With apologies to Alfonso Bedoya in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.
Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. once quipped:
If Michael Mann did not exist, the skeptics would have to invent him.
Such is the case today where Mann becomes a climate skeptic’s best friend. In a recent presentation to a bunch of political operatives, the Mann put his pseudo-scientific foot in his mouth. From the Washington Times:
Leading climate doomsayer Michael Mann recently downplayed the importance of climate change science, telling Democrats that data and models “increasingly are unnecessary” because the impact is obvious.
“Fundamentally, I’m a climate scientist and have spent much of my career with my head buried in climate-model output and observational climate data trying to tease out the signal of human-caused climate change,”
Mr. Mann told the Democratic Platform Drafting Committee at a hearing.
“What is disconcerting to me and so many of my colleagues is that these tools that we’ve spent years developing increasingly are unnecessary because we can see climate change, the impacts of climate change, now, playing out in real time, on our television screens, in the 24-hour news cycle,” he said.
Mr. Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University, spoke before the committee June 17 in Phoenix.
His comment drew hoots from climate skeptics, including the website Greenie Watch, which posted his comment under the headline, “‘Scientist’ Michael Mann says there is no need for statistics: You can just SEE global warming.”
More here: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun/27/michael-mann-climate-scientist-data-increasingly-u/
Right.
That quote is up there with former Senator Debbie Stabenow (D., Mich.) who famously said:
Global warming creates volatility. I feel it when I’m flying.
Yep, who needs data when you can just see and feel global warming happening? According to Michael Mann, just tune in your favorite news channel! Oh, wait.
But there’s good news! Since we don’t need to [rely] on data anymore, and rely just on our senses, we can shut down all those climate programs that take in millions of federal and state tax dollars now. Thanks Mike!
Added:
From draft of Democratic platform: (h/t to Juan Slayton and Mumbles McGuirck)
Another joint proposal calling on the Department of Justice to investigate alleged corporate fraud on the part of fossil fuel companies who have reportedly misled shareholders and the public on the scientific reality of climate change was also adopted by unanimous consent.
https://demconvention.com/news/democratic-platform-drafting-meeting-concludes/
Note: about 10 minutes after publication some HTML formatting errors and a missing link to Pielke Jr were fixed – Anthony
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“Since we don’t need to relay on data anymore,”
relay?
It’s an amplifying relay.
No, it’s a ‘pass the buck’ sort of relay. (Not that I expect Mann has ever passed on a Buck).
Like a transistor, a small input give a large output, just like CO2.
/sarc
Climate is a run away feedback loop, as proven by the fact that climate tipped over and Earth is currently inhabitable.
Pass the hockey stick?
Before we had FACTS. Now we have mostly data. They are not the same? http://www.perc.org.uk/project_posts/thoughts-on-the-sociology-of-brexit/
Santa Baby-
Fact-“a thing that is indisputably the case.synonyms: reality, actuality, certainty; truth,”
Data-“facts and statistics collected together for reference or analysis.synonyms: facts, figures, statistics, details, particulars, specifics; information, intelligence, material, input; informal info
(philosophy) “things known or assumed as facts, making the basis of reasoning or calculation.”
And there you have it. When philosophy started sleeping with science, science became infected with the highly contagious ITD (intellectually transmitted disease) called SAIDS-Stupid Assumptions and Insinuations Destructive to Science. This caused infected scientists to start calling things”‘facts” when they really were not actually facts, and using illogical reasoning to form their calculations. Once a scientific methodology has been infected by SAIDS, it can be passed along from host to unsuspecting host, undetected, for decades. Unless a scientific methodology is examined specifically FOR this nasty little virus, and the entire lineage of scientific papers it spawned are cleansed of it, it will continue to spread until it reaches critical mass. 🙂
It’s not a scientific fact, but I suspect that Michael Mann is one of just a few people that could be patient zero…..
Relay refers to the term to describe the handing off of money from bureaucrats from person to person.
they’ve ‘switched’ the data?
It was never really about the data – Yamal!
Since we don’t need to relay on data anymore why do we need to employ climate scientists?
…When the hole gets too deep….liberals just keep on digging !
Thank God that liberals aren’t as smart as they think they are.
Trouble is, the general public isn’t bright enough to notice.
It’s not that the general public isn’t bright enough, it’s that they have been bought of with Other People’s Money (OPM).
No, the sharp ones can be negotiated with. I like the sharp liberals.
Sharp Liberal + Sharp Conservative = balanced policy
Sharp X + No Opposed = policy that excludes alternative viewpoints and might work, but often leads to long term problems due to narrowness of any one point of view.
Dumb X + No Opposed = unbalanced policy that excludes alternative viewpoints and doesn’t work in the short or long erm
Dumb X + Y opposed = accusations of evil/stupidity and no reasonable progress
No hole is too deep!
nor enough money to fill the hole.
The money hole already goes all the way to China….
Just need a backhoe
Hey, it all jumped the shark when a number of them came right out and ADMITTED that “Climate Change” no longer has anything to do with either science or the environment, but is a way of moving money around the world. The ice caps haven’t melted, the Midwest is not a desert, the real deserts are greening some places and the crops are growing better than ever. No one is rowing a boat up to their Manhattan 3rd-story window! (Heads Up to Elites: The damn proles can use their eyes and ears! Bummer.)
They keep digging because they haven’t found the bottom yet.
When the hole gets too deep…liberals typically do one of three things:
1) declare that they were forced into a hole dug by someone else,
2) insist that they love the hole and that everyone else deserves and wants a hole just like theirs
3) say that the only reason you are pointing out the depth of their hole is because you are a bigot, racist, or conservative….likely a combination of all three.
:)))))
4) Issue a badly worded “non-negotiable” manifesto with multiple grammatical errors and “creative” spelling with the following general format:
We DEMAND that everyone else admit that they are the root, cause, and vessel of any and all evil that has ever occurred.
We DEMAND that everyone else admit that it is their fault that we are not as successful as we would like, do not have everything we want at the exact moment we want it, and are not getting everything for free.
We DEMAND that $[fill in obscene amount of money] be spent on building a luxury safe space that is segregated from everyone who does not look exactly like us AND think exactly like us. A dungeon should be constructed nearby for our ALLIES to use for self-flaggulation. These buildings must be given nonsensical titles with randomly capitalized letters, at least one non-alpha character, and at least one number replacing a letter, preferably a letter that the number does not really resemble.
We DEMAND that every group in existence hire people who look and think exactly like us so that said groups can be constantly verbally attacked. Physical assault is also acceptable. If the hired person is not vitriolic enough, he/she/preferred made up pronoun must be fired immediately, figuratively and literally if possible. If allowed to live, the person must be constantly attacked with the same slurs and treatment we claim to have experienced (even though only one of us did (sort of)). These attacks will not be considered offensive as the person deserves it.
We DEMAND that all buildings and structures that may at some point be considered offensive be torn down immediately. We also DEMAND that all groups and people who we do not like be figuratively and literally destroyed if possible…….
(Sorry, I just could write more badly than this. Too much decent education.)
5) Loudly claim on all social media platforms that the hole is everyone else’s fault and that they have been severely traumatized. Demand apologies from everyone who does not look and think exactly like you. Tell them that those apologies are not enough.
6) Go to safe space and cry. Yell at anyone who comes within sight or hearing.
Ok…so now it’s just depressing…instead of funny. (teasing)
Rule 1: Liberals are always right.
Rule 2: When a liberal is wrong, shun any backward-thinkers who point it out, then see Rule 1.
And the Democratic Platform Drafting Committee then voted in a plank calling for “the Department of Justice to investigate alleged corporate fraud on the part of fossil fuel companies who have reportedly misled shareholders and the public on the scientific reality of climate change…”
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/06/27/dem-party-platform-calls-for-prosecuting-global-warming-skeptics/#ixzz4CuBXlnf5
So they believed Mikey, at least enough to grant them cover for their intimidation tactics.
The present Democratic Party has a radical and active element in it! Similar situation to the 1968 Chicago Democratic Party Convention?
Just the present Democratic Party?
The 1968 Democratic Convention resulted in a split in the Democratic party which was building anyway at that time.
I would think the cheat is perpetrated far more by claiming that ‘renewables’ were a good investment because the government was going to force everyone to buy and use them or their output. Talk about investor fraud.
So it is not a waste of time to harass companies over non-existant responsibilities, nonexistent conclusions, not lying because there was nothing to lie about, and exercising that lovely right to freedom of belief/expression, but it IS a waste of time to try to find out how the first US ambassador to be killed in 33 years was put in the position in the first place, why 4 Americans were left to die, why a bunch of diplomats were put in serious danger, why the administration lied about everything to do with the attacks… It IS a waste of time to investigate a former cabinet member for corrupt foreign dealings (as secretary of state!), criminal negligence with regards to oaths taken when sworn into office, and other crimes. It IS a waste of time to investigate whether or not the IRS deliberately targeted certain groups based on their political ideology, which was often assumed. It IS a waste of time to investigate whether or not certain “scientists” have lied under oath about supposed conclusions and “data” that has potentially been manipulated or falsified, all while taking money from the federal government…
What do you want to bet that investigating the dishonesty at the EPA and USGS will also be labeled a waste of time by these same people calling for the harassment of private companies? I realize that much of the current US administration abhors religion (well, the Judeo-Christian ones) or went to church for 20+ years and did not hear a thing, so I will provide some very good Biblical advice, paraphrased:
Physician, heal thyself!!! Remove the beam from thine eye before plucking the mote from thy brother’s eye!!! In other words, clean your own house before you go after others for their supposed sins.
The Mann should be careful – don’t need data means don’t need Mann ( or the funding thereto ).
Mann has never relied upon data. He just makes stuff up.
He’s not a climate scientist but a computer gamer.
“Gamergate?” 😉
Please don’t insult gamers that way.
At least he’s admitting that for much of his career, his head HAS BEEN BURIED in something that is generated as a waste product! I cannot stop laughing at how these people so ironically reveal themselves!
A splice here and a splice there and isn’t it nice, data no more.
“A splice here and a splice there and isn’t it nice, data no more.”
You know who else does splicing?
Dr Frankenstein.
But most people don’t find the result pretty.
Mann is absolutely right. You can see the climate change, right before your very eyes.
Here where I am (Boston), the climate has warmed very dramatically in the past 5 months. Average monthly temperatures have gone up, up, up. I am sure that Dr. Mann (in PA) which is somewhat south of my location, has observed exactly the same phenomena.
TonyL
+ lots.
Even if it is a bit ‘shooting fish in a barrel’!
Auto
TonyL: You and Mann are absolutely right. I was watching the climate change this very day:
http://globalnews.ca/video/2793072/viewer-video-from-southern-alberta-storm
We also need to remember to extrapolate the observations of the last 5 months such that by December the average temperature of a daily high will be around 150 F.
TonyL , Richard Lindzen has noticed the same thing :
http://cosy.com/Science/Lindzenlineplot800.gif
The Democratc platform committee lives in an echo chamber…the same as the EU Parliament.
Like this?
“Plans for an EU superstate to dissolve nations “into one” ”
http://joannenova.com.au/2016/06/plans-for-an-eu-superstate-to-dissolve-nations-into-one/#comments
Dissolving nation-states was always the end goal of Europe constructivist. Have one (Democrat) USA-like thing (without the same rights for people of course), and more uniform.
But isn’t it nationalist to build a Euro nation? How can they do that?
“But isn’t it nationalist to build a Euro nation? How can they do that?”
It’s fine when we do it.™
Relying on well doctored data that is still not behaving…….?
Simple: don’t need that stuff no more. Climate change/global warming solved. No wonder the science is settled.
“Fundamentally, I’m a climate scientist and have spent much of my career with my head buried in climate-model output and observational climate data trying to tease out the signal of human-caused climate change,”
“trying to tease out the signal” A clear signal would just need to be pointed to. Now he can detect it by simply watching the weather channel. meh; I’ve got to remember these statements aren’t trying to convert the skeptical but to keep cheer leading the home team. yeah team…..
I can’t wait until it’s a criminal offense to mislead the American public by making statements that are not in fact true! Let’s start compiling a list of the cracked heads We The People want to take to court with our first Class Action RICO suit! The People against Mann, Cook, Nucitelli, Schmidt, Hansen….
He is literally teasing them. The ‘signal’ isn’t there – they all know that because they would produce it if it was. Instead they point to weather events hoping no one listening is old enough to remember that last time it happened.
I believe that was a verbal typo. He really meant “torture the data to create the signal”.
Whoops. Just saw someone beat me to it below. Note to self: read all posts first!
To me that’s the money phrase – “trying to tease out the signal of human-caused climate change”.
So much for unbiased science. He just admitted (without realizing it) that he started with the answer he was looking for.
Does the “Earth System Science Center at Penn State University” focus on all earth sciences or just those that are anthropomorphic?
And by the way, how does current observation of “extreme weather” (whether or not it is anything beyond normal” give a clue as to human causation?
If the signal is so clear that you can see it, then why does he need dicey statistical techniques to “tease out the signal of human-caused climate change”?
I usually think of them torturing the data … “teasing” is rather euphemistic.
Mann is the Marquis de Sade of teasing data.
My new book on Climateers: “50 shades of shady” subtitled, “Torturing data is OK if it never uses the safe word”.
Maybe his head was/is buried somewhere else? Somewhere dark and smelly?
He really has no credibility left — and it seems he knows it and doesn’t care.
Well as long as he has some suck ups to encourage his outsized ego…..
Or, as Wilhelm Busch said:
Roughly:
Does he even realize he has contradicted himself?
He spent years developing tools to find a human signal in climate change. (This statement assumes the existence of climate change.) But now he doesn’t need those tools because he can see the evidence of climate change on his TV screen. Huh?
Maybe he meant he can see evidence of human induced climate change on his TV screen. If that is the case, then he has some serious explaining to show the rest of us how this melting ice is due to nature, but that melting ice is due to humans.
Hey, people can convince themselves of ANYTHING. I’ve got a magazine sitting on my desk full of ads for people selling (I am not making this up!) “Chakra Balancing” and “Aromatherapy” for HORSES. And I’m sure the clients they charge hundreds of dollars for this medicine show believe it just as fervently as Mann’s devout followers believe the Sky is Falling. Remember the 19th century, when “spiritism” was a “thing” and everyone was contacting their dead relatives? People believed THAT, too!
“ads for people selling (I am not making this up!) “Chakra Balancing” and “Aromatherapy” for HORSES (…) Remember the 19th century, when “spiritism” was a “thing” and everyone was contacting their dead relatives?”
But can they contact dead horses?
My ex once received an ad for “trance chanelling for therapy”:-)
If they start seeing dead horses, then I’m leaving.
Names. I need names or you haven’t got a case. 8^D
LOL. I got that! 😀
My Pop Culture IQ is frighteningly low, so I’ll need help with that.
Nothing to do with pop culture. More to do with those who exist in Ivory Towers being incredibly myopic. Wilfully so.
DJ,
There’s another Ball around here, who wrote an article recently . .
Not you, too?
That’s a stretch, even for this site. Most people would read this as saying that since the warming models are already playing out in real-time and real data, models of the future are less necessary or relevant. Which is self-evidently true.
Nothing out of the ordinary is happening now. And the models’ predictions have been shown false. Thus, ever new, scary predictions are needed.
Then why keep Mikey employed? Or at least why continue to fund modeling studies? If they are increasingly irrelevant, why keep running them? We can just watch the nightly news and see we are all doomed and save our money to buy bigger air conditioners.
Since the models are what they are, they should be able to predict the past with equal validity. I have yet seen one that predicts the Medieval Optimum that Mann says never happened, but which any minor student of history will assure you did.
Your statement is what is generally known as a “special pleading” in the field of argument and logic.
No, what he said is that models that have been developed are not useful but it doesn’t matter since we all can see it with our eyes. I notice you say “warming models” not climate models. Perhaps a slip of the tongue that exposes your predetermined position?
“Most people” would? By “people”, you must mean True Believers such as yourself. And sorry to burst your bubble, but those warming models you adore are pure crud, and the only thing they are “playing out” is how pathetically bad they truly are.
Those “most people” are the same ones who “didn’t know ANYONE who voted for Richard Nixon” the year he won the Presidency by a landslide. Upper-middle “chattering class” echo-chamber who’ve lived their entire lives without ever having dirt under their fingernails . . .
If the evening news said there was a hurricane in Florida, you need scientists to collect data. If the evening news says there was a hurricane in Florida caused by climate change, science is no longer needed because you see it on the news.
Mann is saying exactly what he means. The political operatives in the audience decide our reality by propagandizing the masses to believe whatever the operatives declare to be true. Scientists are truly irrelevant in that context, for or against.
Until people can reliably discern a change of “average” temperature of a fraction of a degree over decades, most of which occurs at night while they are sleeping, to suggest we just FEEL it is preposterous.
What Mann is revealing is that he is unaware of conflating weather and climate. Perhaps some climate knowledge would have helped in development of the models. Probably one of the reasons they have no predictive value.
The problem is that the warming models *aren’t* playing out and that what he sees on TV is false attribution to climate change of things that are within normal variation.
The models claimed that there should have been several degrees of warming by now.
Where is it?
The models claimed that the world would be stormier, where are the storms?
“Which is self-evidently true”
Are you high?
Sir Dipstick, all of the observational data out of your window has falsified the CAGW hypothesis. Extreme weather events are way down, temperatures within the same range it has always been based on natural cycles, polar bears are thriving, and with the CO2 increase to 400ppm the temperature has not increased as predicted by the sycophants You need a couple quarts of oil as you are a bit short.
But the models have been shown to be false, and everything you see on TV is either weather or very biased. His statement is just a variation on “the science is settled”.
Harry,
Most people will never read what Mickey Mouse said. Most people have zero idea who he even is. Most people can look out their windows, or check their local records, and verify that the climate hasn’t changed in any real way in the past 50 years. Most people know that weather forecasts aren’t accurate more than 3 days in advance, so models of anything more futuristic are guesswork.
Mickey is becoming less necessary or relevant. That is self evidently true.
The temperature of Waterloo hasn’t gone up in 100 years. Last year, a new record low of -34.5 C was set in the city. I’d say something is ‘playing out’ but it sure as heck isn’t a CO2-enhanced climate model.
Nasty weather is natural. It is happening someplace all the time and always has. Vivid graphics on TV make it look ominous and omnipresent. Some mistakenly blame humans for it.
Exactly, and nasty weather happens at different places over time – each happening will appear unprecedented at that place and give the impression that weather is getting worse.
It’s a big world. The odds are that something nasty is going on somewhere at any given time.
In the past we would only find about nasty weather that hit far from us weeks or months later, and the report would just be a few column inches far from the front page.
Today, no matter where the nasty weather is occurring it’s covered live on all the networks.
There are so many places to try a new 100 record every year. There are so many variables to make the record.
It is the weather version of how it is a recession when your neighbor loses his job, and a depression when you lose yours.
Oh dear. I used the grammatically correct possessive for a singular non sex-specified human entity. How rude of me.
Sidenote: Question for readers of WUWT from countries with non-English native languages: are people in your countries having the vapors over the genders of nouns? Are there movements afoot to change all nouns to “neutral” forms rather than masculine or feminine forms?
I am not sure which would be worse, the insanity being confined to the US and Canada or the insanity spreading around the world.
Reply to AllyKat:
Nowadays, politically correct Swedes are inserting the newly invented gender-neutral pronoun “hen” wherever possible instead of “han”(he) or “hon”(she). In these times of gender confusion, “hen” is supposed to mean “he or she, neither he nor she, he or she or both, not sure about whether he or she etc etc.”.
I have no idea how you could even do that in Spanish. Removing the ‘o’ or ‘a’ and replacing it with something else would, in most instances make it an entirely different word.
Sin! SIN!! Fire and Brimstone! We musta done it, we’re so naughty and guilty Gaia will smite us!
Notice that Mann said “trying to tease out” . Admittedly unsuccessful in his efforts. Perhaps why he resorted to his nature trick.
Is Mikey admitting to be a tease?
Tom,
I caught that too! Why would anyone have to spend 20 years developing TOOLS to “tease out” a signal that was so blatantly obvious that the science concerning it was already settled by consensus? If ALL of the warming in Mickey Mann’s entire life has been human induced….what was there to tease out?
It’s like listening to Lou Costello!
I Don’t Know is on third.
He can see it on tv? Has anyone ever shown blue skies and normal temps?
They show blue sky on the weather reports all the time. But that isn’t climate.
Perhaps Mann simply watched a re-airing of Day After Tomorrow, thought it was a documentary, and made his claims of observable climate change on that basis.
I get the news I need on the weather report
Oh, I can gather all the news I need on the weather report
Hey, I’ve got nothing to do today but smile
So, good ole Mikey Mann says this:” we can see climate change, the impacts of climate change, now, playing out in real time …”
LOL, Mikey doesn’t live in Canada. Nope, he doesn’t because I have been waiting for more than 50 years to see climate change come to southern Ontario. and it hasn’t come yet. What IS the delay, Mr. Mann?
You have to Believe in order to see it. It’s just like ghosts. You aren’t going to see them if you don’t believe in them.
“Fundamentally, I’m a climate scientist and have spent much of my career with my head buried in climate-model output and observational climate data trying to tease out the signal of human-caused climate change,”
Which is exactly the method inductivists use – unwittingly revealed by an inductivist.
“Fundamentally“. “Head buried”. Heh, indeed!
🙂 🙂 🙂
Mann talks like a naive adolescent. It is astonishing and embarrassing that such remarks come from someone considered to be a leading scientist.
I think Penn State is hurting its reputation by continuing to hire him. He brings in money, money is good, so Mike stays. I think it would be fun to send this particular statement to his Dean suggesting that it shows he is out of ideas and will shortly be unable to continue bring in the bucks. The Dean should be at least a little embarrassed.
It is pretty sad that they were willing to throw Paterno under the bus for someone else’s sins, but they continue to support this joker.
The head coach is responsible for everyone on his staff. That’s always the way it’s been.
There was evidence that Paterno had not been as diligent as he should have been.
He was preaching to the political pseudoscience choir for sure. They should wear white hoods when doing that.
Dr. Mann can see Climate Change from his house!
I know that whenever I look at a hockey stick I see climate change.
Maybe he thinks that all the winter sports playoffs and championships sliding well into spring is a sign of warming. To be fair, these season extensions are also all about money, so that conflation probably would make sense to him.
Yes, I 100% agree with Dr. Mann and therefore all government funding of climate science should be immediately terminated, starting with Penn State University. Cheers, Mark
It’s a few months past April 1. Michael Mann is getting beyond parody.