frustrating, Dr. Svalgaard, to see the work of SORCE researchers so readily impugned when their TSI results do not match terrestrial measurements.
Wait! According to your account, Dr. Abdussamatov didn’t resort to that!
Well, we will just have to wait and see if the force of Abdussamatov’s personality and hutzpah can change fate.
In the mean time, I’m betting that Solomon et al. in their 2010 paper, Anomalously low solar extreme-ultraviolet irradiance and thermospheric density during solar minimum, draws the correct conclusion:
Future investigation of upper atmosphere climate change will be complicated by the fact that the concept of a “typical” solar minimum is no longer tenable.
I argue here;
http://www.leif.org/research/Reconstruction-of-Solar-EUV-Flux-1740-2015.pdf
that Solomon is wrong. And that all minima are indeed alike.
Dr. Solomon et al.’s observation of the anomalously low EUV irradiance is confirmed by numerous papers, such as Ionospheric total electron contents (TECs) as indicators of solar EUV changes during the last two solar minima, Does the F10.7 index correctly describe solar EUV flux during the deep solar minimum of 2007–2009? and The ionosphere under extremely prolonged low solar activity.
The solar quiet variations, the basis for Dr. Svalgaard’s multi-century EUV reconstruction, are merely terrestrial based observations of an alternating current induced ionospheric phenomenon, and not a direct consequence of EUV flux.
These variations measure ionospheric conductivity which varies also with ionospheric temperature. When solar activity is high, the ionospheric conductivity is high, however, the ohmic resistance to the current also increases, so that the solar quiet variation fluctuates in a narrow band relative to EUV irradiance. Conversely, when solar activity is low, ionospheric conductivity is low, however, the ohmic resistance to the current is also low.
Further complicating the solar quiet variation as a proxy of EUV irradiance is that the height of the ionosphere that resonates with this audible hum is much less than the height of EUV absorption, so that the solar quiet variation is further distorted by the reabsorption of FUV radiation emitted at higher elevations in the ionosphere.
Thus, it is the F region of the ionosphere, and not the E region as Dr. Svalgaard insists, that is significant when measuring ionization by EUV rays, according to Magnetoseismology, Ground-based remote sensing of Earth’s magnetosphere, noting in section 2.6 Formation and Properties of the Ionosphere:
“The most heavily absorbed part of the spectrum, and hence peak electron and ion production, occurs in the F1 region, including the He II Lyman α (30.4 nm, 130 km), He I (58.4 nm, 164 km), and H Lyman continuum (91.1–84.0 nm, 105–120 km).”
Also see slide 3 of Variability of the Solar XUV Irradiance from the SORCE XPS. At EUV wave lengths, peak absorption is at F region altitudes.
Thanks Roger… it is a matter of great regret that the “phantom menace” of carbon dioxide is crowding out the real environmental problems that a small portion of climate money would go a long way to solving.
I am not entirely sure that this obsession with CO2 can be entirely objective even for those who enthusiastically endorse it. I suspect something else at work in the deep psychology of the alarmists. Not that I have any time for those who don’t even admit that CO2 is a greenhouse gas; but it seems an odd thing to have so overtaken generally sane minds when real environmental problems are glossed over. Take WWF; why are they obsessing about a small effect by CO2 when the threats to wildlife are hunting, introduced species, deforestation… with CO2 far, far down a long, long list? Odd.
“Not that I have any time for those who don’t even admit that CO2 is a greenhouse gas;”
Irrespective of how much warming CO2 may cause – which is probably very small – CO2 is not a greenhouse gas in any shape or form.
Greenhouses do not work by trapping radiation. They work by trapping warm air. How appropriate that they couldn’t even get the name of their theory right!
This is an excellent piece by the OP. It’s worth noting that not all environmentalists have been taken in by this corrupted science.
Slightly OT:
It turns out that VW designed their diesel car software to cheat particulate emissions tests. For once it looks like the EPA got something right. All the cars will have to be recalled. But there may be a far more serious problem for VW (and, who knows, other European manufacturers of diesel cars). When the cars are re-tested they will probably fail the particulate emissions tests by a large amount and presumably they would not be allowed back on the roads.
This is a perfect example of how green policies end up damaging the environment. Because of its obsession with CO2, which is completely clean and harmless and is probably making the world greener, Europe has massively increased the use of diesel. As a result, car pollution in European cities is far worse than in American cities. In fact American cities have very low pollution levels despite all those gas-guzzling SUV’s.
Clearly, green is not always good for you.
@ Chris Wright
Guinea Pigs are not pigs, and they’re not from Guinea.
Dragonflies are not flies and they’re not dragons.
Seahorses are not horses.
Starfish are not fish.
Greenhouse gasses do not work the way greenhouses do.
All of the above statements are true, but they don’t stop the name from being the correct name. Everyone who follows the debate understands that Greenhouse gasses work differently from greenhouses.
The thing that gives them their name is not a misconception that it works in the same fashion as a greenhouse, but the observation that both those gasses and Greenhouses warm the air they affect.
It’s time to move on from the name, and address the substantive arguments of the debate.
That minor issue aside, my admiration to you for your clear, concise, compelling post headed ‘Slightly OT:’.
With your permission, I’ll quote you.
@Leo Morgan, I generally agree with you but there is a problem which should be addressed with regard to the use of “greenhouse” to describe the effect of IR-opaque and IR-absorptive gases which, once stimulated, if the heat is not transferred directly to a non-“ghg” gas molecule, will re-radiate that IR in all directions including back toward the radiant source. There are “educators” who do not deserve the title who are teaching children that the “greenhouse effect” works much the same way a greenhouse traps heat. It matters not whether, as you say, “Everyone who follows the debate understands that Greenhouse gasses work differently from greenhouses.” I could point to trollish exceptions to that generalization, but these impressionable young minds are not in the general group to which you refer.
Jit,
I don’t think it’s odd at all. The other problems you mention required very real and very controversial efforts. How much money would WWF lose in donations if they were to adapt a different tone and go after different issues? C02 is PROVEN!…no need to defend the stance, just count the money and ask for more.
WWF is obsessed with CO2 because it is – as an imaginary enemy… defined by the needs of the moment – the most convenient possible fund raising and (in moments of tantalizing attraction) one with a path to lots of power.
there are more lawyers than biologists employed and paid by the WWF… and they don’t have a way of weeding out the power-hungry in law school… kind of goes the other way in fact. The WWF is now one of the most fraudulent orgs on the earth. they seem to have adopted the stance that they must focus on the accession to power because once they have that power then they can implement the final solution to all of the loss of habitat and other threats to wildlife.
And we all know how that turns out.
AGW has little to do with science and all to do with socialism. As someone once said; Energy is the source of all wealth. Control that and also promote socialized medicine then you’ve got a socialists wet dream. We can all be managed by our superiors and all you deniers out there can live without your furnaces this winter. It’s for your own good.
Expat:
You are very mistaken. AGW has NOTHING to do with socialism.
The AGW scare was deliberately started by Margaret Thatcher who was no socialist. Only in the USA is AGW considered to be we left vs right issue.
Richard
richardscourtney,
I don’t understand why something being started by a non socialist, would prevent it from becoming/evolving into something socialists might eventually embrace/commandeer.
And frankly, I’m not sure what people mean anymore by the term socialism, without further clarification. Apart from “local” political party positions and such, could you please explain what it means to you? Specifically, does it mean one feels that some people calling themselves “social scientists” ought to be given the power to dictate to the rest of us what we are to think, speak and do?
That’s what the term essentially means to me, and I really don’t see how it could mean anything else in reality-land. (Which is not to say I favor giving such power to some other sort of “-ists”, I think what to me constitutes “human authority worship” is foolish/dangerous in any form.)
That is true, Margret Thatcher did use AGW as a way to push Nuclear Power. What a huge mistake. What she did was give the left an issue they could seize upon to destroy capitalism.
Johnknight:
I ignore your failure to understand that the assertion of “AGW has little to do with science and all to do with socialism” is disproved by the facts that the AGW-scare was deliberately invented by and started by the right.
I write in response to your questions to me
I made no mention of “social scientists”, I have no opinion of them and their views, and – to paraphrase – I have never beaten my wife.
You admit your ignorance of what socialism is, and I have explained socialism on WUWT in the past. You can read that explanation here.
Richard
richardscourtney,
I see a lot of talk about “society” doing this and that for people according to their needs and such, but society is not a collective consciousness, some relatively tiny group of people will inevitably decide what “needs” individuals and society have, how they are to be met, on what basis, etc. Just assuming that whoever gets that power to decide for everyone will be selfless objective saints, with the capacity to perceive/understand for us what we all need, is about as silly an assumption as a person can make, as I see the world I find myself in.
This captures pretty well what I see as your underlying hidden assumption;
Power corrupts, but absolute power purifies.
PS, What say say you; Ban bossy?
Johnknight:
If you think those things are said, implied and/or assumed in what I wrote then clearly you lack ability to read.
Your comments are untrue and have no relationship to reality. I don’t know if you have made those comments because you are motivated by stupidity, or hatred of your fellow human beings, or both. But your comments are offensive and very, very nasty.
Richard
richardscourtney,
You still haven’t explained your (to me fanciful) belief that someone in group A introducing concept X, somehow (magically, apparently) prevents some folks in group B from seizing on idea X to generate blatant fraud CAWG. I don’t really care much if a person who can’t grasp that such magicalistical prohibitions don’t really exist, makes of my reasoning or observations. Such a person is not likely to have much of a grasp on reality, as I see things. Sorry if that offends you, but it is what it is.
“You admit your ignorance of what socialism is …”
Says who? . . the god of isms? If you can’t speak outside a lengthy “script”, to answer simple questions like; What do you mean by socialism, I see no reason to consider you an expert on the matter, let alone the ultimate authority. To me it is rubbery concept/term that control freaks like to champion, for obvious reasons.
The obsessing over the small stuff such as CO2 goes directly back to the Pres’s (and other neoLibs) expressed objective of fundamentally transforming America, and the world. “Climate change” is just one piece of an agenda to centralize the power of governments to be run by the new nomenklatura.
An excellent letter.
However, it has three failings which will consign it to the dustbin:
1. The author is not a “climate scientist”
2. It was not “peer reviewed”
3. It is based on real science
2. It was not “pal reviewed”
4. And it was too long
5. It uses WUWT as a reference (anathema to NPR or its audience)
Sources other than WUWT were cited,
What a beautiful refutation by Professor Roger Stritmatter of NPR’s latest piece of Global Warming nonsense this is. It is well-argued, erudite and scientifically founded. If NPR received more of this sort of response to their lazy alarmism, they would be forced to think and re-assess their allegiance to this Climate Alarmist hysterics.
NPR? Forced to think? HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHA!
We might accomplish more by sending copies of Climate Change — The Facts to our local priests and bishops.
Eloquent. I particularly like the connection between misreporting science and the consequences for humanity if we fail to apply science correctly for our future benefit. These people who have deliberately misled us to misuse science have done huge damage not only to science but also to the poor and humanity at large.
Well said Julian! The other striking aspect, Dr. Stritmatter’s willingness to participate in a productive way. NPR’s station manager will pass the letter on to news staff who will be less likely to jump the shark in the future.
You forgot /sarc…..
An excellent letter, but is Roger Stritmatter, PhD, Professor of Humanities, now likely to be defunded and worse for such climate heresy?
Roger Stritmatter has already been ostracised as a heretic by his own community, for supporting the theory that the plays of Shakespeare weren’t written by Shakespeare.
So is he po’d that he doesn’t seem to get a mention in Blll Bryson (2007) “Shakespeare”? In which you will find a summation of Oxford’s potential role.
Doesn’t disqualify his letter
The Bryson book has a only very short chapter on the theory.
I wasn’t meaning to suggest that it disqualified his letter, though some people might see it that way.
In fact there’s an interesting comparison between climate scepticism and Shakespeare scepticism. In both cases, the consensus has a lot to lose. In both cases, the consensus has the dilemma of whether to ignore the sceptics, or attack them – thereby giving them publicity and perhaps the sympathy vote. In both cases, the consensus attempts to portray the sceptics as nutters, and appeals to authority. And in both cases, there are Wiki-enforcers – the Shakespeare equivalent of Connolley is a guy called Tom Reedy. If you look up Stritmatter on wiki, you will read that “he was awarded a PhD in comparative literature from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst on the basis of a dissertation that assumed the authorship of Edward de Vere and accepted the work of Oxfordians J. Thomas Looney, B. M. Ward, and Charlton Ogburn, Jr., as sources on a par with peer-reviewed academic scholarship”, a sneery remark that violates the wiki rules of NPOV and BLP.
I enjoyed the open letter and I thank Roger Stritmatter for taking the time to write it and then sending it to this site so that it could be published.
That said, it is a total waste of time and energy to attempt to change the minds of those who lead the government propaganda institution called NPR or any of its affiliate stations. The mindless left-wing (in the modern sense) socialism of NPR is a perfect fit for the drive to control all of humanity via CO2 scaremongering.
I knew the whole CO2 think was a joke (a dark and dangerous joke) when it first cropped up in the ’80s of last century. I knew that as the whole idea requires violation of far too many laws of thermodynamics. But today one only has to look at all the data tampering to see that there is no science being practiced in the field. I would call it Global Warming Astrology except that Astrology at least does not try to fudge the data on where the stars are when you are born. (as far as I know)
So, good try Doc and thanks for the effort. Perhaps someone at the local station will think twice if they are even willing to read your letter.
“that Astrology at least does not try to fudge the data on where the stars are when you are born”
Actually, Mark, they do. The ‘houses’ they use correspond to a Zodiac of 2000 years ago or even earlier of Babylonian times. Due to the precession of the pole the houses have shifted with respect to their original position (on the sky) such that, actually, they have landed almost in the next slot.
But you are forgiven: not many people know that, least of all the practitioners of astrology.
Right you are Ed, and I also agree that few seem aware of this.
But anyone can check it out, anytime they want.
The signs of the Zodiac that signify the month of our birth should indicate what constellation the rising sun is in.
A really easy way to see where the sun is, that a lot of people carry with them everyday, is your smartphone.
Download the Google Sky app.
This great app will show you where all the stars and planets are, the plane of the ecliptic, and even wher the sun is, night or day. Just turn it on, and where you point your phone, it shows you the sky at that position.
Right now it is 100% cloudy, but I just used the app to observe that the sun is right sck in Leo
Hate phone commenting since I updated my Android OS from Reese’s Cup to Charleston Chew.
Anyway, …that the sun is right smack in Leo, instead of in Libra where it should be, based on the astrological calendar. I can also see that just ahead of the sun are Venus, Jupiter and Mars, and trailing it is Mercury, just now over the horizon.
So this proves that Chinese astrology is the one true predictor of a person’s personality. So, although Greco-Roman astrology pegs me as as ram, on the Chinese calendar I am plainly an ox.
Hmm, Google Sky doesn’t appear when searched in the Google Play store…
I’ve always found astrology and other fields of Hermetism ( alchemy, astrology, and theurgy) interesting, Observation of the skies through the millennia was never something that could be funded without wealthy patrons seeking Occult validation of their preconceived strategies. There are a lot of similarities between Climatology and the ancient Alchemist, Astrologer and Theurgics.
Only the sidereal zodiac has changed. The tropical zodiac, just like the song, remains the same.
Jeff Alberts – try ‘Sky Map’ on Android Play store.
I was going to say exactly what Ed already said.
The was not in Aries when I was born in early April. Off by over a full month at this point.
Yes indeed. The passage to ‘now wrong by two star signs’ was ‘the dawning of the Age of Aquarius’.
Asimov had a good article on it.
Nicely said Mark. The prof’s criticism is certainly appropriate but, perhaps due to being over-filled with ‘erudition’, he can’t resist ‘spilling over’ into some other areas (deforestation, for example) that are not nearly as well-understood for their effect on climate as CO2. He might just as well have said, ‘..you guys are not telling the truth…I’m a professor and know it…cut it out!’!
You make the mistake of believing that all AGW’s have studied thermodynamics.
This strays from the narrative.
It will be ignored.
“There is none so blind as he who will not see.” The good doctor is a welcome voice, but still a voice crying in the wilderness. His obvious contempt for Republicans (“Fiorini” indeed!) may make his view marginally more acceptable to the NPR listeners, but he still has a good deal of self-examination to do. Nonetheless, a welcome article, well aimed.
Apologies if slightly off topic , but mention of Carly Fiorina, of whom I knew absolutely nothing, made me look her up at :
http://2016.republican-candidates.org/Fiorina/
I was impressed by her resume, especially this :
—” is critical of fears over climate change, and worries that proposed efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions – particularly the controversial “cap and trade” system – would be prohibitively costly in the amount of jobs that stand to be lost.”
I . like many readers here, have no vote in the coming election , but given that the successful candidate will effectively control events in Europe as well as US it would be interesting if some knowledgeable commentator here could , at the appropriate moment, summarise the intentions of the leading candidates on the AGW and carbon legislation topics.
Mike,
Carly Fiorina and Donald Trump come from the private sector where they accomplished economic goals by laying off and firing people. This may be a viable strategy for the private business world but it cannot be applied by an elected official. An elected official must deal with all persons in the population and they cannot simply fire or layoff the sick, lame. lazy, stupid or those in opposition. This disqualifies them in my mind without regard to any other views and intentions they may have about AGW and carbon legislation. The only candidate who has a proven track record of being an effective government leader is John Kasich. And he has done it at both the federal and state levels.
But alas, he is to mild mannered and reasonable to even make it past the primaries.
So Tom, only people well steeped in the crony system are qualified to run the crony system, in your view?
In my view, we need an outsider.
The hack bureaucrats who are ruining our economy by overregulation cannot be fired?
Good luck ever changing one damn thing, then.
I think your way of looking at this is a large chunk of the problem.
And no part of the solution.
menicholas,
We have just endured 6 1/2 years of an unqualified outsider running this Country. We do not need to go down that path again. We need an honest, reasonable man who can get things done for the better of us all. Once again, the only man who has a clear track record of doing that in government is John Kasich. No one else on either side even comes close.
menicholas September 21, 2015 at 6:14 am:
“The hack bureaucrats who are ruining our economy by overregulation cannot be fired?”
Of course you can fire government employees, many need to go. My comment was you cannot fire regular citizens just because they are sick, poor, lazy, stupid, are in opposition or only pay attention to Hollywood. A leader must deal with all of those because that makes up a whole lot of the population of this Country. That’s stuff private leaders don’t have to bother with.
@Tom in Florida, the founders did not want a political class. They wanted normal people whose vested interests were in the private sector to run the country for a short period of time, then go home again and tend to their business, farm, ranch, whatever.
A leader is a leader. That said, of the three non-politicians, I would prefer Fiorina or Carson over Trump – I’m unconvinced that Trump truly has changed his personal political beliefs from liberal Democrat to conservative Republican, and if he were the GOP nominee and by some miracle, Clinton is the Dem nominee, I would not be surprised to see his campaign crash-and-burn “accidentally” leading to a Clinton presidency. I have no confidence as to how he would govern if elected President.
If one of the other non-politicians gets the nod (doubtful but possible) Kasich would be OK, and so would Walker or even Rubio (if he could get past his pro-amnesty approach to the illegal immigration problem) or Cruz. Not Bush, PLEASE, not Bush – we don’t need another almost-conservative “moderate” who believes in AGW. The GOP should stop letting the Democrats and liberal media tell them who’s the “acceptable” candidate. We don’t need a “moderate” as defined by the political class, so we must not select a “moderate” who would sell us out to the UN as quickly as would whatever Democrat offering there may be, to run against the liberal “progressive” socialists. That would virtually guarantee continued climate (AGW) misinformation from the next administration.
Carly Fiorina’s record at HP was only great to hear her tell it. Not so much with those having to work with her or from the follow-on CEO’s. In addition it was pointed out that she still couldn’t find a CEO job after because her reputation followed her.
http://fortune.com/2015/09/17/carly-fiorina-business-record/
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/carly-fiorina-s-record-at-hewlett-packard–by-the-numbers-184234108.html
@menicholas
Keep in mind that the tendency of Republicans when espousing the things that are too many of, is to say “regulations” when they actually mean “oversight” and there is a h#ll of a difference, you know like the lack of oversight that Greenspan was all for that helped fuel the 2008 bank fraud and collapse and the present lack of visibility on hedge funds and CDO’s.
A good president finds the best advisors and cabinet members and should, best of all, listen to their advice. I think that Fiorina would make a great president. I also do not wish to see another “bought and paid for” political hack in the office of President. I think Fiorina could work with both parties well, unlike this divisive one we currently have for the next year and a half and who scares the hell out of me.
@TomInFL
“Carly Fiorina and Donald Trump come from the private sector where they accomplished economic goals by laying off and firing people. ”
The “people” you are referring to were underlings, and of course it makes sense in business (and government too) to using executive hiring/firing power to insure that the best people assigned to critical functions.
“An elected official must deal with all persons in the population and they cannot simply fire or layoff the sick, lame. lazy, stupid or those in opposition. ”
These “persons in the population” you are referring to are not underlings, but rather “customers” or “constituents” in business or government resp. Obviously they cannot be fired or layed off. The standard rule-of-thumb is that they should be treated as “the customer/constituent is always right” (most of the time).
It is well known that the most useless and inefficient workers in the world work for the national “civil service”. In the United States particularly, since the passing of the US Civil Service Act in the 19th century, civil servants have enjoyed almost total protection from being dismissed from their jobs on issues of merit. Which explains why it is impossible for them to get anything done.
Perhaps dismissing a bunch of the laziest and most inept government “underlings” would be a good idea and would set a new tone for the proper administration of government “business”, such that all of the persons in the civilian population will be better and more efficiently served.
Carly Fiorina, was the slash and burn style CEO who assisted Hewlett-Packard’s fall from highly respected manufacturer of high-end scientific test equipment and computational equipment, to a commodity inkjet printer and mid-range computer manufacturer.
re jstalewski September 21, 2015 at 8:54 am
I think you are barking up the wrong tree. The political class we have to confront is not those wishing to be President but the ingrained life long politicians of the Congress. The POTUS is a temporary resident of the White House, although right about now it seems like eons that the Chief Fool in Charge has been there. Both sides of the aisle are equally guilty. They all rob the people for personal gain. So bringing in an outsider as President will accomplish nothing as that person will get no cooperation from the insider politicians.
There are only two solutions.
1) Repeal the 17th Amendment – This amendment did more to destroy the Constitutional checks and balances than any other piece of legislation. Originally, U S Senators were appointed by the State Legislatures. (Article I, Section 3). That made them beholden to the State they represented.
Tthe 17th changed that to a direct election by the people which brought in outside money and enabled Senators to remain in office for decades.
2) Institute term limits on Congressmen and Senators – Since these hooligans will never do that to themselves it is up to the State legislatures to invoke Article V of the Constitution and call for a convention to propose amendments. Neither the President nor the Congress has any say if this route is taken. Currently this process is underway and is moving along to the required 2/3 of the State legislatures passing the call.
Very good John. If the professor is really serious about stopping CAGW alarmist, then he should stop voting for Democrats. My guess is his vote will be more effective than his letter.
This is a great letter, but I doubt if Mr. Brandon will read much of it.
It would be better to try to talk to him at his Golf/Sailing/Curling/Gardening club, his Choir practice, or whatever he does for recreation.
That means you have to take up the same pastime.
Or take him out to dinner on some pretext, for example you want him to air a programme all about the new initiative at your University which will make the Students more healthy or something. Then when you have him cornered you just might be able to convince him to be even handed in his programming balance.
But unfortunately writing long letters usually just makes YOU feel better.
Or, pretend to represent a radical Imam with profits from drug running and child prostitution wanting to invest in an NPR report on the evils of corporate America, the energy industry, Islamophibic hate speach, and Christianity. That would probably get you the red carpet.
+100
Dr Stritmatter,
Your views echo mine except that I am what is called in Oz a swinging voter, I vote for whichever side best represents me. That aside, I wish there were more progressives like yourself that would look at the facts. I’d like to offer some critique if I may.
Firstly, while you correctly identify cooling as the big risk, cooling implies lowering CO2, and with the warmies also trying to lower CO2 a significant cooling may also see CO2 fall by oceanic absorbtion, aided by the catastrophists reducing our emissions. The problem here is that photosynthesis reduces by 1% for every 2ppm fall in CO2, In the preindustrial times when CO2 was say 270PPM crop yields would have been 60% less than now, but there was only 1.8Bn people. Now we have 7Bn. Consider what happens if the catastrophists like Obama succeed in returning CO2 to even 360PPM as urged by 360.org. Photosythesis falls by 20%, and there are 7Bn people to feed!
High CO2 is NOT a risk,but low CO2 is, and the minimum level of CO2 we need to have is dependent on the population, as CO2 rises we quickly become critically dependent on that level. Reducing CO2 (and therefore food supply) is a crime against humanity.
You are very Naive. Whether there is cooling or not right now isn’t particularly relevant, all the big risks are on the cooling side and we KNOW for certain that it HAS been substantially cooler before. The little ice age killed half the population of Europe – historical fact! The current laser focus on warming means the world is totally unprepared for the next mini or major ice age that is virtually certain to come sooner of later.
It is a crime that we are trying to reduce the very gas that is the source of our food supply, every 2 PPM fall in CO2 reduces the food supply by 1% – there are 7 billion people to feed. Do the math, to feed the world we need more CO2, to starve the world we need less CO2. Which side are you on, feed the world or starve it?
Don’t forget our oxygen supply, it”s the source of that too.
Yes, plants eating CO2 produce O2 in return since all they want is the carbon.
Good point that. To plants, O2 is a waste product; they want more CO2 and somewhere to dump all the waste O2 so they don’t choke on it. That’s where we come in; plants only keep us around so we can get rid of their waste O2 and turn it back into useful CO2.
In this new enlightenment, don’t plants get to vote?
bobl.
Pot kettle black.
Svante, now that was a killing come back. Did you think it up all by yourself, or did your mommy help you?
Bobl, the point that CO2 is directly related to food production is always ignored by the CAGW-friendly press. Those invested in the CAGW meme ignore the fact that the claimed “pre-Industrial Revolution” CO2 level is within 100 ppm of extinction event level, a concentration at which most plant life dies, which would be a REAL catastrophe. This should be focused on, so those who blindly believe in “Science” with a capital S can be educated to the fact that 280ppm is a LOW concentration selected for one purpose and one purpose only – to vilify the human production of CO2 through burning of fossil fuels – and should not be considered “normal” or “optimal” by any scientist with integrity.
@Alan Don’t you understand the master plan? All that O2 will be needed for the herds of Bison, Elk and Wolves chasing them around in the newly designated Prairie and Forest Wilderness area of North America? The only ponds allowed will be those built by beavers!
Svante,
At least I’m on the side of feeding the 7Bn people of the world, we still don’t know where you sit?
(jstalewski~ “.. those who blindly believe in “Science” with a capital S ..” I like to spell that kind ‘Siants’, which seems to me to make the distinction rather well, without infringing on the occasionally appropriate use of the capitalized term. And Siantist can be used to good effect I feel, when the label scientist seems a bit of a stretch.)
Your claims are the ones without evidence. The ample evidence for AGW is seen by all 197 Institutions of Science on the planet. Plus NASA: http://climate.nasa.gov Plus NOAA.
Cooling? There’s no there there.
Just 3 words- Plants Bring Rain – the point touched on via mention of the Giant Redwoods.
How temperature became the definition of ‘Climate’ is a incredible modern wonder. Its surely obvious after a moment or two of thought that water controls climate.
Plants, when they are alive and more importantly when they are long-dead and buried in the dirt, control the water. Farming is the Big Disaster, several writers will tell us as much. Modern farming is digging up and burning those long dead plants – that is the CO2 signal in the air.
The plough (and its above ground counterpart the chainsaw) will do far more damage the the sword ever did. But, as alarmists always do and witnessed by their total belief in Positive Feedback, they will scramble and reverse cause and effect to suit whatever the Scare du Jour happens to be.
if there is positive feedback, it is in the creation of deserts….
Peta in Cumbria September 21, 2015 at 3:19 am
Two questions:
What did you have for dinner? and
What are you smoking?
‘Farming is the Big Disaster’ ???????????????
Excellent letter, many thanks. Unfortunately I doubt it will fulfill its purpose.
Dear Dr. Stritmatter
I know, it’s not really important here and any educated reader will understand what you mean, but nevertheless, the correct chemical formula for carbon dioxide is “CO2”, not “Co2” (“2” should be subscript of course). This is not just a question of pettiness but of scientific precision because “Co2” would actually mean two cobalt atoms in a molecule instead of one carbon and two oxygen atoms.
Apart from that detail, thanks very much for your letter, though I’m afraid, the ideological left leaning people from NPR are far too much prejudiced about this topic and therefore psychologically not really able to enlighten their minds accordingly.
Dr. Stritmatter,
While your letter is excellent, reasoned, thoughtful and thorough, the chances of its recipient reading it through, understanding it, and being convinced to report the news any differently at all is nil.
If anything you may find yourself now facing sudden pressure from your superiors about your job and how maybe you don’t need it anymore.
The prog checklist at the begininng was interesting:
“not an apologist for that dirty, violent, and hopefully moribund industry.” check
“will not be voting for St. Fiorini, Dr. Carson, or the man with the expensive toupe and the big ugly mouth” check.
It is a kind of claim of authority. It makes the next 2700 words kind of ho-hum, as he is a rather pedestrian thinker, rather full of himself.
The whole climate field is like mean girls.
My sentiments exactly. Sad it took so many comments to find one that calls it like it is.
With that one statement, he disqualified himself from the realm of people who actually think about the world, rather than blindly repeat what they wish to believe.
I didn’t see it as a claim of authority, but as a showing of a badge at the door – “I’m one of you! Really, let me in. It’s true I like to think of myself as quite the independent fellow, but only while safely ensconced within the right clique. So, please let me in, and let me stay as the resident gadfly. I’ll feel better about me, you can feel better about you… Besides, you can show my letter to the unwashed masses as an example of our enlightened tolerance!”
Good take — faculty club camaraderie for the self-anointed.
It’ is my impression that the good doctor felt it necessary to list his political beliefs in order to at least get some attention for his scientific opinions.
Without fail, when I get into a go-round with a True Believer, one of the go-to accusations they’ll whip out is that I get my information from Fox News, and/or am a paid shill for “Big Oil”. They also need to paint me as an evil troglodyte Republican who cares not a whit for the environment, and only about money. They are so far off it would be laughable if it weren’t so sad. And yes, like many, I used to believe about global warming, but never got to the Believe stage, because I was actually curious. So reading this letter was tremendously refreshing. I too am an NPR listener, and it is the only radio programming I listen to, and it pains me greatly that they have bought the CAGW mendacity hook, line and sinker, without ever questioning it. They are better than that. Or were. Unfortunately, Believers have a blocking mechanism in place for any information threatening that Belief, so the letter probably won’t change any minds at NPR. They cling desperately to their precious “nearly 100% consensus of scientists” argument. It is their shield. But perhaps, just perhaps, there are holes opening up in that shield. What happens to people when an entire, treasured ideology of theirs begins to fail? We will see in the coming few years.
Great article, now research Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect
http://seekerblog.com/2006/01/31/the-murray-gell-mann-amnesia-effect/
The odds of anyone at the station reading a significant portion of this well-written letter? Near zero.
A suggestion: the paragraphs of the above article get longer and longer and harder to negotiate on a computer and there is no spaces between paragraphs. In general, online, paragraphs should not be longer than ten sentences, it overwhelms the eyes, for one thing.
It’s nice that he tried, but it is far too long. I can’t imagine anyone reading it beginning to end. And what is it with liberals that makes them so intent on establishing their liberal bona fides before getting to the point? Why don’t these people who occasionally work up the courage to venture off the reservation get a creepy feeling when they realize how afraid they are that they won’t be let back on when they’re done?
It’s rather telling of the intolerance of the left that they feel they need to tout their leftist bonified in order to have any hope of getting their fellow leftist to listen to them
The right in the US does it, as well. It’s why you see politicians pegged as “RINOs.”
That’s not really true, Arsten. Conservatives on the internet and in real life criticize conservative stances on particular issues all the time without first making sure everyone knows that they really are one of the good guys. RINOs are criticized based on behavior and positions that reject the philosophy of conservatism, not for disagreeing with mainstream conservatism on any particular issue. There’s nothing inherently liberal about global warming (or abortion, or many other issues a liberal can’t disagree on with out first emphasizing their overall liberalness).
At it’s core, this is an admission that liberals don’t listen to sense, they only listen to liberals. The right has its partisans, but it’s nothing like what goes on on the left.
I think you are missing the point. One of the Warmist’s key talking points is that “deiners” only deny the “science” of global warming due to their political stance, and for that reason (to them) can be dismissed. When attacked from “their own side”, things are made much more difficult for them.
Correct, there is a lot of hand waving in this long, long letter. The writer is obviously anxious that he will be though of as a ‘conservative’. I am a ‘liberal’ in some areas but very conservative in other areas and this makes me basically a middle of the road person who resents both parties going to extreme and no one appealing to sane people in the middle.
Ahh, but don’t you see, we are all sane. It all you “other” people who are nuts.
Or, in English, “It’s”…I really should proof-read my snark postings.
It really is sad how desperate the true believers are to find something to validate their insane biases.
Sponsoring a meeting proves that the other side are crass opportunists taking handouts from the oil industry????
Truly pathetic.
Very well put Dr. Stritmatter !!! So sorry about your upcoming job loss, as the Eco-Terrorists on the left will surely attack you for thinking rationally !! Perhaps you should invest in a hard hat , as it is going to rough and dirty for you very soon !!!! As to my opinion on this matter, when the climate STOPS changing , then we should be worried !!!!
” Get rough !! “
Professor Stritmatter, an excellent letter, that also transcends the view that politics should influence science.
“I’m not an apologist for that dirty, violent, and hopefully moribund industry”
I almost stopped reading right there. But, I read the rest and it was OK. I have worked in the petroleum industry for 41 years and I can assure you that it is not violent and it certainly is not moribund. It employs over nine million people in the US and the jobs pay very well. It supports more than one trillion dollars of economic activity in the US. The EIA estimates that over half of the world’s energy will come from the petroleum industry in 2040, this is higher than today. As for dirty, it can be out in the field, just as it is in mining or construction. But, we have an excellent environmental record and work hard to clean up after the work is done. We have spent $253B since 1990 on the environment and considering we are now the largest producer in the world, our environmental performance has been excellent. When one considers how much cleaner our air, water and land is today versus in the 1960’s and how much safer we are, the improvements are clear.
You will hear endlessly about 6 or 7 accidents due to poor well construction in Wyoming, Oklahoma, Texas and Pennsylvania. But you don’t hear about the other 1.2 million wells that were drilled and completed without incident. There are more problems in the wind industry than that and it supplies a miniscule amount of energy compared to oil and gas.
These sorts of unfounded and unsupportable claims, from people who do not know the business, are not helpful. Please educate yourself on this topic as you have on climate change. Oil and gas will play a very important part in your future and the future of the US.
Oh No! you are paid by those dirty oil people so your opinion doesn’t matter. (Said every CAGW believer out there when they read your post.)
The energy and minerals businesses have done more to enhance our understanding of geology and the history of the planet than all other fields of study combined. Some people just need to get a grip on reality and get over themselves.
Any company that makes a profit is evil, according the left.
🙂 People forget two things about capitalism and corporate profits. First, the alternative to capitalism is war and stealing. There are only two ways to make money, steal it via war or taxes; or make things and sell them. Second, all of the money made in the world is by producing and selling things, almost always a private company does this. Countries tax those profits and profits are used to pay employees and shareholders, who are taxed and give money to non-profits. So saying profits are evil is foolish, when the alternative is a Mad Max society. I despair at the ignorance of the envy driven left.
Dr. Sowell had a good article a few years back, (I wish I could remember the title) in which he pointed out that despite the claims of the socialists, capitalism requires people to co-operate and rewards those people who are best at figuring out ways to co-operate with others.
Socialism on the other hand, rewards those who are best at pitting others against each other.
+1
Oh wait you forgot to mention the huge increase in earthquakes in Oklahoma (and elsewhere) from waste water injection.
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/research/induced/img/hockey-stick.png
A study done by a university in Colorado showed the Earthquakes are a function of rate of injection of the waste water. Since regulations were passed in Oklahoma restricting rate they have had many fewer earthquakes. You can usually solve these problems if you work at them.
Oh no, more regulations/sarc. Actually I’m for more of those where they do some good, the problem is that politicians usually keep the rotten/useless ones and discard those that are actually needed. The problem is that Republicans tend to present it as a black/white issue and the public does not have enough wherewithal to discern the important difference, so the corp’s run the show, usually detrimentally.
Funny thing. The areas with the earth quakes are hundreds of miles away from the places with waste water injection.
But don’t let something as trivial as reality get in the way of a good hate.
BTW, I love the way the troll talks about earthquakes as if all earthquakes knocked down buildings and killed people.
The vast majority of these “earthquakes” can’t be felt by anyone, not even people right on top of them.
The rest are so strong, that if you are standing still, or preferably lying down, you might mistake it for a truck passing by outside.
Andy May – I do not work in the petroleum industry. I am grateful to the industry for all of the improvements in my life that are the result of your work. Some examples of the benefits I enjoy are:
1) I love having the flexibility to drive where I want to drive when I want to go. At a very reasonable price. One example of this is the San Jose to Fairbanks trip we took when I was a kid.
2) All of the wonderful uses of plastics in my life.
3) The wonderful selection of food I have to eat due to fertilizers and trucks/planes/ships distribution.
The oil industry has made my life better. And I appreciate it.
Thanks, too few people take the time to consider what life would be like without oil and gas. We would be back in a time of subsistence farming, short life spans, intermittent (if any) power, very limited travel. Pollution would undoubtedly be worse, since it would be too expensive to remove waste. This war on fossil fuels, if the environmentalists win it, could be devastating. I’m reasonably certain the reason they lie about climate change is to convince the public to outlaw fossil fuels and put up with the consequences after it is done.
As a 30 year vet of big oil, I thank you for this comment.
Andy May: Thank you for your 41 years of work in an industry vital to the security and well-being of the United States and the world. Aside from the military, I cannot think of another more important, or more essential, or one that has contributed more to the progress of civilization.
/Mr Lynn
The military would be useless without….oil !!!
Dr. Strimatter,
I too voted for Al Gore. I was also a “true believer” by his (what turned out to be) propaganda film.
The problem is – and I agree with almost everything you wrote – is that you are missing the point at NPR.
They really don’t care about the science and never have. They know you’re correct in your analysis and always have. As you are well aware, they’re not stupid. However they are agenda driven.
Insofar as CAGW is concerned, what they care about is the political agenda. Obama’s “One World Government” dreams and the punishment of what they believe are the evils of Western Civilization. America to them is simply an exploitive, colonial entity that needs it’s up commence.
When you look at their bias from that perspective – it all becomes painfully clear..
Roger might be surprised to find that much of what he finds admirable about NPR’s programming is every bit as misleading as their reporting on the climate.
I remember I used to love the PBS science series NOVA until about 1990. Around 1990, they suddenly started tying whatever issue they were presenting to global warming. Then once the propaganda started being obvious, I went back to watch the older programs in the series and realized that the bias toward international socialism was there the whole time, it had just been much more subtle before global warming became the cause of the day. Now PBS is just unwatchable – or rather it was when I quit, I can’t remember the last time I watched a show on PBS.
Why should anybody pay attention to an organization (PBS) that promotes an ideology that is irrational.
I’ve always said that if a source turns out to be untrustworthy on a subject that you know something about, why should you trust them on subjects that you know nothing about?
“60 Minutes” hit that wall back in the 80’s, when they reported on an event that I not only knew something about, but had lived through. The bias was so deep you could cut it with a knife. That was the last time I ever watched that show.
Yes however you have experience and knowledge to cut through the BS, younger people have neither and believe it hook line and sinker, just as kids would turn their parents in to the authorities in some societies, I suspect they originally realized what they did, but it was too late.
Do you think there is evidence for the claim of runaway global warming, Svante?
As a hint, models are not evidence. They are predictions.
Arsten.
Try looking at the other lines of evidence.
Svante, there are no other lines of evidence.
Svante,
There are none. I have watched the published literature on this for 15 years. Each and every “Global warming is causing this!” paper (butterflies, pika, ice loss, etc) is not based on data, but on models that presuppose the link between CO2 and temperature.
All of the support for CAGW is model-based and not evidence-based.
To elaborate: Take a bit of data, say a population of crocodiles. If that population has decreased from 1979 to 2000, researchers then assume that this is because of the warming temperatures (insert standard correlation =/= causation rant here).
Then they build a model with this assumption embedded. As temperatures go up, crocodiles go down at the rate they calculated for the above-mentioned time interval. Then they run their model and go “If the temperature rises by 6 C, then the crocodiles become zero! Thus, by 2100 there will be no banging shoes or wallets!”
Then they publish. The problem that is never pointed out or corrected is that this is a spurious correlation and that significant other factors probably play a role with crocodile populations. But, that doesn’t stop the media and activists from going “ZOMG THE CROCS!” and telling people they are crocodile deniers for pointing out the obvious flaws in the story.
The falsification of claims of potential “runaway global warming” due to a couple-hundred ppm of CO2 is easy, but ignored by folks like Svante. The paleoclimate data shows much higher CO2 concentrations as recently as the Cretacious, which although it saw steady decline in CO2 concentration throughout, had concentrations between 3 and 5 times what it is today, and yet the temperatures stayed pretty steady at maybe 6-7 degree C above the frosty “normal” of the Quaternary ice age, and maybe 4 degree C above what the alarmists call “normal.” No correlation between steady drop in CO2 concentration from 5 times today to 3 times today’s concentration, and mostly steady, not decreasing or increasing temperatures, and to the point of Svante’s position, no “runaway” global warming. CO2 concentration cannot drive runaway global warming.
Not even on Venus, contrary to “popular” scientists’ positions. Venus’ temps are a product of the density of Venus’ atmosphere and the atmospheric pressure at ground level, not of “greenhouse effect” due to CO2.
You mean like the melting of the west antarctic ice shelf Svante?
The melting that energetically costs more than 15Watts per square meter that is being caused by only 0.6w per square meter?
Or maybe it’s the satellite observation that IR emission goes down with CO2 rise …. except that it doesn’t it goes up.
Or maybe its tge IPCC rainfall increase prediction which energetically costs 5W per square meter being caused also by 0.6W per square meter.
Or perhaps it’s that increase in hurricanes and hurricane strength costing megawatts per square meter caused by a christmas light of 0.6W per square meter and that hurricane experts say isn’t happening anyway… well Svante which line of evidence is it?
Dear Professor Stritmatter,
I fear that your view of the oil industry is dreadfully biased, I presume simply because of lack of knowledge. However, leaving this aside I really enjoyed and endorse what you have presented, but like many others here have to think that it won’t ever reach the people who need to read it. This is a great pity, and similar things have happened many times in the past. My own involvement in climate affairs has always been low-key and essentially private except to friends, but it began in 1992 when I discovered that climate (read “land surface temperature”) data seems to be characterised by prolonged stable periods interspersed with abrupt changes to a new level, as well as by periods of fairly steady increase or decrease. The ubiquity of abrupt changes seems to go unremarked by professional climate scientists, who tend to be obsessed by linear models, on which they base absurd long and short range forecasts. Simple techniques applied to real world data- (not synthetic climate models)- show that historical information debunks the notion that the Earth’s climate can be predicted, or even guessed at. Modeling abrupt change is beyond the scope of the climate model industry for good reason. They do not wish to admit it as a possibility. Ergo it does not exist.
You didn’t mention the appalling performance of the conventional climate models’ attempts to reproduce real-world observational data, which are growing more bizarre by the month. The ethical clash with the scientific method is almost beyond belief, as are the methods that the “believers” adopt or invent to excuse their failures. I really hope to survive another ten years to witness the total downfall of the climate establishment, and with it the demise of the religious environmentalists who are unable to make the distinction between their beliefs and reality.
The author, as he’s agreed to post here, risks being labeled a “traitor” by his peers. I’d at least keep that in mind.
The invention of the internet means that historians will need to work overtime to cover up or deflect the evidence of organizations that piled on to anti-science methods against the fact checkers.
If Obama could have another term, I’m quite certain he’d ask Congress for funds for the “Ministry of Truth”.
Read Orwell’s “1984”…. In other words, you’re correct.
Obama and the Democratic Party have had a Ministry of Truth for quite a while, its organs are the New York Times, Washington Post, ABC, CBS,… Their primary function is to bury any inconvenient past along with whitewashing the present, in exact mimcry of 1984, to make the Democrats look good and the Republicans look bad.
Thanks again for the internet, Al Gore! 🙂
/sarc
This reminds me very much of Prof. Caleb Rossiter, though he’s a statistician and the fact that now this is not just set along political lines (liberals on one side, conservatives on the other). It also shows that there is definitely a growing skepticism. I also think the majority of people are fed up with our news stations and their extreme bias. This is why blogs like WUWT, JoNova, etc. are super important. No longer does biased media garner the attention it once did.
Why on earth would any sane person wish for the death of the fossil fuel industry?
Actually it’s been cooling for the last 10 years. Just not by a statistically significant amount.
The evidence behind the theory of future cooling is more substantial and much better documented than is the evidence behind the theory of future warming.
Not that you will ever look.
“My check from the petroleum industry never arrived, and I’m not an apologist for that dirty, violent, and hopefully moribund industry.”
How did this clown travel to the West coast?
“You can fool some of the people all of the time,
you can fool all of the people some of the time,
but you cannot fool all the people all of the time”
quote from Abraham Lincoln.
In the case of NPR you don’t even have to fool them if they depend on you for funding.
The CAGW cabal controls funding and the agenda will not change until the control over funding changes. It is ironic those accepting money from agenda driven governments and IPCC complain about skeptics’ funding sources.
You have to think critically to recognize irony….
This is how politicians today view it:
“You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on.”
GW Bush
“You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on, attributed to GW Bush”
This was said in jest and referred to advice given to him by Democrat Robert Strauss.
Do politicians ever really say anything in jest? Also note the Democrat reference is moot as I said “politicians”, who generally apply this rule, like with the left and minorities or the right and religious types.
PHD of humanities, P..iled H..igher and D..eeper comes to mind, to write so much when a paragraph would have covered it shows a mind that over thinks any and everything. The fact that he eventually comes to the right conclusion is just a coincidence IMO.
Not fair.
My abilities at critical thinking came from my studies in liberal arts (not the political context) and I am ever grateful that part of my education. I have a BSBA in Accounting and MBA. I could not apply those nearly as well without some basis in the liberal arts.
We all benefit from an understanding of the humanities and I applaud Dr. Stritmatter’s accomplishments in that regard.
While Dr. Stritmatter’s letter to NPR chastises the lack of a balanced approach to the topic of AGW Alarmism, he conveniently refuses to understand that NPR is neither a Balanced nor an Unbiased News and information source. NPR has always been Leftist Liberal, “Greenie, Wacko-Environmentalist”, and Anti-Industrial and in recent decades has been even more so. So for Dr. Stritmatter to claim that NPR is bowing to non-scientific “Experts” like Al Gore, he conveniently ignores the fact that his own Political leanings tacitly support the Bias of the NPR Views he claims to abhor.
He considers NPR to be unbiased in all other areas, because he agrees with NPR in all other areas.
Only biased people disagree with a liberal.
Just tried to send Prof Stritmatter an email @ Coppin Univ to commend and thank him for his time, effort and excellent letter. My email was rejected by their server.
Prof Stritmatter, if you are reading these comments, thank you. Job well done!
Bill
It’s 2015 and Roger has figured out NPR is an ideological viewpoint remarkably free of evidence. His exasperation is a textook case of why erudition in a particular field does not automatically lead to reason, insight or expertise in other subject matter. Given his political views I would be suspect as to his contributions to the field of humanities.
The lack of a degree in Science does not prevent informed reasoning on the subject of CAGW.
How informative. A professor of humanities weighing in on an issue of Science, but contradicting all the Scientfic evidence.
[you might learn how to spell “scientific” before you start lambasting others for their opinion on scientific issues. And who’s to say that you have any better credentials? -mod]
How delightful. Warren# weighs in with his usual idiotic ad hominem comment.
One of these days warren will give up trying to convince us that every one who matters agrees with him.
@Mod: So you are the new online spell checker?
And you did not, I presume, know that the evidence does confirm AGW per 99.09% of peer-reviewed papers: http://jamespowell.org (Actually, I bet you didn’t know)
99.99
[James Powell? haha, my point is proven -mod]
NPR recently censored my comments pressing basic physics on their blog post claiming “climate science” to be one of the great accomplishments of human intellect : http://cosy.com/Science/NPR_Censors_Science.html .
The letter has some good points but it is much too long. As a subscriber to Astronomy Magazine I submiited the following letter to the editor regarding the column in there publication which I noted. Doubt it will be published. And yes there are many points and arguments I did not hit, but then it is thousands of words less.
To Editor regarding your “Intentional Ignorance” column, October issue:
First of all, the climate has been warming for about 12, 000 years, it’s called an interglacial period. To blame this, and so many, many other imagined potential calamities upon CO2 is ridiculous. Our planet is 70% covered by water which if spread out evenly upon a smooth unwrinkled Earth would be 6, 000 ft deep. The oceans contain voluminous amounts of sequestered CO2 which is released as the planet warms. We “deniers” do not argue that our planet is warming but that there is little to no proof that CO2 or man is the cause of that warming. In real science, correlation is not the same as causality.
I would also note that the purveyors of the theory of human caused global warming have changed their name to “climate change” as even the correlations are not that good between CO2 and temperature, the models used to predict temperature do not predict present or past temperatures well based upon CO2 levels, there is much data which would indicate that CO2 does not cause temperature but follows temperature, geologic evidence indicates our planet has been much warmer in the past with much higher CO2 levels and no ill effect. As a matter of fact CO2 is a prerequisite for photosynthesis, without which we would have a dead planet. And, by the way, most people I ask do not realize that CO2 is only .04% of our atmosphere, that’s four one hundreths of one percent. Pretty thin “blanket” compared to your Venus example, which also happens to be about 26 million miles closer to the Sun.
As far as dollars being used to promote the theory, look to your green lobby and the federal government for the really big dollars; grants to researchers who continually find new calamities which will fall upon us if we don’t do something about CO2, great multi billion dollar scams like Solyndra, and the reason why so many researchers tout the climate change mantra.
Statistically the proof of man caused climate change, global warming, or climate disasters or whatever you want to call it, does not exist. Your 97% is the result of poorly conducted research sampling and questionnaire development intended to push this politically charged issue.
In point of fact, historically, warm has always been better for our planet and all of its inhabitants, human and otherwise, than has cold. Nothing we can do will change the fact that climate is changing as it is a naturally occurring process and the economic byproducts of the war on carbon have their most grievous effects upon the poor, not to mention the economies of the entire world.
Consensus science is not science. All of the great discoveries of science have been made by skeptics who did not follow the party line of their times. CO2 is not the thermostat for our planet. Look to the oceans which cover 70% of our planet for one of the main controls, among many other variables, for our planetary climate control. It is a much more complicated multivariate system, which we do not yet understand, than the simplistic CO2 theory.
Disagree that it was too long as he was trying (uselessly I’m sure) to build a case that he wasn’t one of those conspiratorial “denialists” (not sure about the length of yours though).
+1
Dear readers….I need help to find the best possible answers to these questions. Thank you.
The following are some fundamental questions that I believe everyone should
be able to answer before taking a position on ‘climate change’:
How has the world’s climate fluctuated over the last 100,000 – 100 million
years?
What are the top 5 factors that influenced those changes and how do they
rank in relative importance?
What impact do these factors have on the atmosphere?
If increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere (and the presumed increase in
temperature) are so critical:
How is CO2 being produced and absorbed in the atmosphere? What processes
cause CO2 levels in the atmosphere to go up and down?
What is the % of man-made CO2 production as a % of total worldwide CO2
production?
he destroyed the value of his tome with a very vitriolic, unnecessary barb.
I agree, but as others have pointed out. Leftists don’t listen to anyone they don’t consider to be part of the tribe.
He had to include that to prove his bona fides to his fellow travelers.
The fact that he probably believes the idiocy is just par for the course for a liberal.
I do not believe there are any scientifically literate people who have acquainted themselves with the evidence for and against CAGW who accept it as proved. The evidence is simply overwhelming against the hypothesis: like the moons of Jupiter are clearly seen orbiting Jupiter the global warming has clearly stopped while anthropogenic CO2 has continued to climb. We have a bunch of scientific illiterates who accept the word of credentialed ‘scientists’ who say CAGW is proved because they have married it and a far larger bunch of indeterminate scientific literacy who have embraced it for various reasons from personal gain to institutional gain to political gain to misanthropy. NPR is clearly motivated by institutional and political gain. Occasionally honest people get fed up with the nonsense and you get the Dr. Stritmatters coming out (excellent letter). Most people don’t give a damn one way or the other as one can see from the polls on the importance of CAGW . . . which is all you have to know to judge the effectiveness of the propaganda promoting the impending heat death of the world. It is the CAGW theory that is doomed.
As a long-time (long-suffering) NPR listener, I have noted with amusement how, over the years, their fundraising schemes have solicited support from donations. Until about 10 years ago, it seemed more-or-less confined to pledge-drives, where their radio “personalities” would suspend all regular programming for several days so that they could extol the virtues of public radio and take phone calls for pledges. They wanted only your money at that time. Those willing to donate large amounts would be recognized on-air, for their premium levels of support. Others are merely given “membership”.
Then they started getting creative: over the last decade or so, donors themselves are given air time to tell listeners how they have proudly donated their cars and their homes. “It’s quick and easy!” they tell us. Some have written codicils in their wills. In one bizarre commercial, an elderly couple announced that they were giving NPR their entire estate!
Waiting for NPR to escalate this to the next step has become a source of some amusement around our house. It may seem a bit strange to the uninitiated, but I’ll wager it won’t be long before someone offers to donate his first-born. Or perhaps his organs…
[No derision is intended toward Mr. Stritmatter. I respect his honest attitude and ability to see two sides.]
The author’s antagonism toward the oil industry (“hopefully moribund”?) might change in light of the “dirtiness” of the alternatives. High manufacture costs and inefficiency make solar, wind energy unrealistic alternatives. We can expect warming AND cooling trends in the future, and for both, we’ll need oil, coal, hydroelectric, and any other source we can exploit at low cost, and whose by-products we can mitigate through cost-efficient technologies.
Nothing wrong with writing a long letter. But now-a-days people only want to spend about 3 minutes reading a letter/article. Something like the 3 minutes TV sound bite limit we have become accustomed to?
Dr. Strittmatter, I appreciate your fairness in judging climate alarmism reportage at NPR. As for you political leanings generally, I suspect you’ve not studied politics, economics or history with the same critical eye. Maybe the ivory tower has sheltered you more than you realize.
I’d highly recommend to you the report on the “Sustainability” movement from the National Association of Scholars. It gives lots of ideas of how politics and climate alarmism is propagandizing, co-opting and brainwashing people involved in secondary education. The link to their report (a long slog, ~250 pages, available as free pdf downloads): https://www.nas.org/projects/sustainability_report
Maybe you can be a faculty voice at your school to slow such foolishness? And maybe you can even persuade yourself to vote against these totalitarian constituencies at some point in the future?
Here’s a link to the discussion and shorter executive summary report of the infection of sustainability indoctrination in university (mostly US, but inroads elsewhere), how the Kerry’s and Obama have cultivated and supported it, and, I believe, an excellent argument for removing much public funding from higher ed.
This is the method by which Climate Change as a movement and as a projector of future environmental threats has lodged on campus.
https://www.nas.org/articles/sustainabilitys_war_on_doubt
They stopped reading as soon as he referenced wuwt and Joannenova. Everyone knows you can’t believe anything from a BLOG. Well, except for the blog by the Adolph impersonator. That blog is nothing but lightness and truth. But that’s the only one, all other blogs are pure lies.
The left-wing bias on any NPR outlet is wired into its DNA. You caught them out on one big lie. How about the rest? Where did you pick up your simple-minded view of the oil industry? The Times? NPR? What exactly is it you know about the oil industry? What you’ve heard? Go solar, go wind?
Prof. Stritmatter,
As a person who occasionally gets a sceptic letter published in the local paper, you may want to think about being your own harshest editor and reduce your missive to three or at most four paragraphs. My guess is that your letter does not get read by the intended party but an assistant who classifies this as an “denier” letter, tells her/his boss and files it. Having said that, you may also want to have a quick read about the Palliser expedition and the conclusions he came to. Flora and fauna do influence local climate.
It is interesting that it appears to be Dr. Stritmatter’s extreme knowledge about “Global Warming” that allows him to transcend NPR’s leftist agenda on this particular topic. However, on the other hand he is apparently blind to the possibility that they are this way on every topic they broadcast…
I am thankful that the good doctor wrote such a sincere and authoritative letter to NPR. However, it appears he does not recognize the heart of the matter, which is that to the left, facts don’t matter, they are going to lie whenever they feel it’s necessary to advance their agenda, and even when it isn’t.
Long winded letters to the media or democrat politicians will have zero impact. They probably aren’t even looked at by anyone, let alone a decision maker, and certainly not past the first few lines. Better to vote with your feet and wallet…or ears in this case.
Carly Fiorina and Donald Trump come from the private sector where they accomplished economic goals by laying off and firing people. This may be a viable strategy for the private business world but it cannot be applied by an elected official.
I remember Ronald Reagan ‘applying that strategy’ very successfully against the union of Air Traffic Controllers. Would that more greedy public ‘service’ unions got that treatment.
NPR depends on donations from its listenership. A big portion of its listenership is intensely committed to the warming side. If NPR takes a more balanced line on AGW, or gives air time to contrarians (as it did to AW a year or two ago), the pushback will be strong–hundreds of letters. And that would only be the first pushback. The next would be an Internet-based movement to boycott donating to NPR. It would be successful enough to hurt. In addition, NPR’s brand would be damaged by all the disparagement it would receive.
All media have an additional problem in being balanced. If they attempt to be, they will be deluged with learned-sounding letters and emails pushing the warmist line. It would take a tag-team of contrarian experts to write rebuttals, working full time. The easier course is for them to keep their heads down.
If a cooling trend develops, or if renewable energy’s claims fizzle when really put to the test, and costs skyrocket, and the economy tanks, I think we’ll find that the media will be ready to be more balanced. I don’t think the media is as committed to CAGW as it now appears. They’ve mostly been intimidated.
Thank you Dr. Stritmatter for an overall very excellent and effective letter, but why must you disparage the industry that probably saved the whales as “dirty, violent, and hopefully moribund.” Do you wish to return to the era of whale oil lamps?
that tedious monologue totally reminds me of dan pearl trying to impress his captors.
it will make as much difference.
unfortunately, there will be no consequences and no lesson.
A picture is worth 2743 words:
Maybe I’m missing something, but is the temperature scale on that graph reversed?
[No. Note the minus signs. T is below zero. ~mod.]
From the NPR website:
“Public Radio and Federal Funding
Federal funding is essential to public radio’s service to the American public. Its continuation is critical for both stations and program producers, including NPR.”
(emphasis, NPR’s)
—————–
NPR is “government radio”. Some might make the case that the chief aim of the U.S. government has become; to increase it’s power over the citizenry.
That was the best essay I’ve ever read on the subject.
It is an unfortunate truth that until you hammer home some serious liberal credentials, no one on the left will believe your opinions to be derived from data rather than just being on the “other side” ideologically.
As far as the attack on the “dirty, violent” oil business, where I spent my career, well, I spent Christmas during the Arab embargo with the president of one of the major oil companies. He described the oil business as a “dirty, stinking business” and assumed the embargo would end in war. I myself wish we had a better way to provide energy. We don’t at the present time, but extracting and burning hydrocarbons is not without some major impacts.
Thanks for posting that. So much of what one sees here is laced with Obama hating, right wing baggage that it is hard to find something effective to pass on to the NPR PBS crowd.
Doug September 21, 2015 at 3:39 pm says:
“…I myself wish we had a better way to provide energy. We don’t at the present time, but extracting and burning hydrocarbons is not without some major impacts.”
Actually, we do if you really want alternate energy. It’s nuclear energy. I actually don’t want it because I want the good old fossil fuels to run our economy. Nuclear would eliminate all the idiotic emission controls and trillions spent on mitigation would become unnecessary. Unfortunately the environmentalists have blocked it off. Not only that but they are now trying to deny that the ‘pause’ or ‘hiatus’ in warming even exists. What makes the current pause in warming so dangerous to them is that its very existence proves the impossibility of greenhouse warming. By now this hiatus is already 18 years old. What they don’t admit is that there was another 18 year hiatus in the eighties and nineties that IPCC successfully covered up with fake warming. Together the present and the earlier hiatus cover the bulk of the satellite era since 1979. No greenhouse warming took place during the hiatus which means that the period since 1979 has been greenhouse free. Which did not stop any of the emission control or mitigation projects during the 36 years of this greenhouse-free period.
‘Svante Callendar’ (a fake name if I’ve ever seen one) says:
A claim with no evidence. Global Cooling…&etc.
No evidence?? You’re obviously a noobie at this subject, and clearly you didn’t read the article.
There is a mountain of empirical, thermometer, and observational evidence confirming that the Little Ice Age happened — the LIA was the second coldest event of the entire 10,000+ year Holocene.
When the alarmist crowd is unable to produce any arguments to support their belief system, they make baseless assertions like ‘Svante’ makes above. Asserting there is “no evidence” when there is such a huge amount of evidence shows that Mr. “Callendar” is trolling. If not, he’s just a scientific know-nothing.
Hmmm. Sorry but I don’t think this letter is a very good read on alternate theories or whether or not CO2 is a worse one. It’s more like trying to throw everything on the wall in the hopes that some of it will stick. Yet another example of a lettered professor speaking outside his/her area of expertise or study possibly riding on his/her Ph.D. in whatever. I know amateurs who could easily write a more cogent and focused letter. This letter does not further the debate in the least and likely scores a point for the opposing side, since so much of his/her points can be debunked. My hunch is that it ended up in the round file. Where it belongs.
Still, it’s encouraging that a clearly dyed in the wool socialist elite has taken the time to learn a bit about climate and has seen some of the unscientific basis of the CAGW argument. I was impressed about the Humboldt data on flora and fauna and the likely correct interpretation of why the veg and critters were different than now. It sounds like an original thought and, if so, does him credit. At least there are a few socialists out there who insist on data and logic being king. All the other socialists also know this but the “agenda” is more important to them.
I note that the Courtney’s commenting at WUWT are socialists and very effective sceptics of CAGW. I think their making Margaret Thatcher the inventor of global warming (even if it were true) is a little too convenient as a tool to exonerate socialists who really have opportunistically glommed onto this ‘theory’ for completely ideological purposes. I’m sure these thoughtful gentlemen aren’t sceptics because they hate the inventor of it. I wonder if they know large numbers of socialists who believe as they do. I suspect not.
In Canada, we had a long serving ‘liberal’ government that became so ‘entitled’ to govern it slipped into massive corruption, consorting with mafia figures, handing out millions for services not rendered and taking kick backs to bankroll the party. Even honorable old guard liberals felt the party should spend some time in the penalty box after this all came to light. Re the present state of affairs in climate science, it is complete denial on the part of socialists who are honorable sceptics to think that the battle is not ideological. The left in the main is a disgrace and worse when one looks at the damage done to economies, the untold numbers of the poor that have suffered and died and will suffer and die for the “agenda”. Surely it is even more culpable a situtation when what are supposed to be the central constituency of the left should be the main victims.
I know there is some confusion in the political area. Certainly, there are those on the right whose stance is not well informed but arrived at because they oppose socialists and this is more true in America than in Europe where the Conservatives are still quite to the left of the Democrats! Essentially all of Europe is socialist. Probably Eastern Europe is more ‘Conservative’ than the others. At what point does an honorable socialist sceptic cease to be a socialist? It is essentially when they have become left behind by the mainstream socialists and find themselves in another party (perhaps one that used to exist before all this).
Kudos to those of the old socialist school who demand integrity, honesty and logical thinking in science and other spheres, but they mustn’t be blind. The erstwhile socialists should see that the ‘party’ deserves a turn in the penalty box and maybe worse. Could it be, we need a Donald Trump to put it right Prof. Strittmatter? Perhaps one needs hold his nose to vote wisely. Reagan got the same reception as Trump and he turned out to be a pleasant surprise to all.
I am not sure what to make of this letter. The impression it gives is that he can’t get over his guilt feeling about criticizing NPR that he otherwise admires. Understanding that the climate story is being manipulated is a step in the right direction but not too important if it does not lead anywhere. My approach would be to go further and unravel the background. Look at where that bias originates – the management structure and their outside connections and advisors. These are all interconnected and do bot exist in a vacuum. Try to put together a total objective picture, don’t feel guilty about it.
Alan Watt, Climate Denialist Level 7 September 21, 2015 at 6:06 am
O2 is discarded during photosynthesis but ask yourself; why do plants create sugars?
Perhaps, (in part) so they can oxidize them?
“I normally admire the way NPR covers controversial topics from a perspective of enlightened impartiality that strives to live up to journalistic standards of excellence”
This gentleman is clearly a victim of the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect. He clearly has done his homework with regards to AGW, so he immediately recognizes NPR’s poor reporting on the subject. On other subjects, however, he simply assumes “a perspective of enlightened impartiality that strives to live up to journalistic standards of excellence” from NPR, for no apparent reason other than he forgets what he knows about their mendacity vis a vis AGW.
We are not seeing the forest through the trees here.
1) Tax Payer funded NPR is being used as a propaganda tool of the political left.
2) NPR should be converted to a 24/7 call in talk radio show with a Left/Right/Middle line, and re-titled “The Voice of America” or “The voice of Freedom” or “Radio Free America.”
We simply can’t allow the left to use tax payer funded communication channels as their personal megaphones, same can be said about our schools and universities. We need to reverse the source of the lies, and use the same methods the left uses to promote these lies to promote the truth. EEOC laws used to prosecute universities that discriminate against conservatives is another solution.
Professor, edit thyself.
If the words are written rather than spoken, is the condition still called “logorrhea?”
@KaiserDerden
Did you notice the quote marks around ‘left wing radicals in the first sentence, and the implied sarcasm in the last sentence?
Here is a list of those ‘left wing radicals’ supporting action on Climate Change:
The US Dept of Defense. Every Science Academy and Scientific Professional Society in the World (197 of them). NASA. NOAA. All Major Universities. 99.9% of Peer-reviewed Research Papers. 97% of Climate Scientists actively engaged in research.
Republicans:
George P Schultz, Hank Paulson, Lindsay Graham, John McCain, Bob Inglis (President of Energy and Enterprise Org), Eli Lehrer (President of Free Enterprise R Street Org), Jerry Taylor (President of the Niskanen Institute), Steve LaTourette, Mike Castle, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Olympia Snow, Sherwood Boehlert, Chris Collins, Mike Kirk, Bob Corker, Mike Bloomberg, Katherine Hayhoe (evangelical Christian and Climate Scientist)
According to a Yale Study, 52% of Republicans nationwide.
ConservAmerica.org. CitizensClimateLobby.Org, The US Episcopal Church. The Catholic Church. Republicen.Org.
Nearly all world leaders.
There must be some Commies in there somewhere. Lord Monckton, can you help me find them?
warrenlb says:
…supporting action on Climate Change
What a wonderful phrase! It could mean anything at all.
Inform us, warrenlb: exactly what “action on climate change” should everyone support?
First, you have to define “climate change”, which you never quantify. Ever. What is ‘climate change’? The climate always changes, and current observations are no different from past observations of climate changes.
Then, what ‘action’ should be taken? Be specific.
Next, if your proposed ‘action’ is taken, what is the cost/benefit analysis? How many $billions will it cost to lower global T by 0.000001ºC? Be specific.
Next, explain why a rise of a degree or two in global T is bad, versus a degree or two lower global T? Or, is your belief that global T must remain exactly where it is, with no fluctuation either up or down, ever?
What, no answers? You don’t know? After more than fifty years of scientific investigation, and more than one hundred billion dollars spent looking for the causes of ‘climate change’, you still don’t have answers?
The complete absence of any measurements of AGW do not matter to folks like you. Your eco-religion requires that taxpayers must pay whatever it costs to satisfy you. That’s about it, isn’t it? You have no measurable quantity of AGW, but you demand that society must pay immense piles of money to ‘fix’ a problem that you cannot even quantify?
Do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds? You don’t care about facts, evidence, measurements, science, or anything quantifiable. All you care about is your True Belief, no matter how nuts you sound. Basically, you demand that society must pay money — a LOT of money — for something that you assert exists, but which you cannot even measure?
So here’s your chance to explain yourself, warrenlb. You always ask questions, incessantly, but you never answer any. Give it a try for a change. Answer each sentence above that ends with a question mark. If you can. Otherwise, you’re no different from a Jehovah’s Witness, handing out Scripture tracts on a downtown street corner.
You are absolutely correct, it has become a cult with the belief that the end justifies the means…NO MATTER WHO SUFFERS !!!!
P.S. As long as its not them suffering !!!
At least this response recognizes the concept of Return on Investment. That is more than this current administration can say.
Arguing whether there is global warming and whether it is caused by man’s impact on the climate must be very entertaining. It must be entertaining because it obscures the 800 pound gorilla sitting next to the folks engaged in the discussion. This gorilla keeps saying (to apparently deaf ears) that neither the Liberals, nor anyone else, have any practical solutions for reducing CO2 levels that are not hugely expensive in terms of choking regulations, high fees and taxes, and negative economic impact, and yet have near-zero impact on reducing greenhouse gas levels.
Take Obama’s latest attack on the coal industry in the US as an example. If you run through the math, it shows that the proposed regulations will result in, at best, a couple of percent reduction in worldwide greenhouse gases. And the likelihood of even this occurring is low. And the Chinese, and other developing nations, will make that up in a few short years. They have essentially told us to pound sand on any reductions, at least for the next 15 or so years.
Don’t believe me? (Please note that it is difficult to get exact numbers on certain factors, but even if my numbers of off some, the general conclusion still holds.) If the US produces about 15% of the worldwide greenhouse gases, and if coal produces about one third of these gases, then US coal produces about 5% of the worldwide greenhouse gases. Obama’s proposed regulations would reduce these emissions by about one third, resulting in a whopping reduction of worldwide greenhouse gases of between 1% and 2%. Yet the cost would be huge in terms of job loss, much higher electricity costs, and thwarted economic gains. In short, the Return on Investment would be near-zero.
This same sort of analysis can be applied to almost all of the so-called clean energy initiatives. Worse, many are not economically feasible without huge subsidies which are added to our energy bills, or are added to our national debt, to be paid off by our grandchildren. When Obama took office, wind and solar supplied around 2% if the nation’s energy. Even with the huge subsidies poured into these areas for the past 7 years, they still produce less than 4%! What about the other 96%!!!!!!
But you say we have got to do something, right? Wrong?! Not if the ROI is absurdly low. If the problem is so bad as the Liberals say, then our first task would be to come up with some practical solutions. I have yet to see any!!!
the man is a troll … he holds clear headed thoughts about science and fuzzy headed thoughts about politics … no way one person can hold both unless he is insane …
Or “cointelpro”. If anyone here thinks there are not “operatives” lurking on every thread, I suggest you think again.
Quote, “….hopefully moribund industry.”
You actually hope the industry that heats, clothes and feeds the world dies?
What a strange position to take.
Oh, an academic; I see.
Demonstration CO2 has no effect on climate and identification of the two factors that do cause reported average global temperature change (sunspot number is the only independent variable) are at http://agwunveiled.blogspot.com (now with 5-year running-average smoothing of measured average global temperature (AGT), the near-perfect explanation of AGT since before 1900; R^2 = 0.97+).
NPR has an obvious agenda wrt AGW and other issues. This letter goes into the “Denier” file, the one that gets dumped every night. Meanwhile, they have the children for hours every day, filling their minds with scientific sounding, government approved nonsense about CO2. I wonder what the average age is for WUWT’ers. My average age is 70. While someone may be able to change the thinking of someone else here and there, an entire generation is being raised up tragically misinformed.
After tediously reading the letter AND taking into consideration all of the above highly thoughtful comments, I decided to rewrite the letter in Executive Summary form:
WYPR 88.1FM
2216 North Charles Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21218
Dear WYPR:
RE: Today’s story on Alexander Humboldt; It’s not CO2, stupid!
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely Yours,
Roger Stritmatter, PhD
Professor of Humanities
Coppin State University
. . Works for me !! LOL
The “Donald show” (if that means Trump) is not even half as self absorbed as that diatribe… Heaven (literally) help us, please. Although the writer comes up with a different conclusion than the AGW folks, he seems to emulate their head-up-derriere approach quite well.
I’d like to ask, half rhetorically and half seriously: what keeps science HONEST? Apparently it can’t be just scientists because they will apparently form into groups, all lying and posturing to one another.
Well, Daniel, as far as I can tell, the same thing that keeps anything else “honest” to whatever extent it is; A few people with real integrity.
I feel many here are being somewhat naive in there criticisms of this “letter”, in that it seems obvious to me that it was not intended to be “like” what is more commonly appears on this site, but is/was an attempt to somehow get a cohesive overview of what has happened in this realm, into the eyeballs of people who have not yet become aware of the extent and depth of (to me) blatant distortion and deception that has been pumped into society through the mass media systems.
And, it seems clear to me, that it is geared to “ease” the target reader (which is not NPR executives or whatever) into the matter slowly and gently (and yes wordily ; ) . . kinda like NPR approaches most anything. Looking at it from an “old hand’s” perspective is just not appropriate, I feel.
And surely most here are aware of difficulty of getting such a general overview into the eyes of busy professionals and academics and the like, who are unfamiliar with “climate science” themselves, and have essentially trusted the establishment “experts” to tell them what is happening. I notice virtually no one is critical of the “story” the author tells, or the examples and explanations he provides, which if I were he, I would see as the “positive feedback” in the realm which many here are well informed about.
I hope it gets through the gatekeepers at NPR (though I doubt it), and I hope he has sent/will send this to many publications/outlets (appropriately modified), in hope that it gets to some of those target eyeballs, and into the minds which “need” to drop their trust in the “official” presenters and masters of the “short and to the point” BS arts, against whom no “short and to the point” approach has a snowball’s chance in hell, it seems to me, of getting past even the standard “He’s not a climate scientist” first hurdle, we all know it will confront.
(As for the opening “salvo” . . When in Rome, I say.)
Wow !!
That is a wonderful and long overdue letter.
That is a wonderful letter.
Like Dr. Stritmatter, I am involuntarily subjected to incessant daily bombardment by WYPR’s (and, thus, NPR’s) wholly biased climate propaganda broadcasting operation.
Almost needless to say, as a result, they have forfeited the financial contributions I used to make.
In this subject area, WYPR (and NPR) are an embarrassment to the notion of fair, even-handed journalism.