by WILLIE SOON AND ISTVÁN MARKÓ (via Breitbart)
There is a saying in the world of science that if scientific facts do not support your arguments then stop shouting. It is thus a waste of time to appeal to “scientism” or to rely on popular spokespersons like Al Gore or Bill Nye to make it look otherwise.
It will do more harm to your own self-esteem than the pretension of winning an argument by appealing to authority or popularity. Increasingly, we are seeing more and more outrageous and aggressive anti-scientific claims that anyone who is not willing to embrace the dangerous global warming bandwagon and to condemn its culprit, CO2, is actually the equivalent of a Holocaust Denier.
This sort of name-calling, loud self-promotion and fact twisting actions, closer to political rodeo than to healthy scientific debates, are simply telling us that our opponents have already lost their fallacious arguments and are getting short on any real scientific facts.
Professor Albert Einstein had it perfectly right. When he was told about the publication of the pamphlet “100 authors against Einstein” in 1931, he replied: “Why 100? If I were wrong, one would be enough.”
It is fitting to hear the comment of Professor Hubert Goenner about the three main editors/contributors of “100 authors against Einstein”:
Obviously, these three men were united not only by their common interest in philosophy and opposition to relativity theory but also by their incompetence in the fields of mathematics and physics.
In his recent article “Why I Choose to Challenge Climate Change Deniers,” Mr. Bill Nye is found to issue a firm challenge to all those who do not accept his CO2-based religion by claiming that “The science of global warming is long settled, and one may wonder why the United States, nominally the most technologically advanced country in the world, is not the world leader in addressing the threats.”
This is so true that when the Australian government recently decided to shift their funding from studying climate change to preparing to address the threats assumed to originate from it, the very scientists who claimed that the science of global warming is settled started howling that this was not so and that their words have been misunderstood. They argued that climate is a very complex phenomenon (true) and that much work is needed to understand it in order to be able to provide any future global temperature evolution scenarios. This incidence can best be remembered as the return of the boomerang.
Maybe Mr. Nye should discuss things with these Australian scientists. He may have yet other revelations: That climate science is young and everything except settled, that we understand little of it, and that the predictions made by the climate models are akin to computer-assisted divinations. Call them, Mr. Nye! You’ll be amazed!
As for the claim: “Carbon dioxide has an enormous effect on planetary temperatures. Climate change was discovered in recent times by comparing the Earth to the planet Venus,” this is a truly strange, rather incorrect, and scientifically empty claim.
First of all, we know that the relatively rapid increase in atmospheric CO2 over the last thirty years has not produced any large and significant global warming, just a meager ~0.2°C. This compares favorably with the ~1°C increase in the temperature anomaly registered since the past 150 years, indicating an absence of acceleration in temperature rise. In fact, in nearly 19 years, a plateau has been observed, which has been acknowledged even by the IPCC (the so-called hiatus). Therefore, one is left to wonder what the words “enormous effect” mean in this particular case.
By now, the proper scientific conclusion regarding the greenhouse effect role of the rising atmospheric CO2 is clear: It plays a very minor role on the measurable “planetary” temperature, if any. For readers — and Mr. Nye — who may not be familiar with this latest experimental result, we suggest reading a recent article, “What we know about CO2 and global atmospheric temperatures?” on Breitbart News.
For all objective readers, and even Mr. Nye himself, we wish to remind everyone of the independent investigation led by Mr. Anthony Watts and many serious scientists who reached the conclusion that the greenhouse effect produced by CO2 molecules is, of course, real but that the “science-is-easy” type of experiment produced by Mr. Nye in Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project has been found to be a product of “video fakery.” That experiment “could never work” as advertised.
So much for Bill, the science guy, who simply confuses “scientism” — i.e. a belief — with experimental sciences. The only question left for everyone is when will Bill Nye or Al Gore stop pedaling their brand of Hollywood special effects?
Full article here: http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/05/24/bill-nye-scientism/
And finally:
Source: http://lidblog.com/bill-nye-is-still-weather-idiot-guy/
Has Nye decided which climate we want when he stops it from changing? The one we have, according to him, is pretty dangerous.
Is it cruel to label him, Bill De-Nye?
However he like many of the Classic Cult, does more harm to his cause every utterance.
When Bill is all they have, it is closing time.
Ah, for the days of Mr. Wizard.
Years ago a parody of “Mr. Wizard” had the boy assistant expressing fear about helping with an experiment:
“Last week you burned me.”
Heh
I always liked Mr. Lizard
“We need another Timmy”
The bow tie is what makes it “science”.
I was a member of the Planetary Society for decades. In addition, I made donations for special projects like microphones on Mars probes, solar sails and more.
Left immediately after this dork became the CEO. I’m out for the duration of his tenure.
I was a member, too.
Not sure why they wanted Nye at the helm. I guess they thought he would be good for public relations.
I wonder what they think now?
I wonder what the Planetary Society thinks about global warming? I left the org before CAGW became a fad in the mass media, so I don’t know their opinion on the subject.
Preemptively, I acknowledge that Bill Nye is a M. Eng. graduate of Cornell, and apparently a “student of Carl Sagan” here. (There – that’s done!) That means, I suspect, that Nye was one of many hundreds of students who took Sagan’s class in Cornell’s largest lecture facility, Bailey Hall. Bailey Hall is famously known for the quip “Acoustics by God – Seats by Torquemada.” (Not a place to hear a Bruckner symphony – I did.) If Nye is, even today, able to sit in a normal chair, bet that he cut a lot of classes.
Even “acoustics by God” can’t save a Bruckner symphony from itself. At least the seats helped you stay awake to the end.
Ahhh – Michael – point well taken.
But one man’s bombast is another’s “edge of seat” exciting (a welcome shifting to the edge!). Symphony No. 8, Scherzo – a workout.
I suppose you’re right. To tell the truth, each time I tried to listen to Bruckner, I gave up after a few minutes, so I’m not even really qualified to comment. Couldn’t resist the opportunity though.
Speaking of “climate science is young and everything except settled, that we understand little of it” can anyone answer a question that I have for some time researched and asked, but never found an answer.
As a TEMPORARY dipole molecule, that only becomes polar with Van der Waals forces and supposedly spends approximately half the time as a non-polar molecule, what happens to the heat absorption capabilities and emissivity of CO2 as it varies between the two states? Does it instantly release its heat as it loses its dipole? Is it completely transparent to IR when it is non-polar? Is the temporary dipole perhaps why climate sensitivity to CO2 is often over estimated?
This from the ACS might help:
http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/climatescience/greenhousegases/properties.html
It includes this sidebar:
All molecules have positive (nuclei) and negative (electron clouds) regions, A molecule is dipolar and has a permanent dipole moment, if the averaged centers of its positively and negatively charged regions do not coincide. If a vibrational motion of the molecule disturbs these averages, its dipole moment can change and an appropriate energy of IR radiation can be absorbed to cause this molecular vibration. As an example, consider the CO2 molecule. The more electronegative oxygen atoms attract electron density that makes the ends of the molecule slightly negative. The central carbon atom is therefore slightly positive, as represented in the diagram. Since the molecule is linear with equal bond lengths, the center of negative charge and the center of positive charge coincide at the central point, the carbon atom, and the molecule has no permanent dipole moment. The symmetrical stretching vibration, top representation, does not change this symmetry, does not change the dipole moment, and does not lead to IR absorption. The molecular bending vibrations, middle two representations, displace the negative charges away from the line of centers of the molecule and create a structure with a dipole moment. Thus, the dipole moment changes (from zero to some value) and these motions can be initiated by the absorption of IR radiation. This absorption gives rise to the prominent absorption band centered at about 15 μm. Likewise, for the asymmetric stretching vibration, bottom representation, the average bond lengths become unequal, which moves the positive and negative centers apart, creates a dipole moment, and leads to the IR absorptions at about 4 μm.
Thanks for the link, though they don’t go into many quantitative specifics, like the frequency of changes among these states and the state of having no molecular bend at all.
It seems a bit paradoxical, that they say CO2 does not react to IR in the stretched state, but reacts to 15 microns in the bent state and that the absorption of IR gives rise to this bent state — chicken and egg paradox.
Also, the molecule cannot exist in all of these states at once (I think), yet they show 100% absorption at the 4 and 15 micron bands as if it is never transparent to these wavelengths. Existing in 5 different states (symmetric, stretched, bent X 2, asymmetric stretching), yet always represented as behaving in all of these states simultaneously (100% absorption corresponding to the specific states) is the crux of my confusion. Is this a quantum mechanics issue?
You’re welcome, but it appears not satisfactorily to answer your question. Most of the best on line descriptions of the process are .pdfs to which I can’t link. But here’s a less technical one, with animations:
http://chemwiki.ucdavis.edu/Core/Physical_Chemistry/Spectroscopy/Vibrational_Spectroscopy/Infrared_Spectroscopy/Infrared%3A_Theory
Thanks again. It will take a read through or two to absorb all that, but it appears that an answer can be deemed from understanding it.
It finally dawned on me when I realized WHY they are called normal modes. Not normal as in “typical”, but normal in a geometric sense. The vibrations are normal and independent of each other
I like Soon’s use of “scientism” and the guest blogger posting of this article.
Overall I am appalled by the ruins of science past populating the modern landscape of scientism. The scientismists scavenged components of their belief from science, and left the critical parts by the wayside.
The frame of mind necessary to allow this to happen is omnipresent in schools, political apparatus, higher institutions and in our churches. We are doomed.
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/scientism
by golly, it is a word (noun def#2)
Most (with one or two exceptions) of –”ism”s are no good, meaning that the so called climate scientists are simply ‘practitioners of climatism’
Finally someone expresses my often voiced sentiments re De Grasse Tyson publicly, and nukes the Venus comparison.
The mission Nye has been handed is to brainwash people who grew up watching his show
It’s funny with Nye, any challenges to his science provokes a primitive response, you can literally measure it on his face
Rent-a-Court Jester could be the next Uber-type call service.
“First of all, we know that the relatively rapid increase in atmospheric CO2 over the last thirty years has not produced any large and significant global warming, just a meager ~0.2°C. “
I’m sorry, but do we KNOW that the “meager ~0.2°C. ” is directly attributable to the atmospheric CO2 rise?
I do not believe that we do.
Well said.
I don’t read it as a causal statement, just a sequential one.
Despite all the claims, there is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate. There is no such evidence in the paleoclimate record. There is evidence that warmer temperatures cause more CO2 to enter the atmosphere but there is no evidence that this additional CO2 causes any more warming. If additional greenhouse gases caused additional warming then the primary culprit would have to be H2O which depends upon the warming of just the surfaces of bodies of water and not their volume but such is not part of the AGW conjecture. In other words CO2 increases in the atmosphere as huge volumes of water increase in temperature but more H2O enters the atmopshere as just the surface of bodies of water warm. We live in a water world where the majoriety of the Earth’s surface is some form of water. Models have been generated that show that the climate change we have been experiencing is caused by the sun and the oceans over which Man has no control.
The AGW theory is that adding CO2 to the atmosphere causes an increase in its radiant thermal insulation properties causing restrictions in heat flow which in turn cause warming at the Earth’s surface and the lower atmosphere. In itself the effect is small because we are talking about small changes in the CO2 content of the atmosphere and CO2 comprises only about .04% of dry atmosphere if it were only dry but that is not the case. Actually H2O, which averages around 2%, is the primary greenhouse gas. The AGW conjecture is that the warming causes more H2O to enter the atmosphere which further increases the radiant thermal insulation properties of the atmosphere and by so doing so amplifies the effect of CO2 on climate. At first this sounds very plausible. This is where the AGW conjecture ends but that is not all what must happen if CO2 actually causes any warming at all.
Besides being a so called greenhouse gas, H2O is also a primary coolant in the Earth’s atmosphere transferring heat energy from the Earth;s surface to where clouds form via the heat of vaporization. More heat energy is moved by H2O via phase change then by both convection and LWIR absorption band radiation combined. More H2O means that more heat energy gets moved which provides a negative feedback to any CO2 based warming that might occur. Then there is the issue of clouds. More H2O means more clouds. Clouds not only reflect incoming solar radiation but they radiate to space much more efficiently then the clear atmosphere they replace. Clouds provide another negative feedback. Then there is the issue of the upper atmosphere which cools rather than warms. The cooling reduces the amount of H2O up there which decreases any greenhouse gas effects that CO2 might have up there. In total, H2O provides negative feedback’s which must be the case because negative feedback systems are inherently stable as has been the Earth’s climate for at least the past 500 million years, enough for life to evolve. We are here. The wet lapse rate being smaller then the dry lapse rate is further evidence of H2O’s cooling effects.
The entire so called, “greenhouse” effect that the AGW conjecture is based upon is at best very questionable. A real greenhouse does not stay warm because of the heat trapping effects of greenhouse gases. A real greenhouse stays warm because the glass reduces cooling by convection. This is a convective greenhouse effect. So too on Earth..The surface of the Earth is 33 degrees C warmer than it would be without an atmosphere because gravity limits cooling by convection. This convective greenhouse effect is observed on all planets in the solar system with thick atmospheres and it has nothing to do with the LWIR absorption properties of greenhouse gases. the convective greenhouse effect is calculated from first principals and it accounts for all 33 degrees C. There is no room for an additional radiant greenhouse effect. Our sister planet Venus with an atmosphere that is more than 90 times more massive then Earth’s and which is more than 96% CO2 shows no evidence of an additional radiant greenhouse effect. The high temperatures on the surface of Venus can all be explained by the planet’s proximity to the sun and its very dense atmosphere. The radiant greenhouse effect of the AGW conjecture has never been observed. If CO2 did affect climate then one would expect that the increase in CO2 over the past 30 years would have caused an increase in the natural lapse rate in the troposphere but that has not happened. Considering how the natural lapse rate has changed as a function of an increase in CO2, the climate sensitivity of CO2 must equal 0.0.
This is all a matter of science
I see Seattle’s “Speed Walker – Super Hero” is back in the news. Speedo is one of those people that is famous for being famous. Don’t be part of the problem.
I’ve been a deNyer for years
This sort of reminds me of a humorous incident I read about several years ago.
Some of the cast of the hit TV show “ER” were on a break and went to fast-food place across the street, in costume, to get something to eat.
One of the patrons began to choke on their food.
None of the actors dressed as Hospital Emergency Room staff knew what to do.
(Another patron did.)
The reason the story remains humorous and not a tragedy is that none of those actors pretending to be Doctors and Nurses pretended that they knew what to do just because they play one on TV.
They stood back and let the patron who actually did know do the “acting”.
Poor old Bill.
I’ll say this for the PuffHo though: they do at least appear to allow comments of all types.
But I get the impression most of them are main-lining absinthe.
I’ll elaborate.
PuffHo banned me two years ago.
Billy Nye, the science lie guy.
It is not all that complicated.
Q = U * A * dT rules them all.
More energy leaving ToA than entering results in cooling.
Less energy leaving ToA than entering results in warming.
There are several mechanisms/processes that influence that balance and +/- dT cooling/warming, e.g. albedo (+/- Q), precipitation, oceans (+/- Q), water vapor (+/- U), etc. some more powerful than others. CO2/GHGs (+/- U) are near/at the bottom of that list.
Mr. Nye is actually right in one very small but revealing detail in the title of his article Why I Choose to Challenge Climate Change Deniers.
Denier is defined in my dictionary (OED) as: One who denies a religion.
Says it all, doesn’t it?
I have this thing about making compulsory contributions to someone else’s religion. I’m against it. If it were voluntary, well, that’s my affair.
“By now, the proper scientific conclusion regarding the greenhouse effect role of the rising atmospheric CO2 is clear”
yes but what is not clear is a relationship between fossil fuel emissions and warming
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2725743
According to Bow Tie Theory, people who choose to wear bow ties all the time are weird and cannot be trusted.
Bow Tie Theory is about as unsubstantiated as the ice free Artic except for the very likely
possibility that those that wear bow ties had sand kicked in their face and are in serious need of public attention caused by significant reduced Oxygen to the brain . Is oxygen a pollutant yet .? Come on EPA what is the hold up ? The stuff we breath in isn’t a pollutant but the stuff we exhale is ?
Welcome to that oh so science fiction world of you better wet your shorts because the earth has a fever .
Well at least it’s warming . What’s wrong with that ? Name one scientific organization that thinks global cooling is better than the warming cycle we are currently benefitting from . Oh yeah and vegetables are bad for you too .
Bill Nye is an idiot beyond help. The only thing that matters is to cut the obscene amount of money which generates these headlines, in the US budget, by at least 99% ASAP, and get out of every treaty, mandate, subsidy based on the scam.
That would bring the money in line with the skeptics’ financing, about $40m/year.
After that, another 99% / year cut, every year.