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Guest essay by Eric Worrall
“So, you’re awake. But you’re still going to die”. The first words I heard spoken by my surgeon, waking from general anaesthetic, after a horrific operation to try to repair the mess created by my ruptured appendix.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m very grateful to the surgeon, whose extraordinary skill undoubtably saved my life. But that day I believed his warning. I thought I was going to die. After all, he was a highly qualified surgeon, a credible source of information.
I learned something that week about credibility and evidence. People who follow WUWT might be aware of the flimsiness of the evidence behind sensationalist climate warnings. But most people don’t pay much attention to climate issues. Many of them remain susceptible to authoritative sounding scare stories.
Consider the following;
The world faces widespread food shortages due to global warming: Crops will become scarce as droughts ravage Africa and Asia
…
Widespread water shortages caused by rising global temperatures could lead to food shortages and mass migration, an expert has warned.
The head of the World Meteorological Society, Michel Jarraud has warned that of all the threats posed by a warming climate, shrinking water supplies are the most serious.
It is predicted that by 2025, some 2.8 billion people will live in ‘water scarce’ areas – a huge rise from the 1.6 billion who do now.
Parts of Africa, the Middle East and Asia will be worst affected, with pockets of Australia, the US and southern Europe also predicted to suffer.
Mr Jarraud told Carbon Brief that although it has been a few years since a spate of major food crises, ‘all the ingredients are there for a food crisis to come back on a very large scale.’
Why isn’t this warning credible? For one thing, climate models have demonstrated no skill whatsoever at predicting climate on a global scale, let alone a regional scale. So making solemn announcements about specific future regional climate events, based on models which cannot demonstrate predictive skill, seems more than a little pointless.
But you have to know that climate models are useless at prediction, to be able to conclude the warning isn’t credible. People don’t have time to research everything they are told. If someone credible tells a person seriously bad news, about an issue of which they have little prior knowledge, many people simply accept what they are told.
I didn’t die – so my surgeon was wrong. Maybe I was just very lucky, though I believe there was another factor working in my favour. Everyone on my father’s side of the family live to an obscenely old age, and rarely get ill. The surgeon told me my appendix had ruptured at least a week before I was admitted to hospital. For most of that week, my immune system fought gangrene and peritonitis to a standstill, doing such a good job, I didn’t even know I was sick.
Even with experience and skill, prediction is a difficult. In my opinion, an authoritative sounding prediction based on unskilled models is downright reprehensible.
Global warming will cause more water to evaporate from the oceans. Then the water vapor rises into the atmosphere. But it doesn’t stay up there forever. It eventually condenses and falls back to earth as rain, snow, sleet or hail. So warming means more rain, not less.
Glad that you made it Eric!
I find the responses to Eric’s post fascinating. Eric is the “credible source”, who told us something, and without any further evidence or research, many of us accept what he said as true.
But any judgements about whether or not the surgeon in question is like a failed model, are purely subjective without more evidence. How often is that surgeon wrong? Was he in fact correct at the moment he made the statement? Did Eric, as a unique individual, respond differently than expected and thus change the outcome? Or did the doctor not have full information when he said it…and thus make statement based on his fullest knowledge at the time? Did he lie? Did Eric tell us everything, or did quantifying statements follow his declaration?
A truly logical mindset is consistently logical, or strives to be. It is capable of believing that Eric’s story is accurate from Eric’s point of view, but also refusing to make a determination about the doctor’s predictive abilities without examinging all possibilities first. And until it can, Eric’s story is merely anecdotal as a comparison to climate models and modelers.
Details are important. The title of the article Eric referenced makes a claim that is not supported by the quotes Eric used. The title insinuates that something terribleqrhc “will happen”, but the quotes say “could happen”. If water is the most important requirement for human survival, then of course one can honestly say that drought, which limits the amount of drinking water readily available to humans, is the greatest threat that COULD occur in the list of things that COULD happen due to global warming. Is the scientist quoted warning us that it could happen, because all the markers are there that preceeded it before, or is the scientist saying it WILL happen…guaranteed?
We have to be as vigilant about what IS said, and what is implied, if we want to be viewed differently than everyone else who just reads a title, or hears someone that we find credible say something, and just accepts what is stated, as the truth. If we make assumptions about someone else’s motives or circumstances based on premises that we cannot prove, we are no better than the people who call us science deniers, or shills.
“But most people don’t pay much attention to climate issues. ”
I was chatting to a good friend a couple of days ago, who I’d assumed believed what I’d told her over the years about the climate scam. She always jokes that I’m always talking about it. I was astounded when she said “Oh come on Tony. There’s lots of evidence to support it.”
I naturally asked her exactly what that evidence was and she said “Oh I don’t know. I’m not a scientist but I know there’s heaps of evidence.”
I pointed out some basics but it went straight over her head.
I have no doubt that the majority of people are like this. The big question is how to get through to them?
Had an eye exam one time and it confirmed what I already knew, my eyesight was getting worse. I asked my opthalmologist for a diagnosis of why this was happening and whether it would it improve on it’s own.
He said “Unfortunately it will not improve but will actually get steadily worse. You need to know you have a terminal condition……… you’re getting older and so are your eyes”
Made me laugh out loud, I thought it might have been a serious problem, phew !
Most doctors and surgeons do not know or understand nearly as much as they think that they do.
The same can be applied to Climatologists.
Writes ntesdorf:
“Most doctors and surgeons,” knowing how hard it is to be certain about what goes on in a complex multivariant system with nonlinear responses to input, have examined the “consensus” climatologists’ catastrophe caterwaul and we’ve decided that this crap is pure quackery.
And quackery we learn a helluva lot about.
I sort of agree, but also disagree. Drs. cannot possibly fully understand the variability of conditions, and symptoms, their patients exhibit. And of course they see many many people daily, and may get a bit tired? My best description is they “guess” based on what you tell them, and in large part they do a good job IMO. Now, as sort of an analogy, when I take my car to a mechanic and say…”The big ends have gone.”…”There is a real noisy rumbling from my back end.” …he and I know exactly what I am talking about.
I have a copy of a letter from a world renowned heart hospital, here in Brisbane, addressed to my husbands GP stating that my husband is going to die in less than 30 days, and not to sign his death certificate, as they wanted to autopsy him.
I did not become aware of this letter until about 8 months latter when i was praising the hospital care to my GP, his reply was so much for their expert opinion, your husband wouldn’t be alive if they were right.
This morning my husband is nearly 5 years later, and going back to see our specialist at same heart hospital, on the 12 January, who said the last time we visited him, I have thrown away the text books, your husband is teaching me more than I ever learned at medical school.
All I was told at the time my husband was discharged from hospital, was we can do no more for him.
What gets in my craw is that they never warned me about the time frame, and also that they had instructed our family GP not to sign his death certificate if he did die within the next 30 days.
In Australia if you have been in hospital and have a known condition the GP can sign off death certificate without an autopsy.
Otherwise you are in the hands of the police and coroner to establish the cause of your death, having a neighbor who was treated like a criminal by the police when her husband died unexpectedly, GP would not sign his death certificate, turned out he had a clot ,and having cared for my husband I feared to be treated the same, she was in a dreadful state after hours of questioning by the police.
We could well run short of water if we don’t develop nuclear power to the point it is cheap, but global warming won’t have anything to do with it. It will be we need to grow food, take showers, water our lawns, and take baths. All good things, IMO.
You don’t have to know that the climate models are wrong, to know that there won’t be a food production problem. The climate models actually show globally improved potential for food production. First, the models show 2-3% increased precipitation per degree C of warming. The figure should be about 7%, but 2-3% will do : it means more rain, globally. More rain means more ability to grow food. Secondly, there are vast land areas – chiefly Canada and Russia – which will become available for growing food where little or none is grown now. When people concentrate on specific areas that are predicted to be worse off in order to generate a negative message, and ignore the vast areas that will be better off, that’s a very nasty cherry-pick.
It’s not much of a trend, but it is a trend and I’ll take it.
http://cdec.water.ca.gov/jspplot/jspPlotServlet.jsp?sensor_no=3636&end=12%2F25%2F2015+15%3A43&geom=huge&interval=720&cookies=CDEC02
Not sure this will work correctly (it’s the government, after all), so here’s the home page for this information.
http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/queryF?s=SHA
I had surgery on my teeth, he knew I was terrified and said “it’s a minor operation ” then added “ of course you do know the difference between a major operation and a minor operation? If I have it it’s major, if you have it it’s minor.
“Science is the belief in the incompetence of experts”. I have come to embrace that quote by Richard Feynman everytime I read news headlines in any area. It’s a philosophy I recommend to anyone who hasn’t time to research issues in detail and a statement of common sense for anyone who has.
Thought I’d add to the doctor-patient jokes by re-telling the old Rodney Dangerfield gag:
Doctor: “Rodney, you are dangerously obese”
Rodney: ” I’d like a second opinion”
Doctor: “OK, you’re ugly too”
Food distribution is an issue when food production mismanaged. Venezuela is bigger (by ~1/3) than Texas & has a lot more water but it’s president had to arrange food imports from Uruguay (July 2015) & then only paid US$50 million (Nov 2015) of the US$267 million due. So Uruguay sent 1/3 of milk & 1/10 of cheese until gets paid as Uruguay’s National Milk Institute head R. de Izaguirre said: “We had understood it would be just one complete payment. Three cheese companies have the remaining orders in fridges waiting to go.”
There is no better example of a misguided phrase than “Central Planning”. It boils down to everyone wears gray. No exceptions.
My aunt died from a ruptured appendix and infection. It happens.
Thank you Eric for your essays, which I have very much appreciated. You wrote: “Even with experience and skill, prediction is a difficult.”
I agree, and yet some of us have an excellent predictive track record.
Way back in 2002, three of us predicted the current global warming fiasco with remarkable accuracy. A recent summary is here:
The UN’s IPCC Has No Credibility On Global Warming September 6, 2015
by Allan MacRae
https://friendsofsciencecalgary.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/the-uns-ipcc-has-no-credibility-on-global-warming-6sept2015-final.pdf
[excerpt]
Summarizing the IPCC’s track record: The IPCC has fabricated false projections of catastrophic global warming and extreme weather that have not materialized. The IPCC’s false claims are contradicted by two decades of credible data. The IPCC has negative credibility.
In contrast, the eight predictions we made on our 2002 PEGG rebuttal remain credible:
1. “Climate science does not support the theory of catastrophic human-made global warming – the alleged warming crisis does not exist.” NO net global warming has occurred for more than 18 years despite increasing atmospheric CO2.
2. “Kyoto focuses primarily on reducing CO2, a relatively harmless gas, and does nothing to control real air pollution like NOx, SO2, and particulates, or serious pollutants in water and soil.” Note the extreme pollution of air, water and soil that still occurs in China and the Former Soviet Union.
3. “Kyoto wastes enormous resources that are urgently needed to solve real environmental and social problems that exist today. For example, the money spent on Kyoto in one year would provide clean drinking water and sanitation for all the people of the developing world in perpetuity.” Since the start of global warming mania, about 50 million children below the age of five have died from contaminated water.
4. “Kyoto will destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs and damage the Canadian economy – the U.S., Canada’s biggest trading partner, will not ratify Kyoto, and developing countries are exempt.” Canada signed Kyoto but then most provinces wisely ignored it – the exception being now-depressed Ontario, where government adopted ineffective “green energy” schemes and drove up energy costs.
5. “Kyoto will actually hurt the global environment – it will cause energy-intensive industries to move to exempted developing countries that do not control even the worst forms of pollution.” Note the huge manufacturing growth and extremely polluted air in the industrial regions of China.
6. “Kyoto’s CO2 credit trading scheme punishes the most energy efficient countries and rewards the most wasteful. Due to the strange rules of Kyoto, Canada will pay the Former Soviet Union billions of dollars per year for CO2 credits.” Our government did not pay the FSU, but other governments did, bribing them to sign Kyoto.
7. “Kyoto will be ineffective – even assuming the overstated pro-Kyoto science is correct, Kyoto will reduce projected warming insignificantly, and it would take as many as 40 such treaties to stop alleged global warming.” IF one believed the false climate models, one would conclude that we must stop using fossil fuels.
8. “The ultimate agenda of pro-Kyoto advocates is to eliminate fossil fuels, but this would result in a catastrophic shortfall in global energy supply – the wasteful, inefficient energy solutions proposed by Kyoto advocates simply cannot replace fossil fuels.” Governments that adopted “green energy” schemes such as wind and solar power are finding these schemes are not green and produce little useful energy. Their energy costs are soaring and these governments are in retreat, dropping their green energy subsidies as fast as they politically can.
IN SUMMARY:
All the above predictions that we made in 2002 have proven correct in those states that fully adopted the Kyoto Accord, whereas none of the IPCC’s scary climate projections have materialized.
So what happens next? Will we see catastrophic humanmade global warming?
No, we predicted in 2002 that Earth will soon cool and that prediction is increasingly probable.
My paleoclimatologist colleague and I predicted the commencement of global cooling by 2020 to 2030 in an article I wrote in 2002. This prediction is gaining credibility as solar activity in current Solar Cycle 24 (SC 24) has crashed. This prediction is still less than certain, but SC25 is also projected to be very weak, so we will probably experience two consecutive very-weak Solar Cycles in SC24 and SC25. IF the Sun does indeed primarily drive global temperature, as I believe, then successive governments in Britain and continental Europe have brewed the perfect storm. They have crippled their energy systems with excessive reliance on ineffective grid-connected wind and solar power schemes. Global cooling will probably happen within the next decade or sooner, and Europe and the world will get colder, possibly much colder. Winter deaths will increase as cooling progresses, especially harming the elderly and the poor. Excess Winter Mortality rates will provide an estimate of this unfolding tragedy.
Timing is difficult to estimate, but I now expect natural global cooling to be evident by 2020 or sooner.
…
European politicians are retreating from highly-subsidized green energy schemes that have damaged their industrial competitiveness and harmed their people, and they are gradually reverting to fossil fuels. It appears they would do so more quickly, except they are embarrassed by their foolish acceptance of global warming mania and are trying to save face. The Sun, a UK newspaper, recently quoted British Prime Minister David Cameron as saying: “We have got to get rid of all this green crap.”
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/nov/21/david-cameron-green-crap-comments-storm
Mr. Cameron’s candid statement reflects the fact that the UK has created its own energy crisis due to excess investment in worthless, over-hyped green energy schemes and must quickly find a solution.
The lessons for Alberta are clear: When misinformed politicians fool with energy systems, the costs are enormous – globally, trillions of dollars of scarce resources have been
squandered, economies have been severely damaged, and innocent people have needlessly suffered and died.
[end of excerpt]
I suggest that these uber-green politicians and their minions were adequately warned of their green-energy folly more than a decade ago, and can now be held accountable. Under British law, they may be sued under “misfeasance in a public office”. In the USA, global warming advocates and their institutions may also be sued under Civil RICO.
Regards to all and Happy Holidays, Allan
My mother owns some prime Missouri River bottom land a few miles east of Kansas City that my dad used to farm. I don’t remember the year, but I do remember he and my mother talking over the dinner table about how we’d had our first year in which he’d produced an average of 100 bushels of corn per acre. It was a big deal. A milestone. I was born in 1962 so that was probably sometime in the late ’60s, maybe early ’70s. My mother still owns the land and now the man who farms it regularly produces 200+ bu/acre. I think the average was 240 bu/acre in 2013, and slightly less last year in 2014 due to a wet spring that prevented planting during the optimal window.
But the point I want to make is that in 2014 a man in Georgia produced a world record 503 bushels of corn per acre. Yes, in Georgia. Not the traditional “corn belt” like Iowa, Nebraska, Illinois or Indiana. The world will be absolutely flooded with corn once the techniques the Georgia man used to produce 503 bushel per acre are widely adopted. While not as dramatic, farmers here are have also seem huge productivity increases in soybean yields since my father was farming. Those are the primary grains grown in this area. The seed strains used today are unbelievably resilient to drought, pests, etc. It is depressing to hear so much pessimism when we are experiencing a “golden age” in productivity in food production.
http://www.reuters.com/article/mo-monsanto-idUSnBw225542a+100+BSW20141222
Should have mentioned. The U.S. national average corn yield in 2014 was estimated by USDA to be 171 bu/acre.
http://www.usda.gov/nass/PUBS/TODAYRPT/cropan15.pdf
So the difference between the 503 bu/acre world record and the national average of 171 bu/acre shows how much potential there is for additional productivity improvements. All of this is why I am fully on board with Jesse Ausubel’s theory that the world is approaching “peak farmland”. Not because we’re running out, but because we don’t need any more.
Hi Groty, – My surmise is that this was irrigated & as important that strobilurin, an anti- fungal spray, was used. If anyone interested refer to (2013) “Quantifying the effect of pyraclostrobin grain-fill period and kernel dry matter accumulation in maize”, by Byamukam, et. al in journal Plant Health Progress which says the grain kernel weight goes up (ie: due to better 8 leaves above ear which provides >85% assimilates into grain, as per 2005 “Yield loss of corn hybrids to iincremental defoliation”, by Adee et. al in Crop Management, 4) since both fewer kernels fail & the time for the grain to fill can be increased (see 2008 “Kernel weight dependence upon plant growth at different grain-filling stages in maize and sorghum” by Gambin, et. al in Australian Journal of Agricultural Research, 59, 3). The chemical also acts as a plant growth regulator since interacts with the plant in such a way to lower the generation of ethylene (ie: senescene allayed gives better vitality period) & also up-regulate the enzyme nitrate reductase (ie: more nitrogen assimilated) leading to a higher % of protein in corn leaves .
It seems to be a thread for medical adventures:
Two decades ago, I awoke during a five-hour surgery to view a room full of people measuring my intestines. I did not know until that moment that I was completely immune to painkillers and had just been asleep.
I was unhappy. And the doctors were panicked. Ultimately, they suffocated me unconscious so that they could continue. It was the largest dose of anesthetic ever given by that hospital. Still true; they are now clients of mine.
My problem was that I had never been “cool” as a youngster, never drank, smoked or did drugs. And I did not realize that morphine, alcohol,Valium, Percodan, Darvocet, Dilaudin, et cetera don’t touch me at all.
I recovered from the surgery; the parts they left out I evidently didn’t really need. But if you know any researchers in pain medication, I would happily volunteer to be a guinea pig. These days I am dealing with constant low-level pain from nerve damage last year (I am wheelchair-bound now), and would appreciate some relief.
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle
Try a TENS machine. I got a lot of pain relief when I broke my shoulder. If you don’t respond to drugs it’s worth a go.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcutaneous_electrical_nerve_stimulation
I feel very much the same Eric and recently I found a way to express my irritation. I won’t say anger, it’s impossible for me to stay angry with these “folks” (for lack of a better word) over years at a time; it’s bad for my health. But I’ve found I can maintain an effective level of irritation almost indefinitely.
There’s a guy named J.D. King who put out an impressive feature length documentary on the failures of the Green movement he calls “Blue”. It’s on Vimeo (I think) and you can watch it on the ‘net for free. Those without religious leanings might find some of the philosophy foreign but certainly not overpowering and it doesn’t get in the way o the Science. Lord Christopher Monkton of Brenchly has a leading role! If you’re interested in the subject of AGW, the corruption of environmentalism by the Greens, and you enjoy well researched and produced documentary film, Joe Bob says “check it out!”.
Anyway, the same guy is producing another documentary on polar bears called “Vicebear” (Susan, take note), the topical one liner is “If these people can’t even get polar bears right, how do you expect them to handle something complicated like climate?”. I think he has a good point so I signed up on Kickstarter to be an Associate Producer. If you’re interested, you better move fast to snag a cheap credit on the film before they’re all gone 🙂 Google should get you there.
I think that those who peddle alarmist bs have a serious pyschological problem, and those who believe them naively a lesser psychological problem.
The underlying cause is a negative view of humans.
Sometimes that comes from religious teachings (such as the born-sinner theology invented by Saint Augustine circa 400AD), most often in societies like AUZ-Canada-UK-US from Marxist teachings which are widespread in universities and public schools. Marxism, from the Plato-Kant thread of philosophy, denies effectiveness of the human mind, thus teaches fixed-pie economics and drive-to-the-bottom ethics.
It is very common for the food alarmists to be
The amazing thing is that evidence to the contrary is all around them, and they benefit tremendously from it every day. Agricultural productivity, sound shelter, medical cures and restorations, transportation, clean water, waster disposal, etc.
A wild example recently was a letter in a local newspaper claiming that gray squirrels were decimating bird populations because they eat eggs and even small birds. But the day after reading that I saw a flock of robins, in a neighborhood that has gray squirrels, raccoons, crows, cats, and a Coopers Hawk. The flock was on a lawn, in sunshine – conditions in which I expect worms emerge (robins like worms).
http://news.nationalpost.com/arts/books/never-again-is-not-good-enough-timothy-snyders-black-earth-review
Phillip Marchand reviews “Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning” by Timothy Snyder, a book that points to Hitler’s belief that humans are just animals who will eliminate each other to get food. Snyder is concerned that alarmism about food will motivate people to be aggressive because – Snyder believes – food production is declining and climate change will increase drought and floods. Snyder apparently likes governments as he thinks they protect people, but the example of Hitler himself, and the regimes in Iran, Cambodia, and Communist China show that government must have the correct foundation.)
The big question is why people believe eco-nuts, which Hitler was, and even vote for them as they did for Hitler. Today’s version even advocates tattooing people who question them, just as Germany’s Nationalsozialistische regime tattooed Jews.