Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Michael Mann, inventor of the infamous climate “Hockey Stick”, has written an article to promote his book, and to promote the idea that scientists are rebelling against the new Trump administration.
Climate change denial is not dead
BY MICHAEL E. MANN, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR – 01/31/17 12:10 PM EST
The era of climate change denial is over. Rejection of the unequivocal scientific evidence that carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are warming the planet and changing our climate is no longer socially acceptable. Only the most fringe of politicians now disputes the overwhelming scientific consensus that climate change is real and human-caused, and they are largely ignored.
So why dignify the notion of climate change denial by writing about it?
Such was the criticism I received from many well-meaning fellow climate scientists last fall after I published my latest book, “The Madhouse Effect: How Climate Change Denial Is Threatening Our Planet, Destroying Our Politics, and Driving Us Crazy,” co-authored with Washington Post editorial cartoonist Tom Toles.
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It is difficult to keep up with this dizzying ongoing assault on science.
Indeed, that assault was enough to motivate my fellow climate scientists and me to participate in a rally at the annual meeting of the largest Earth Science organization in the country, the American Geophysical Union, last December. And now there is a much larger plan afoot for a scientists’ march on Washington next month.
We scientists are, in general, a reticent lot who would much rather spend our time in the lab, out in the field, teaching and doing research. It is only the most unusual of circumstances that gets us marching in the streets. Trump’s assault on science is just such a circumstance. And we are seeing a rebellion continue to mount.
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The obvious next step in this rebellion is mass resignation, to show the Trump administration that climate scientists cannot continue taking tainted money from a government whom they accuse of subverting science.
I look forward to reporting about all the heroic, principled climate scientists who rejected their secure academic tenure and fat government grants. No doubt Dr. Michael Mann will lead by example.
What if Trump said “Climate change is real, its man made, but we are zeroing out the federal climate change budget” That would upset Michael Mann and his group more than if Trump said climate change is a hoax but we’ll continue funding the climate change budgets. The “denial” they are upset about is the denial of the gravy train of money that has developed for climate change related studies and research.
Aux armes, scientifiques! Tenez les barricades de fonds publics!
–Et au fin misérable le mot de Cambronne–
Mikey Mann wrote: “Only the most fringe of politicians now disputes the overwhelming scientific consensus that climate change is real and human-caused,….”
I’ll reword Mikey’s claim to make it more representative of the actual state of affairs: Only the most fringe of politicians now disputes the consensus of scientists payed to show that climate change is real and human-caused, …
Put that way, I’m as convinced climate change is real and human-caused as I would be convinced of a defendant’s innocence because the consensus of lawyers paid to represent the defendant proclaim the defendant’s innocence.
He exhibits cognitive dissonance at its finest. Doctor, here is someone to see you.
Not necessarily. If he really believes he’s right, there is no dissonance. Cognitive dissonance only occurs when someone is doing something against what they believe. If he went out and said he adored Trump in the hopes of getting more grants, that would produce cognitive dissonance.
“changing our climate is no longer socially acceptable.”
Presuming mankind could control climate:
Mann, please explain the social acceptability of the climate reference point at the end of 1800’s. Those days Finland suffered a year without a summer. Crops failed. People suffered from cold, famine and mass starvation. Why should they return back to it? Thank you.
you need more than pussies for a rebellion…
“scientific consensus” is an oxymoron because science is not a democracy. The Laws of science is not some sort of legislation. Scientific theories are not validated via a voting process. There is no “scientific consensus” with regarts to the AGW conjecture because sceintists never actually registered and voted on the matter. The AGW conjecture must be very problematic if those who believe in it must use “scientific consensus” as a reason why it must be true. I myself would like to use AGW as an additional reason to conserve on the use of fossil fuel but the AGW conjecture has a few problems. Some of them are.
1. The AGW conjecture depends on the existance of a radiant greenhouse effect caused by the LWIR absorption properties of so called greenhouse gases but to date such as effect has not been detected anywhere in the solar system. Because the radiant greenhouse effect is fiction so must be the AGW conjecture.
2. If CO2 really affected climate then one would expect that the increase in CO2 over the past 30 years would have caused at least a measureable increase in the dry lapse rate in the troposphere but such has not happened.
3. There is no real evidence in the paleoclimate record that CO2 has any effect on climate.
4. The initial calculations of the Plank effect climate sensivity of CO2 were found to be too great by more than a factor of 20 because the calculations did not take into consideration that doubling the amount of CO2 will cause a slight but very significant decrease in the dry lapse rate which is a counteracting cooling effect. So instead of a value of 1.2 degrees C, the climate sensivity of CO2 is less than .02 degrees C, a rather trivial amount.
5. To be significant the AGW conjecture depends upon H2O providing a positive feedback to the warming effect of CO2 so as to amplify CO2’s effect on climate. But, besides other additional reasons, based on the fact that the wet lapse rate is significantly less than the dry laps rate, more H2O acts as a coolant and hence provides negative feedback diminishing any warming effect that CO2 might have.
6. The IPCC’s models that include CO2 based warming have all been wrong and have predicted warming that never happened.
7..After more than two decades of work the IPCC has failed to measure the ture climate sensifity of CO2. It is as if the climate sensivity of CO2 were really zero. They have been unable to narrow the range of their guesses one iota.
8. The AGW conjecture ignores the fact that heat energy transport by conduction and convection in the troposphere dominates over heat energy transport by LWIR absorption band radiation.
Climate “Science” needs to change from being a religion to being evidence based. They need to start believing what they see rather than seeing what they believe.
I can’t help but feel that this whole argument is a political distraction from the main event! Maybe the climate isn’t changing, maybe it is? Maybe it’s man made maybe it isn’t? Maybe Government money is being wasted, but then there is nothing new in that and research has to have many losses, many dead ends, to make real progress?
So why is this all a distraction? The crux for me is that many of our energy resources are finite and we are using them up at a tremendous rate, on the cheap. By that I mean we have, perhaps, greatly underestimated the externalities and ‘discounted’ benefits for future generations. Society and energy companies seem to have no interest in re-valuation and this whole argument has got politicians and the public confused (which I suspect was not unintentional). Thus allowing politicians and energy companies to stitch together climate change and renewable energy, so ditching (or hiding) renewable energy R&D and downgrading financial support for its use to combat the under-valuation of current energy.
Just a thought?
Paul you make very little coherent sense. Your argument seems to be rooted in a version of the conspiracy theory that “fossil fuel” companies have secretly known there is a “climate crisis” but hid this vital information from the world. Feel free to respond evidence and not conspiratorial b.s..
Paul,
You make the mistake of assuming that our present valuation of fossil fuels – as valuable when your car needs a tank – will be held valuable still by those future generations you mention.
Who can really foresee specific future values in a world that sees so much rate of change as for example, with computers?
Why is this an mistaken Geoff? without urgently searching for alternatives, funded by current energy use, they will be more valuable as they become more scarce, at least Economics 101 would have us believe. Only extensive R&D and infrastructure development will ensure this is not so, it won’t just happen( or do you know something I don’t about future energy sources?). The AGW denial argument seems to be being used to support profligate fossil fuel use and cutting government funding from sustainable alternatives. I’m suggesting the AGW line of argument is erroneous, and a distractor for the public ( and politicians)from the main issue.
Paul,
Your use of “denial” is as bigoted towards us as if you were calling African Americans ‘ni@ur momisugly@e&’ for being too uppity and complaining about the condescending haters who controlled the discussion for far too long.
Your intellectual bigotry and reliance on conspiratorial claims is a pretty good tell you have no idea of what you are talking about and are not interested in a serious honest discussion.
Paul: “By that I mean we have, perhaps, greatly underestimated the externalities and ‘discounted’ benefits for future generations.” My grandfather farmed with mules, came to America on a boat, and lived to see people walk on the moon. Now, we talk to each other on cell phones, can put locators on things so we can find them anywhere in the world, real-time events are broadcast on Facebook and pictures are zeros and ones on a computer drive. How in the world can we foresee the needs of future generations?
How could the people in the 19th century have planned for cars and trains? Should they have been frantically looking for alternatives because we might one day run out of room for raising horses? No one can see 100 years in the future and only fools pretend they can.
As for fuel running out, oil, gas and coal are not faucets that shut off 100% at some time in the future. It’s a slow process and innovation comes as the supplies dwindle. If someone tomorrow created an energy source better, cheaper and more reliable than oil, gas or coal, the transition would start now. Since none exist, the R & D goes on. Oil and gas were not used to “save the future” from horses running out. They were used because they worked.
Say what???? You cannot be serious.
Emigration to a welcoming Canada is another option. It would greatly improve climate science in the US.
Not so fast Ed. There are a growing number of canucks wanting a wall built to keep out the US snowflakes – as soon as we get ride of our own snowflake – trudeau.
“The obvious next step in this rebellion is mass resignation..”
Please correct me if my failing memory is at fault , but did not the airport controllers of US try to destroy the early Reagan administration by going on strike? I have the impression that Reagan won by sacking them and hiring replacements .
Perhaps the striking scientists of US should be reminded that the teeming universities of China and India produce , each year , thousands of highly gifted young men and women easily capable of replacing them in virtually any discipline .
If a bunch of wastrel academics went on strike or resigned…… would anyone even notice??
Not if they were in the forest.
Why would we want to replace them?
I don’t usually look at the US press but today I looked at the NYT online. The front page had a quiz about what choices I would make on climate policy. I supplied typical sceptical answers. I was surprised by the commentary provided by the quiz. It scolded me on each answer and concluded that I was very bad for the planet. It treated me like a badly behaved child.
Clearly, a comprehensive belief in AGW was a given for the NYT. The quiz treated non-believers like morons. i don’t think I’ll waste more time on this publication any time soon. I was absolutely astonished by the puerile nature of the propaganda piece.
On that note check out my link (5.33am) to the Milo Yiannopoulos treatment at UC Berkeley and listen to the reporter dismissing him as an ‘internet troll’ and I’d suggest you got off lightly with the NYT 😉
I agree. I laughed at the comment I got after scoring zero on the test:
“You did a very bad job protecting the environment and may have made many of the worst effects of climate change more likely. It could hardly have been worse.
On the upside for President Trump, Republicans in Congress and many of the people who voted for him will support most of your decisions. We guess it’s true what they say about dark clouds (something about silver linings?).”
The silver lining is Trump is turning over the rocks and exposing all these leftist Groupthinkers scurrying out from beneath to expose them all to the sunlight-
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/andrew-bolt/groupthink-alert-our-uni-bosses-damn-trump/news-story/e1ff2f1d338766395ec6e3784e777d7a
They can’t maintain their pretence at being rational, unbiased purveyors of truth any longer.
Funny thing is, so far only one scientist has been principled enough to resign over ethical considerations . . . and she did it for exactly the opposite reason that Mann is claiming.
I seem to remember reports on here that Climate Scientists claim the Deniers are funded by big oil, while it is actually they themselves in receipt of the money. The standing joke being, “I am still waiting for my check”.
Will this funding also dry up when DT turns off the EPA money and starts opening pipe lines and encouraging shale extraction?
http://www.reportingclimatescience.com/2016/05/11/mann-paper-pause-was-not-foreseeable/
Michael Mann – Claims the pause was not foreseeable –
Really, the amo/pdo cycles have shown up very promentantly 4 times in the temp records since the 1750’s
Hint to Mann – I can understand why you missed it since you relied on the bristlecone pines whose temp reconstructions dont even reflect the local temps
“We scientists are, in general, a reticent lot ..”
Only reticent when it suits their purpose (do listen to both video reports)
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/andrew-bolt/violent-left-now-stops-milo-speech/news-story/fb9611e3f06a11b31733c57266365295
What’s the opposite of diversity? Sadly it’s university nowadays and it’s not hard to see from whence all the Groupthink and settled science emanates.
If Prof. Mann has been reticent, I’d hate to see what his version of outspoken might be.
STRIKE! Yes Mann, go on strike! Please!
No, don’t go on strike! Resign instead. That’s more permanent.
No, no, no! Move to Canada Mikey! Just like all of those Hollyweirdos promised….oh wait.
Never mind.
“The era of climate change denial is over.” I suppose Mr. Mann can say that assuming all he reads and listens to repeat the same lies. But from where I sit there more and more evidence exposing it for the hoax it is. And the “scientists” do not have any reasonable explanations for the failure of their models. In fact most of their reasons are so far afield from a scientific explanation that it is embarrassing.
Hickory dickory dock
Mann published a crock
When all was done
And he thought he had won
He was left holding his …… clock
If his buddies just give him a good ego stroking will he calm down?
“We scientists are, in general, a reticent lot ..”
I’m sure there many more than one actually reticent and actually scientist that, if they weren’t so reticent, would say, “What do you mean “We”?
It’s like he’s forming the Committee to Re-Elect Donald Trump.
These people still do not realize how ridiculous they look doing this stuff.
A book from Mann, to expensive and no where near good enough … to be used as toilet paper , which is a shame as that is all its useful for .
“No doubt Dr. Mann will lead by example”
If only.
You know the scary global warming hoax is over when promoters try to get their books out before
it disappears . You have to hand it to them though . Pitching fiction that a warming world is bad
proves suckers continue to be born. And who knew … climate changes . The horror .
What ever happened to those leaned scientists that promoted the 1970’s global cooling BS ?
They were the Hollywood’s science advisers for “The Day After Tomorrow”?