House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. Chairman – Lamar Smith (R-TX).
Hearing subject – Climate Science: Assumptions, Policy Implications, and the Scientific Method.
Panel of Witnesses: Dr. Judith Curry, Dr. John Christy, Dr. Roger Pielke Jr., and Michael Mann.
Guest essay by Leo Goldstein
Summary
Democratic members of the Committee did everything they could to remain alarmist and keep the Republicans confused.
Michael Mann repeated all the expected lies, called his hockey stick an iconic result, and was caught in two new lies: he denied his affiliation with the Climate Accountability Institute and he denied calling Dr. Curry a “denier.” When shown a transcript in which he called her that name in the same session, he went into a diatribe about the supposed difference between “climate change denier” and “climate science denier.” It appeared to me that questions the Democrats on the Committee asked Mann and the answers he gave had been scripted.
My impressions from the hearing were not positive. Mann spoke for almost half of the time and boldly asserted the most extreme alarmist positions and factoids (quoting from my own notes): “devoted his life to science [about himself]”, “few individuals who represent tiny minority [about other three witnesses]”, “scientists continuously challenge each other [implying he is a scientist]”, “extremely broad agreement on the basic facts,” 97%, “climate change is real, human caused, and has heavy impact”, “fingerprints of human-caused climate change on extreme events”, “anti-science forces launched a series of attack on scientists”, “time for republicans to put away doubts and focus on solutions”, “discourage investigations of climate scientists,” and “support by multiple national academic societies.”
The last statement is true, unfortunately. He also mentioned recent example of silencing of Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. by the Center for American Progress and Tom Steyer as another victory for his “climate science.”
Without acting even half as forceful as Mann had, the other three witnesses firmly rejected alarmist conclusions and revealed the subversion of the scientific method in the climate debate. Democrats easily extracted from Dr. Curry an admission that they deal with an extremely complex problem, and from Dr. Pielke Jr. that there are fundamental risks. If it had been my first time hearing about this subject I would have concluded that the climate alarmists were right.
Thoughts
There are at least two obstacles that prevent Republican statesmen from understanding that climate alarmism is completely wrong on natural sciences.
The big obstacle: managing bodies of the NAS, formerly respected academic societies, and foreign national academies adopted statements that either outright support or do not contradict climatist pseudo-science. This is an important fact. Of course, there are two causes for that: internal corruption that has been happening over decades and pressure from the Obama administration and its counterparts in other Western countries. Democrat Congresspersons might congratulate themselves for their contribution to shutting up opposition views. But it is hard to convince Republicans that this happened in front of their eyes and under the watch of many of them.
The problem with the academia extends beyond the climate debate. My thoughts are that sometimes things are too broken for repair, and can be only replaced. A replacement should be built before the old thing is discarded.
Lawmakers should be aware that they might need to rebuild American scientific enterprise and academia almost from scratch: create new universities and national labs, extricate competent departments, teams, and individuals from the corrupt institutions, and let them to grow organically in the atmosphere free from the interference from the Leftist and hostile foreign bodies. This is where the federal research and education budgets should go, rather than on continuing support of morally, intellectually, and soon financially bankrupt institutions.
The small obstacle, limited to this panel, was a problematic panel of witnesses. From the outside, it seemed to consist of three skeptics and one “consensus scientist.” In fact, it consisted of Michael Mann, two lukewarmers, and respected Dr. John Christy who, nevertheless, shook hands with Michael Mann in front of my eyes. Thus, the climate alarmism was represented by its most extreme representative, while opposition to climate alarmism was hardly represented at all.
If I were to testify, I would say that
Lawmakers shall not believe Michael Mann, the UCS, the AAAS, and other cons, when they claim to be scientists or to speak on behalf of science. Doctors, attorneys, and many other professionals must be licensed but anybody can call him or herself a scientist. Neither affiliation with a formerly prestigious university nor a Ph.D. in a scientifically sounding field is proof of one being a scientist. Apologies to the readers who might be hurt by these facts – I am only a messenger.
Neither the number of publications nor peer reviews by Michael Mann’s peers are indications that someone is a scientist. Even the National Academy of Sciences is compromised.
(Side note: Science and scientists are not at fault for what Michael Mann, his peers, and the Democrat party have done. Unfortunately, it became very hard for the public to recognize a scientist in a crowd of fake scientists.)
Since academic and government institutions cannot be trusted today, how can one distinguish a scientist from a non-scientist? This answer can’t be generalized, but I can provide examples for lawmakers. If he or she does exploration work for an oil company, he or she is likely to be a scientist. If this person also has a Ph.D. in geophysics or similar field, he or she is almost certainly a scientist. The majority of people are non-scientists, of course, and do not claim to be scientists. This rule of thumb to any Democrat high flyer: if you and your high-ranking party comrades have never considered suing or otherwise oppressing a man, his employer, or his industry – he is probably not a scientist. Example of using this rule of thumb: an employee of a nuclear power, chemical, or pharmaceutical company, claiming to be a scientist, is likely to be a scientist. An employee of Sierra Club or a broadcast network, claiming to be a scientist, is likely to be a fraud.
The climate-related sciences are quite certain that the climate change agenda is wrong. Today, almost 40 years after the ambiguous Charney report, the real science is quite certain that carbon dioxide release is not harmful, but beneficial.
Much of the remaining scientific uncertainty comes from attempts to measure or to calculate the changes, which are too small to measure. One is example is the attempts to measure the so-called “global temperature” with the precision below 0.1 degree, the so-called “global sea level” with precision below 0.1 inch, and so on. Obviously, changes so small that are hard to measure for decades with precise scientific instruments have practically no impact on anything of public interest. Scientific uncertainties shouldn’t be confused with public hysteria. History has taught us that public hysterias can make societies believe in “witches” or see “enemies of the people” all around.
Lawmakers do not have to understand science but they must understand politics. The politics promoted by the climate alarmist organization require unilateral reduction in emissions of carbon dioxide and other infrared active gases, allowing China and the rest of the world to increase theirs. Even if climate pseudo-science were correct and these emissions were dangerous, proposed politics do nothing to decrease the putative danger. Their only effect is damage to the American industry and society. Cui bono? Even Democrat Congresspersons should think about how they would explain this contradiction. The “climate leadership” is not a better explanation than “suicides leadership.”
Some physical effects are significant while some are insignificant. For example, when UN’s Ban Ki-moon talks, the motion of his tongue influences the motion of tectonic plates and weather worldwide through the force of gravity. The mass of a human tongue is small and it does not move far or fast in one’s mouth, so the impact is small. Nevertheless, the impact exists. Sometimes small forces cause large effects, like in the proverbial “butterfly effect.” Thus, one might say that Ban Ki-moon’s speech contributes to floods in Bangladesh and earthquakes in California, without saying it causes these events. The contribution can be either positive or negative. When warmunists and government delegations fly in big jets to their COP meetings, they generate millions of times stronger gravitational forces, which are still insignificant. Global warming at the average annual rate of 0.01-0.02 degrees, which stopped 19 years ago, was also insignificant, and it were not a mistake to ignore it.
Finally, Michael Mann shall not testify before any congressional committee.
a) In my opinion, Mann is not only a fraud but also a pseudo-scientist. Even his career looks like a hockey stick. He was nobody until he hopped on the climate alarmism bandwagon in 1997 or earlier. He became Ph.D. only after that, in 1998, the same when he co-authored a paper containing infamous hockey stick and then became one of the Lead Authors of IPCC (allegedly the body of the world’s top scientists). Even a person far from science would recognize this as impossible – a freshly minted PhD falls on top of the allegedly top scientific body!
b) Mann is well known a serial liar and perjurer, and has nothing to lose by perjuring himself one more time.
c) Climategate emails have multiple references to official proceedings in Congress and White House show much more. They reveal Mann’s actions toward the Climate Research journal, its editor Chris de Freitas, and the real scientists that published in it. These actions, which have been committed repeated against other persons as well, can be summarized as: “knowingly uses intimidation, threatens, or corruptly persuades another person … with intent to cause or induce any person to withhold testimony, or withhold a record, document, or other object, from an official proceeding,” and even to “alter, destroy, mutilate, or conceal an object with intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding.” These are quotes from 18 U.S. Code § 1512(b), which also says the convicted offender “shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.” Michael Mann and his accomplices are desperate.
Many Democrats might resist climate realism just out of shame to recognize they were duped by somebody like Mann.
There’s one way to tell a true scientist. The real scientist is very clear that she doesn’t know everything. The fraud insists that absolutely everything he says is as solid as the law of gravity. Disgusting.
Mann calls Gravity a theory. It cannot be proven. What? How many repeatable experiments are floating in space right now? Everything he says in his testimony resonates like a dull thud. But trying to devolve gravity is disingenuous….because the Hypothesis that is AGW has pretty much zero repeatability….crashing under the mass of its own fallibility….dang gravity….
There is a difference between the “theory of gravity” and the “gravitational force”. Gravitational force is very easily shown to be real. No one has ever devised an experiment to show there is no gravitational force.
Gravitational theory is the “why” and “how” of gravity. In a sense, it’s a valid comparison. If we go with the GAT and it is rising (for the sake of argument), we still don’t have the “why” and “how” of global warming any more than we do of gravity. Gravitational theory, thankfully, cannot be proven by redistribution of wealth or a world government, nor does it really matter in most people’s lives. Not so climate change. We must have the “why” and “how” worked out BEFORE we act.
“””””…..
Sheri
April 4, 2017 at 9:26 am
There is a difference between the “theory of gravity” and the “gravitational force”. …..”””””
Sheri,
Well your statement applies universally to EVERY theory that we have.
“Theories” Are just things we make up in our heads to try and explain things in terms of other things that we think we already understand; or at least we take it for granted that we do.
But once again the theories are not the same as the real physical universe; they are just the way we explain it to ourselves.
Which is why I coined the term “Einstein (ian) Waves ” to use instead of “Gravitational waves.”
Einstein Waves are as real as the nose on my face. They exist for sure inside Einstein’s Theory of Gravitation, or General Relativity if you prefer, because that is precisely where he found them, and told us about them.
But as to whether Einstein Waves are the same thing as the purported “gravitational waves” that some of us think we (humans) have detected; well only time will tell.
G
A doting grandmother tried to comfort her grandson who only passed sociology in his exams. “You’ve got an -ology, that means you’re a scientist”.
So ” Apology ” is a science too. Thankfully for US, President Trump is NOT a scientist !!
G
A scientist aficionado can spot that this theory of AGW was a fraud. I was disputing this with some people that said they were teachers and professors. My argument was that degree of complexity of measuring the temperature of the planet made highly unlikely it could be measured they way they are declaring. Moreover, I never watched printed the degree of incertitude, the sort of +/- a% degrees. On the other hand, watching the graphs of ice cores from Greenland or Antarctica it is obvious that that CO2 rises after the temperature rises, some centuries later. And at the times of temperature dropping, after the stadials, the CO2 remains at high levels. If the CO2 would had such a power of heating the atmosphere the temperature would had not been slowly dropping for tens of thousands of years.
On the other hand, all I had read from scientists shows a clear degree of uncertainty that were obviously lacking among the proponents of AGW.
I consider myself a liberal, but not the sort of stupid liberal. It is mostly a feeling I have, for I came from a very poor family and had not made any other studies than a primary school. I was also pissed off by those liberal teachers that pretend to know everything and harbor not any uncertainty in the questions of science.
Then clarify the evidence, haul him up on fraud charges. Prosecute and if able, convict Mann!
Otherwise, silencing Mann is wrong. The Democrats are allowed to call any un-convicted non-felon charlatan they please to testify.
Think of the Scopes monkey trial. The First Amendment must stand!
At least two people are attempting this in two countries. Of course, when the Democrats own the court system and they follow Mann, it’s a long and difficult road. Court is no more reliable than global warming science.
Here in the US, Reid was the one who initiated “The Nuclear Option” for Obama nominees, including lower court nominees.
(For non-US readers, basically that boils down to cutting off the option of a “filibuster” preventing a Senate vote (Think “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”) and/or ….well,…. the “rules” of the Senate, that is, “parliamentary” procedures for conducting business can change. The rule to end debate and vote required a 2/3 majority. Reid selectively changed the rule to a simple majority to get Obama’s nominees. He never needed to do it for Supreme Court nominees.)
In other words, the US lower courts have been packed with those who will rule to uphold “the goals” rather than the law of the land, The US Constitution and The Bill of Rights.
CAGW, politically, forwards “the goals”.
PS I’m sure someone out there could explain it better and more accurately.
(And teach me a thing or two. I really do consider myself “Mr. Layman” in just about every field out there.)
“In other words, the US lower courts have been packed with those who will rule to uphold “the goals” rather than the law of the land,”
Well, if Republicans elect to reduce the required vote for Gorsuch to 51 instead of 60, that will allow Trump to stack the Supreme Court with conservatives. Before Trump leaves Office he will probably end up appointing two more Supreme Court judges. Maybe more.
Trump is already going to be able to appoint about 100 judges to the lower courts. Obama stuffed the lower courts with liberals when he was in Office, and now Trump is going to balance that out a little bit.
Care to explain to us how BOR-1 relates to Scopes ??
G
If Mann was working on public money, the results of his work must be a public property, not a personal one. Then, he could be obliged to present his data under a plea of subpoena. Not only in the case of Mann, but in the case of most people that had been working on these conspiracy of AGW
Leopoldo: That is a given!
And the same goes for Mann’s furry friends and ilk!
george e. smith:
I wasn’t going to bother responding to your question George, as I suspect you know all of the reasons very well.
But to confirm:
During the Scopes trial, W.J. Bryan along with the prosecuting attorney sought court approval, readily given, stifling use of science in evidence. Only written testimony from scientists was allowed for us on appeal.
The trial, as Clarence Darrow expected, became a circus that was unconstrained by the Constitution or Tennessee’s Butler act or any alleged transgression of the Butler act.
Clarence stated that he “realized there was no limit to the mischief that might be accomplished unless the country was aroused to the evil at hand”
A) Constitutionality – The prosecuting attorney, W.J. Bryan, Judge Raulston tried to prevent science during the trial and even striking defense testimony regarding the bible.
B) On trial was religion “fundamental Christianity” against science and freedom of expression.
Ba) Any trial involving Mann will involve religion, CAGW in this case, against honest science and scientific method. Though technically, Mann will gain the freedom of expression advantages and perhaps some resultant perjury charges.
C) As Darrow realized, the country needs to be aroused to the dangers involved by fraudy pants Mann and his religion of bad science.
Something that can not be achieved if the 1st Amendment is rejected or reduced in favor of silencing Mann. Not that I believe Mann can be silenced; so thoroughly punish Mann instead!
I would have Mann testify all the time; but -full disclosure- i might have symphorophilia…
Wow, thanks, I think, for making me Google symphorophilia.
Symphorophilia or not, I can’t stand [for] the man.
Actually, it is providing the right answers. Even a dumb computer can ask questions.
G
it will take time to undo some forty years of organized disinformation, but the Republicans have a long history of wimping out and not shouting down obvious propaganda by the other side. Being polite gets in the way sometimes.
Massively missed the opportunity to destroy the 97% myth. No one pointed out that they had FOUR of 97% present, not one.
Lamar Smith had clearly anticipated hearing 97% claim and entered something into the record about it but no one spoke about what 97% were supposed to agree on and that all those present support the 97% question, it is so general and obvious.
I don’t understand why Mann was allowed to get away with lying to congress. They just allowed him to get away with saying that the would re-send what he had already provided about his affiliations, ie the bits he wanted to shout about.
He clearly said “no” despite being on the board of directors.
Greg: Most people get away with lying to Congress. Other than Oliver North, I can’t think of anyone punished for lying to Congress. One can also ignore requests for information without fear of consequence. Congressional hearings are pretty much useless.
He’s on the board of advisors, not directors. It makes a small difference in how much he is associated with.
Greg April 3, 2017 at 5:22 pm
I don’t understand why Mann was allowed to get away with lying to congress. They just allowed him to get away with saying that the would re-send what he had already provided about his affiliations, ie the bits he wanted to shout about.
He clearly said “no” despite being on the board of directors.
No he didn’t, listen to the testimony, he said ‘No’, to the question about the Union of Concerned Scientists, the congressman talked all over that answer and asked about the CAI and Mann replied correctly that he had stated his affiliation in his CV.
On the website, he is reported as being on the Advisory Council. In his CV he claims to be a member of the Board. His CV was indeed made available.
wyzelli April 4, 2017 at 4:22 pm
On the website, he is reported as being on the Advisory Council. In his CV he claims to be a member of the Board. His CV was indeed made available.
This is what he states in his CV under Public Outreach:
• Advisory Board, Climate Accountability Institute, 2014-
When are more climate scientists going to have the balls to speak-out against Mann? Just because he’s on their site for the “cause” they let him get away with rubbish and douchebaggery.
(side not site, lol)
Michael J,
Answer: when the government climate research gravy train slows way down and we get back to science.
Also, my two centavos about one item from the head post…
This is the classic teenager who has done something egregious. You’ve got to keep the lies coming to cover up the first one you told.
It’s more than having nothing to lose. Dr Mann MUST keep lying as though his career and legacy depends on it–because it does. As soon as everyone realizes the emperor has no clothes, he’s toast.
Michael Mann brought us Lysenkoism, American style, along with James Hansen.
My personal favourite (aside from citing Lysenko where he is the scientist given official endorsement) was his statement that Dr Pielke withdrew from climate science ‘three years ago’ – in 2015. And here was I thinking it was only March 2017 when he was testifying!
It was remarkable the extent of Dr Mann’s ignorance of the scientific method on display. I think you could package the recording as a video game and play Logical Fallacy Bingo: point for marking off Genetic Fallacy, Argument from popularity, Argument form Authority, Bringing evidence to the theory. etc
And how he could think that the Hockey Stick had been validated and accepted! But then, as with Tiljander, he’s adept at getting things upside down.
As a longtime consumer of scientific information, I have found little value in deciding whether someone meets someone else’s criteria for what constitutes a “scientist.” What Bill Nye says isn’t unscientific because his degree is in engineering. It’s because it isn’t a product of the scientific method.
In my experience two things matter most in assessing the likelihood that some technical conclusion is true. First, whether the purported facts the proponent cites check out. Second, whether the conclusion follows logically from those purported facts. Even if you’re unable to determine whether the purported facts are true, you can often detect that the conclusions don’t follow from them. You don’t have to be an adept in the relevant discipline to detect a fallacy in the reasoning. (You do have to be logical, though.)
And, while an expert’s experience is certainly something to consider, it often happens that older investigators blow it and younger ones do stellar work. Goedel produced his proof at age 25, and Einstein revealed special relativity at 26.
Unfortunately, the happy coincidence of time to check out purported facts with the ability to work through the logic upon which scientific conclusions are based is thin on the Congressional ground. So it would indeed be nice if we could reliably guide our masters by way of a shortcut like testing credentials. But that’s not the universe we live in. In our universe, finding the truth is hard work.
It shouldn’t matter how young Mann was when he produced his hockey stick or whether he’d obtained his PhD yet. If he’d shown his work and his math had been correct, I’d have believed him even if he’d been a 16-year-old high-school dropout.
So let’s stop talking about whether someone is or is not a scientist. It really doesn’t help.
Yeah, let’s not say anything that cast doubts on the legitimacy of a freshly minted PhD falling on top of the allegedly top scientific body . . to make Joe happy ; )
Um, sir, a great big show of officialism and authority is what we’re essentially up against, it seems to me, so, I think it’s extremely logical to point out the serendipitous meteoric rise of Mr. Mann . . rather than allow the illusion of another Einstein arriving to be perpetrated . . assuming you don’t think he is that, of course ; )
Say what you want.Michael Mann is a liar and no scientist!
His math was no good, he withheld his code, his proxies were bogus and then he used them again after they were shown to be bogus. His most recent contribution to science is defamation of the character of several better persons and scientists than himself while finding time to lie to congress. I can think of many, many others more deserving of the title of scientist. He is, in fact, the anti-scientist!
I agree. Having learned the statement is separate from the speaker, I also quickly learned that no one ever reads or believes an article written by a person who does not provide their name. The entire idea that ideas are separate from the speaker is totally alien and never going to sell, at least in my experience.
Well I think the only thing that is needed to be a scientist, is that what one is studying / researching / whatever, actually exists in the real universe; ” exist ” meaning it makes itself known to us in a consistent and characteristic way from wherever it is in the physical universe.
So philosophy, religion, origami, self esteem, etc. are all a part of the non-science category, and some of them are better described as non-sense.
Now some of those things, might be interesting; but if they aren’t observable in the real physical universe , they aren’t SCIENCE.
G
the problem is that Mann and his other allies had not presented their data or their algorithms to check if they are doing a correct work or not. Then, if they do not show the data, they are not true scientists. The look more like charlatans. There is not any way we could check if their work is sound or not.
The panel consisted of one alarmist and three luke warmers, albeit Dr Christy may be the most sceptical of the lot.
There was not as much headway made as I would like to have seen.
“The panel consisted of one alarmist and three luke warmers”
The inevitable pathetic genuflection to co2. Disgusting. Can’t even get a real skeptical scientist on the panel. Makes my stomach turn. And I’ve had indigestion about this for 20 years.
Andrew
It is possible that CO2 would mean something. How much it would mean it is another question.
It’s the Government’s way of creating the illusion that they listen to what the people are trying to tell them.
Naiveity could be defined as believing the Government will pay ANY attention to ANYTHING told to them in a Congressional hearing.
It’s just for show.
G
“…It’s just for show..” +1 It’s for information gathering and a way of giving formal notice. No one is on trial yet the ‘testimony’ is recorded. I believe a famous one involved Howard Hughes when he got fed up with the questions and just walked out after telling off the senators (urban myth?).
It seems that the panel was stacked in favor of the skeptics, to divert the feeling that the alarmists were the underdogs. Very poor and limp arguments put forward by the skeptics. This would would have played well to the audience that were sitting on the fence. To move forward Donald needs to pause all current climate change funding and review to determine where the cuts should apply. There is a lot of professionals drinking from this trough, regardless of whether they are true believers or not.It will take some time to slow this big wheel down.
He’s starting. He hasn’t been in 90 days yet.
And he has been forced to spend much of those ninety days proving to CNN that the head of the FBI was telling the truth, when he said there was NO evidence of ANY kind of any Russian interference in the 2016 election; nor was there any assertion by anybody claiming to have actual evidence that any such interference even occurred; let alone any evidence of any change in the election results due to Russian meddling.
But he did uncover evidence to support President Trump’s assertion that the Intelligence industry (somewhat misnamed) was spying on the Trump election campaign and illegally “outing” private US citizens to the media; which is a Federal Felony calling for ten years in jail for EACH instance.
So finally, we have the very leaker herself declaring on public NEWS TV that she did in fact spy on the Trump campaign, and that they did it all the time over the eight years they were in charge of the intelligence agencies.
So now we will be told that she did all of this clandestine felonious stuff, without the smartest President we have ever had even catching on to what she was doing.
G
Mann is profoundly dishonest. On the eve of the investigations into climate gate he told the BBC that he was surprised his hockey stick graph because the icon of the climate movement because it was so uncertain. Now, years after the whitewash “investigation” he’s calling it iconic again. It’s really a shame that he is trotted out before congress. He should be ostracized from the profession.
He should have been pinned to the wall when he lied to the commission and told to get out of the building unless he was prepared to give truthful testimony.
Someone blasted him for a “degree of hypocrisy” and that was about it.
“Doctors, attorneys, and many other professionals must be licensed but anybody can call him or herself a scientist. Neither affiliation with a formerly prestigious university nor a Ph.D. in a scientifically sounding field is proof of one being a scientist.”
This is self-contradictory . Licenses are not guarantees of honesty and competence or lack there of .
That observation applies equally to doctors , attorneys , PhDs in any field , and hair weavers .
Mann showed himself to be an arrogant buffoon on a panel of undeniable competence . Unfortunately Dems seek power thru arrogant denial of reality so joined in his determined stupidity and disparagement of the honest and competent .
It’s only been 100 days since it has been safe, allowed, and encouraged to oppose the AGW meme hegemony in the US after decades of propaganda supporting it. Recognize the turn of events for what it is and the direction it’s taking. We may not be able to kill the beast in four years but we can cripple it enough to seriously impact the narrative and gain support from people that are undecided. We can kill it in eight years and that’s what the alarmists are worried about and fighting for.
You do seem to be placing a lot of faith in this current crop of republicans. I am surprised given that
since 1996 there have only been 4 years when Republicans have not controlled the house of representatives and 15 years when the republicans controlled both the senate and the house of representatives. There have also been 8 years with a republican president. Not to mention the fact
that the committee on science space and technology is chaired by a republican and has a majority of
republican members. So if this is the best that the republicans can do then perhaps you should rethink
what will happen in the future.
The issue isn’t Republican or democrat, it is London or Austrian economic theory. Both camps are a mix although there are more Austrians in the R. And the Londoners in the D camp are far more Fabian.
It IS all about economics. Watch out for wolves in sheep skins. See the Fabian stained glass window for enlightenment.
True. The Trump phenomenon shows that the people understand what you are saying is true as well. The difference is the administration is now on the side of truth and reality when it comes to AGW and the incessant call to arms for AGW is being replaced by silence, indifference, and most importantly facts. My glass is half full.
Michael Mann has given the climate realists the greatest gift ever. His actions give away the tactic to bring all this nonsense to its knees. Read Saul Alinski’s Rules for Radicals for the game plan to stop Michael Mann. Here are a few article going in that direction. Michael Mann exposed his Archilies Heel, people just have to know how to strike at it.
Michael Mann Just Jumped the Climate Change Shark
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/04/02/michael-mann-just-jumped-the-climate-change-shark/
Scientists Not Served Here; Real Scientists Need Not Apply
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/04/01/scientists-not-served-here-real-scientists-need-not-apply/
The Days of “Trust Me” Science Are Over
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/04/02/the-days-of-trust-me-science-are-over/
I would not stoop to Alinsky level for that is selling ones soul to the devil..or in the secular Randian term, compromising self.
Mark Steyn has it right. Court of law.
That is what Mann and his crew do!! They tie it up in the courts “of law” and the whole thing just disappears into lawyers pockets.. How do you think people like Steyn or Dr Ball can fight this ( or anyone for that matter?)
This is entirely the wrong approach. The Committee, or some responsible agency, should stop this nonsense and say “Let’s have a debate, a real debate where both sides make their claims and both sides get to rebut and challenge the other. Each side is free to pick their experts.” Make it part of a Committee investigation and put all participants under oath. Scientist should question scientist, rather than having a bunch of brain-dead politicians asking questions drafted by staff members who know nothing.
That’s next on the list………..
markl Where and when?
When he gets a better handle on the issues/concerns of the people and we already know AGW is last on their list. We (this forum) have a biased prioritization (that I agree with).
Chuck, This debate already happened, and the alarmists got trounced. They will not go there again.
Here:
http://www.npr.org/2007/03/22/9082151/global-warming-is-not-a-crisis
“If it had been my first time hearing about this subject I would have concluded that the climate alarmists were right.”
Concur. In many discussions between Alarmists and Skeptics the Alarmist will make “statements of fact” that are left unchallenged, just as they were here.
Exactly. Bottom line is Mann won and the funding will continue as is.
You give Mann a great deal of credit and no credit to Congress. You may be right, but you basically called every Congressperson out there an idiot who is swayed by emotion. If that’s true, then we can stop with blogging, etc, and just pack it in. We LOSE 100% every time that way.
They use comments like “Think about a candle; Once burned, there is no more left.” as statements of their ecology virtue, yet shut out the failing attempts of wind and solar power to alleviate mankind’s dependence upon fossil fuels as we search for the next substantial advancement in energy tech. Folks I know who support the meme also tell me that there is no way the US could ever become part of a despotic global progressive socialist regime because the government would never allow it, as long as the Dems are in charge. They really don’t see any threat. They also don’t seem to understand that development of the third world is crucial to reversing global overpopulation. This won’t foreseeably happen using wind and solar, given their limitations.
And ditto to that ‘concurrence’….sadly.
I couldn’t watch the whole vid in one sitting…I literally had to leave the room and cool down.
Each time the Dem representative spoke, I just about had a fit.
What was made worse, was that they spoke so well, and so convincingly, and despite my great respect for Curry, Christy and Pielke, I felt the Dem representative got too much of a point score for their perspective.
An incident from the hearings of the Committee of Science, Technology etc. that the MSM missed out on.
https://youtu.be/Jotl-7CG5b0
Gosh, it makes me want to throwup just to hear the mann’s voice and lies.
Needs to start the laugh track sooner.
Shameless Mann
I see the author chose his words very carefully “In my opinion, Mann is not only a fraud…” Maybe Mr Steyn could learn a thing or two from this approach, particularly the “in my opinion” bit…
In my opinion Mann should not, and others should not, consider his Mannipulations as “science”.
But they do because by stroking his ego (What a dickhead!), it not only “makes a buck” (a bunch of them) but promotes the goal and idea that, “We’re from The Government and we’re here to help you.”, is a good thing …. as long as they are “The Government”.
i think mr steyn also chose his words very deliberately for a reason. pitting mind against mind, i would have steyn a long way ahead of mann .
That’s not what the judge thought.
Simon:
Mann had to withdraw his fallacious claim that he was a Nobel Laureate from his statement to the Court. Whatever you may say, that cannot have assisted the judge to think Mann is a character of veracity and credibility.
Richard
my understanding is we have still to hear what the judge thinks. given the history of mann and law suits, it may be a while before we do.
“… proposed politics do nothing to decrease the putative danger.”
From your context… Should “putative” actually be “punitive” there? Although the danger is actually only reputed?
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/putative
2) : assumed to exist or to have existed
I’d prefer imputated….but oddly I am not there.
While browsing various sites I came across the text below in a discussion of surface conduction, convection, radiation. It was sort of fortuitous because I have been involved in similar discussion thread over at Principia and ran similar experiment as a consequence of a discussion with a climate PhD at CSU.
https://www.ucar.edu/learn/1_1_1.htm
“Since air is a poor conductor, most energy transfer by conduction occurs right at the earth’s surface.
At night, the ground cools and the cold ground conducts heat away from the adjacent air.
During the day, solar radiation heats the ground, which heats the air next to it by conduction.”
I used a couple of SS sheathed industrial grade type K T/Cs, stuck one in the ground, hung the other on the north side of the garden shed out of direct sunlight and started taking data.
The dense ground has a lot of thermal mass/inertia and cools or heats slowly. Air, on the other hand, is light with little thermal mass/inertia and cools or heats quickly with a change in energy flow.
In mid evening the air quickly cools to a temperature below that of the ground, i.e. energy and heat flowing from ground to air, opposite the clam above. Not until mid-morning after a few hours of sunlight did the air warm up to a temperature above that of the ground, i.e. energy and heat flowing from air to ground, also opposite to the statement above. Is it sun heating air heating earth or sun heating earth heating air? Or does it really matter or make a difference?
BOTH of the statements in the above paragraph are incorrect!
Why does this matter?
Because the bedrock, the cornerstone, of GHE theory is that the air/atmosphere warms the earth. If the surface actually radiates 396 W/m^2 at 15C then the ground would cool rapidly. This is allegedly counterbalanced by the 333 W/m^2 downwelling from air/atmosphere. Both of these S-B calculations are mistaken!
Actual data and observations shows this “air warming ground” theory is JUST FLAT WRONG!! As is all the up/down/”back” misapplied S-B radiation calculations that erroneously try to explain it.
Of course the “delta 33C with atmosphere” is also total rubbish.
http://writerbeat.com/articles/15582-To-be-33C-or-not-to-be-33C
As Feynman observed:
“It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it (theory) doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.”
RGHE – IT’S WRONG!!!!
I think this is off-topic, but in my understanding GHE theory does not state there is a net heat flow from the air to the ground. Many people imagine so, even proponents of AGW, but it is not so.
The concept of ‘to warm’ has two sides. Air warms the ground, and the ground warms the air at the same time. The net heat flow is on average from ground to air, so the ground kind of wins and you could say the air does NOT warm the ground. However the radiation is real, and must be taken account. So the air ‘warms’ the ground.
This is not a word game where you win by defining ‘to warm’ in a specific manner and by showing this manner is being violated by the laws of physics. Rather, you start from laws of physics and have many possible ways to describe what happens. Don’t be fooled by forcing a non-physical meaning to those words.
‘To warm’ is an unfortunate verb since you can think about warming up like what an electric radiator does when it is switched on, or you can think about the heat flow as when its temperature is no longer rising, and confusingly when the outside temp goes down and your room temp goes down because of that, your radiator is still ‘warming’ your room even though the room is cooling as measured a thermometer. And to confuse you even more, add insulation around the radiator (not the thermostat) and its temperature may rise so you say ‘insulation warms’. Until it stops, of course, at which point it does not make the temperature rise, but keeps it elevated under the conditions.
The morale is: to warm is not a word with a one physical meaning. Don’t be confused by its meanings.
The only thing Mann “won ” was a participation badge for showing up .
Three people looked like scientists and one was a trash talking promoter with a broken hockey stick .
Climate science does a bad job to real science.
I think there’s something missing in this sentence.
I was struck by how the MSM reported that there was “only one scientist on the panel”, and thoroughly dismissed even a thought that there might be anything relevant in the others’ testimony.
As Trump would say, “Sad”.
Read as: Only one person agreed what we, the MSM, have declared to be the truth, therefore that is the only scientist. If the MSM declared the moon was going to explode in 80 years, only people who agreed with them would be “scientists”. It’s about agreement and definition. Science, as the MSM sees it, it NOT about truth in any way.
For the Alarmist’s Agenda to die, each Alarmist must die. It is the Old Way.
Civil war, i.e. a war among civilians, can bring about this cleansing, with sufficient igniter and explosives, and bullets.
Totally abhorrent comment.
What if it’s true? Should we then lie to not be “abhorrent”?
Sheri:
I agree with Leo Leo Goldstein that JBom’s comment is thoroughly abhorrent.
You ask,
I answer,
No, we should kill nobody, but we need to ‘kill’ the credibility of the alarmists because they are ‘killing’ the proper conduct of science.
I remind of Machiavelli’s wise advice to the Prince.
“Enemies cause you problems so kill them.
But try to make them friends before you kill them
because live friends are more useful than dead enemies.“
Richard
JBom,
Huh?!
Please reread what you wrote.
If you meant, “Kill people because they do or do not believe Michael Mann (et al.)”, you’re nuts.
If not, please clarify.
‘Many Democrats might resist climate realism just out of shame to recognize they were duped by somebody like Mann.’
Perhaps. But there is little sign of it. As we all know, climate change is a proxy for wealth redistribution, as well as an excuse for the Green ambition to lower everyone’s standard of living. It also provides the opportunity to create a whole new moral universe, where the self-policing of acts of consumption, and guilt for thought crime of various kinds, permeate every act of life. Political gold, as far as the left is concerned.
The main reason is that those societies asked for volunteers to serve on committees to examine the CAGW question, and those who volunteered were those who felt strongly about the matter—i.e., alarmists. That’s what happened in the AGU & the APS. Those societies were and are naive about zealotry (or their leaderships were machiavellian warmists).
Adverse selection.
It is his certainty that I find troubling.
“Lawmakers should be aware that they might need to rebuild American scientific enterprise and academia almost from scratch”
To rebuild the scientific enterprise a set of robust building blocks will be required. Unfortunately, no such set of building blocks seem to exists.
That position is supported by the following quote from National Academy of Sciences: “The basic and particular principles that guide scientific research practices exist primarily in an unwritten code of ethics. Although some have proposed that these principles should be written down and formalised, the principles and traditions of science are, for the most part, conveyed to successive generations of scientists through example, discussion, and informal education.”
Ref.: Responsible Science, Volume I: Ensuring the Integrity of the Research Process; Panel on Scientific Responsibility and the Conduct of Research
The principles governing United Nations climate panel IPCC demonstrates that this unwritten code of ethics is far from sufficient to avoid science being governed and guided by flawed principles:
The Principles governing IPCC work are more or less free from sound scientific principles – no mentioning of scrutiny or application of a sound scientific method there. Rather than imposing sound scientific principles on IPCC, United Nations allowed IPCC to be governed by:
– the unscientific principle to: “concentrate its activities on the tasks allotted to it by the relevant WMO Executive Council and UNEP Governing Council resolutions and decisions as well as on actions in support of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change process” (§1)
– the unscientific principle to: “In taking decisions, and approving, adopting and accepting reports, the Panel, its Working Groups and any Task Forces shall use all best endeavours to reach consensus.”(§10)
– an approval process and organization principle which must, by its nature, diminish dissenting views.:”differing views shall be explained and, upon request, recorded.” (§10) “Conclusions drawn by IPCC Working Groups and any Task Forces are not official IPCC views until they have been accepted by the Panel in a plenary meeting.” (§11)
Here is my proposal for one set of principles that might have some value: The principles of science (v7.5)
Clearly Man had been fed the questions the Dems would ask.
Mann not Man
He doesn’t need to be. The questions and the answers are always the same. Anyone who reads much on the subject can write both sides of a “debate” on AGW with no input from either side. AGW has a full, probably written, list of answers. Skeptics vary somewhat more, but not much. It’s all just a repeat over and over and over. If you want to get someone’s attention on this, you’re going to need something dramatic and different.
EPA / Gina McCarthy “We don’t have to prove. ..”
http://www.climatedepot.com/2016/02/25/pure-symbolism-epa-chief-we-dont-have-to-prove-that-any-reduction-in-co2-makes-a-difference-in-global-warming/
Then reducing CO2 is about politics and NOT science.
Garbage In
Garbage Out
Everyone; Climate Debate here:
http://www.npr.org/2007/03/22/9082151/global-warming-is-not-a-crisis
This appears to be SOUND only, there is a video of this date on U-tube that is well worth watching.
How about a transcript for those of us who read?
DEBATE, not date.
I like dates more than debates. Keep it date.
The post author says that had he been an uninitiated viewer, he “…would have concluded that the climate alarmists were right.”
That is the central issue here. Somewhere along the road, the educated public has been led to believe that if Science says it is so, it must be a fact. If any scientist hedges, he or she must not be as scientific as the proponent scientist.
Educators need to do a better job teaching research critique, starting in middle school, in order to inoculate the consuming public against still questionable scientific theories being trotted out as a done deal.
Scripted? No, they can’t be. Isn’t that so Hillary?
“Many Democrats might resist climate realism just out of shame to recognize they were duped by somebody like Mann.”
Democrats have no shame. They care not if they are duped, so long as the duping aids the cause. If duped, they say it never happened. They resist climate realism because it goes against world/bigger government and destruction of the American economy.
Climate narcissism is the new trend from the trendsetters Mann and Nye.