On October 16, I launched a 9,000 word essay on my conversion from a climate-change believer to skeptic. Anthony liked it and decided to run a short summary on WUWT.
That page now has over 450 comments, the essay has been viewed over 50k times, and it has had over 9k reads. It has led to discussions across the web, and, via the survey at the end of the essay, has led to a surprising 46% conversion rate of people becoming climate skeptics. These are small numbers, but they are also small steps toward an important goal. My essay is capable of reaching liberals, challenging their assumptions, and getting them to change their views.
The essay prompted a group of global-warming enthusiasts to write a long rebuttal essay, titled Climate Change is Real, and Important.
It starts with a large picture of a menacing fire in 2006, which the authors presumedly believe represents the fire and destruction of human-caused climate change. They have also attacked me on Twitter, using the standard name-calling and association techniques that have come to be the norm.
If you’re interested in the rebuttal and our response, please go to Climate Change: Is it Real and Important
We hope you find it worth reading.
I read the rebuttal “Climate Change is Real, and Important”. The title is as infantile as its content. It reverberated like a lecture to school children. The alarmists still believe isolated events of weather will scare people into joining the faith. Apparently their sky continues to fall.
Unless of course it gets really cold or snows heavily somewhere…THEN they say, well that’s just weather, it doesn’t count !!
Sorry, excessive cold and/or snow and even a new ice age could still be caused by globull warming.
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2004/05mar_arctic/
Or cold weather counts too. …Which means that no climate can prove the theory wrong. …Which means the theory is not falsifiable. ….Which means it is no longer science, it is a religion.
Yep. Became a religion about 10 – 15 years ago. The members still won’t admit it though. They want their religion to have the credibility advantage that science provides, by saying it is science.
It would probably take some serious one-on-one deprogramming to get through to some of those AGW believers, but such an approach is generally regarded as interfering with the civil rights of the “deprogrammee.”
The agenda that was hatched from Roger Revelle’s contemplation and James Hansen’s capitalization of that idea had stretched the envelope of science to the breaking point. It was then dropped conveniently into the envelope of religion to give it unquestionable authority. As the envelope of religion has been torn so many times in the past, its authority is thin and tattered, so the binding tape of the legal system must be enlisted to patch the tears which allow one to read what’s really inside.
Well I haven’t read the guest’s essay yet. But it is my belief that whenever somebody changes their position on a contentious issue significantly; as for example an about face (in either direction), then it is a free beer winning bet, that they probably have put in a good amount of time and effort, or both, getting to a better understanding of the facts on both sides of the issue.
There are issues on which I have changed my view, or position. Nothing on the scale of ” climate change ” which I absolutely believe in, or say ” global warming ” which I also absolutely believe has happened in my lifetime.
And I think most of the times that has happened, my real change has been from a position of ” blissful ignorance ” to one of ” enlightened understanding ” , although I would never claim to have achieved total understanding of anything.
As I have often said in these pages: “Ignorance is NOT a disease; we are all born with it. ” Stupidity on the other hand, has to be taught, and many line up to teach it.
So welcome to the bright side David. And I will read your essay, to learn when and how, you got that bright flash of ” light “.
I think I have already stated that ” light ” is all in your head; well assuming you are a human being.
g
Los Angeles is still hot and dry ergo the entire planet is, too.
Was that written by HotWhopper?
(my internet connection is bad – satellite – and it is snowing here can’t load the thing)
Ah Bubba, problems with the snow.
Didn’t you know that the freezing white stuff is a sign of global warming? 😉
“Scientific research has revealed that, before the industrial revolution, averaged over the world, global mean surface temperature had been fairly stable over most of the Holocene.”
The children don’t provide the citations- clearly not well-schooled. I suggest the school children performed the “scientific research”. It’s very unclear how globally-distributed surface temperature records for the past 14,000 years were obtained. Is there such a creature as the global surface proxy temperature annual mean anomaly? If so, it surely would give the Central Limit Theorem a good workout.
There isn’t.
g
& the “little” ice age and Medieval Warm Period were figmants of historians and artists minds
” The title is as infantile as its content”
You might want to read up on Pavlov and his dogs. The idea is for the indoctrinated to feel nauseous when the contrary facts start pouring in.
Thanks, Ron, you saved me the trouble. To the author, if you want to get your original piece in Huffpo etc., try tweaking it to “How a liberal vegan environmentalist’s switch from climate proponent to climate skeptic can be explained by AGW and was projected in the models”. You might even get published by peer reviewed cli-sci journals!
Thanks Ron, I did not expect much else and I was not going to give the benefit of screaming how many people “followed” and supported their view.
the benefit of “them” screaming… , sorry about the typo.
+1 . the politics of right and left have poisoned debates on many subjects. i gave them up long ago, now i am only interested in right or wrong.
. .Liberals simply do not like reality !!!!
You did read the title, didn’t you? The author professes to be a liberal, and he changed his mind because his former beliefs did not match reality.
Your “socialists this” and “liberals that” tripe is irrelevant and tiresome.
Ok, fanatical liberals …..
It can be difficult to tell when it comes to Climate Extremists or Climate Extremism
Michael, you must be a liberal….your whining ! Want some cheese to go with it ? I was a Democrat until 9 years ago when liberals took over and destroyed JFK’s dream ! Liberals hate themselves and all other Humans .
Sorry, I meant liberal fanatics, or better yet , as Bryan says ” liberal climate extremists ” !! The same ones that don’t care that wind turbines chop up millions of birds every year !!
Yes, I must be a liberal, and you must be a troll. Goodbye.
There are a large number of CAGW believers who believe precisely and perhaps exclusively because of their being liberal.
All they really need to know in order to never look at the facts objectively is that conservatives tend to oppose CAGW alarmism, and many and perhaps most liberals subscribe to it.
It is seen by them as the current defining issue of the ideological battleground.
To pretend that “Liberal/Conservative” has nothing to do with it is naïve and silly.
Michael
May I suggest a book for you to read?
Kirsten Powers has written an excellent analysis of the impact the left has had on the US culture entitled “The Silencing: How the Left is Killing Free Speech”. It explains the insanity going on at some campuses across America. I recommend it highly for anyone enjoying a good gaze in the mirror.
Absolutely correct, Michael. The “socialists this” and “liberals that” tripe is precisely the sort of thing that will discourage potential climate change skeptics of the liberal persuasion from exploring the facts underlying the controversy. Those who persist in using such labels do a disservice to the cause they claim to support.
I hate liberals. That should get your eyes bugging out.
I notice that Michael didn’t include a claim that Marcus’s statement is also false. Probably because even he knows it isn’t.
I would suggest that there are likely a very large numbers of self described conservatives who don’t believe in Climate change because elitist liberals do. The fact that I believe they are right does not change the fact that their belief stems from their ideology and not any examination of the facts.
Well, I for one, am somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun, but The Hockeystick in Mann 88 is what made me look close and forswear any dealings with the man-made global warming cabal. Historical fact swept away, geological fact ignored, horticultural fact denied led my thinking in another direction. Anyone that starts a rebuttal with “the temperature was constant for millennia before man started the industrial revolution…” has me rolling on the floor laughing or reaching for a gun depending on what their prescription for fixing it is and how close they are to power. Being a scientist isn’t about left and right, it is about following data to its conclusion.
“””””…..
OweninGA
November 14, 2015 at 7:25 pm
Well, I for one, am somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun, …..”””””
Well if I stand on my tippy toes, and peer over my left shoulder, I can just see the tip of the shadow of your hero.
And by the way; both Genghis Kahn, and Timor the Lame were just a couple of pussy cats too.
But I don’t let my view get in the way of reality.
g >> G
Marcus, “liberal” and “conservative” are security blanket terms that help extremists differentiate their kind of extremism from someone else’s. The difference between politics and science is that, at least once upon a time, scientists were encouraged to form their own conclusions, to ask questions, to question answers. In short to think for themselves. In politics of ALL stripes this practice is discouraged. And the more adamant and dogmatic the stripe the more any questioning is discouraged. Politicians have politicized the problem of climate (“problem” in the scientific sense of attempting understand climate) but they can’t really make the science political. Political science is useless science.
Duster, understood and agree, BUT, the Glo.Bull warming panic attack is all liberal !!!
Marcus,
Not liberal, statist. The problem only exists to expand the role of the state until the individual is nothing more than a tool to be used by the state and disposed of when it is no longer useful. Remember, to some, 1984 was a “How-to” book on good governance.
Owen, liberals are statists.
MarkW,
Washington, Jefferson, Adams, and Madison were liberals, these modern ones don’t deserve the name
Who said:
“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
How’s that reality created in the Middle East working out for you?
Beliefs are like mental rocks on the brain.
For “climate scientists”, progress really is made one funeral at a time. (Their conversion rate is practically nil.)
Keep up the good fight, David!
“Politics distorts our ability to reason”. True, David, but you need to differentiate between A. the moronic sheeple followers, B. the paid mercenaries and C. the elite leaders. All follow the same cause, but from different motivations. Ego and money seem to pop up a lot.
Who was the guy who wrote of “true believers”? A common sense philosopher. Can’t recall his name.
Oh, yeah. Eric Hoffer. You waste your time arguing with a “true believer”.
And I note that a lot of these true believers in the IPCC couldn’t examine the software it bases its findings on if they had to. ( I know, a preposition is not something you want to end a sentence with.)
“believers OF the IPCC” is more clear.
See wsu.edu/~brians/errors/churchill.html for your day’s entertainment on ending sentences with prepositions.
When admonished for ending a sentence with a preposition, didn’t Winston Churchill say something like:
That’s the kind of grammarian up with which I can not put!
SR
LOL!
“That is something up with which I will not put”
Winston Churchill.
This is the type of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put.” W. Churchill
In the referenced sentence (ending “…if they had to”), I think the “to” is not a preposition, but is instead part of an implied infinitive (“to examine”). I’m not sure though.
Well even somebody illiterate knows that a preposition is not a proper word to end a sentence with.
g
And Bryan, I would give you my vote on having the definitive explanation of the resolution of the issue.
Imagining the ” examine ” a being implied on the end, makes it as clear as a bell.
g
a as in as !
g
Welcome to the monkey house!
In the 80’s I uncritically accepted the CO2 driven warming story.
However, in the early 90’s, Science ran a paper demonstrating a 95% correlation between the length of the solar sun spot cycle and temperatures over the preceding 130 years. In the subsequent years I have watched the story of climate variation driven by cosmic ray modulation of the climate develop with ice core data showing periods of high C14 with low temperatures, and periods of low C14 having warmer temperatures. Wider reading revealed the role of cycles in oceans, the Pacific and Atlantic oscillations in decade term variation and solar UV variations connected to jet stream perturbations.
The climate is not stable, and it has many drivers over decades to millions of years. The lack of correlation between CO2 and temperature on longer time scales shows it is not a main driver of climate change.
Changing ones mind is a slow process, and requires questioning of closely held narratives, a process that I find difficult, but important.
It is also very painful to admit you were wrong !! Thank you !
And, perhaps most significantly, for a warmista it is expensive.
A career wrecker, if one is actually directly involved in the whole fiasco.
Thanks, David Siegel, for injecting reality into the discussion. Swim free!
(but beware of the sharks in the ocean)
But it’s a big ocean and now your free to swim where ever in it and how ever far.
And the acidity!
And one thing to bear in mind, when swimming with the sharks in the ocean:
” There ain’t no such thing, as 75% of top speed ! ! ”
g
Yes, David. It’s certainly worth reading. I particularly liked the disciplined layout of Bob Johnson’s contribution, by the way.
Trouble is, most of the denizens here will be quite familiar with the arguments, and will know just how thin, and misleading, are the statements made, and positions taken, by Messrs Cook, Lewandowsky, Laden, Rice and Miriam whatshername, and the thorough job you’ve done on them between you is welcome, but won’t take us much further.
The problem, as you say, is that this isn’t reaching the wider audience that it should. The vast weight of the popular media, all the apparatus of the state in most western countries, and, most frighteningly, the educational system, is solid for the alarmist position. I don’t know how that’s going to change. We need at least a couple of very high-profile defections by people who have been highly visible on the alarmist side in the public perception, before we have a chance of seeing a real change in the media position. Who will take the lead?
mothcatcher….agree; we need a Hero like Ed Snowden.
Our hero won’t need to put our Intelligence Services at risk
No one ever heard of Snowden, and many do not know what to make of it anyway.
We need someone on the inside with hard facts of collusion, and proof that much of the motivation is political and financial.
Clarification…no one heard of Snowden prior to his defection.
It needs to be the sort of person who is prominent enough that just saying he was wrong will sway people.
“It needs to be the sort of person who is prominent enough that just saying he was wrong will sway people.”
It depends upon why we need this.
We are flooded with pseudoscience- it’s bigger problem than “global warming”. The only solution is people becoming educated, and our educational system is not doing this- modern education system are promoting pseudoscience rather than developing critical thinking.
Btw the shoddy job of our current educational system isn’t something new, it’s continuum.
The only thing somewhat new is the big business aspect of modern education- huge amounts of money are tossed at it, and it not improving it’s quality [which is quite predictable].
So don’t think that having a lot of uneducated people believe that global is nonsense, would be particularly important. And rather I *believe* that the pseudoscience of global warming is opportunity of causing people to become more educated [one doesn’t need an institution to become educated]. And it’s great lesson in doubting authority- because things like fascism [aka, socialism] has caused and is causing much misery in this world, and is dependent on not having enough doubt in authority.
In terms of religion there are worse religions than global warming- any of the great religions are
not a good example of worse- but there are lots of other crazy to believe in.
Or people need some kind of religion, though I am not encouraging believing in global warming- mainly because so such a dumb belief [it’s embarrassing belief for any sentient creature- and the whole burn the witch because of the weather isn’t a new creative idea].
Humans have had a totalitarian emotional need for thousands of years, and people do very mad things as a result of this. And there lessons to be re-learned and the totalitarianism of “global warming”/”climate change” religion is lesson to be learned, and not merely substituted with something else.
Anyways, all hail the debate, let it continue.
Now, we are wasting massive resources, time, and wealth of the public in the name of global warming. But problem is not the faith in global warming, the problem is the faith that any government could save us.
Who indeed?
Judith Curry is an example of such a person. She was a very prominent believer, of high standing in the community, of high academic credibility, and one who testified regularly before Congress.
She finally saw the light, that the consensus arguments about catastrophe had no substance. To her credit, she changed her mind (though I wonder if she ever apologized to Bill Gray for calling him senile, article full text here).
What has been the consequence of her defection? She has been sidelined. She probably has trouble now, publishing. She has lost standing with her colleagues. She has a skeptical blog (whoop-de-doo). She still testifies before Congress — though her words are now believed by a different set of Congress critters. But her influence on policy direction has been zero.
Patrick Moore is another such person. He had high media credibility and was lionized and listened-to when he was a Green Peace believer. Now he’s an outspoken critic. The result is that he’s been demonized, called a traitor, sidelined, and has had zero influence on policy.
No individual can do it. The AGW propaganda machine destroys individuals. To change the policy, it will take the votes to change the politicians. If that happens, expect turmoil.
Excellent summary of politically driven reality.
Professionals in any field are not stupid. As you go higher up the food chain in your chosen field you begin to realize that if you passively or actively misrepresent the uncertainty of your chosen skillset, you make yourself more valuable and attain more standing.
A banker loses his worth if everyone knows how simple his trade is.
An engineer loses his billable time if informs the client that the variable he is being paid to design for isn’t worth the value of the actual work being executed.
A doctor gets paid less if he doesn’t order the series of tests he knows aren’t going to tell him much.
The mechanic isn’t worth as much if he reveals the flow chart of his decision making skills.
A journalist cant compete for attention if their story is uninteresting.
The CAGW scientist isn’t funded if he presents the risk properly.
What is the price of integrity ?
What is your integrity based on ?
Complex questions adding to the messy situation.
“If that happens, expect turmoil.”
What happens if Hillary gets elected ?
“No individual can do it.”
One at a time can make a difference.
” Knute
November 14, 2015 at 1:05 pm
“If that happens, expect turmoil.”
What happens if Hillary gets elected ?”
In the US, while the climate may continue to change as it always does,
the political climate will not.
hmmm
if Hillary does get elected we have the continuation of the CAGW folly and it will cost people 10% (WAG) ?
if Hillary doesn’t get elected we have to sustain a meltdown of the CAGW investments. that meltdown will cost people ( …. ? …. ) can’t even make a WAG.
neither choice bodes well for this moment in the economic cycle.
Dr Lovelock threw in the towel and admitted he was wrong after 15 years of rising CO2 and flat temperatures saying that was more than sufficient period of time to test and prove/disprove the idea that CO2 controls the climate. It will do nothing to change their minds. Heck, Hansen and Schmidt could say “Oops, we were wrong,” and nothing would change. They would just be labeled sellouts and heretics by the faithful.
As far as Snowden goes we already had Mr/Miss FOIA with the climategate files which did turn some heads but in the end they did sham “investigations”, cleared everyone of wrong doing and carried on and here we are 6 years later. By the way Snowden didn’t “put our Intelligence Services at risk” he showed that our liberties are being put at risk from those very intelligence services.
‘Snowden didn’t “put our Intelligence Services at risk” he showed that our liberties are being put at risk from those very intelligence services.’
How very kind of him,and here’s me thinking he is a traitor who put peoples lives at risk and now lives in Russia.
irrelevant to CAGW/CO2 no ?
I don’t know if you have looked at the issues of data adjustments much, but if you have not I would suggest perusing the websites of Jeniffer Marahosy and Steven Goddard for a good introduction
The blatant “data adjustments” have damaged the discipline of science in ways we cannot even conceive of yet ! I fear for the future.
The justification of the adjustments is worse than the adjustments, IMO, as is the unwillingness of other scientists to speak out publicly.
Adjustments are standard in physical science. STP is “Standard Temperature and Pressure” – data collected in a chemistry lab is necessarily adjusted to account for the difference between laboratory conditions and STP. Adjustments are a necessary part of good science. What is not good science is refusing to clarify reasons for applying an adjustment. Worse, making assumptions that some datum has to be adjusted (e.g. Australian historical temperature data) without offering any sound methodological justification for why it must be adjusted, how the adjustment is to be done, to what data and adjustment might really be necessary, and a sound rationale for the magnitude of the adjustment.
Menicholas, I understand them keeping their thoughts to themselves. Look what happened to Willie Soon, Curry, Ball,Steyn etc….it takes a special kind of person like Anthony to go all in no matter what the danger !!!
Duster, well said but you missed the point !!
It was once reported that Mr. Mac; founder of MacDonnell Aircraft stated: ” We seldom fire anybody who makes a mistake [ like leaving a spanner inside the wing of an F-4H Phantom ] , but we invariably fire anybody who tries to cover up a mistake ! ”
g
The problem with David Seigel is not his science, rather his politics.
His politics, the outward pressure of his beliefs on others, is where he is broken down.
Science.
It is ok in my book to use science to to reach differing conclusions. Science will eventually work things out. I really don’t mind that people initially believe the CAGW premise. If they apply science, they will come around. Anthony did. He said so. I did, though I was not pay attention to the subject more than 20 years ago.
Politics and ego.
David Seigal still, in his essay, expresses an affiliation, an irrational one, to a political party (the democrats).
His belief is that government has role to use the power of the state to do things. That was his failing and that remains unchanged. Populism X Big Government = tyranny. The popular green movement and the bad science of AGW was propelled by big socialism (government) and THAT is why it became a disproportional problem that has invaded all of our lives. It became political.
So… nice that you have gotten on board with the science and that you have abandoned you catalog of irrational obsessions, but you are still a political creature, motivated by power and a desire to push your beliefs on other people and make us pay for them.
No thanks. I believe your conversion is half-a$$ed and not one worthy of conspicuous merit. It really isn’t a conversion at all.
I see Seigel as trying to steal the glory of the story (H/T Natalie Merchant).
As the CAGW meme collapses, he jumps over to the other side. The skeptics of record are important; Seigel is not.
Yup .. could be that too. Notice that in his linked essay Davis Seigel needed to mention his politics it importance to science IHO, and the fact that he was a vegan, among other things. So…Why did he abandon his vegan-ness, his CAGW-ness, while retaining his politics? I believe he is essentially political and the wind and opportunity avails his specific focus du jour. Whatever is popular! A Gadfly.
I agree up a point. I do not know the guy other than these articles. He may have used his “Liberal” stand point just to get his article onto the HuffPo and others.
>>Notice that Davis Seigel needed to mention
>>that he was a vegan, among other things.
He is clearly trying to identify with other prominent vegans of the past, like HitIer. 😉
R
He has seen the light.
Increasing the numbers of skeptical thinkers concerning CAGW is the goal.
He could be part of the new Colander Space Worshipers for all I care or the gods forbid, a harasser of barbed hook fishermen.
One fallacy at a time.
We all have our rocks in the head.
“It is ok in my book to use science to to reach differing conclusions. Science will eventually work things out.”
I like that, nicely phrased. “Science” is not the “the truth”, but rather the process at which one arrives at the best understanding of the physical world.
science by its nature is nothing more than a measuring of trial and error.
Yes erik. I try to use the word science in reference to the Noun and “method” It really gets abused. archaically it meant “knowledge” but then has become to mean the, as you say, process at which one arrives at the best understanding”.
Rather succinctly put. The OED definition adds ‘ by observation and experiment ‘ to the definition.
It doesn’t say anything about ‘ computer models ‘.
I use computer models to do science; well actually engineering based on the science; but those computer models are ones with a well established record, and history of producing output ( given correct inputs) that tends to agree with actual measured results, to the degree that is demanded by the end use application.
In my case they do either imaging or non-imaging optical ray tracing to verify the design of lenses or other optical system components; and they can manipulate the parameters, in response to a ” merit function ” to optimize that system.
But those models do not know a good lens from the bottom of a coke bottle. So they rely on my merit function; which is what I am really designing, to tell them what a good lens is.
g
If I’m not careful, my computer models will give me a design which is not even physically realizable; and which therefore cannot be built and tested against reality. In which case, some band aids, are required in the merit function.
Paul,
Science as knowledge is something that I’m comfortable with, as long as “knowledge” is not a synonym for “truth”. My comment about the process is to support your contention that “Science” eventually self corrects.
One of the problems with “Climate Science” is that the instrumentation really sucks (h/t to Dr R.G. Brown at Duke), with errors in temperature readings, incoming and outgoing radiation flux. Even worse are the computer models that show a 3:1 (or larger) range for temperature rise for a given change in CO2 concentration. Contrast this with astronomers measuring the precession of the orbit of Mercury to a fw tens of arc-seconds per century, which was used to support Einstein’s General Relativity.
“Science” is polysemic.
It’s hard to believe anyone thinks government is fit for purpose.
They fail at everything.
How can giving government trillions of dollars lower earth’s temperature?
How can making billionaires out of Wall Street millionaires lower earth’s temperature?
Government fails at everything, but they didn’t used to.
I don’t get the point in your second question. People acting in their own self interest, can make billionaires out of Wall Street millionaires. The Government is the largest single beneficiary of that process. Witness the petrochemical industry, where the US Federal Treasury, is the biggest hog swilling at the trough; taking more by far, in taxes, than even the owners of the business get in return for risking their capital in that venture.
g
Paul:
If you think it’s more important to lambaste David Seigel for being a liberal (which BWT is a reference to a set of political ideas and not an insult) than it is to comment on his seeing the light on global warming, WUWT is not the place to do it. I’m sure you can find a nice comfortable chat room for libertarians or whatever to vent your emotions in.
This website is about science. Thank you again Anthony, I don’t know how you did it, but whatever it was, please keep it up.
“This website is about science. Thank you again Anthony, I don’t know how you did it, but whatever it was, please keep it up.”
Thanks Rock
I never grow tired of seeing this reminder. Keeps me straight when I stray.
While political bias is deeply embedded in the larger debate, at least I know I can come here to ground truth the science. Cut to the quick as they say.
I don’t believe you. Smart Rock is not a real person. Or you are David Seigel concealing your identity. You certainly do not have the courage of your stated convictions, sufficient to reveal you true identity. I never availled my politics. I quoted David Seigel who chose to state his politics and his eating habits etc etc. and then I asserted a premise that bad science combined with the power of the state, which is objectively greater under a socialist state, created the CAGW mess. I don’t accept that David Seigel is a convert. He is an opportunist IMO. He’ll jump on some other band wagon to assert his politics and tax on all of us. He posted his politics, eating habits, etc here so, he invited the criticism. What is your real name Mrs Smart Rock?
Why would you equate CAGW with science? That’s the silliest comment I’ve heard in decades!
Paul Westhaver,
I agree with you entirely.
He initiated an irrelevant political premise and postulate to his essay.
Critically, I think one needs to step back to acquire circumspection of him by asking a significant series of ‘why’ questions about the logic and whether there is objectively based applied reasoning to establish his context to a political philosophy that he calls ‘liberalism’. And especially one needs to do a relative comparison of the amount of logic and objectively base applied reasoning that was used for obtaining his context of a political philosophy that he calls ‘liberalism’ as compared the amount needed to obtain and establish observationally based objective science knowledge of the universe.
John
Well said John. I didn’t write his essay for him or mention MY politics or my eating habits. In his essay he goes to great length to involve politics. My mentioning of his obsession with his politics of his science is me analyzing it. (???) If critics are put off by me mentioning ” HIS politics” then you really have to ask why David Segel brought it up in the first place. If you got a beef with it take it up with him.
I appreciate you “stepping back”. I thought the DeSmog Blog crowd moved in for Saturday night!
Paul Westhaver on November 14, 2015 at 3:39 pm
– – – – – – – – –
Paul Westhaver,
My thought is that whenever we bring the discourse back to fundamental concepts, there will be the acceptance of reason.
Have a good Saturday night or Sunday morning.
John
Still Saturday night… Cheers to you.
“””””””””[…] constantly being challenged by those who have financial or other interests in the continued use of fossil fuels.
Neither David nor I have any such interests — this is a clear factual error. Really they’re just attempting to smear anyone who disagrees.””””””””””
..”this is a clear factual error”?
You’re too kind. It is hardly an “error” when purposefully misrepresenting.
It’s like the difference between a car accident and someone deliberately running over someone.
Most of us have a financial interest in the continued use of “fossil” fuels: they are the basis of our economy. The (un) Greens have trashed the entire world’s economy because their strident attacks on fossil fuels have, in fact, been successful.
A LOT of us are hurting. Especially poor people.
Right on Lady. All of humanity has a vested interest in making affordable energy available to as many as possible, in the quest for a better world.
Since Lucy’s ancestors first climbed down from a fig tree, to try tasting the flesh of a zebra, that had got roasted in a grass fire, that turned on it, humans have been using both fossil, and pre-fossil fuels to make life more comfortable for as many as possible.
No other option has yet shown an ability to replace hydrocarbon fuels, without incurring even greater management risks.
g
–No other option has yet shown an ability to replace hydrocarbon fuels, without incurring even greater management risks.
g–
I suppose “greater management risks” wipes out the obvious of using more nuclear energy- despite the stellar record of the US nuclear industry.
But anyhow. I thinking of another option, which getting solar energy from Space as a global solution in terms of replacing hydrocarbon fuels. But I suppose it’s more about reducing the future
need of using coal. Or we have huge amount of coal reserves available in the world, though coal has inherent problem of being a relatively low energy content per ton. Or coal has much higher high energy content and generate more energy per ton and creates less pollution or CO2 emission than burning wood, but coal much lower in this regard than say natural gas or crude oil products. And such low energy content makes coal difficult to transport large amounts of energy over +1000 km distances, hence the lack of coal being a global energy solution.
Now, in terms of harvesting solar energy from space, this only become possible in a time horizon
of 50 to 100 years. And it possible in 50 years if we explore space in the correct way.
So NASA spending near 20 billion dollar related to space exploration, so if continuing NASA budget [which has been near constant real dollars for decades] AND NASA were to explore space in a more intelligent fashion, we could get to point of being able to harvest solar energy from Space for electrical use on Earth within 50 years. Though getting to this point earlier than 50 years would require amount of brilliance that NASA has never done before- or it’s fairly unrealistic.
One could say that within 75 years might possible anyways, despite NASA doing anything right.
Or within say 75 years because the Chinese government’s space agency is reasonably sober.
Or other factors could quicken the process. For instance that happens with commercial suborbital
market- ie, Virgin Galactic providing joyrides to the edge of space.
What NASA should do is explore the Moon with purpose to determine if and where there are commercial minable deposit of water in the lunar polar regions.
And NASA should begin such exploration by developing an operational depot in low Earth orbit.
And use depots to explore the lunar poles, and then use depots to explore Mars.
So to paraphrase, NASA should find the water, but not find the water for NASA to mine.
Or NASA should not try to get into the business of mining resources in space, but if NASA can get a good price for rocket fuel made from lunar water, NASA could buy such rocket fuel for various space exploration purposes. One such purpose could be exploring Mars.
So NASA should explore the Moon but not got bogged down on the Moon with mining and/or lunar base building.
And similar principle applies to Mars exploration. NASA should attempt to make Mars colonies or human settlements on Mars. But NASA does need bases on Mars in order to explore Mars.
So make NASA bases on Mars and not focus on making lunar bases [if there is minable lunar water and lunar water is mined and sold, then NASA consider the idea of lunar bases to do variety
of lunar exploration activity.
NASA after find IF there could be minable lunar which should finished within 10 year, can then explore Mars to determine IF, where, and how, there could human settlement on Mars. And once
that is finished [maybe Mars can’t support human settlements- for a variety of possible reasons]
then NASA focus on some other locations in space which could have useful resources. For instance, Mercury’s polar region [similar your Moon- cold and has water] and/or the Venus atmosphere- moderate temperature and has about 1 gee gravity- and lots of resources to use.
When in the future one has towns on Mars, Earth will have space power satellites.
Or once one mined 10,000 tons of lunar water [a swimming pool of water], one could consider
Earth SPS. Once thousands of people are flying suborbital, one could consider SPS.
And/Or once 10,000 tons of water is mined on Mercury, you will have SPS.
This is because, only one has cheaper access to space, you will get SPS. And CATS is holy
grail of space exploration- it changes everything.
David Seigel:
Thankyou for your original essay about your conversion from climate alarmism and your recent rebuttal of the article it prompted from a group of warmunists.
Your message is important so please ignore the political comments from Marcus, Paul Westhaver and their ilk. As emsnews said
and their political beliefs are especially dense.
Richard
“…Marcus, Paul Westhaver and their ilk.”
Yes, Richard, what cold dark cave did these guys come out of?!
Ugh … i hope this isn’t a here we go again moment.
Perhaps Anthony has a mod dressed in black leather with a barb tipped whip.
Same comment as Richard.
While I do not completely agree with David Seigel’s summation of Climate Studies, I support his outreach.
We who have been coming here for 4 or more years for our daily dose of sanity and science, run the risk of forgetting.
The people who need to be reached, are those David is attempting to talk to.
When immersed in the politics of CAGW it is easy to forget that most people do not know and do not care enough to find out.
The disinterest will remain unchanged, until sufficient taxpayers have been hurt in the pocket book.
There are a whole bunch in Ontario Canada, who are getting their monthly wakeup call with each electricity bill.
These people will be receptive to a simple coherent picture of this mess.
This Team UN IPCC ™ climate will kill you meme is an excerise in mass hysteria.
Only informed voters can stop it.
Sorry, but he threw politics into it when he brought up HIS political beliefs ..And your fooling yourself if you don’t think 97% of warmists are politically liberals !!! IMHO.. thanks for your thoughts on this issue.
P.S. This battle is just as much about politics as it is about science !!! Know your enemy !!
Marcus:
You are entitled to your political beliefs but your political prejudices are offensive. For example, you say
There is no evidence to support your assertion. But there is evidence that indicates more than 97% of opponents of the AGW-scare are left-wing.
The Chinese killed the successor to the Kyoto Protocol at Copenhagen in 2009. China is very left-wing; indeed, China is communist and – being totalitarian – its government speaks for all its people and imposes its views on all its people (as you Libertarians say you wish you could). So, China alone is 1.4 billion communists who oppose the AGW-scare.
Opposition to the AGW-scare is damaged by the behaviour of self-professed ‘libertarians’ who claim they are opposed to the AGW-scare but who use the AGW-scare as an excuse to attack everybody who does not share their totalitarian desire. It is very tempting to suspect that many of these ‘libertarians’ are a fifth column who are deliberately undermining opposition to the AGW-scare.
Richard
Richard
You chariterization of libertarians is ridiculous, my desire to not have politicians make choices for my life based on their desires for control is not totalitarianism. The Chinese do whatever is in their best intrest to maintain control and power, the communist in the west are using AGW to gain power here there is no difference. That being said I do agree that many of my libertarian cohorts tend to be overly agresive in their pessimistic view of claims made by others but that is something conditioned into us because we have spent the last 50 years trying to get people to listen and have been sold out time and time again and all we have ever been seeking is the right to be left alone.
richardscourtney:
Have to point out that politicians are the best actors in the universe as proven by their many reverses once in office. Obviously not even they know which wind blown principles that they actually support until it becomes crony convenient. Truly amazing, for example, how they can give a speech pro-union then pro-corporate depending on the venue. I, personally, am mixed politically and try to come to the mental support of those ideas that I consider the best approaches to problems, some liberal, some conservative. However with the average lying actor politician that is of little help when voting. Maybe this is why the American public in addition to voting less also has a growing consensus to try some new people that haven’t (yet) been corrupted by the process.
bob boder:
If you think my “chariterization of libertarians is ridiculous” then to see what ridiculous really is you should read the outrageous falsehoods that ‘libertarians’ post about socialists.
The important point is that opposition to the AGW-scare is damaged by the remorseless attacks on left-wing opponents of the scare that are provided by ‘libertarians’.
Richard
“The important point is that opposition to the AGW-scare is damaged by the remorseless attacks on left-wing opponents of the scare that are provided by ‘libertarians’.”
I think this is valid and part of the trap of the con.
The challenge is to unravel the deception of CAGW without making it a baby/bathwater political choice.
Richard
I don’t know one librarerian who cares whether you or anyone is a socalist, all we care about is that you don’t use the power of the government to make us socalist. Go build a cumunity of like minded people and live like socialist, you can do this in a free society where individual liberty comes first. Anyone that is a true librarerian believes in freedom first, macro free market, indivdual liberty, micro what ever you want as long as you have the freedom to choose.
I don’t care what you believe and I don’t want you to change your beliefs for me just don’t force me through the power of government to believe what you want or live my life by your rules.
Richard C. The hateful , intolerant attacks from the LEFT are what cause this to be about politics as well as science !! Heaven forbid !!
Look boys it’s as simple as this:-Only the most stupid idiots on the planet could possibly believe the greatest con job ever dreamed up by man.The most stupid idiots on the planet are Liberals.
Geddit?
JB
I’ll cop to an anecdotal observation bias, but I think you need to cast your net a little wider.
Btw, if you attack me for admitting to disagree based on my anecdotal observation, I’ll claim safe space rights and sic the microaggression police on you.
Knute
‘I’ll cop to an anecdotal observation bias, but I think you need to cast your net a little wider.’
Well cop this one.Communism!
How much wider would you like me to cast my net,90 odd million dead people not wide enough for you?
JB Goode:
Well cop this one. Libertarians.
They use the AGW-scare as a tool to attack any who don’t share their totalitarian desire to inflict their hateful paranoia on everybody.
Please read my rebuttal of damage to opposition to the AGW-scare by ‘libertarians’.
Richard
Marcus:
You say
Margaret Thatcher created the AGW scare and made hateful, intolerant attacks on anybody she considered of the LEFT.
Please
(a) explain why you think Thatcher was of “the LEFT”
or, alternatively
(b) explain your doublethink which enables you to equate Thatcher’s behaviour with your assertion I have quoted.
In reality, you are making ” hateful , intolerant attacks” on opponents of the AGW-scare – including David Seigel and me – using the excuse that those you are attacking are of the “LEFT”.
Richar
If there is one thing I have experienced in just over 50 years on this earth, it is concerted exposure to Weltanschauungs when I was insufficiently experienced or mature to evaluate them accurately, dispassionately, rigorously and logically; followed by living life consistently with them; experiencing their inconsistencies, inaccuracies and/or outright falsehoods; and then saying ‘hold on a minute, why am I believing this?’
Here is a list of some of them:
1. Capitalism and communism are the only two economic systems available.
2. Morality is the exclusive prerogative of the winners of conflict.
3. Reductionist science IS science (in my case applied to molecular medicine).
4. Judaism and Christianity are peaceful, Islam is violent.
5. Scientists are the only people who measure things professionally.
6. The agriculture suitable for the farm using horses is suitable for gardening on the 50sqm scale.
7. Intellectual avenues of study are uniquely and intrinsically superior to apprenticeships, experiential learning, workplace learning etc.
8. The human brain development is uniform, unidirectional and time-limited across each human sex.
9. The academic literature is the sole reputable source of information on any subject being studied.
10. Human beings can only be motivated through self-interest.
The reason this happened to me?
The education system I was exposed to growing up was supremely dictatorial. It was information presented as true, rather than an historical sweep of how opinion in that field evolved, what current uncertainties and disputes might be etc etc. It was teacher presenting information, not stimulating a discussion amongst pupils.
It created marvellous information gatherers and useless skeptical scientists.
Luckily for me, before going to college, I spent a year abroad where my curiosity was aroused, my critical sensory faculties activated, one of those milestones in life you can never go back from.
My assumption about all those who dogmatically stick to one view or the other is that they simply have not been lucky enough to have been exposed to an environment where freedom to think, to observe, to measure, to evaluate, to review, to restart, to improve and to confirm existed.
For me, that environment was provided by the acts of generosity by a single mentor, which opened me up to experiencing similar from other equally humane, if slightly less brilliant others. It showed me how my apparent skill sets were extremely dependent on the context, the environment and the society I was living in. It therefore made me question what the nature of ‘talent’ was, as opposed to ‘talent in this particular environment’.
I have always had a healthy skepticism where climate science is concerned. Perhaps it is because I experienced -30C in the French Alps in December 1984 and +23C in the Swiss Alps in February 1990. I experienced a week of blizzards in Glasgow, Scotland in January 1987 and the winter of 1988/9 where no snow of any consequence lay on any of the Scottish mountains before March. It taught me the huge variability of weather in individual years and hence that identifying ‘trends’ was something more complex than straight line graphs.
When it came to ‘reputable organisation’s data’, the Ski Club of GB, an organisation I like and admire, not unsurprisingly presented its views on Alpine snow patterns based on the datasets its Reps had been acquiring since the 1930s (formerly published daily through the season in The London Times etc). My life in ski-ing, however, showed that what was undoubtedly true in past times was causing me to continuously ski on stony, rather snow-thin pistes and hence, my unalloyed trust in historical data as a predictor of future trends never built up. I knew nothing of the Great Pacific Shift of 1977, nor did I link the Mt St Helens eruption with altered Atlantic depression patterns. I just knew it wasn’t snowing at the times of year the gurus said it ought to be (namely late November and early December).
There are a lot of people out there in the world who don’t have the emotional security to fail, to explore and to be wrong. They need certainty in their lives to cover up for the lack of security they have. Whether any of those people are political extremists, climate zealots or the like, I don’t know.
But perhaps if that were the case, we need to ask whether the key to making people able to consider alternative viewpoints may lie, not in rigorous scientific arguments, but in finding ways to make them feel safe enough to open up their minds about a lot more than climate……..
“1. Capitalism and communism are the only two economic systems available.”
Capitalism and everything else are the only two economic systems available 🙂
On Planet Knute we offer temporary room, board, medical care and safety.
We take care of the old who contributed more in the past and less so now.
We help the sick heal and get them back on their feet.
If you got hurt protecting the planet we take care of you.
We don’t have a name for the “ism” and we argue alot, but somehow it seems to work out most of the time.
What Knute said…. X1000
I like Knute’s world…where the heck is it ????
Marcus
“Planet” being a euphemism for my immediate family and most folk in my community. And I’ll emphasize that it’s a messy bunch. There is a constant banter about whose not doing their share or who wants to make more rules than are necessary. By and large it gets solved.
What I do notice is an increase in detachment from reality the more affluent and educated the members get. They tend to come to the belief that their money and education gives them the right to tell others how to live beyond the values I discussed. They think they have a special calling to influence their community. While I have an educated trade, I don’t have that kind of wealth so I’m not sure what I would be like in their shoes. Here is an example that I dug up which I read about this week … a hollywood brat.
http://nypost.com/2015/11/13/jaden-smith-really-does-think-hes-einstein/
Now I know this is going to get rowdy in here when I say this, but generally speaking, the better looking females of the community gravitate towards the males who become more affluent and then a bizarre kind of adoration for the couple’s awesomeness starts to take hold and somehow empowers them again to tell others how to live.
How does this relate to CAGW/CO2. I think Hoffer was onto something. Once the basic needs (Maslov also talks about this correlation) are met some of the elite start to believe that their poo doesn’t stink. I’m sure Hoffer and Maslov are more articulate. In a collision of need to feel fulfilled versus opportunity to be manipulated, I think the Dems discovered easily convinced voting blocks. Not to be too hard on the Dems, I think the GOP kiddies are also getting seduced by this overinflated sense of self and the need to influence the world. The GOP is nibbling around he edges trying to see how to be loyal to their base while still carving off a piece of this phenom.
I’m old, so just call me a grouch who sees a bunch of spoiled brats detached from the realities of the world sometimes. CAGW momentum is a symptom of that attitude. Microaggression and safe spaces make me roll my eyes.
And, of course, I’m sure the same cycle presented itself 100s and then 1000s of years ago.
Maybe this is just the human ebb and flow of generational knowledge.
Rant over.
@Knute
Thats not a rant Knute,it’s a cry for help
Are you sure it’s are working out most of the time?
Actually a little depressed by the stereotypical nature of your list. I’ve been around a little while as well, and in my experience the list is (mainly) “what liberals think people they don’t like think” as opposed to “what people liberals don’t like think.”
I run into this in person with people I know as well, *most* people caricature people they have either had personal problems with, or political problems with. It makes conversation across boundaries incredibly difficult.
There is a conservative version of this list as well, it’s just not *as* distorted because the conservatives are more regularly exposed to liberal ideas (academia, media, and even conservative media is mostly about what the left is doing and saying). Still distorted, just not as badly.
Unfortunately, the distortion everywhere is so bad that heartfelt discussion is difficult or impossible, and I doubt that’s entirely accidental.
I find brilliance in the introspection it took to create the awareness.
The list is secondary to me.
The debate towards resolution becomes much easier when both parties are aware of the imbalance in their thinking.
CAGW takes advantage of the my way or highway approach. If I had a krone for each time the debate meandered away from the obvious fact that we were way warmer in the past 5000 years and into the justification that fossils are dirty and destructive and we want clean energy I would be rich.
CAGW is nonsense, but we all want clean, reliable, affordable energy.
How do we separate that desire from the need to have to justify it with CAGW BS.
“1. Capitalism and communism are the only two economic systems available.”
Communism is belief. Capitalism is not a belief, rather it’s defined by Communists as what communism is all about, which is to be against that what they define as Capitalism.
Or people have been trading since they were cavemen, and this activity is suppose to be evil which is to be cured by Communism.
And the cure was to outlaw people’s right to their property, by denying as a natural right.
So you make a pointy stick, and it’s not your stick- it’s everyone’s stick [or as turns out it’s some Dear Leader’s stick]..
gbaikie:
You say
Of course, an alternative view that is equally wrong is that
Capitalism is belief. Communism is not a belief, rather it’s defined by Capitalists as what capitalism is all about, which is to be against that what they define as Communism.
Having addressed that, is it really too much for this thread to now discuss the above essay about attempts to oppose the AGW-scare? Or are self-professed ‘libertarians’ afraid such discussion would hinder their undermining of opposition to the AGW-scare by attacking any who don’t share their politics?
Richard
I wager that there are darn few libertarians posting here. I doubt if 10 percent of the readers here even know what libertarianism really is. After all, the Republicans in the US often pretend to be “libertarian leaning”. Bull. Libertarians believe in the non-aggression principle; and from that all else follows.
The US does not have a “capitalistic” economic system. We have a crony-cap system. Or “corporatism”. Or “fascism”. Regardless, we have not had anything close to a laissez-faire free market system since at least the early 1800s, and many argue that the state was not laissez-faire even then.
Anarcho-capitalism or “market anarchism” would be the only way to achieve pure laissez-faire as any government moves toward ever more collectivism and control at all times. Take a look at the US in 1900 vs today and tell me if the 1900 individual would not call the US today a dystopian nightmare of a police state.
The modern “liberal” and the modern “conservative” both want the state to impose their vision and will. They just disagree on what the state should do. Both sides increase the power, control, and scope of the state at every opertunity. Neither side oppose overseas wars or the murders of innocent women and children. The USA is an empire and empires impose their will by force of arms. (as well as other methods) We have been at war someplace in the world (declared or not —- secret or open) all of my long life.
What the “classical liberals” who built the west and especially the US believed:
https://mises.org/library/what-classical-liberalism
~ Mark
“Communism is belief. Capitalism is not a belief, rather it’s defined by Communists as what communism is all about,”
As practiced under the USSR and the old China it was an oligarchy that existed for the elite (those belonging to the Red club) that had little to do with the definition of “communism”. Maybe the US is becoming a bit like that as Mark points out with the elite being the corporations and the extremely wealthy.
–gbaikie:
You say
Communism is belief. Capitalism is not a belief, rather it’s defined by Communists as what communism is all about, which is to be against that what they define as Capitalism.
Of course, an alternative view that is equally wrong is that
Capitalism is belief.–
No. Not all things are symmetric. Or equal protection under governmental law is not the same
as all people are equal, rather it’s shorthand to idiocy [a mindless slogan which is emotionally pleasing].
People claiming land is a natural right. Or government has no right to own land- rather it’s given
by people to government rather than the other way around.
So human claiming land is natural right. As is wandering about any land is also a natural right.
So humans have right to stay in one area as much as they have right to wander about the earth- and this has the potential of conflict.
So history is full of farmers, herdman, and hunter/gathering being in conflict regarding these natural rights
One could also say the human have a natural right to resolve their conflicts, and generally most prefer reaching agreements rather than murdering each other. So human make various rules
that compromise these natural rights, and such compromises can involve political governance.
Communism is a theory which supports an ideology, though it not scientific, and calling it theory
is excessively generous. At least people should willing to accept such theories are “soft science”
comparable to dieting fads or lost continent of Atlantis, Chariots of the Gods, and various other forms of entertainment.
–I wager that there are darn few libertarians posting here. I doubt if 10 percent of the readers here even know what libertarianism really is. —
Well I could put in libertarian camp. But I am not sure what libertarianism really is.
My worldview is the US was and remains a radical experiment. A new experimental vehicle.
Presently one might ask the question, what were the results of the great American experiment.
Which phrase was apparent coined in 1830’s:
“You are absolutely right. The term “the great American experiment” derives from Alexis de Tocqueville’s book Democracy in America, written in the 1830s. ”
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20101018151322AARUkzf
Or one could say it was one of the few revolutions which succeeded- with many revolution after this point in time, trying and failing.
So to be clear, changing regimes, is common as dirt, and getting some new manic running the place, has nothing to do with a successful revolution.
So getting back to question, what are the results of such great American experiment?
I would interested in what outside objective observers might say.
But even an insider could safely say, it made a big international splash and it might not be over.
–“Communism is belief. Capitalism is not a belief, rather it’s defined by Communists as what communism is all about,”
As practiced under the USSR and the old China it was an oligarchy that existed for the elite (those belonging to the Red club) that had little to do with the definition of “communism”. —
You can define heaven, but it doesn’t mean you will get it.
And a State can’t believe, only the people involved in a State can believe. And the supporters
of the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, N Korea, are communist. Communist who have yet to get what they hoped for- but they can never get it.
Because science predicts the future and communism isn’t scientific- rather it’s believing in unicorns.
So if it was scientific that not eating fat, will not make you fat. One can not eat fat, and still be fat.
It reality was such, that not eating fat will make you not fat, then if you avoid eating fat, you should be skinnier.
Part of the dream of communism is ridding the world of capitalism- and as I said capitalism is defined by communism. In simple terms, western civilization has to cease to exist.
It’s similar to having a goal of getting rid of evil [which no “sane” religion believes], the idea is
evil doesn’t exist, other than capitalism. And by purging the world of this human construct [rather than the nature of human beings] which is capitalism, one can defeat the one and only evil.
If you are vaguely sane, one can see some problems with this ideology.
–Maybe the US is becoming a bit like that as Mark points out with the elite being the corporations and the extremely wealthy.–
Well, US remains the richest nation on Earth, you have to buy in to communism ideology to some extent, if you think there will not be wealthy people in the US. And there billionaire in China as there are in Russia.
According to wiki in 2015 there are 1,826 billionaires in the world with combined wealth of $7.1 trillion:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World's_Billionaires
And:
“The list has been published annually in March since 1987. Microsoft founder Bill Gates has topped the list 16 of the past 21 years, including the 2015 list. In 2015, there was a record of 1,826 people on the list that included a record 290 newcomers with 71 from China, 57 from the US, 28 from India and Germany with 23. People under 40 had 46 join the list. A record of 197 women were on the list. The average net worth of the listed came in at $3.86 billion, down $60 million from 2014. Added together, the total net worth for 2015’s billionaires was $7.05 trillion, up from $6.4 trillion in 2014”
And US has 536 of them:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_the_number_of_US_dollar_billionaires
communist china has:
213
And Russia has:
88
“global-warming enthusiasts”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Enthusiasts is an excellent word, but in this case I think “devotees” is better.
” Extremists ” is more apt !
True! Believers and followers are good also I like the religious connotation of devotee though!
Typo alert: On his own page, he spells his name Siegel.
“My essay is capable of reaching liberals, challenging their assumptions, and getting them to change their views.”.
===========
And I’m capable to cut the 7 ball into the side pocket, while letting the cue ball roll into perfect position to sink the 8 ball.
That is when you learn the character of your opponent.
Attn. Anthony: The article’s misspelling of Siegel as Seigel should be corrected.
Mr. Seigel, thank you for your article, which I will share with others.
I’m curious though…what exactly was it that your friend said to you that started you on this journey?
“But perhaps if that were the case, we need to ask whether the key to making people able to consider alternative viewpoints may lie, not in rigorous scientific arguments, but in finding ways to make them feel safe enough to open up their minds about a lot more than climate”
Brilliant.
Life has been good to you.
I can’t HEAR what you are saying unless YOU understand what emotional imbalance I bring to the table.
In a gentle exchange the intent is to help each other.
Now couple that with the knowledge that some people KNOW what emotional imbalance exists in the person (or group) they are trying to communicate with and use that knowledge to trick them. This perhaps is the ultimate crime imposed on another human being.
Dante saw this clearly.
So did Machiavelli.
Countless other writers and philosophers saw the same.
re: “Dan Kahan . . . . . politics distorts our ability to reason.”, this is False. If you don’t understand politics you won’t be able to integrate it into rigorous analytical thought. Politics is real so get over it, understand it and how it impacts and governs us.
You’re both right. Politics does distort the ability to separate fact from fiction.
So does your source of income and your emotional predisposition, sense of what you need to be safe, need for standing in your community, blah blah and on and on.
Being aware of that distortion is the beginning towards understanding the bias.
I ask myself everyday lately, how did CAGW/CO2 gain such a strong foothold knowing this is a fact :
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/greenland-ice-core-isotope-past-4000-yrs.png
Partisan politics targeting voting blocks
Source of income
Emotional predisposition, esp “what are you afraid of”
Need to be part of a community
Blah blah blah blah
The reason for the ” Hockey Shtick ” !!
….looks more like fulfillment of normalcy bias. Climate scientists would like to take credit for something they don’t understand and can’t control.
Skeptical is the new heretic. Those who oppose the international community must be destroyed so that we can have peace.
Our constitutions must become an alliance which shall provide humanity with Justice, Rights, goals, aspirations, targets, ownership of each community.
In order to defeat this threat, communities must be mobilized to demand change.
If that fails, authorities must instigate operations which facilitate the attainment of agreed upon agenda obligations.
Once the various so called “trade agreements” are meshed with whateverthefuck they cobble together at the end of this month at the “government to control climate” shitshow…
The political class treats human beings as commodities and chattel. The globalist (Fabian) oligarchs use Presidents, Prime Ministers, Central Banks (B.I.S.) six or seven trans national corporations…
They create a fiction.
It’s an increasingly ugly …And very dangerous story.
David, an excellent essay. Like you many years ago I heard about CAGW and thought there was a problem. I remembered cold winters as a child (1 was born in 1955) in the UK East Midlands, near Sheffield and moved to Newcastle upon Tyne in 1974 when I went to university. The winters there were even colder, I remember on several occasions Newcastle being cut off in all directions due to heavy snow. When my eldest daughter was born in 1987, my youngest daughter, in 1989 and my son in 1995, each winter was filled with anticipation of snowmen, sledging, snowball fights; reliving my childhood with my children. It happened rarely, despite the fact that I lived in a city that was much colder in the seventies and early eighties (I had pneumonia in 1978 as a direct result of a 5 mile walk, in inadequate clothing to get home because all the roads were impassable due to 12″ of snow and temperatures of -18 Celsius)
The mild winters continued and the CAGW theory went from strength to strength and of course I believed it, my personal life experience demonstrated its truth. The turning point came when, I can’t remember the year, or who said it; that if we didn’t stop using fossil fuel, Earth would become another Venus, a runaway greenhouse effect would take over and we would have a planet with no liquid water and a surface temperature of 400 Celsius. This made me think, we are 50% further away from the Sun than Venus, how can this be? When I investigated further I found out that Venus’ atmosphere of CO2 is of the same density as our oceans at about 10 miles depth, I realised it was utter BS. There was no way this could happen on Earth, like you I started looking at the other claims made and found them equally preposterous. My knowledge of climatology, sunspot, water and carbon cycles has increased exponentially, but the main things I have learned are:
1) Not to use subjective experience as an adjunct to objective thinking.
2) Not to listen to “experts”, because this term is also subjective by those who use it, and these “experts” then become even more delusional about their authority on a subject.
3) To realise that scientists are not the ethical people I once thought they were, in essence they follow the money.
4) All scientific research should be carried out without pre-conceived notions as to the results.
5) Politics and science are mutually incompatible.
–When I investigated further I found out that Venus’ atmosphere of CO2 is of the same density as our oceans at about 10 miles depth, I realised it was utter BS. —
Pressure, not density. And btw ocean water at depth has about same density, but instead can have crushing pressure.
–There was no way this could happen on Earth, like you I started looking at the other claims made and found them equally preposterous. —
Yes, Earth being Venus like, is not possible. And It was James Hansen who thought, what happened on Venus, could happen on Earth.
“what happened” on Venus could not happen were Venus to be moved to Earth distance from the Sun, and thereby would receive about 1/2 the amount of solar flux as it does at Venus distance from the Sun.
Another thing is that at same pressure as earth [14.7 at sea level] in Venus higher elevations where it’s same pressure, is not much warmer than earth. The sunlight is much hotter, but the air temperature is only tens of degrees warmer.
[[And though few could agree with me, I would predict that Venus at earth distance would be quite
cold [lower average temperature than Earth by a few tens of degrees, and it isn’t related to runaway theories which are currently accepted].]]
Aside from all that, Venus rotates very, very slowly compared to earth so the side facing the sun gets more energy but then cools down longer when turned away. It is utterly different from earth in many ways.
It was Dr Carl Sagan who said that the temperature on Venus was proof of the runaway green house effect of CO2. The thick clouds that surround the planet block 95% of the sunlight from ever reaching the surface of Venus. The temperature of the surface of Venus is due to the insulating of Venus’ own internal heating by the thick clouds that surround the planet. Venus would be just as hot in Earth’s orbit.
Because of Venus closeness to the sun, perhaps there was never enough condensing water to tie up the CO2 into carbonates.
-It was Dr Carl Sagan who said that the temperature on Venus was proof of the runaway green house effect of CO2.-
But did he say Earth could become like Venus?
And citing:
“Already back in 1940, Rupert Wildt had made a rough calculation of the greenhouse effect from the large amount of CO2 that others had found in telescope studies of Venus; he predicted the effect could raise the surface temperature above the boiling point of water. But raising it as high as 600°K seemed impossible.(4*) Nobody mounted a serious attack on the problem (after all, very few people were doing any kind of planetary astronomy in those decades). Finally in 1960 a young doctoral student, Carl Sagan, took up the problem and got a solution that made his name known among astronomers. Using what he later recalled as “embarrassingly crude” methods, taking data from tables designed for steam boiler engineering, he confirmed that Venus could indeed be a greenhouse effect furnace.(5) The atmosphere would have to be almost totally opaque, and this “very efficient greenhouse effect” couldn’t all be due to CO2. He pointed to absorption of radiation by water vapor as the likely culprit. ”
https://www.aip.org/history/climate/Venus.htm
Rupert Wildt was correct, and Sagan was wrong, in the sense that we know there isn’t much water vapor on Venus, and Sagan when a doctoral student was supporting Wildt’s hypothesis.
But in analogy, Sagan was like Bill Nye the science guy, Hansen was like Michael Mann.
Sagan/Nye focuses on TV/print media and Hansen/Mann writes scientific media [wrote papers with pal peer review] and Hansen/Mann have governmental positions of authority.
And a perception could be that Hansen/Mann is doing “real science”, and Sagan/Nye are talking about the “real science” done. [Though it could also be considered a group effort at promoting pseudoscience in different and supporting venues.]
-The thick clouds that surround the planet block 95% of the sunlight from ever reaching the surface of Venus. –
I would correct this by saying that less than 95% of sunlight reaches the surface of Venus.
Also it seems to me that were Venus cloudless, it would still have less than 95% of the sunlight reaching the surface of Venus.
And also less the 50% of the sunlight reaches the surface of Earth.
Which btw, is part of reason related to why, solar energy doesn’t economically work on the Earth surface.
Or 24 hour of 1.3 kW is 31.2 kW and best location on earth get about 8 kW on average per 24 hours. So 31.2 divided by 2 is 15.6. So best locations get slightly more than 50%.
And country like Germany get about 2 kw hours per day on average, which is less than 20%.
-The temperature of the surface of Venus is due to the insulating of Venus’ own internal heating by the thick clouds that surround the planet. Venus would be just as hot in Earth’s orbit.-
Well, that is not the popular theory, but I think it’s possibly related to explaining why Venus is hot
But broadly, most would agree that Venus is less geological active than Earth and/or Earth interior conducted more heat to the surface as compared to Venus. Also earth is 70% covered with deep
oceans which roughly would insulate better [the Earth oceans are certainly more opaque to all electromagnetic energy than compared Venus atmosphere].
There is a lot unknowns in regards to Venus. For instance there a hypothesis/theory that Venus periodically is re-surface [say 100 or 200 million year intervals], so no question that were Venus completely covered in molten lava, during such period, one has far more “geological” heat.
But my guess is the sun warms the Venusian clouds, and the warmed clouds warm the atmospheric gases at high elevation, or vaguely in ballpark of Earth’s atmosphere pressure, say within in the range of .5 to 3 atm of pressure. Or wiki, Venus Atmosphere:
“40 km 143 C 3.501 atm”
to:
“55 km 27 C 0.5314 atm”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Venus
And reason Venus would be much cooler at Earth distance is one, it does not rotate, and would not have such fast global wind that in terms of atmosphere “acts” as rotation. Because
the sunlight is less intense at Earth distance and would unable to heat the clouds by very much, and there would be something analogous to runaway effect, related to contraction of the height of ‘atmosphere. Or has less vertical height in regards to the atmospheric lapse rate. And once cool enough the CO2 changes into liquid CO2- making such runaway cooling effect more massive.
And it’s widely accepted that CO2 by itself is a weak greenhouse gas- and Venus has very little water.
Many here see the whole thing, proponent or skeptic as ideological left and right and we waste a lot of argument time on this simplistic two component categorization. It is used opportunistically to brand skeptics and proponents by either side. It is, however far more complex than this. There is, of course, a lot to be said for such an ideological division between unthinking adherents because they do make up the vast majority of the population.
There is also great asymmetry to it. Most of the world is governed by leftists and it is clear that, without even considering whether a great warming is going to happen or not, CAGW does provide a lever for greater control for the Big Government type, for central planning and for World Government. It is a cousin of the follow the money idea – who does it benefit. If such a lever was available to the right, no question, they would use it with abandon.
The exceptions to the ideological dichotomy are those of an honest, thinking group who have studied the issues and data scientifically and disinterestedly and who are persuaded to the proponent or the skeptical side to varying degrees – moderate warmists who see a worrisome downside to a degree or two rise in the next 100yrs (flooded shorelines, amplification of extreme events, etc.) and skeptics who see some warming, but are persuaded that there are negative feedbacks that will keep a lid on excessive warming and the warming that has occurred seems to have been beneficial, perhaps like the MWP, etc. I would say without qualifying it that extreme views are not held by this important but small group.
The most treasured are those, like David Siegal, who have changed their minds to the skeptical side because of dissatisfaction with what they believed were going to be alarming outcomes of warming that weren’t coming to pass, or because of clear distortions, exaggerations, data fudging, or other egregious behavior by proponents of the essentially political side (scientists following the money). There seems to be little or no persuasions the other way toward the alarm side, which is very telling.
I suspect we will see some drift rightward, likely remaining still leftish but with some legislative controls on the types of activities governments have engaged in as the extremist stuff crash lands.
Once again David welcome to the bright side.
Check out ;No Fracking Consensus by Donna LaFramboise. over on the RH sidebar here.
In WUWT archives is a very similar thread, as to how many here found their away back into trying the scientific method, with respect to Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming.
Have to say, while I admire your intent, I personally am at the point where I regard this climate scare as an intelligence test.
A person who buys into such a concept without thought, can be sold most anything.
Secondly these believers are fanatical, using their wealth and leisure to hack at the institutions upon which our civilization is built.
As a consequence I am reevaluating my ethics, as failing to separate such gullible maniacs from both their wealth and leisure may cost us our civilization.
I also want to see these Alarmed Ones get what they have been proscribing for the rest of humanity.
Especially those who deliberately act to prevent the poor people of this world from enjoying cheap reliable electricity.
Personal responsibility is important.
I wonder if after looking into the facts (the national debt, the deterioration of public education under federal guidelines), this self described liberal might think the US govt is, you know, really too big. Just an idea.
No, Joel…. not too big…. just misguided and, I would think, poorly prioritized.
If the richest country in the world can’t pay for it, it might be too big. Just a thought.
Mero
I assume you mean the US. China is 2T richer than us at this point.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CAcQjRxqFQoTCMnCvc-HkckCFUN4JgodTc0OPA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nationalpriorities.org%2Fbudget-basics%2Ffederal-budget-101%2Fspending%2F&psig=AFQjCNFTwTqyNZFWYZIy3I6hhu6S6XNJxA&ust=1447629856763656
We argue all the time about how the family budget is spent.
So does my community.
It’s good though.
A phrase I hear more and more.
You can ignore reality, but you cant ignore the consequences of reality forever.
Heard it again today concerning Paris.
But, don’t you know, it could be done right *this time* with the *right people* in charge!
I guess I should be charitable and call that the triumph of hope over experience… if it wasn’t for all the blood and tears.
“But, don’t you know, it could be done right *this time* with the *right people* in charge!”
And this time it’s different, because internet!
As an ex supporter of Greenpeace and The Australian Greens (until two years ago) I welcome you to the club.
And who welcomed you?
I would run a mile from any ‘club’ with ex Greenpeace and Australian Greens supporters as members. Sorry there’s no such thing as an ex nutcase.
There are many ex-greens at WUWT one can’t throw a half brick without hitting one. Jim Steele I think was one.
You’ll find his name on the right margin of the page in the group of skeptical views.
Just because you disagree with someone does not make them a “nut case”.
And stating that they are when in fact they are not, is not going to leave them open to efforts communicate.
michael
This is a club of truth-seekers. That’s all that’s required. Those who don’t understand that may find themselves outside of the club–you can determine where you stand by your genuine intentions and good manners.
A great way to destroy a movement is to convince someone to join and then insult them and drive them off because you disagree about something else, totally different.
Michael I am not the slightest bit interested in communicating with any of these rats as they jump ship,much the same as I am not interested in extending a ‘hand of friendship’ to Isis.This is about science not communication.
With referance to the word ‘nutcases’ you obviously have no experience of the Australian Greens.
I would encourage you to employ Thumper’s mother’s advice, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all.”
Careful you are surrounded JB Goode.
I am still a conservationist. once funded save the whales and the antinuclear testing movement.
The organization changed.
Bureaucracy and greed take every do-good operation to hell in a few short years.
Political labels are used to divid and conquer us.
Exgreenpeace is a mark of maturity.
Up thread there is a whole lot of verbiage Liberals good/bad/insane.
This is a classic demonstration of having the language stolen by the deceivers those who style themselves Progressive.
Liberals were once the supporters of individual freedom and limited lordship.
By stealing that label the progressives engaged in their favourite occupation , branding, Public relabelling to disci use their nature.
So never mind the left right divide, what we are dealing with is far simpler, Fools and Bandits.
Actions speak louder than lies.
Politicians will call themselves anything you want, to gain power.
The Team UN IPCC ™ scheme is statist greed via bureaucracy.
As in entrenched full time parasites attempting to create their utopia.
John
“Careful you are surrounded JB Goode”
I read JB’s posts.
The one that struck me the most was comparing a CAGW convert to an ISIS convert.
I thought about it for awhile and see a kernel of truth in his emotion.
I emphasize kernel, because the matter of degree is important.
Would I be leery of an ISIS convert ? Sure.
I’d be on the lookout for the tendency to be seduced to a movement, but then if you’re a convert, you became one because you too understand the temptation of movements. I feel pretty stupid for having ever given CAGW (and other types of movements) any validity in my brain. It’s humbling.
Anyway, I see the kernel.
Life is a long and winding road.
JB Goode
’ you obviously have no experience of the Australian Greens.
True. How do they differ from the rest of us on the planet. More arms? Legs?
There are people that can see the “light”
always cherish reason in the mind of your enemy, you will not always have that luxury
michael
“always cherish reason in the mind of your enemy, you will not always have that luxury”
Amen to that Mike.
‘How do they differ from the rest of us on the planet. More arms? Legs?
My original reply was to ‘wickedwenchfan’ who in the past has refered to the ex Australian PM and many of his ministers as ‘just a vile bunch of hate encouraging extremists’
I find it hard not to lose patience with this mindless vitriol and in answer to your question on how they differ from the rest of us on the planet,same arms and legs just more hatred.
Politics and science are like oil and water, they do not mix very well. Western governments have been rather silly focusing on a chimera whilst the elephant in the room has been smashing the furniture. We citizens do best when we have a goal [ “We shall land a man on the moon by the end of this decade”] comes to mind.
The events in Paris may be the start of the end of AGW as more people focus on a real problem.
“The events in Paris may be the start of the end of AGW as more people focus on a real problem.”
It’s no big secret that the carbon exchange began to gain steam in Clinton’s second term. Then Bush got elected and squashed Kyoto. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/12/world/bush-will-continue-to-oppose-kyoto-pact-on-global-warming.html?pagewanted=all
Then 9_11 happened. No link necessary.
Carbon worries got put in the drawer.
Time passed, we became war weary and CAGW reappeared.
Paris CAGW Summit in a couple of weeks and Paris happens ?
A swinging of the pendulum ?
A call to reality ?
It’s a correlation and obviously not a causative relationship, but from a messaging point of view I’d be cautious in how the reality of this correlation is presented.
The political objective in pressing the alarmist agenda is clear. Politicians gather and retain power by trading in favors—favors with value. As was discussed on a recent CATO podcast, In economics, there are two kinds of value assigned to a commodity—that of usefulness (the value of water was used as an example for this), and the value of exchange (diamonds were used as an example of this kind of value). Value was further expanded upon by differentiating Capital value versus consumer end product capital. The highest thing of value are thing with a high exchange price AND capital usefulness. The politicians’ objective is clear here—emission of CO2 is a non-scarce commodity, and one of usefulness, since we generate energy this way. The objective is to take a relatively abundant commodity and to turn it into a highly-valued commodity with a high exchange price, so that favors can be traded. Often people lose sight of these basic incentives that drive the political agendas. They think of government (and by extension politicians) as selfless and without incentive, but people are people, and politicians even more so. The chain of government money and favors has become quite strong since the early 90’s, when I first started arguing against jumping to conclusions on this subject—after all real science is based on data, not merely hypotheses turned into code (models). Unfortunately, we are dependent on the awareness and knowledge of the population in general and the alarmist merely on their desire to do the right thing. We are at a significant disadvantage.
“real science is based on data, not merely hypotheses turned into code (models)”
But nowadays people have been conditioned to trust output from computers (even if it’s obviously wrong) because usually the error will be caught later and corrected. If the output of computers is intentionally manipulated it’s very difficult to catch those who mean to deceive and layers upon layers of excuses can be generated until the “problem goes away” due to complexity, emergence of a new, more important “issue” or just fatigue on the part of those doing the diligence.
Certainly people put too much confidence in something said to come “from computers”—but of course the computers don’t actually have an opinion, they only summarize the relationships that people code in. That’s the crux of the matter: the modelers have to assume that they know everything and every relationship, or that what they don’t know is unimportant. But of course we all know that the models are deeply flawed—missing things that real science might find, if the alarmist would stop creating models of their own arrogant thoughts and try to learn something new about how the system works. That’s one of the things Freeman Dyson used to rail about—that all the effort went into describing hypotheses in code instead of taking good measurements and admitting how little is known.
One can create a finite element model of a system, but it doesn’t matter how fine the elements may be if the input assumptions are wrong. Being able to admit you’re wrong and seeking out people to help prove you’re wrong is one way we learn and our knowledge grows, but don’t hold your breath on that one.
One of my teams (I’ve done lots of things) used to measure and model the gravitational field around Earth. We didn’t assume we knew the precise mass distribution, but measured its effects on low earth orbit satellites. We used a model for precise orbit predictions, and even that long-used, long tested model was constantly being updated, based on new actual data. And the measurement techniques grew ever more precise—and more accurate. The modelers should be embarrassed by the fact that, not only is there no provable cause-effect accurate prediction between CO2 concentrations alone and average global temperature, but they’ve even lost the correlation, yet they still proclaim the models to be correct.
For me, I say we know shockingly little, and we don’t even seem to be trying to actually learn—not in a serious way. The science atrophied when the subject moved into the political arena. And, climate gate SHOULD have spelled the end of some careers. It’s a sad thing that’s being done to real science and truth seekers. Another example: Even the articles about planets around other stars are written as if we have direct observation, rather than inference from orbital periods and star wiggles. I’d bet many people believe we’ve seen earth-like planets, from the articles. The basic math of understanding the resolving power limits of a telescope—something I learned in high school—are apparently thought to be beyond the ability of the average person to understand, or explain. Science is becoming a religion and scientists are treated as a priesthood. This despite obvious on-going mistakes—even the food pyramid has been wrong for decades.
@David Seigel. I would just keep at it. I posted your first WUWT post on my “social media” and maybe got 2 responses. I am not a scientist, but I do believe in “The Key to Science”, as has been posted here many times by me and others:
Ouch!
After 116 comments,”believe” is used 29 times, “belief” 14 times, and “science “62” times.
Based on this quantitative evidence, this is still a science rather than a religious blog. My compliments to our host.
I hate not being able to respond to posts at a certain “comment depth.”
Knute, China’s estimated 2015 GDP is 11.3T. The US is 18T. The former is not 2T higher than the latter.
You’re using PPP adjusted numbers, which are A) wrong and B) do not paint the country with the lower living standards as “richer” in a meaningful way.
If you want to append numbers with “well, things are cheap in China (especially life)”, that’s one thing. But saying their GDP is higher (or higher per person) is dramatically wrong.
Kind of like continuously changing past temperatures to get new records on the books and in the papers.
http://www.worldsrichestcountries.com/index.html
I used the IMF numbers.
It has a variety of ways to break it down, GDP, per capita yada yada.
The ________ is the richest (by GDP) country in the world.
What would you put in that sentence ?
The United States of America, by actual GDP numbers. By an extremely large margin. The site you linked mentioned the numbers were adjusted, but they don’t list the raw numbers.
Here are both: http://knoema.com/nwnfkne/world-gdp-ranking-2015-data-and-charts
This is also the debate wandering away from the obvious facts.
Thanks Mero
I like your link better. The PPP listing China as first is also very interesting.
The wealth of a country is not relevant to the science of CAGW, but is relevant to the potential bias of who supports the movement.
In any event, thanks for taking the time to answer me.
I lose interest in debating the science of CAGW because the I see no reason to debate the science when it’s obvious that we were warmer in the past 5000 years (Greenland ice cores). What I mostly see is that CAGW supporters gain tremendous momentum and attention by engaging folks down rabbit holes of meaningless measurements. Scientists take the bait because ummmm ahhhh well they are either being polite or enjoy the chance to debate.
It’s quite the con job.
My reply to Climate Change is Real etc’s…response to David Seigel:
You seem to have fallen for the “observation = fast track to causation” fallacy; but then again I’m certain that you and fallacy are old friends if not already in an incestuous relationship.
In your claim that “firestorms” such as those in Australia, where I live, are “burning more fiercely”, you have fallen at the first hurdle.
The incidents that you quote were all due to poor fuel load management resulting from the banning of “prescribed burns” by local, state & territory governments which were all infected by the “green rash” of ideological stupidity.
If you didn’t know this, then you are not to be trusted as your opinion is formed in ignorance. On the other hand, if you were aware of the situation, you are guilty of perpetuating a fraud. get it?
Where does the “total solar irradiation (TSI)” data back to 1800 come from?
Terrific essay.
Dr Who has been at it again. Or perhaps it was Captain Kirk
The rebuttal to David’s essay is drivel. Lazy. Intellectually vacuous.
Two examples of the ‘scientific backing’ of the counter claims made by David’s detractors: 1) summer heat wave in France several years back was exacerbated by global warming. Links you to a paper that does not test this notion in the slightest. The abstract makes no mention of climate change at all. Nevermind an analysis of the number lives saved due to warmer winters; 2) A recent finding that global cooling of ocean temps until 1800s followed by a rise (the latter is implied by David’s detractors to be due to industrialization) links to a paper that concludes the cooling trend was primarily due to unusually high levels of vulcanism over that period. So the null hypothesis predicts warming reflecting a return to baseline as the effect of vulcanism wears off.
Much of it is a mixture of different rhetorical fallacies with ad hominem arguments most prominent.
I would have appreciated some dates in the story.
How many years did you blindly follow the orthodox story?
You wrote a book on the subject, didn’t you research anything before writing it?
How long did you fight with the logical paradox of Climate Change and Everything’s Normal?
While it’s great that you did FINALY take a look into the subject. It bothers me greatly that sceptics have been arguing against this nonsense for 30 years. I have little sympathy for you, but I’m glad you finally understand that people lie.
It takes courage to move away from the herd. David Seigel has done a thorough job. When I look at the loney tunes spouting nonsense I can see doubt on their faces but rather than face the truth they are doubling down in a vain attempt to save face.
The rebuttal, posted on Sow from Cowabungadownunda’s web site, written by Laden the liar and his ilk, referring to that highly respected psychological researcher, Lewpaper, is something I could write. It’s really funny to see the projection that happens on the alarmist side. Things that affect us evil deniers, those irresistible psychological motivators, magically don’t affect alarmists at all. It’s a friggin miracle that this horrible affliction knows how to avoid the alarmist good guys, who, after all, are saving the planet. I smell Mother Gaia’s wise and profound influence in this deep and ancient magic. Or maybe it’s just a rat.
or a Crazy Cat Lady…
I have not read the paper (but perhaps it is only an online thing, suitable for people who say “I like” to anything Mr. Zukerberg says). In Europe, as in any (intellectually) developped area of the world, we tend to consider anything which refers to things as a matter of faith as passé (outdated, for you English speakers).
Very well written and worth the time even for those long engaged.
When you look to learn it’s surprising what you find. The science is for the scientists to hash out. The politics we can all understand.
If you watched the Dem’s debate last night, you now know that all of the dem candidates agree that Climate Change was the Real Reason behind the attacks in Paris.
Seriously. They actually said that.
Reblogged this on gottadobetterthanthis and commented:
–
Interesting discussion in the comments. Perhaps overly heated, but interesting.
For me, I’ll give people the benefit of the doubt. I’ll watch the reality of the situation, and if someone gives me evidence that what they say isn’t true, well, reevaluate then.
“……..On October 16, I launched a 9,000 word essay on my conversion …………..”
CONVERSION ??
Interesting choice of words Dave Seigel uses. It should tell all of us how the “true believers;” think; or more precisely don’t think.
Its great that Dave decided to actually turn on his brain and STUDY THE DATA !!
In his original essay he states he “believed” the AGW thesis. Does he mean that he simply accepted, without question, what the “experts” (or in the case of Al Gore, Obama, et.al.,the con men) were saying.
Why did he do this?
Because they had the same POLITICAL IDEOLOGY as Dave Seigel? Because Obama also believes in the AGW thesis? Because as a liberal progressive and believer in big government, he is convinced that govt. will not lie, mislead or even become a tyrannical, despite ample historical precedents?
Because the “experts” would not dare to lie?
Why did he not check out for himself, PRIOR to his being prompted by a friends remarks, to do his research?
Dave, despite his “conversion,” is your typical, non thinking MORON; your typical liberal progressive “useful idiot.”
Yea, it’s great he finally decided to use his brains.
I guess better late than never (but tell that to all those working families that have LOST their jobs !! as a result of this phony AGW BS).
Climate Change is real, i.e. it has been going on ever since the Earth acquired a climate roughly 4+ billon years ago. Man made CO2 is not the primary cause of the change. Remember we are in a Warm period following an Ice Age. Man made CO2 is not the cause of the warming that brought us out of the Ice Age.
Climate Change may be important, but man has survived one Ice Age by adapting.
David Siegel, thank you for your essay. I’m sorry I missed it when it was posted in October, but I’ve read it now and am sending the link to my friends.
I still do not understand what being a vegan has to do with believing or not, science!
That’s because you are most likely not a liberal progressive.
To a liberal progressive, being a vegan is just not a dietary choice; it is a STATEMENT that they are different, superior, more moral than we mere human refuse. (Let’s ignore the fact that humans evolved on fat and protein) . Sort of like most (not all) folks that eat only gluten free foods yet have zero idea what gluten is or how it MAY affect one’s metabolism.
To believe in the AGW thesis (assuming you are not receiving monetary grants supporting this religious endeavor) is to ascribe to the BELIEF (irrespective of the facts) that because humans are destroying the planet, some humans – the AGW zealots – are superior, better than those humans who ARE destroying the planet .
It is a statement of of moral superiority by the self anointed.
Hitler was not a vegan, nor even a vegetarian.
I would take exception only with “mainstream audiences like Huffpo, Slate, Forbes, The Atlantic, and others.” Presumably the author would include the NY Times and the Wash. Post. None of this is “mainstream media any more.” This is DemocRAT party propaganda machine which wishes nothing less then the demise of this country. Let’s quit the semantics and call things what they are.
David Siegel.
You need to be introduced to Brad Keyes.
Climate Nuremberg.
Your delivery could use a little help in reaching your target audience, i suspect you could find some help there.
Also Pointman has been working on your angle for years.
Google is our friend?
Can anyone explain this doublespeak from the University of Southampton
http://www.southampton.ac.uk/news/2015/11/thermal-sensitivity-study.page
The sensitivity of marine communities to ocean warming rather than rising ocean temperatures will have strong short-term impacts on biodiversity changes associated with global warming, according to new research.
EricHa
Do I get a prize ?
“to ocean warming rather than rising ocean temperatures”
Using an example to explain, it looks like they are referring to biota that live in target areas such as the edge of the estuary versus the bigger body of water.
I’m suffering from a need to take an of this seriously lately since ice cores show we were warmer over the past 5000 years. The increasing dive into the rabbit hole bugs me. I feel baited over and over.
Aha so it isn’t “rising ocean temperatures” but the “ocean warming” that is the problem. Got it. NOT!
It continues
Study co-author Dr Amanda Bates, from Ocean and Earth Science at the University of Southampton, said: “In 100 years from now, 100 per cent of species in many communities will be lost and replaced by new species able to tolerate warmer conditions, leading to a redistribution of species across the globe.”
So nothing to worry about then.
I am much taken with your experience of converting “liberal” CAGWT believers away from the faith.
I do have a major reservation, however, about applying the term “liberal” to this cultural/political group. They seem, not liberal, but mentally stunted acolytes with not a liberal synapse in their crania. And this is whereI trot out my “Bertrand Russell Liberal Grading Scale.” Russell was a prominent and very respected liberal of the 1950s. He wrote what I consider is still the touchstone definition of liberalism. So, here goes ̶
As a liberal,
1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.
2. Do not think it worthwhile to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.
3. Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed.
4. When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.
5. Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.
6. Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.
7. Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
8. Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.
9. Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.
10. Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool’s paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness. . . .
Number 10 falls a little flat. As alternate, here’s a George F. Will paraphrase:
“Do not trust any excuse that closes debate; it means the debate is raging and whoever is saying that is losing.”
There are other, far older versions of the Ten Commandments that also apply.
I think I have read your entire essay … but … there are many spaces where it appears I should be seeing a graph or chart, but all I see are lightly shaded rectangular shapes — no charts in them.
Perhaps related to my Apple MacBook Pro computer not seeing your charts, because they require software I don’t have?
Since I do see some of your charts online, and in my screen shot of your article, I have no idea what I am missing, if anything.
Thanks for the clear writing — you definitely know how to communicate.
I don’t recall reading anything about the fact that warming is GOOD NEWS, for two reasons:
(1) The post 1850 warming follows quite a few cool centuries from 1300 to 1800 (“regression to the mean”?), … and
(2) People LIKE the type of warming satellites have actually measured: The most warming is in the northern half of the Northern Hemisphere, where few people live, mainly at night, and mainly in the winter!
If it doesn’t get as cold during the night, in normally cold areas of the planet, and that extends the growing season = it’s GOOD NEWS global warming.
If tropical areas were getting higher temperatures during the day, that could be BAD NEWS global warming, but that’s not a summary of what the weather satellites actually see.
While agreeing with many of Mr. Siegel’s assertions, I’ll focus on a point of sharp disagreement. He asserts that “A skillful model would successfully predict future observations” but climate models do not “predict.” They “project.”
A “prediction” is a kind of proposition. A “projection” is NOT a kind of proposition.
That a prediction is a kind of proposition contrains a model that makes predictions by logical principles. That a projection is not a kind of proposition frees a model that makes projections from this constraint.
Can’t follow you Terry. Projections as put forward by, for example, Hanson, are merely predictions with prepended “if” clauses. “if we do business as usual, this is what will happen.” This “projection” can be falsified just as clearly as any simple prediction. And in this case has been.
Kudos to David Seigel for a devastating fisking of his critics’ arguments.
Unfortunatelly, this happens a lot: there are so many switches in this area, so I’m not surprised by another one. It’s both ironic and true and it seems this situation happens in most of the fields linked in any way to the climate.
“Smoking gun #1: The Hockey Stick is Wrong; The Medieval warming period was real and worldwide.”
I cant stop reading this fast enough.
Can we go to real problems now ?
Hi Knute have you ever heard of the Brontosaurus?
Oops wrong head! (urban legend has it the scientist grabbed another dinos head, truth is more bizzare)
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-brontosaurus-is-back1/
Human beings make mistakes.
Oh and I read all your posts
michael
Honored and back at ya.
Yeah bring back the Bron.
Dinosaurs and Earth Sciences were the first books my aunt bought me … I couldn’t even read yet. Sweet lady … sweet memories.
“When a group of people in government and industry decide on a policy, they can use carrots (good jobs, grants, and prestige) and sticks (loss of jobs and grants, organized slander, and worse) to make their guidelines clear, and most people will choose to follow those cues, even if they know that the policy is wrong. …” ~ biochemist Raymond Peat in http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/fishoil.shtml
The above quote was in an article far removed from the CO2 will fry us to death meme. It was an article on various types of oils and how the industrial concerns and the government enforced a policy (a party line) that may be deadly to your health. I bet others here could relate similar items from other fields. When corporate interests and the government converge on a policy — the truth be damned.
The carrots and the sticks that the state and its minions can wield against anyone bucking the party line is an awesome force.
There is a very similar story here
http://www.amazon.com/How-Cure-Climate-Change-Denier-ebook/dp/B00GA2V4KM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1447622316&sr=8-1&keywords=paul+caruso
Paul Caruso, an ex-Greenpeace member explain what it would take from the alarmists to get him to believe in global warming again.
That whopper was in the first paragraph. If it were true, the entire world would be challenging the consensus on climate change, including climate scientists themselves. That’s because the vast majority of people on earth have “financial or other interests” in the use of fossil fuels. They may not realize it, of course, but they do. If all fossil fuels on the planet were to suddenly disappear, cities would lose power and go dark, the internet and most communications would go down, transportation would come to a standstill, and privates jets would be grounded. The alarmists and political elites who constantly wish for such an event would cry and complain louder than the rest of us. Luckily, unless one of them was your neighbor, we wouldn’t be able to hear them.
Maybe Anthony does have game.
Considering the horse named “Anthonysgotgame” just won the 5th at Del Mar.
Gotta luv it.
The favorite in the next race is named “Oil”
I’m not kidding, nor expecting it to win.
I never get two wins in a row.
Still don’t.
David is spot on . But he left off the major problem of animal agriculture. He is a vegan so he probably did not want to exploit it.
Animal agriculture is the number one polluter and highest user of water and land resources. We need to go more vegetarian or we will run out of resources failing animals to eat.
I enjoyed your first essay, Mr. Seigel, and I posted it with links during a couple of online arguments because it’s easily digestible to the layman. Of course, I got the response of “conspiracy theories”, conclusions based on “blatant lies”, and “almost no critical thinking”. And of course, “why should I listen to a businessman instead of ‘experts’.”
Seriously, it’s exhausting – which is why I have such respect for those who stand at the forefront of this battle taking slings and arrows from these modern-day witch-burners. And I’m glad you’ve stuck to your guns, and taken the time to respond to the pushback.
You should, however, be prepared to accept the fact that there is literally nothing you can do or say to change a closed mind. And I guess that is the catch-22 – how do you deal with futility, when futility is not an acceptable option? Because these Warmists cannot be allowed to proceed, but they absolutely will not stop. Ever.
“Because these Warmists cannot be allowed to proceed, but they absolutely will not stop. Ever.”
Humans are mortal. And religion is pass down to next generation- this require work. And children tend to reject parents and other authority- it’s necessary for survival of any vague intelligent species. So regardless of how poor the educational system is, children will tend to reject the brainwashing or be too lazy to continue it.
So that the great thing about Human mortality. Though even if humans were immortal, they would simply get bored with it and/or the slow witted would get some leakage.
Warmists have already leapt the shark, and we are in the decay phase at the moment.
A death by boredom. Though people will come back to it again, because it will seem “new”- or “global warming” has already done this, and there no reason it will not happen again.
One could say the Left is all about re-doing old stupid ideas.
Vegetarian better for the environment? Have you see this TED Talk about desertification by Allen Savory?
https://www.ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_green_the_world_s_deserts_and_reverse_climate_change?language=en
As late as 1969, [Savory] was advocating culling large populations of wild animals such as elephants, when they appeared to be destroying their habitat.[19][20] His research, validated by a committee of scientists, led to the government culling of 40,000 elephants in following years but he later concluded the culling did not reverse the degradation of the land, calling that decision “the saddest and greatest blunder of my life.”[21][22] This blunder [was] brought about by interpreting research data to fit the prevailing world-view that too many animals causes overgrazing and over browsing, (from Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_Savory)
This sorry man was responsible for killing 40,000 elephants before he realized that large herds of animals are what make the grass lands thrive.