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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Global warming creates volatility. I feel it when I’m flying.
Occam’s razor favours the theory that it’s just Debbie’s hemorrhoids getting worse as she ages.
Can that be caused by being too full of s#!t?
If that’s true, maybe she should be required to buy two tickets.
I can’t wait to turn on the tv now so I can see climate change. This will be a game-changer for sure.
I’ve had mine on all day and haven’t seen any climate change at all! Is it a special subscription I have to add to my cable package?
“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 …”.
==========================================
Confirmation bias on stilts.
Barbara Boxer just has to look out her window: “In California, we can just look out the window to see climate change’s impacts …”.
“I know that most men—not only those considered clever, but even those who are very clever, and capable of understanding most difficult scientific, mathematical, or philosophic problems—can very seldom discern even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as to oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions they have formed, perhaps with much difficulty—conclusions of which they are proud, which they have taught to others, and on which they have built their lives …” (Tolstoy).
Isn’t The Big Bang Theory based on real events and real characters?
No. real geeks don’t get laid.
Only if Wolowitz states at some point that as an engineer he is unable to accept the global warming hypothesis. 🙂
I’ve just got up and I can tell you it feels bloody chilly which seems odd since I live in the tropics.
I’m sure that Mark Steyn has better things to do than respond to this absurdity, but I sure wish he would.
I’m sure it would be priceless.
Oh trust me…He misses nothing Mann says. He can add this latest statement to the case to strengthen his case regarding Mann’s credibility and intelligence. Lol
So the Democratic platform adopts Oreskes Merchants of Doubt nonsense and calls for DoJ investigations. Neither democratic nor constitutional. And Mann participates. Steyn needs to take him down with more than the book.
“So the Democratic platform adopts Oreskes Merchants of Doubt nonsense”
Do the dems want to change neutral pH or the weight of beryllium?
There was a bill some time back that tried to set the value of pi as 3.0.
Yes indeed, climate change should definitely be obvious Dr. Boyy. The two most extreme periods of climate change are glacial terminations and glacial inceptions. But the most interesting climate question at this moment in the Holocene is just how would one be able to tell “ours” from the normal, natural, regularly-scheduled “climatic madhouse” that seems to always attend the ends of the post-MPT extreme interglacials?
By our best estimate, the Holocene is presently (as of 2016) 11,719 years old (+/-99 years)(based on the end of the Younger-Dryas Cold Interval). It is hard to imagine a more ominous number, climatewise. At the end of the last interglacial, the Eemian (or MIS-5e), there were two strong, closely-spaced, thermal pulses, the second one was the stronger. Immediately after climate deteriorated rapidly into the Wisconsin Ice Age. Depending upon whom you wish to believe, sea level (the ultimate measure of climate change) jumped somewhere between +6 to +52 meters above present.
So the question only a Boyy could not begin to fathom would be how to tell which +0.6 meter IPCC rise by 2099 (AR4 worst case scenario) or +0.8 meter rise by 2100 (AR5) out of a possible +6 – +52 meter rise that might happen anyway is “ours”?
But for climate Boyy’s, it most definitely is far, far worse than they think. One of the things I most enjoy about litigation support is flipping the opposition’s arguments on their head. Ridiculously simple in the case of AGW.
What if all you climate Boyys are right about CO2? Ever stop to think that all the way through (before getting spanked in court)? There are basically 2 possibilities here: (1) Either the Holocene was going to just run blithely on and on ad infinitum, had it not been disturbed by “us”, meaning AGW, or (2) the only reason we are still enjoying Holocene interglacial warmth is BECAUSE of AGW.
But Boyys will be Boyys, afterall. And then there is APS (Arrested Puberty Syndrome). One of the more telling signs of maturity that can define the transition from boy to man is the ability to graciously take criticism. Especially well-reasoned criticism. But even more so if one takes your ideas and run with them, leaving you nowhere to go at the late-Holocene. I submit for consideration that this sort of thing defines the transition from Boyy to Mann.
I say go ahead and deplete the late-Holocene atmosphere of “climate security blanket (GHGs et al). Modern hominids are nowhere near as well climate adapted as late-Eemian hominids were. And then there came the Mt. Toba eruption ~70kya, smack-dab in the middle of the last ice age. Genetically, something like ~10k hominids made it out of that volcanic imposed climate change alive. Your basic average “population bottleneck”. By being able to come to the exact wrong conclusion regarding what to do about AGW, how well do you suppose your genome will do?
On the other hand, there is a lot that can said regarding such population bottlenecks. We do tend to get a better hominid out of them. In simple, this is a case of maturation. I like to think of it as the difference between “cause and effect” and “cause and defect”. If the cause is AGW, and so far as has best been prognosticated, our worst case effect, raising ambient sea level by +0.6 – +0.8 meters above present, would be completely undetectable should sea level do another whoop-di-do like the lowest estimate of +6 meters at the end-Eemian. Which is the first of the “defects”. Left unchecked, AGW’s worst case most likely would be to span the next 44kyrs until insolation begins to pick-up again.
But the shining gem here is best described as sadistics. Employing matheMANNics and AlGoreithms we might just get the really scary tipping point. You know the one of the opposite sign than the one expected? If the Boyys are right about CO2, we might end-up removing the only so-far postulated speedbump to glacial inception. It doesn’t even require a fully-matured noodle to glom onto the probability that those that do not graduate puberty will have an especially challenging time preserving their genome for the next ~90kyrs of ice age. Plus or minus another Mt. Toba……..
The possibility therefore exists that the better, possibly more mature thing to do here is “Let the Wookie(s) win!” Think of it this way; Mannkind or Mankind? (no offense ladies, this is seManntics)
I say again, a more decisive intelligence test than climate change has yet to be invented.
I like your “turn-tables-argument. Always fun to watch people trying to digest their own nonsense. If we are really saving the world from the next ice age, I will be delighted. Unfortunately, the recent hiatus puts the baloney to the whole idea of CO2 mediated warming and/ or the laughable notion of no negative feedback.
Yes, it really is special 🙂
If Steyn v Mann ever got to court it could be dwarf Climategate’s impact. The other two defendants should push for trial, like Steyn, rather than dismissal.
What “Dr.” Mann is saying is that he and his “team” have spent a career trying to tease out the signal of human-caused global warming and have failed. Failed miserably.
Most would say that with this failure one should look at the hypothesis but Mann says to just ignore the data. Go with “feelings”. Go with your gut.
Well, my gut was educated in math and science before it was tainted by the politics of the CO2 delusion. I could tell “Dr.” Mann that simply CO2 don’t do what you think it does. Proof? How about 20 years of no warming while CO2 skyrocketed. Doesn’t that say anything to these clowns?
Yoda would have had something about “trying to tease out a signal”.
Was reading two different things and then the above article tickled something…
‘Climate Scientist’
Phil Jones’s response to Warwick Hughes’s request for Jones’s raw climate data:
“Even if WMO agrees, I will still not pass on the data. We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it.”
‘Climate Scientist’
Michael Mann
“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”
Real Scientist(s?)
Physicist Lee Smolin and philosopher Roberto Unger at the TIME IN COSMOLOGY conference (June ’16)
They pull no punches in their sense that the lack of empirical data has led the field (Physics) astray. As they put it:
“Science is corrupted when it abandons the discipline of empirical validation or dis-confirmation. It is also weakened when it mistakes its assumptions for facts and its ready-made philosophy for the way things are.”
Someone needs to cutback on the navel gazing…
Lee Smolin lives in Waterloo – the place of common sense, real science and engineering. Oh yeah, and the strings theory group. Takes all kinds…
It must really bother him that he’s wasted his entire career on a failed, pointless effort. Oh well, at least he got that “Nobel Prize” out of it.
A peace prize was what Gore and he IPCC got. People need to be reminded of that and how hollow tat prize is after 2009’s winner.
Although this pokes fun at Mann and his cohort, it’s serious business. Most of the democratic party fully buys into this; that global warming manifests itself before our very eyes. No amount of data will otherwise convince these people. The American Chemical Society and the other national scientific bodies agree with the proposition. I believe that the battle has been lost.
Earth carries the deciding vote. The house always wins!
Is he an editor for The Storm Channel?
Probably not. If he was then he’d know that they focus on any storm anywhere in there forecast. If any present storm system isn’t noteworthy, then they either talk about how bad a storm could be or about how bad a past storm was.
If there’s such a thing out there, perhaps he should start watching Real Reality TV?
(Or just remember what he saw out the window when he was a kid?)
People are so used to hearing that “climate change” is a “bad” thing that I would guess that they think that the worlds weather should be stable within a few degrees without severe storms and that it’s all CO2’s fault that it ain’t so.
Isn’t it amazing how much calmer “Climate Change” was before everybody’s cell phone could record video?
More ammo for Steyn.
“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”
Teased it out? The data’s gone through the equivalent of a torture chamber.
Fundamentally, I’m a climate scientist and have spent much of my career with my head buried in…
Nevermind, he makes it too easy 😉
The full quote from the movie is even more applicable to climate science. The actual quote goes, “We don’t need to show you no stinking badges,” which is even closer to what happened with the data.
Anyway, Pseudo-Scientific American has “discovered” the climate change signal emerging from the weather, and their “ability as a scientific community to adequately (and convincingly) disentangle the human-caused factors from the underlying natural variability continues to improve”
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-change-signal-emerges-from-the-weather/
Amazing. Their “ability” to look at weather and see not only climate, but manmade climate. Truly a remarkable achievement.
Incredible – these people never give up. I will reluctantly be voting for Trump based on this issue only.
Do ‘skeptics’ have difficulty understanding simple English sentences? Or are they just pretending to?
[or it could be the problem is you -mod]
Magma,
You seem to see a different message than we do. Tell us which words you are struggling with, and we’ll provide standard English definitions of them for you. Or are you just pretending that what he said is not what he meant?
As Willis would say, show the simple English sentences. Then show how people misunderstood those sentences. Your statement has no substance, it is simply insulting.
@ur momisugly Magma
You asked, “Do ‘skeptics’ have difficulty understanding simple English sentences? Or are they just pretending to?
I am but a simple man. I have spent a lifetime teaching science and mathematics at various levels. I have never had the opertunity to teach creative writing. (which is needed to be an alarmists apparently)
What I saw in Mann’s statements was “… 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.” As you know, for 20 years there has been no rise in “global warming” even as the CO2 levels skyrocketed. So, for 20 years Mr. Mann has been unable to defend the CO2 hypothesis (delusion) and, indeed, it has been falsified by objective measurements. (and this even includes the US government’s cheating on the time series as much as they can get away with)
So, I think I am reading him correctly. He is saying that we should give up on the real science and go to just looking at all the storms. Heck, it flooded in West Virginia just this week. Being from the area, I know that it floods in the Appalachian mountains all the time. That is where the term “gully washer” comes from. But we can look at the flood and say “darn! it must be an act of God!” — or we can say “darn, it must be a trace gas!” Both superstitions are equally false. (well, I am not as sure about God. Hard to prove he/she/it did not do it)
Was that a fly-by troll? Don’t get many of those.
On the other hand, The Donald’s threat to tear up all of our trade agreements is likely to be more damaging to the economy than anything Hillary is likely to do.
[snip -over the top rhetoric with hate words -policy violation -mod]
The CAGW alarmists know the gig is up. CAGW’s global warming mean projections are already off by 2+ standard deviations for 20 years, which is sufficient disparity and duration to officially disconfirm the CAGW hypothesis…… Providing, of course, empirical data and the Scientific Method are still used in climatology….
Because we’re quickly entering a strong La Niña cycle, the “hiatus” will rear its ugly head again from around mid-2018, extending the flat global warming trend to 22+ years. Moreover, both the AMO and PDO will soon BOTH be in their respective 30-yr cool cycles and the next solar cycle will likely be the weakest since 1790, which guarantees global temp trends may well turn negative in 5~7 years…. Oooops….
Dr. Mann knows this, which is why he said, “climate “scientists” don’t need no steeeekin’ data.”
If “steeeeekin’ data” were used, CAGW would already have been run through the steeeeekin’ shredder…. That will not do….
The new dynamic is altruistic science based on feeeeeelings and “good” inteeeeeeeentions. Data is just sooooo 20th century…
To cover their bets, grant-grubbing scientists will continue to manipulate the steeeekin’ raw data upwards and continue to churn out pal-reviewed papers like KARL2015 to keep this charade going for as long as possible…
CAGW has become a joke…
“… grant-grubbing scientists will continue to manipulate the steeeekin’ raw data upwards …”
They will continue to manipulate the raw data upwards in the present, but will manipulate the raw data of the past downwards since that double whammy makes the false trend look more impressive. And yet, they still can’t show CO2 warms the planet to the “you will fry” levels predicted.
Michael Mann says his head is buried in “climate-data output.” I always thought his head was buried somewhere else – like up in the dark recesses of his own self, to be polite..
As I recall the quote from the Bogart film, he didn’t say what everyone says he said. I believe the quote was “We don’t have to show you any steenkeen badges!”
According to the Wiki, it’s sort of a mixture;
Gold Hat: “We are Federales… you know, the mounted police.”
Dobbs: “If you’re the police, where are your badges?”
Gold Hat: “Badges? We ain’t got no badges. We don’t need no badges! I don’t have to show you any stinkin’ badges!”
People can feel God and spirituality in their lives. Billions of humans profess this to be so everyday.
The Democratic Party and the Left in the US can feel Climate Change in their everyday lives, when they fly, when they see a flood or fire on the TV news.
Both are religions.
Michael Mann needs to change the name of his institue or center (whatever it is) to the Penn State School of Climate Divinity.
@joel, you are correct. People have an innate need for religion
http://listverse.com/2013/06/13/8-reasons-people-embrace-religion/
The climate brigade is “enlightened” beyond the traditional religions and this is reinforced in their leftist university echo chambers.
But because the climate zealots are actually mentally weak and superstitious, climate change becomes their “religion” and they are not intellectual enough to accept the trivial role man plays on the planet. None of these high priests has the fortitude to stare into the abyss.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/religious-people-are-less-intelligent-than-atheists-according-to-analysis-of-scores-of-scientific-8758046.html
The abyss is where mankind is powerless.
Admitting being powerless would be the shaman voodoo witch doctor telling his village he can’t help them from thevolcano. That won’t happen. Its about power and control.
The Left covets power. They lie for it. They manufacture “data” for it.
And Science has died under Climatism.
How telling that religion is summons up so often, and whipped in effigy when the beast that rages now was obviously spawned by team science . . by people with IQ well above average . . Seems to me that abyss is a bit much to face for some.
JohnKnight said-
“How telling that religion is summons up so often, and whipped in effigy when the beast that rages now was obviously spawned by team science . . by people with IQ well above average . . Seems to me that abyss is a bit much to face for some.”
First-I want to see the IQ tests myself. I’m not buying the idea that all scientists are smarter than average….not anymore.
Second-Ftop-T’s linked list didn’t define religion as anything that required belief in a “God” or “deity” per se…it was more like a list of 8 things that COULD answer the question posed by the author- “Why do people have the need to “believe fervently in the very unlikely”?
If you define religion as-“believing fervently in the very unlikely”, then yes, AGW and CAGW both meet that definition of “religion”. So would believing that your cancer stricken friend is going to recover, or that you are going to drive an automobile your entire life and never get in a car accident. I snorted in derision when I read FTop’s comment, but then I read his link and reconsidered it’s message as related to climate scientists- Here are the 8 reasons-
8-People are Superstitious
7-People can’t help anthropomorphism
6-Need for Purpose
5-Belief in Justice
4-Hope for Afterlife
3-We need our Silverback
2-Imbibing Special Plants
1-It brings us together.
Since just about ALL of those things can be considered to be “natural”, the-result-of-evolution, enlightened, instinctual, bred-into-our-dna characteristics, then it looks like “religion-fervent belief in the very unlikely” is actually a very scientifically proven, basic human behavior. 🙂 *evil grin* In fact, it would be the 10% (according to the article) of people who have no religious/spiritual characteristics…that are UNnatural mutations. *another evil grin*
Aphan,
“Since just about ALL of those things can be considered to be “natural”, the-result-of-evolution, enlightened, instinctual, bred-into-our-dna characteristics, then it looks like “religion-fervent belief in the very unlikely” is actually a very scientifically proven, basic human behavior. 🙂 ”
Well, there exists this other potential, having to do with the ramifications of being made by a God . . which renders (if true) most of what you said there . . irrelevant, it seems to me. Certainly the very unlikely part ; )
I’m not sure if you are reasoning within the “Yes God exists” potential fully, when considering that potential. It seems you sort of stay in the maybe, so to speak (or even the probably not), analysis wise . . and that just won’t get you far, in terms understanding what is going on IF yes, God exists.
Facing THAT “abyss”, fully, might I think help you understand what I wrote to them fellas with the whips ; )
Aphan:
“If you define religion as-“believing fervently in the very unlikely”,”
That is a ridiculous definition of ‘religion’. Fervence has nothing to do with it. You have provided a reasonable definition of “superstition”.
From http://www.dictionary.com/browse/religion
“A set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.”
CAGW meets every nuance of this definition. Like communism, it is a religion of irreligion worshipping, all things considered, a pretty boring false god.
Crispin in Waterloo,
Calm down.
The author of the ARTICLE/link that was introduced into this discussion by FTOP used that term, not me. I simply stated that if someone (like the author and perhaps FTOP who posted it) views “religion” that way-then that person should admit that CAGW fits that description and = religion. The 8 reasons why someone would “need religion” listed in the article would thus apply very well to the reasons why someone would NEED to believe in CAGW.
I never said it was a good or acceptable definition, or that I agreed with it. I was pointing out to JohnKnight that even the author’s wacky descriptions and reasons for religion can be applied to CAGW and that they don’t even need a “supernatural” element….just regular old social science accepted human “needs”. 🙂
This must be the reason why the IPCC dropped his hockey stick graph from their reports.