Josh writes:
On this historic Brexit day the fun has not been confined to this continent. Over in the US they have had a ‘hearing’ on Climate Science with three of the world’s most eminent climate scientists. Michael Mann was there too.
The Hearing- Climate Science: Assumptions, Policy Implications, and the Scientific Method, House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. On the Panel were Dr. Judith Curry, Dr. John Christy. Dr. Michael Mann, and Dr. Roger Pielke Jr.
Worth watching (nearly) the whole thing.
Josh
Added: links to written testimony are within each name. – Anthony
Witnesses
President, Climate Forecast Applications Network; Professor Emeritus, Georgia Institute of Technology
Professor and Director, Earth System Science Center, NSSTC, University of Alabama at Huntsville; State Climatologist, Alabama
Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science, Pennsylvania State University; Director, Earth System Science Center (ESSC), Pennsylvania State University
Professor, Environmental Studies Department, University of Colorado
UPDATE: From Marc Morano at Climate Depot
AP’s Borenstein calls out Michael Mann for a whopper: ‘Mann said he didn’t call Curry a denier. But in his written testimony he called Curry ‘a climate science denier’
Associated Press:
At first Mann said he didn’t call Curry a denier. But in his written not oral testimony he called Curry “a climate science denier.” Mann said there’s a difference between denying climate change and “denying established science” on how much humans cause climate change, which he said Curry did.
[Also see: Warmist Michael Mann tells whopper at congressional science hearing?]
AP:
Mann and Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California both compared the other side’s behavior to the former Soviet Union under Josef Stalin. Mann first raised the Stalin analogy, then Rohrabacher used the comparison four times after that to talk about Mann and other mainstream climate scientists. “For scientists to call names to beat someone into submission, that’s a Stalinist tactic,” Rohrabacher said.
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10/10 Josh
G’day Chasmod !
G
CtheM, yup. Brilliant. Means I have to order the 2018 calendar even tho only March 2017. Computer wallpaper not good enough.
Note that it starts 18mins in on the hour.
More like 16 minutes.
Fair and Balanced…..
With no mannipulation of data or facts needed!
It’s Another Great Day For America and our British allies and friends!
Josh,
You left out that Dr. Mann is a Nobel Prize laureate, (I think it was the Nobel Prize for fictional literature).
That is because some spiteful sceptics disputed the authenticity of his no bell award, however we can say that concusses is, as the photograph below shows, his award is 97% authentic.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/No%20Bell%20Cert.jpg
I’ve often thought that should be spelled the “No Belt” award, where the t is silent as in the Cobert report. I envision a brass statue of a doofus desperate to hold up his pants which are falling off for lack of a belt.
I believe John Christy was also part of that Nobel Prize laureate entourage… But, I think he refused to accept his symbolic share of the prize.
The EU got one too so we’ll have to hand ours back after Brexit and no doubt our share of the prize.
Wrong it was “Science Fiction”.
It was sports – the ‘hockey stick’ – but the Canadians rejected that notion!
One thing I picked up about Mann after reading the Climategate e-mails is that he’s a fairly caustic, arrogant personality that rankled the feathers of even his close associates.
I have other words to describe that type of personality but, out of consideration for the sensibilities of other posters, I will decline to use them here.
I’ll see you next tuesday?
Yes, referred to as “Thin-skinned” by Briffa.
Re: “..caustic, arrogant personality…”
In reading mann’s testimony, this comes through clearly!
Cite
he’s a fairly caustic, arrogant personality that rankled the feathers of even his close associates.
Just compare his introduction (above) of himself compared to those of the other three.
Josh makes a serious point about him.
Did I hear correctly Dr. Mann in his opening statement, that cattle were recently burned alive as a result of the Attribution of CO2 to Climate Change? On what alter were these cattle burned alive? I had thought that even our savage ancestors who sacrificed the Bull, actually killed the cow first before burning it at the alter.
What a creep…call the SPCA.
Ms Bonamici asked everyone to imagine 96 other Dr Manns in the room. Okay. Drain The Swamp!
‘Ms.’ Bonamici is local where I live and she’s a party-line hack who is literally dumber than a rock.
Mann drips arrogance. That’s just it in a nutshell. He’s right, you’re wrong, that’s it; end of conversation.
I love how Mr.Mann talks about all the threats and the fear of jailing scientists when its the Skeptics who are under attack and threatened with jail. It’s called “Projecting” and the Left is doing it like crazy.
My reaction exactly. Mann is suing Steyn, and is an advisor to CAI cofounded by Oreskes of Merchants of Doubt infamy that advocates RICO against ‘deniers’. Also Wasn’t too smart to cite a Science op ed calling Committee Chair Smith a denier in his own sworn testimony to Smith.
Projecting is stock-in-trade for the left. If the left accuses someone of a behaviour or activity, then you will almost certainly find it as an important part of the left’s modus operandi.
The left lies, projects, and hates. The left is the place where people who like exercising those personality traits find their best expression. It is created by those kinds of people, and for those kinds of people. Many good people get attracted by the PR, but in the end they tend to leave or get forced out.
And the true nature of the Left is the increase in State Power which can only come by reducing Individual Liberty. Of course, the ‘State’ is an abstract entity, so ‘increase in State Power’ actually means ‘increase in power by the “elites” that control the State’. Leftism is the desire by control freaks to tell others what to do using the guns of the State to accomplish this.
Robbing the earnings of hard-working people using the guns of the State is also what the Left does when it wants to play Santa Claus with the fruits of the labor of others. But really the Left is about increasing State POWER.
Democrats take money from people who work for a living, in order to give it to those who vote for a living.
Great statement!
I wouldn’t call it ‘projecting’ – it’s redirection, to hide the fact that, in nearly every case, the specific charge is exactly what THEY are doing.
That’s why it is called projection. They are projecting their own motives, beliefs and actions onto others to keep others from looking at them.
As I understand the difference, ‘projection’ is an unconscious rather than deliberate action. ‘Redirection’ is a deliberate act to cover one’s motives.
Well this does show that Mikey is an expert at one thing. That is, using any argument at any time from both sides of his mouth.
Unfortunately the Rohrabacher chastisement has been meddled with. I’m a broadcast technician, that is only possible to happen through “finger trouble”.
Yes, he is either living in a delusional state or a skillful propagandists, and I find it difficult to use the term “skillful” in his vicinity. He also spoke of being threatened with law suits as a form of intimidation or bullying, however I believe there was only one person on the scientific panel who actually resorted to that tactic and then fell into a perpetual stalling mode when it came to discovery. That person of course was sitting in Dr. Mann’s chair. Very funny was his description of Lysenkoism in Stalinist USSR and the implication that everyone on the panel but himself had fallen into the trap of false belief, when three panelists were speaking very eloquently in favour of recognizing and reinforcing the proper scientific process and removing political and individual biases from the process. Only one person was trying to defend policy driving science and again that person had taken the seat reserved for Dr. Mann.
Trump needs to hold a livestream debate on climate change, let the public decide for themselves rather than this “well hes funded by fossil fuel industry” and “science is settled” crap
It would be helpful if he, personally, even if only by tweeting, debunked the “97% of all scientists” Big Lie by the myth-mongering Mainstream Media. Opening that topic for discussion would help to educate those in the public who have uncritically bought that fake news line.
that one kills me. people think I am nuts for not buying it. I gave up trying to offer the debunking info for folks to consider.
Show them the original papers. They will see the flaws.
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/306/5702/1686.full
The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change, Naomi Oreskes et al
Science 03 Dec 2004:
Vol. 306, Issue 5702, pp. 1686
DOI: 10.1126/science.1103618
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/024024;jsessionid=4A6D63AC32A99E7B9665F6B08D627BA8.c2.iopscience.cld.iop.org
Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature
Cook et al
15 May 2013, Environmental Research Letters, Volume 8, Number 2
Curry, Christy, and Pilkie should have explained that they themselves are card-carrying members of the 97%. Everyone who understands that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, and its increase in the atmosphere causes a little surface warming, is in the 97%, as defined in Lewindowski’s paper. The 97% includes all from alarmists about dangerous warming to Monckton expecting small, gentle and beneficial warming. The 3% (the “deniers”) are those who mis-understand the role of greenhouse gases elevating surface temperature. On my planet the surface temperature of >600 K is attributed to the massive atmosphere of mostly carbon dioxide, 200 thousand times more than present in Earth’s atmosphere. But some bloggers, in the 3% category, believe Venus’ surface temperature would be the same (>600 K) if its massive atmosphere were not carbon dioxide but even an optically inert gas such as Argon.
The 97% particularly means dangerous climate change; that’s what it means; and it is a patent lie.
Mayor of Venus writes: “if its massive atmosphere were not carbon dioxide but even an optically inert gas such as Argon.”
But of course Argon isn’t optically inert. You’ve familiar with the Krypton/Argon laser? Argon just needs a bit of help sometimes.
Bartleby,
You say: “But of course Argon isn’t optically inert. You’ve familiar with the Krypton/Argon laser? Argon just needs a bit of help sometimes.”
Surely you understand that Argon is not significantly radiative/absorptive at atmospheric temperatures?
You sound like those deluded people who say that a pure nitrogen+oxygen atmosphere (i.e. containing no other gases, water, or particulate matter) would exhibit surface warming properties. Whereas the truth is that such an atmosphere would be entirely transparent to surface LW radiation, resulting in a mean surface temperature similar that that of the Moon (about 200K).
Bartleby,
You say: “But of course Argon isn’t optically inert. You’ve familiar with the Krypton/Argon laser? Argon just needs a bit of help sometimes.”
Surely you now that Argon is not radiative/absorptive at atmospheric pressures and temperatures. That’s why it is not classed as a GHG.
I hope your not joining the deluded people who think that an atmosphere consisting only of oxygen and nitrogen would cause any warming at all. Its surface temperature would be about the same as the Moon (~220K).
Bartleby April 1, 2017 at 1:45 pm
Mayor of Venus writes: “if its massive atmosphere were not carbon dioxide but even an optically inert gas such as Argon.”
But of course Argon isn’t optically inert. You’ve familiar with the Krypton/Argon laser? Argon just needs a bit of help sometimes.
Actually a lot of help, it has to be ionized first. They’re Argon-ion lasers where the ions are formed by passing a electric discharge through the argon gas, only takes ~1500 kJ/mol compared with 8 kJ/mol for the vibrational excitation of CO2.
Yes, I agree. We’ve heard from the alarmists for what, 25 years now? With 90% of media coverage all about the pending “catastrophe”.
Makes for good sci-fi scare movies replayed at 1:00am. Also for 30sec b-roll on CNN (climate nonsense news),
Comedic.
I note that only one of the four is a Distinguished professor, how can that be?
Is this a special title for climate scientists who stand out from the crowd?
Mann has distinguished himself only by bringing home the bacon for Penn State, in the form of grant pork.
If they didn’t put distinguished in his title, the word would never be used together with his name …
He was the only one that went one for ages saying how brilliant he was and kept calling to authority.
He’s distinguished by his caustic demeanour !
g
‘Distinguish’ is from the Latin ‘stinguo’, meaning ‘prick’.
I were a perfesser for 40 years. I never met a professor who wasn’t “distinguished” or a musician or artist who wasn’t “acclaimed”; especially when I served on the tenure and promotions committee.
Bill McKibben is a “Distinguished Scholar” at Middlebury College in Vt. He has a bachelors degree in English and is not a scientist, but an activist. I guess you’d say Mann is distinguished more by his activism than his science, so perhaps one has to be an activist to become distinguished.
It no doubt helps one become “distinguished” if one is a trustee of a foundation that has given the College $2.7 million and funds one’s position.
McKibben’s extreme radical activism leads to the bullying KKK-type tactics employed by members of his 350.org group wearing masks and carrying torches when they stormed the home of a Texas oil executive to terrorize him, actions condoned by McKibben. These same tactics occurred 3 weeks ago at the Middlebury campus when a masked group disrupted and prevented a speech by a conservative speaker, physically assaulting and injuring the female professor moderating the event as they escaped the hall to get to a car. Some of her political science faculty colleagues had incited students in the days leading up to the event. No word yet as to McKibben’s reaction to this manifestation of his legacy.
Having hin title “distinguished” before one’s name may now simply signify that one has brought a lot of money to one’s institution.
My family thinks it’s hilarious that I am glued to my computer screen watching a political hearing on climate change. 🙂 WITH popcorn.
Dr. Mann’s testimony is I am a victim and I appeal to authority to prove my point. He is a sad representative of the science community.
“I am a victim and I appeal to authority to prove my point.”
There’s a lot of that going around these days, and not just in Climate$cience™.
Rathway, “He is a sad representative of the science community.” That’s the understatement of the day, if in fact you think he represents any science .
WHAT??
The opening statements by the committee spoke loud and clear, the bias or neutrality of those speakers.
It also motivated me to write in response – for the first time, so angered was I by what I heard.
How the three majority witnesses could hold their tongue while their reputation was so impugned, makes them far better people than I.
Long suffering practice at retaining their dignity is my only conclusion.
Sadly, they’ve had lots of practice.
Oh my… Mann is such a snake.
All the members there have been maligned for their work. But off the four speaking, three fall within the consensus and were attacked simply acknowledge the uncertainties. Peilke Jr had his career nearly destroyed by dogmatic attacks simply because his assessment wasn’t alarming enough. Curry was viciously attacked by the community just for saying it would be productive to actually talk about the science with those that disagree instead of basically shouting at them.
Michael Mann on the other hand was rightfully attacked for his blatant and willful corruption. He was caught and his own exposed emails confirm his lack of integrity and questionable practices.
I will watch later on YouTube. Bet its pretty good.
Get it direct from the Committee website. No need to go to Youtube. Is linked in the main post.
Gosh, Dr Mann really IS arrogant beyond belief.
Yes, but, no doubt, he feels he has “earned” his arrogance!
Twenty five percent representation given to Michael Mann was over representation of pomposity and a waste of time. Surely someone else could represent the warmist view better.
He was the perfect one to represent the warmists. Well, at least since they apparently couldn’t track down Griff to testify.
Reading Mann’s testimony I see he references the “97% consensus” with a reference of the Union of Concerned Scientists web site.
This willful choice alone is all the testament necessary to judge his credibility as a scientist.
I’m hard-pressed to see how it isn’t perjury.
To be clear, that’s the organisation he claimed he had no association with, correct?
This is a lie, irrespective of whether or not Mann is associated with the UCS:
A lie, given under oath, is generally called “perjury.”
David Middleton March 29, 2017 at 2:25 pm
A lie, given under oath, is generally called “perjury.”
True, but to point if he believes the 97% then he is “to the best of his knowledge” telling the truth.
You can repeat a lie thinking it is the truth, and be giving “honest” testimony.
You would have prove that he knew the 97% was a falsehood. Difficult threshold to meet.
michael
He probably believes the rest of his lies too… So perjury is right out.
@ur momisugly Mike the Morlock
No, “honest false belief” doesn’t cut it. To make claims, which you don’t know to be true, is lying.
I expect Mann’s defence would be, “I’m not very good with numbers”. Pretty hard not to concede that point!
Kenji is one of the distinguished 3% !
g
Regarding facts, perjury, and so on being commented on (See Mike at 3:02),
Willis wrote about “alternative facts” here:
“alternative facts” is actually a legal term
But not in this case. The relevant law is 18USC1001. See an updated legal analysis earlier today at Climate Etc.
Is Mann’s written testimony given under oath?
https://science.house.gov/sites/republicans.science.house.gov/files/documents/HHRG-115-SY-WState-MMann-20170329.pdf
“All of the scientific societies of all of the industrial nations” do not agree “that climate change is real, is human-caused, and is already having adverse impacts on us, our economy, and our planet.” While all of them agree that climate change is real, there is broad disagreement about the degree to which it is caused by man and very little agreement on its adverse impacts…
Based on the two recent surveys of the American Meteorological Society (Maibach et al., 2012 and 2016), it appears to me that atmospheric scientists are also open to debate…
[caption id="attachment_162919" align="alignnone" width="693"]
53% of AMS members agreed that there disagreement among the membership on the issue of global warming. 62% thought that the disagreement was productive to some degree. Source Maibach et al., 2012[/caption]
The 2012 survey found that 52% of survey respondents thought that humans were the primary drivers of global warming over the previous 150 years, a bare majority. The 2016 survey focused on the most recent 50 years and it only found a 67% majority that humans were the primary drivers of climate change over the most recent 50 years. While a solid majority, it is far short of a “consensus.” More revealing was the widespread disagreement about whether or not recent climate changes have been beneficial or harmful and the degree to which future climate changes can be averted…
[caption id="attachment_162928" align="alignnone" width="898"]
Only 38% of respondents thought the impacts they had observed to be more harmful than beneficial. Source Maibach et al., 2016[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_162931" align="alignnone" width="894"]
“It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” —Larry “Yogi” Berra. Only half of survey respondents predicted that the future impacts in their neighborhoods would have a net harmful effect. Source: Maibach et al., 2016[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_162937" align="alignnone" width="894"]
Is 18% confidence that at least “a large amount of additional climate change can be averted,” adequate justification for something with a price tag in the neighborhood of $44 trillion? Source: Maibach et al., 2016[/caption]
Based on Maibach et al., 2012 and 2016, it appears to me that a great deal of debate “about the degree and extent of global warming and its connection to the actions of mankind” remains to be had.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/01/24/epa-nominee-pruitt-attacked-because-he-believes-debate-should-be-encouraged-about-the-truth-of-climate-science/
And there is at least one scientific society which does not endorse the so-called consensus position at all.
?w=680
https://dpa.aapg.org/gac/statements/climatechange.pdf
And, 0.54% is a far cry from 97%…
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/03/18/anatomy-of-a-collapsing-climate-paradigm/
do you have a model that summarizes this ?- preferably some wiggly lines with an x and y axis.
And all of Joe Public’s positions are based on his/her/its hazy remembering’s of what the weather did in his nostalgic past along with the rantings of the left. The margin of variability in weather and climate is great over time lengths large and small. The only thing measurable that are actually changing, temp, sea level and co2 have little impact on us other than warmer winters at night are appreciated by most of us north of 35N latitude, but I have little faith in the unproven science that this is because of higher co2 concentrations. Temp change? So what? It’s not abnormal in any way, this is what it is and earth’s checks and balance will keep it from spiraling, until it does naturally….downward from here. And sea-level’s rate of change is pretty constant but is highly dependent on geologic, land use local conditions. But the 1-3mm/yr rate ‘globally’ has been pretty much unchanged for centuries. That we will somehow affect a better future climate through reduction in co2 is absurd. How any reasonable, thinking person can believe that is beyond me.
All the alarmism about climate change is based on climate models. But science is about data. Dr. Christy is the only one who presented data, and his data shows the models are clearly wrong. In my opinion that should be the end of the discussion. The models simply don’t represent reality.
The climate models are like ALL of mathematics; pure fiction.
Nothing in any of the climate models actually exists in the real universe.
Show me a picture of a real live broadband radiometer pointed at the noonday tropical sun in CAVU, that is reading anything less that 500 Wm^-2, or even less than 1,000 Wm^-2.
G
For extra credit, calculate the black body equilibrium Temperature appropriate for a total spectral irradiance of 1,000 wm-2.
Izzit less than 288 K or even 300 K ??
G
George, the climate models do have a diurnal cycle, and they routinely produce over 1,000 W/m2 of solar insolation in the tropics at top-of-atmosphere, and even at the surface at times under clear skies. Obviously, that’s when the sun is near the zenith…not at night. 😉
So, the “American Association of Petroleum Geologists” is the only example of a scientific society that does not endorse the consensus view? That’s pretty funny, actually.
We aren’t part of the 0.54% consensus.
There’s also the non-endorsing Australian Geological Society (perhaps that’s not its exact title), a society in Japan, and also perhaps one in Russia.
Neither the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG), nor the Society for Sedimentary Geology (SEPM), nor the Houston Geological Society (HGS) have endorsed it either. Although, none of these societies have taken a public position. However, the HGS is clearly hostile toward the 0.54% consensus…
https://www.hgs.org/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=1354
The sad thing is that most of those so called scientific societies are run by politicians who’s only interest is in promoting their personal careers.
Like the AGU…
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2010/12/02/joining-the-board-of-agu-with-a-focus-on-science-communication/#.WNwkUvnyuM8
The hypocrisy is manifest.
The AAPG was attacked for giving an award to Michael Crichton for State of Fear. This actually led to the AAPG largely withdrawing from the public debate.
The AGU was praised for putting a journalist with an English degree on their fracking board of directors.
Many of these societies that you mention are trying to not anger too much their members employers. So we really can’t blame them too much for playing the fool.
ReallySkeptical,
That’s the main reason that the AAPG softened its position statement and largely disengaged from the debate. A lot of whiny, mostly young members threatened to quit. Over the past 10 years, the AAPG has become obsessed with supporting STEM education and trying to appeal to students and recent graduates. While these are good things to do and essential to the profession, the AAPG’s disengagement on the climate science debate was unwise.
There seems to be a movement for re-engagement growing within the society. Hopefully, the AAPG will take up the battle again,
How would offending the various employers harm the societies members?
Are the employers going to fire all their chemists and hire plumbers instead?
Your desire to support the unsupportable is causing you to make an even bigger fool of yourself.
IIRC the Russian Academy doesn’t buy any of this malarky! They are part of the industrialized world. How about China?
What is Michael Mann a “distinguished professor” of ? I’ve never read a climate paper of his that wasn’t worthy of being put on a toilet paper dispenser.
Some of his pre-Hockey Stick work was very good.
The early stuff may not be exposed as rubbish but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t faked.
It may not be Mann’s Nature Trick but it could well be Mann’s Useful Trick De Jour.
He has lost my trust.
Pre-Hockey Stick Mann was like the American Graffiti George Lucas. Post-Hockey Stick Mann is like the Star Wars The Phantom Menace George Lucas.
Opening remarks:
Mr. Smith – Follow the scientific method.
Ms. Johnson – Never mind the facts, just listen to the alarmist scientists.
The lady even has trouble reading from a script.
Here’s Judy’s thread on her testimony (with 96 comments already):
https://judithcurry.com/2017/03/29/house-science-committee-hearing/
Judith may have more real scientific thinking capacity and common sense in her big toe, than the entire alarmist community.
2 observations.
#1 – Congress does not know how to start on time.
#2 – Democrats apparently only know appeals to authority, and not science.
In the eyes of Dr Tim Ball I concur that we are still blowing the PR debate. In the eyes of a non scientist watching that hearing the dems and Mann clearly won even though it was all fluff and scripted lies. I did not like what Dr. Ball had to say about the last hearing before congress but it did open my eyes.
When are we going to learn how to run a show in congressional hearings. As much as I admire Dr. Curry, Dr. Christe and Rodger Pelkie jr, I can think of a few people that could have been put in the panel with more passionate, compelling and damning testimony against CAGW that the average non scientist could have agreed with.
What happened to Mr Rorahbachers questions and time on the tape?????
Aphan: I saw that and had the same concerns. It looks like some editing was taking place. That’s a grave concern if this is a House ‘transcript’.