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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Mann’s statement is a very long-winded way of saying “we don’t know what is happening or why but it can’t be good. There for we’re going to stop looking and go with our hearts.”
I can’t say I’m amazed or even surprised. It is what it always has been – a gut feeling frustrated by a lack of convincing evidence.
“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,”
this is the very definition of confirmation bias
He is assuming that the MSM will relay “you can see it happening all around, just look at the TV”.
And as we know, the majority get their news off the TV….
Grist ran an article, basically a Chinese Whisper of another article, in response to the recent post here about Climate Scientists non-use of renewable energy.
Seemingly Mann had chirped/twitted/faceborked that he, in his home, bought and used only ‘renewable’ windmill electricity and didn’t mind paying extra for it.
If the guy cannot/will not hand over his work emails/data/computer code because it is “private”, (stuff that me & you taxpayer paid for), what chance have we of seeing proof of what goes between him and his electricity supplier?
Mister, you are a Public Servant – you do what the public ask of you. Geddit? OK?
And as a public servant, your pay/wage/salary comes from the public purse, from little people who will be jailed if they don’t pay your salary in the form of taxes levied upon them.
And you say you ‘don’t mind paying extra’ for your personal services out of this tax-generated salary.
Mister, you could be Dumb For America
The guy has removed himself from reality exactly the same way as Marie Antoinette did…
In England, Australia and New Zealand (NZ) public servants are usually called civil servants. I met one once in NZ he said “I may be a civil servant but I don’t have to be civil nor serve anyone!” (Yes it is an “internal” joke). The arrogance of these types knows no bounds.
The joys of belonging to a strong union.
That claim really shows that he either has no understanding of how renewables work or is a liar. I would put my money on the latter.
Unless he is off the grid and self powering his home with a personal windmill or wind farm AND not using a backup generator, he is not just paying for and using windmill electricity. He might be “paying” for it, but that is just a paper shuffle. My Pennsylvania Dutch grandfather had a word for people like Mann: shyster.
I am pretty sure Pop Pop meant it in the Germanic sense.
If they ever revive Bugs Bunny cartoons, they can have a Mikey Mann character who hands Bugs the inevitable business card that reads “A. Sheister – Climate Scientist” LOL
I believe he works at the firm, Cheatham, Soakem and Split.
Here’s another, similar quote from Mann from a few years back:
“Proof is for mathematical theorems and alcoholic beverages. It’s not for science,” Mann says.
Here’s the full thing:
https://thecrosier.com/chaos-and-the-hockey-stick-46243f9e6b02#.4k2fhpkz5
In Mann’s defense, there are a lot of signals in need of being teased out. It’s tricky. Take the signal for space aliens. Naturally, they don’t want us to know they’re here, so are trying to blend in as much as possible. You just have to know where to look and what to look for.
This just proved CAGW is indeed a religion. Mann is making the argument that an unseen force is directing events and that unseen force is evident through those actions. That is the exact agrument of many religions and the basis of Intelligent Design. By Mann’s standards, Intelligent Design is now science and needs no proof. It can be seen all around us. Science and religion are now one.
“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,”
If you wanted proof of confirmation bias there it is. He found a signal because he was looking for it. I can’t count how many times I went looking for something and found something else (I look at time series data and crush my own hypotheses on a daily basis). If the signal is real, you don’t have to ‘tease’ it out. It will be there. All YOU the scientist have to do is remove the noise and if a signal exists it will be there. What’s that? You don’t know what’s in the noise? I guess you don’t know what’s in the ‘signal’ either, do you?
Yup! Confirmation bias is the essence of the AGW BS story. Just do the right amount of “adjustments” to the “data” and the right amount of “smoothing” and you can make it all look like it moves in lock step. Then some more data comes in, and you have to start all over again. Only in this field of psuedo science does the so-called “scientist” begin with the answer he KNOWS is right and work backwards to “tease out” the so-called “evidence.”
It’s time for people around the world to vote out of office EVERY politician that promotes, votes for, or speaks favorably of the “climate change” BS.
I admire Michael Mann. He’s fighting that Balrog all the way down.
Will Mikie the Grey emerge as Mikie the White?
Stabenow is not a “former” Senator.
‘we don’t need no stinking data’
– 25 juli – 3 augustus 1911 (hoogste temperatuur 35,6 ℃)
– 10 juli – 17 juli 1912, (31,5 ℃)
– 10 juni – 19 juni 1917 (32,4 ℃)
– 11 juli – 16 juli 1928 (32,4 ℃)
– 26 augustus – 30 augustus 1930 (32,8 ℃)
– 10 augustus – 21 augustus 1932 (33,2 ℃)
– 17 juni – 24 juni 1936 (32,1 ℃)
– 30 juli – 7 augustus 1938 (33,2 ℃)
– 26 augustus – 31 augustus 1942 (31,1 ℃)
– 25 juli – 1 augustus 1943 (30,4 ℃)
– 18 augustus – 25 augustus 1944 (34,7 ℃)
– 30 mei – 4 juni 1947 (33,7 ℃)
– 25 juni – 30 juni 1947 (36,8 ℃)
– 22 juli – 30 juli 1947 (32,5 ℃)
– 10 juni – 14 juni 1948 (31,7 ℃)
– 2 juni – 7 juni 1950 (32,1 ℃)
No longer a heat wave.
It is now crystal clear that people did not know how to read temperature before 1951.
http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/26093180/__KNMI_schrapt_hittegolven__.html
“Of the forty heatwaves in our country, almost half turn out to be NO heat wave. That says KNMI which again has thoroughly studied the historical weather data.”
This is what is left.
https://www.knmi.nl/nederland-nu/klimatologie/lijsten/hittegolven
Old data before the change.
http://www.npogeschiedenis.nl/nieuws/2015/juli/Hittegolven-in-Nederland.html
“Global warming creates volatility. I feel it when I’m flying.”
Try flying back in the time machine darlin. All 1411 pages of it to date and counting –
http://www.breadandbutterscience.com/Weather.pdf
What is it with the ‘moi’ generation and their inflated sense of self importance?
Re Data and models increasingly unnecessary ? Doesn’t this suggest climate programmers are equally unnecessary ? The proven history of wildly inaccurate climate models are at least consistently wrong in one direction . That programing bias raises the question of bought outcomes .
Would any climate model programmer have a job if they produced projections of modest warming or god forbid cooling ?
Imagine the USA Navy going to Congress demanding $$Trillions in extra funding to address the threat of a made up enemy based on …. model projections .
How many seconds would Navy brass have jobs if that was their explanation ? When challenged they reply the data is increasingly unnecessary they can see it on TV .
Yes climate changes and hopefully the world is warming , Put the $$Trillions into something that produces better modellers or better yet pays down the debt once in a while ,
Well I cannot see it on current televisions, so I propose we demand high definition, 3D, plasma televisions and high speed internet access from the government as part of the Michael Mann Early Warning Climate System Act. It won’t cost us a thing. We can just use the money we no longer need to funnel into the development of obsolete “tools” to “tease out a human signal” !!!!
“On my current televisions…”
“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”
If it was only millions it wouldn’t be the problem it is.
But it’s three orders of magnitude greater than that, and while that might not matter to a climate scientist, it sure as hell matters to an accountant.