Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, telling the truth about climate doesn’t work. Hyping extreme climate scenarios is sometimes the only way to motivate climate action.
How Y2K offers a lesson for fighting climate change
Earlier this month, New York magazine published a riveting and frightening look at the future of the planet we call home.
Now that global warming is well underway, we are in for an apocalyptic awakening, and “parts of the Earth will likely become close to uninhabitable, and other parts horrifically inhospitable, as soon as the end of this century,” the writer, David Wallace-Wells, argues.
The article captured the public’s attention, quickly becoming the most-read piece in the magazine’s history. But many critics, including several climate scientists, argued that it was flawed because Wallace-Wells focused on the worst-case scenario, a pessimist’s take.
Why feed the public a too-bleak picture of the future? Why frighten people into action, rather than inspire them?
Because sometimes, the worst case is the only thing that prompts us to get anything done.
…
One popular misconception about Y2K is that it was a wasted effort. After all, when the clocks turned over on January 1, 2000, there were scattered problems, but the world didn’t end. And there is some evidence that money was misspent.
But several of the government and outside analysts who have studied the response – including the Senate task force – concluded that on the whole, the effort was justified, given what we knew about the bug beforehand, and especially considering the United States’ particular vulnerability to tech problems.
…
People are not fools. It is one thing to argue a position, an entirely different thing to deliberately distort the truth.
The Y2K bug – as a software expert I was involved in fixing the problems. I was a Y2K alarmist – there just seemed to be far too many decrepit, decades old COBOL systems running core business processes, all hopelessly riddled with Y2K defects, written by people who had long since retired or died of old age. To my surprise the world didn’t end January 2000.
But it never occurred to me to deliberately exaggerate the problems I thought I saw, to try to panic people into acting.
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There is a need to counter such propaganda [paid] through:
1. Clearly defining what is climate and what is climate change
2. Clearly presenting data network over the land and over the globe
3. Clearly presenting on greenhouse gases data collection history
4. Location specific studies on the impacts of global warming [if any] and components of climate change
With out such actions, the groups will not stop sensationalisms.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Dr Reddy,
All these data are aready available. They just need to be analysed by scientific method.
If you are a scientist you will be aware of Karl Poppers writings on hypothesis’.
Here is Richard Feynman doing and explaining that to a freshman physics class probably at Princeton.
Here is some empirical evidence of actual climate temperatures and the results of modeling hypothesis’
(Courtesy of http://www.drroyspencer.com/ website of June 4th, 2013 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D. Former NASA Scientist. Sources of models and observations converted to linear trend for comparison annotated on graph)
It is not scientifically possible to prove a hypothesis correct, for example Einstein’s Hypothesis of General Relativity showed that explained Newton’s hypothesis’ did not quite explain everything, and it was through empirical evidence that did not support Newton. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tests_of_general_relativity#Perihelion_precession_of_Mercury)
However it is possible to prove, as Einstein did, that a better hypothesis should be substituted, or in the case of AGW, the hypothesis should be thrown out completely because there is no empirical evidence that supports any part of it.
Climate “scientists” understand Karl Popper as well. This is why they will always stay away from proper debate about AGW.
However, if there is no empirical proof of the “Anthropogenic CO2 causes Global Warming” hypothesis we had better heed Richard Feynmans words in the above video.
We have wasted trillions on AGW so far, the UN being a prominent culprit and if there is overwelming doubt that the science is flawed, ( as I show above), the danger to the world’s people is economic not atmospheric.
Is this not the best way to reassure people about how “factual” AGW is?
This is the actual real science and we better all be getting used to it.
Cheers
Roger
http://www.rogerfromnewzealand.wordpress.com
http://www.thedemiseofchristchurch.com
Yes, it is clearly possible to prove a hypothesis correct. If you know what is in bounds, out of bounds, and the boundary conditions, you cover all positive and negative cases. You can prove a negative if you know the boundary conditions, and easily so. If your model correctly predicts the appropriate outcomes then it is a strong model. The goal is not to disprove models, as that proves nothing. It can just be argued your conditions and test was not properly part of the model constraints. But a model that can accurately predict possible outcomes is a successful model. This makes the model useful for scientific work and sometimes for public policy. The reason why it is claimed models cannot be proven is that we accept poor models that cannot define boundary conditions. So in effect, we are trying to disprove shitty models. Well, okay, that is not hard to do. The purpose of science is not to prove anything. The purpose is to define conceptual models that can accurately explain the observations, and accurately predict future outcomes for a component of nature under study.
“The purpose is to define conceptual models that can accurately explain the observations, and accurately predict future outcomes for a component of nature under study.”
Certainly true Donald. A concise description.
Everything before that sentence can be safely ignored I think. The GCMs we’ve been served over the past 30 years don’t suit the purpose you describe. The hypothesis they embody is therefore rejected.
rogerthesurf — this is not what I presented in my observations?
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
The inimitable Feynman. Everything he wrote or said yields fruit after serious thought. This particular snippet is not from Princeton, however. It is from a series of talks, in the Messenger Series, he gave at Cornell in 1964, the year before his Nobel was awarded. He was a student at Princeton, but oddly enough had a little trouble getting in allegedly because some involved in the process thought “they had enough Jews” at Princeton. His thesis done under John Wheeler is still a good read. Another worthy read is his commencement address at Caltech in 1974 in which he discussed cargo cult science and wished the students the good fortune never to fall prey to it. The full Messenger talks are on youtube and the Caltech address is readily googleable.
Indeed. I had “The Feynman Lectures on Physics” as a textbook when I studied electrodynamics back in the seventies. The only physics rextbook I ever encountered that it was a pleasure to read.
Donald Kasper,
Proof only exists in mathematics and logic. It does not exist in science regarding theories. It is impossible to test every single negative and positive factor that could possibly exist. The boundaries are infinite.
Experiments demonstrate what is likely and unlikely, and no matter how highly likely or unlikely you can demonstrate that something is, according to the standards defined by science, it’s never embraced as conclusive “proof.”
No. It is not possible to prove a hypothesis correct.
Scientific and other hypotheses are induction, and there are no proofs for inductive propositions, only deductive ones.
That was Poppers whole point and indeed many other philosophers before.
We cannot even prove the sun will rise tomorrow. It just always has before…
Dr Reddy,
Of course you mentioned the key things, I have simply taken the liberty to point out that the necessary empirical data is now available making it possible to evaluate the hypothetical data produced from “Climate Models”.
Climate Models are in themselves hypotheses representing the “science” of how the climate is warming and no doubt collectively represent the complete theoretical frame work of AGW.
As you can see, no one has predicted the empirical results.
Therefore we now have a scientific basis upon which we can evaluate the value of the $billions worth of research on the subject.
Cheers
Roger
Donald, while you’ve got some good points about models, I have to correct your opening statement.
No, it is not possible to PROVE a hypothesis correct (outside the realm of pure mathematics) because you can never know that your list of what’s in bounds, out of bounds, the boundary conditions or all the positive and negative cases is complete. The most you can ever do is to demonstrate that your hypothesis is consistent with all the data KNOWN TODAY. For the same reason, it is not possible to prove a negative because it is beyond the human condition to perfectly know all the necessary boundary conditions.
We can, however, quite easily say that data X is inconsistent with hypothesis Y, therefore hypothesis Y is at best incomplete. And since computer models can be seen as a mathematical representation of the underlying hypothesis, a significant discrepancy between the model outcomes and the subsequent observations is evidence that the model (and probably the underlying hypothesis) are weak or wrong.
Mike Rossander,
That is about as clear and concise a summary of the point as I have seen, outside of Feynman’s little talk. The point is intimately familiar to those who work in the hard sciences such as physics (my particular field), chemistry or biology. When attention turns toward things that need to include “science” in the title to somehow associate the work with “science”, such as climate science, social science, or environmental science, the clarity seems to defocus a bit and the fundamental nature of comparing experiment with theory gets a bit loose. A charming example of the travails of the process in physics is the past few decades of work trying to tie down whether, via quantum entanglement, so called “spooky action at a distance” is a workable hypothesis. The experimentalists have been developing ever more sophisticated experiments to rule out a variety of possible external effects that may not be controlled in the previous experiments, that may have produced results consistent with spooky action at a distance, i.e. faster than light propagation of information, when in fact the hypothesis is false. One of the remaining unknowns is that thing we all liked to discuss late at night after drinking as students: does Free Will exist? A very interesting issue of how and whether, at the quantum level, the universe of the past influences effects in the present, down to the choices made by the observer, so that the outcome obtained was in fact caused by some uncontrolled past event influence. This meticulous pursuit to prove one’s hypothesis wrong is one serious lacking in some of the “sciences.”
Feynman again has wise input into that. He often said that one should be the best in the world at proving one’s own theories wrong, and the least expert at trying to show where they are right. One of his proudest statements was that he was (in his estimation) the world’s expert at proving his proposals wrong.
Dear Dr., let the sensationalists do as they do, please. Without this the climate hype undoubtedly ordered a much larger trailer. But even the stupidest one knows what intentions are behind it. Grimm’s fairy tale also takes no one for Bare Mint. It’s just a sleep-in for children ( and sometimes also adult).
New York magazine, per Wikipedia, has a circulation of roughly 406,000. The United States has a population of 330 million plus. Do the math to see how much “influence” this hyperbolic rag, mostly devoted to restaurant and fashion reviews, actually has–100% inside the bluest part of the Deep Blue Bubble. Last week I wrote about an acquaintance of that persuasion who was using that article to feed her depression–I swear that’s what more than half of the True Believers do. They are people who are unhappy, who are uncomfortable in the world as it is because their philosophy has taught them it *should* be otherwise. The fact that we don’t live in John Lennon’s “Imagine” doesn’t mean the world is ending–due to CO2 or anything else.
They don’t even have a clue that what they are advocating is the DEFINITION of “Hellfire and Brimstone Religion”. Heck, country preachers have been building careers on this trick for centuries.
by getting things done they mean one thing and one thing only, sucking the wealth out of every poor sucker who falls for this nonsense.
What needs to “get done” is some planning to adapt to what climate changes we could possibly experience, be it continued warming or a fall into colder times. A repeat of the MWP would certainly be easier to adapt to than a repeat of the LIA.
As one who has looked at and used numerous mathematical models for years of much simpler systems, there is one clear problem. I have not built the models but studied the output to gain an understanding of structures and chemical processes. Solid mechanics is now modeled well with Finite Element analysis but chemical reactions and fluid mechanics models are still questionable except to study changes in a particular variable. The fact that the models vary so dramatically from the data tells the entire story, they do not have the equations correct to make accurate predictions, and may never have them.
Mathematical models are of little use until you understand and verify all the physical behavior of the thermodynamics, chemistry and physics that the modelers need to build into their models.The system is just too complex to model because the knowledge of many of the fundamentals is unknown.
The reason the climate models fail so horribly is that there is no complete understanding of the factors mentioned above. As a skeptic in nature I seriously doubt such an understanding is possible because of the chaotic nature of the way weather and climate change beyond a very short timeframe,
The bogey man WILL get you.
+97
… after the tax man is done with you.
Translation: The truth is that the problem, if there is one, is rather mile and does not require immediate and drastic action. Therefore in order to motivate and justify immediate and drastic action we need to tell people lies.
mild, not mile.
So it’s OK for MSM to lie when it wants to manipulate people? And how do we know when it’s lying or not? Without cleart criteria the Precautionary Principle says to treat all its statements as lies.
This really isn’t a new idea. When I was young (back in the 40’s) we had a saying; “believe nothing of what you hear and only half of what you see”.
In the era of CGI (The Avengers destroying New York City for example), that admonition is very generous.
I sat for an interview on the 28th floor of a building along the Chicago River marveling how well the city had recovered from its destruction by Transformers. (Well, the interview wasn’t going well and I was thinking to myself sarcastically.)
The MSM does not actually manipulate at all. They only transport their opinions on paper pages and on the screen. In the core, every reporting is a manipulation of what it is reading. Even the minstrels in the Middle Ages manipulated Burgfräuleins. However, Scare-Mongerer-Stories can only be used as a slumber since eternity, so no one is lured out behind the stove. Moritats were those stories that were least believed. And yet it was beautiful to hear, because it obviously touched the human primordial instincts, which assumed a hostile nature apart from their own fire place. For this reason, such stories do not touch me at all; on the contrary, they are helpful to those who are seriously concerned with the published opinion in climate matters
Moritats were?
No idea what this means.
The idea you are conveying is that you believe they are justified in doing what they do?
If that is what you are saying, i completely disagree.
I think it is reprehensible and vile.
They scare children, who grow up hopeless, believing they are born into a dying world.
“They scare children, who grow up hopeless, believing they are born into a dying world.” Got a friend who works as a rehabilitation counselor and has told us he sees this more and more, people under 30 who have absolutely no hope for the future. This is insidious, undermining a culture by destroying it’s children’s belief in and hopes for their own future.
Could it be that Justin Trudeau, Gerald Butts and Catherine McKenna were all so successfully brainwashed as children that this is why Al Gore called Trudeau a “breath of fresh air” In reference to saving the Paris Agreements?
Check the ‘Globe and Mail’ for the actual video of this.
The Sydney Morning Herald is not a bible of truth. Its just a bunch of leftist journalists trying to get a story together that makes them look good to their peers and hangs out the shingle to employment at the ABC (government). 90% would not be employed by News Corp. So the government is the only place left, (intellectually and actually). The blogs will slowly eat Fairfax. First the advertising, now the journalism.
The classified “rivers of gold” are long gone. Real estate is up for sale. Its up to those remaining to change. So far (twenty years) it has not happened. Just more and more cost cutting.
The point of it all is to motivate climate action in the form of cutting fossil fuel emissions as a way of mitigating global warming.
But without empirical evidence that warming is related to emissions or that the rate of warming is responsive to the rate of emissions.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3000932
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2997420
Anyone who thinks that global warming is at the root of this whole charade is kidding themselves or is not paying close enough attention.
The point is the cutting of the use of fossil fuels it has nothing to do with climate, if it would have been cooling we would have been bombarded with messages about fine particles blocking the sun, and the fine particles come from?
One morning, long long ago, Margaret Thatcher looked out of the window of her London apartment and saw nothing but buildings turned black by coal soot and said: “let there be clean air.” (apart form the fact that the lost empire was further threatened by oil embargo’s)
I don’t agree with the methods and the waste of billions of dollars in “research” but the air in London, LA, New York, Amsterdam and Paris is cleaner then back in the 70’s. Beijing and Jakarta still have a long way to go.
In most (democratic) countries elections are won in the cities.
What the people in the cities want is what those in the country will get, it does not matter if it makes no sense to some, that is democracy.
Brainwash the majority for the perceived good of all.
But in the end, who can argue that it is more beneficial to breathe polluted air?
FYI outtheback – the use of coal for heating was progressively eliminated in London following the killer smog of 1951, and by the end of the 1960s, the air in London was cleaner (probably) than it is now. I know this, I was there. And the rail system, which had been a huge user of coal, was completely diesel or electric powered by 1968. Thatcher was opposed to coal because she didn’t like the miners’ unions and their politics, and by that time, the only substantive use of coal in the UK was for electricity generation. North Sea oil and gas made her anti-coal agenda feasible.
Actually, it was the labour-intensive underground coal mining that was phased out, and it probably would have been with of without any help from Mrs. T., just because of the cost. Open pit (open cast) coal mining continued, without the troublesome unions.
And BTW what was the point of your comment anyway? Did it relate to global warming and if so, how?
I’m feeling grumpy today. Need to get some more drugs in.
As a young kid, I saw pictures of the Pied Piper with a bunch of children following behind. I never understood the reference, nor did I ask what it meant.
As an older adult, I am impressed how easy it is to affect the gullible minds of Adults. It is all due to politics – they know a few sound bites from their Pied Piper politicians; a belief without knowledge.
But, there comes a time when the seduced child no longer believes his seducers, This time comes early enough in the youthful age. Therefore, all seduction methods are ineffective. There would be no revolutions and no revolt in the world, and there would not have been any. Not even a science would exist. Therefore, one should smile at these attempts. Man asks, as long as he lives and somehow in his life comes this phase of the questioning.
Ok, now this I agree with.
I misinterpreted what you were saying in the comment above.
Just think back; “If you don’t quit that, you’ll go blind!!!!” never worked on anyone, did it?
So the whole point of the Greens/progressives/leftists is to lie about climate change and other things the like or hate because the truth does not cause enough alarm? Sounds like one good definition of fake news.
Readers should exercise their options: 1) don’t read anything the MSM leftists write or broadcast, 2) read or listen if they must but don’t believe anything you read or hear, of 3) avoid the lies and read and listen to only those news sources you know are conservative.
I read the Guardian all the time, the most left wing MSM one could imagine, then I come here to check their ludicrous claims, which are always rubbish.
But I find it useful to understand what the socialists are up to.
I find it distressing, because I see otherwise intelligent adults that are completely misled and down the rabbit hole.
A great deal of time, money and effort is being directed towards what is at the very least wasteful, and at worst extremely harmful to actual scientific advancement.
It is by far the worst thing to ever happen since the enlightenment.
Just a real life version of “the boy who cried wolf”
Crying “Climate Change Wolf” will likely backfire in the long run because the earth is greening up while we experience the best weather and climate for life in at least 1,000 years.
With the disparity between the real world and broken speculative models growing and the climate wolf still not here after 2 decades of alarming, people are more likely to stop believing their is a climate wolf. Telling them that the wolf is bigger and badder than they thought before, when the climate animal that has actually showed up so far, bears closer resemblence to a lamb is not going to convert more believers.
Being honest about the authentic science is the best way…..but then it destroys the reasoning to justify immediate and costly actions.
Quite the dilemma. Either greatly exaggerate for the cause…..or be completely honest.
Beat me to it Mike. (and did it with a hell of a lot more eloquence… ☺) i think that if they really want to push an agenda here, they ought to do it honestly AND couple it with the real scare story — that fossil fuels are finite and they need to be conserved and ultimately replaced. That’s the way to do it. All else will ultimately fail as evidenced by the big collective yawn that society on the whole has given to AGW theory. Kindle in people a consciousness of real threats, not imagined ones. That may not ultimately work either, but i think it’s the least worst and most responsible way to go…
There’s no desperate hurry over fossil fuels; they still have a few centuries to go. But yes, they are finite and sooner or later we will need to find replacements, most obviously to fuel transport systems.
We should be able to do this if we haven’t totally impoverished ourselves financially and scientifically by diverting efforts from productive research into the Cult of Climate Change.
Newminster.
Yes!
Mike
The real danger IMO is the disrepute being smeared over all of science.
What then if the wolf comes from something other than climate change?
Actual problems that are imminently solvable are being ignored.
Completely ignored.
Nothing useful is being accomplished at this point…it is 100% counterproductive.
Warmistas should be rounded up and run out of public life on a rail.
Many deserve to be jailed.
Does anyone ever teach “The Boy that cried wolf”? I would think that would be forbidden as reading in schools. The goal now is to cry wolf. I’m also thinking “chicken little” is outlawed. Both go against the mantra.
I disagreed with a later post you made, and practically called you a lukewarmer loser.
However this earlier July 21 10:07pm post I 100% agree with.
Do you have a ghostwriter?
Like you Eric, I was responsible for a very large COBOL legacy financial system that had many ‘tack-ons’ over its 25+ year life.
Our testing revealed no Y2K issues, but my team and I conspired to scare our board into approving a significant budget that we used to get a shedload of backlogged issues fixed.
Noble cause corruption at its finest.
There’s another shot at clock based Armageddon…
With Unix time in 2038:
https://infogalactic.com/info/Year_2038_problem
Yeah, well we got 20 years to replace all those intrusive little devices using that system, and if worst case CAGW is true or an asteroid hits us … well maybe we won’t need to. LOL
At once every several tens of millions of years, a major asteroid strike is far down the list.
Earth directed coronal mass ejection, mega tsunami, Tambora-scale volcanic eruption…there are many actual disasters that will occur on a more relatable and relevant time scale.
The scientific world fiddles while…
I have a funny feeling that there are still a few COBOL systems out there somewhere that could bring a few genuine software graybeards out of retirement. 🙂
But when it comes to software threats, I would look at the current crop of so-called Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Most if not all of these cheap “connected” light bulbs, refrigerators, baby monitors, cars, etc. have little or no security, and can be hacked with little effort. And when they are hacked, most of what’s available on their network can be compromised. Most cannot have their software updated, so in about 5-10 years, look out below…
The spending on Y2K was so high because so many smarmy CIOs used the “crisis” as an opportunity to buy new software or hardware that was not needed specifically for Y2K.
They had an incentive to keep outsiders believing Y2K issues were more dangerous than they really were.
The result was a boom in technology company sales — causing and the tech stock bubble — then a 50% down bear market — and much more than 50% down for tech stocks.
Emphasizing the worst case is highly irresponsible considering that even the IPCC’s ‘best case’ is worse than what the physics and data can support.
“Never engineer for the worst case” is a fundamental axiom of engineering. You’d think they’d teach that, even to railroad engineers in India.
Heck, even when they inadvisably and irresponsibly rebuilt New Orleans in lace and at massive cost, they only did so in a way which will provide protection from a cat 4 storm.
And a cat 5 direct hit is predictable and only a matter of time.
Has the Sydney Morning Herald never heard of the story of the little boy who cried “wolf”?
Yes, climate change alarmism is a scam. Watch State of California Governor Edmund G. “Jerry” Brown fulminate about it. (Sorry no link).
Fulminate? I’d have said “crater”. I honestly think Brown s going down with the ship. California is about to go through a radical political “cleansing”. There are people with money in California and I’m pretty sure they’ve lost faith in the Green Machine that was supposed to bring another era of economic abundance (think Solyndra).
It’s been more than 10 years of pain and suffering with no results. Jerry can keep the band playing awhile longer and he can certainly re-arrange the deck chairs, but he’s going down and California isn’t going to take that lightly.
Do you really think CA can change?
They have the largest collection of leftists and people on the dole…I am not seeing it change.
Bankruptcy tends to provide a clearer vision of the future of buying trendy items …
Something dramatically awful and foreseeable and preventable will have to occur to snap those fools out their delusions.
Wayne: What are the consequences of state bankruptcy? A check from the federal government to cover the losses? I can’t see a downside to that.
Sheri – usually the installation of auditors and overseers and the loss of jobs for a few politicians and bureaucrats and loss of programs. Loss of control – and that’s what these folks are about – control.
There are effects that ripple through the region and beyond. California is bigger than many countries. The effect would be felt throughout the US, investors would run for shelter, house prices would fall, services would fall – as happened in Orange County.
Playing with fire, they are.
Here is a comtemporaneous article:
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/12/08/business/orange-county-s-bankruptcy-the-overview-orange-county-crisis-jolts-bond-market.html
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228432876_The_Effect_of_the_Orange_County_Bankruptcy_on_Residential_Real_Estate_Prices_g
https://merage.uci.edu/~jorion/oc/case.html
Doug asks: “Do you really think CA can change?”
Certainly. I wasn’t born in CA but I’ve lived here on and off since 1965. I’ve watched California change from a largely conservative (classical liberal) agricultural/technology based economy to what you see today. California’s success has been its failure; money attracts opportunists of all stripes and only some of them are productive. The state has suffered from “wealth guilt” and it’s drowning in the economic equivalent of “white fat”, that visceral junk everyone develops around the midriff after 55.
Yes, California can change, I’ve seen it. I sincerely believe we’re witnessing the end of a parasitic super-cycle that’s been in progress since 1975.
This too will pass.
Sheri asks: “What are the consequences of state bankruptcy?”
Wayne did a great job answering that, but I’d like to add that a default by California wouldn’t just have local consequences, it would erode the credibility of the entire country. Fr this reason alone Trump needs to become far more involved in controlling California’s politics.
If California were to default, the impact on the credit rating of the US would be significant. Not catastrophic necessarily since the US luxuriates in the sole right to print the world’s reserve currency, but even that could change. I surmise that, in the event of a default by California, it would change. Naturally that would lead to the ascendance of the second largest currency in the world; China.
If California is allowed to fail, the United States will quickly become a chattel of China, effectively ending US world hegemony. We have to ask ourselves if California really is “the enemy within” and exactly what we can do about it?
Many parts of the Earth are already uninhabitable. This is why it makes much more sense to terraform Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Most of Colorado and West Texas instead of this stupid plan to colonize Mars.
Oh and let’s not leave out places like Death Valley. Barstow comes to mind…
Ah, L.A.
And L.A. 🙂
I regret to say I’d have to add San Diego at this point also. I remember San Diego as a real paradise lost.
Utah. We shouldn’t forget Utah. Eastern Washington. Central Oregon.
There are lot’s o places on Earth that could use some TLC. After we’re done with them we can worry about Mars. Or what might happen to north Africa if the climate here “changes”.
The basin-and-range topography of Nevada and eastern Utah would be ideally suited to flooding with seawater from the Pacific Ocean. The basins have no outlets so any seawater you put in will evaporate and fall as rain and snow in the Colorado River basin. The increased flow of the Colorado would be tapped for more electric generating capacity at Hoover and Glen Canyon dams and more irrigation and urban water for the southwest. Additionally, increased flow from the the upper Colorado and its tributaries on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains could be tapped for diversion to the areas east of the continental divide.
Most of the flooded basins are under 6000 feet elevation. Flooding just the ancient lake Bonneville would make a huge contribution to rain and snowfall in eastern Utah and western Wyoming.
Franke, that makes a lot of sense to me. It’s geo-engineering writ large though and it would never make it by the Luddites (what I often call the “eco-loons”).
Anything that might make life on Earth better for humans will automatically be rejected by the Church of Gaia.
That would require more rain. The only feasible way to get this is more evaporation from the tropical oceans, which requires a warmer climate. Unfortunately the only known method to warm the Earth (more GHG) doesn’t seem to work.
“That would require more rain.”
Or some big pipelines from Canada.
Credibility is their stock in trade. If they lose that. ..
If?
Hah!
I think that credibility was dumped long ago. Now they just pound on everyone that they are “authorities” and cannot be questioned.
Doesnt matter what story they tell, people will get tired and bored of it. Trying to save the planet for what may happen in 80 yrs time will never gel. People are more worried about their jobs, how to pay the next electricity bill etc. How is sacrificing this generation suppose to help the next?
“How is sacrificing this generation suppose to help the next?”
The Malthusian mindset tells us that by sacrificing the current generation, we inhibit growth of the next generation. The purpose is therefore served.
The truth is this is a worthy goal. I was raised during a time that zero population growth was both desirable and feasible. I had two children who have both succeeded in living to their majority and becoming useful members of society, but in general my culture is breeding below its replacement rate.
That’s great, but it isn’t being promoted in the third world, and so the result is we’re being overwhelmed by barbarians at the gates.
How will that be reconciled? How will the first world prevent the third world from outbreeding and overwhelming civilization? That’s the real problem we leave to our children, and it has absolutely nothing to do with “climate change”.
[Same ideas may be conveyed with less offensive terminology~ctm]
[You’re on the right track, but I’m eliminating the language of that discussion, which was (not you) offensive~ctm]
[snip]
And that, in a nutshell, is what this is ALL about. It’s Agenda 21, IPCC, etc. The goal is to give money and jobs to the third world at the expense of the first world, so that we’re all on an even, civilized, playing field. I’m not a fan, but this is the noble cause that drives all this BS.
Sorry about that, Charles… i’m not sure what, if anything, in my comment was found to be offensive. In fact, my comment was intended to be a polite rebuttal to bartleby’s “barbarians at the gate” (which, no doubt, IS offensive). While not trying to knock his observation, i merely offered what i see as a solution to his justifiable fears. A solution which we have been fortunate to see played out with the successful rise of the black middle class here in america. No intent to offend here. As well, i defend your right to moderate as you see fit. Blogs are monarchies. (and blogs should be run however a blog owner sees fit)…
One thing I’ve noticed; the overarching goal of the cAGW threat, which is to unify the planet under a one world government, is actually working in a weird, unintended and most certainly backhanded way.
It doesn’t take long for a person reading the commentary on these very pages to realize there are like minds all over the planet. I’ve noticed there’s a very obvious lack of representation by China and SE Asia on this site, but it’s clear North, South and Central America along with pretty much all of Europe, much of the Middle East and Africa, not to mention Australia, all have collectively and very vocally banded together to reject the AGW hypothesis.
There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of organization, but I think its safe to say the cAGW hypothesis has served to join many different cultures all over the planet in rejecting it.
I think that’s promising.
Pretty much all of Europe?
I do not see that at all.
The Europeans seem to have embraced CAGW with both arms, and shown few signs of being awake to what is occurring.
You have to admit there’s European representation on this site, some of it both well educated and compelling. Until very recently it could have been said there was no serious disagreement on the subject of cAGW in the US based on the behavior of its Federal government.
There appears to be active decent in the areas I mentioned, I believe there’s an active debate. I don’t get that feeling about China or most of the “east”.
Too bad the Chinese government blocks the Chinese peoples’ access to the western internet.
I can understand why they do it because differing opinions might upset their political narrative. The Chinese government is just like every other radical Left/totalitarian group: They don’t want to have a debate, they want their political opposition to shut up and be silent.
This is a perfect example of how much these useful idiots are divorced from rational reasoning.
They know for sure that they are distorting the truth, but justifying it with the noble cause of saving the world. It totally fails them that the only “evidence” the world must be saved is based on their own propaganda lies.
Yes Doctor. The 2016 election is a good example. The left wanted Hillary to win so much that used fake news and fake or biased polls to show she was way ahead. Over the months the leftists began to believe there fake news and corrupted polls. The result was that Hillary didn’t campaign in some key battleground states, or only made a mimimum final effort because all the leftist polls showed she was way ahead. And, all the MSM were pumping out fake news that she would win big. They came to believe their own lies and lost the election. JUSTICE with a capital J that your evil comes back to haunt you.
Truth is always better than lies.
The 2016 election polls were not fake.
No organization wants to publish polls that are wrong.
Any poll that incorrectly boosts a candidate could hurt him — as some marginal / lazy / busy supporters decide to skip voting for him because they assume he’ll win their state even if they stay home.
The polls were wrong for several unintentional reasons:
(1) Trump fans were reluctant to admit they planned to vote for him.
The reluctance was because leftists were so hostile to Trump supporters.
So Trump supporters refused to respond to polls or lied.
They were also reluctant to put Trump signs on their lawn or car.
I know a few people who were so reluctant to admit they voted for Trump that I just found
out about a few that voted for him IN THE PAST TWO MONTHS — one, a very close friend of my wife,
admitted it just last week, and wanted the wife to tell no one else. Of course she did tell me.
(2) It’s easier to predict the popular vote, which most polls got correct, than to predict the electoral college and the number of “faithless” electors.
I bet on Trump and won only because I got two to one odds.
The bet was much smaller than my usual $20 bet.
I had little confidence in him winning.
(and I wouldn’t vote for a Clinton running for local dogcatcher).
Your opinion and shared by some. My opinion is today’s MSM is bought and paid for to blatantly do the owner’s bidding and they choose the message they desire to propagate with hopes of capturing people that don’t know any better and that they are being duped to go along with the crowd. Didn’t work this time with the Presidential election though….. did it 🙂
Interestingly, in a discussion of his new book Everybody Lies: What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are,
via (of all places!) the U.K. Guardian, one finds in the Q. & A. section (my bold -hro):
Amazing, eh?!
Encouraging I’d say. I’d interpret those results as demonstrating “enlightened self-interest”, a fundamentally liberal philosophy born in the Renaissance and supported in the Reformation. It’s the foundation of the US Constitution.
Behold the Journ-O-List!
Limbaugh often mentioned interview statistics showing the number one reason by far, given by journalism students in answer to the question “why do you want to become a journalist?:
“To change the world.”
The answer “to bring the truth to light” was a very, very distant second place.
That’s a terrifying result. I can only hope there was something wrong with the survey.
It indicates journalism has lost its objectivity completely and become pure activist propaganda. I somehow doubt Limbaugh actually ran that survey personally, if not, do you recall a source? If so, I think it’s thankfully meaningless.
Bartley.
On the contrary I think the result is self evidently true. MMS is hopelessly biased and consider being unbiased as failing to support the cause.
Interesting. I worked as chief meteorologist at a local CBS station in Indiana fro 11 years under 4 news directors. The best one and by far the most ethical one, after 2 years, had a meeting with his 2 dozen of us employees to tell us that he had just resigned. He said basically what your source had indicated g2. He got into the biz to change the world but knowing him, “to bring to light to truth” was right up there too.
Which was why he had just resigned. For the past 2 years it had been made clear by his bosses and the owner/corporate that their objective was to increase profits and the ONLY way to do that was to increase ratings……which was the metric being used to judge his performance.
His wife had been making a high 6 figure salary with Bristol Myers.at the time and she had also resigned. The 2 of them had signed up to work in an organization that trained previously communist countires(this was the late 1980s) in Europe to work a democratic system. The pay was basically cost of living.
I had heard that 2 decades later, that he was back in Indiana working in a different city as news director. Not sure what that meant but at our tv station, during his tenure, he showed that shing the light of truth did not match up with the objective of top management.
There were regular focus group results and ratings discussed with us. It was made crystal clear that our jobs depended on ratings and come contract renewal time, management would show us the negative stuff to negotiate down what our worth was. I had a good friend that was head of production that shared their most comprehensive set of reach with me in 1985, days before my 3 year contract was up.
It showed that I was tied at number 1, with the very popular news anchor from the number 1 rated station in our market(we were number 2).
Management had not shared this with and by the way they were treating me, I told my buddy that I was worried they were not going to renew my contract. His response exactly was “You have them by the balls”
Having this info, inspired me to contact the other station. They were not interested in me but when I went into negotiations for a new contract I could use this. The general manager offered to renew my contract at the same salary I was hired in for 3 years ago, not sharing the very favorable research my buddy informed me about. I immediately told them that our competition had contacted me and we had been discussing me working their. They acrually took me out to dinner one night but their general manager was more interested in finding out information/future strategies about our station from me, I actually couldn’t answer most of his questions if I wanted too and was just going to use the meeting to boost my negotiating power.
When hearing of this meeting, our general manager immediately kicked me out of his office and called me a traitor. He wanted me to think that I might be fired now. He did not know that I knew about the research that showed our station was only number 1 in weather but number 2 in news and sports.it would make sense sense to him that our competition would try to steal the number 1 meteorologist.from his station. This was before rewrote the non compete clause in our contracts to make the more enforceable.
So I knew that he would be calling me back in. This time, with an offer to increase my salary 10K, which I turned down, knowing that I would still be getting much less than the 2 low rated new anchors. Up until that time in my life I hadn’t cared much about money but had just married-1985 and am still happily married-and we were starting a family,
So I got kicked out again in a way that was meant to intimidate me. The 3rd time I went in, things were different. Now the GM suddenly was appreciating me and was trying to work corporate to get as much money as he could for me. I turned down the 3rd offer, not sure if I could work them 1 more time.
The 4th time we met, I knew that was it. The news, who was there each time, now was getting ticked off. When he jumped and and said I’m thru dicking around, we want your answer right now.
I told him I would need to discuss it with my wife and he ushered me into his office and said, “there’s the phone, call her now, as he waited outsiide the closed door. She had no idea what had been going on that same day.. When she answered I said, “guess what. I just doubled my salary!” And was trying to control my laughter so the news director would not hear me.
When I came out and told him my wife was good,with this offer his face lit up and we went back to tell the GM and both of them went on about how happy they were to have me on board for another 3 years………never having a clue that I would have signed for half that amount until my buddy shared the “secret” research with me.
Sorry for the excessive length of this post.
Corporate journalism is not journalism anymore.
That model has failed.
Even those running “science” are now more concerned with money that the truth.
Witness the official position of major scientific organizations, vs the views of the members themselves.
Those at the top are corrupted.
Plain and simple.
Sorry also about the numerous grammatical, spelling and other errors(as if somebody is keeping score).
Had surgery on both eyes yesterday(cut and tightened the outside muscles) for worsening severe double vision that was no longer controlled with prisms. It was sort of stupid to be typing a long winded post that I would not even read myself.
However, it actually shows how we often feel this need to state things on our minds……….almost compulsively at times in a public forum that no longer features face to face human interaction. This applies across the board at a gazillion other forums, on both sides of the political and climate change isles.
And we do our posting at the site that has the most people just like us, just like we use our favorite media source that lines up with our, often personal and biased belief system.
And we always, quickly recognize bias or perceived bias in everybody that states things that contradict our views…….just as they do the same with us. It has morphed into a new group think sort of reality that defines each side……..almost like 2 college football rivals playing each other.
MOST OF the spectators following that game closely, come in to it, closely aligned with one or the other team. They root for their team to win and throughout the game, view results, including individual plays with tunnel vision……..how they help or hurt their side.
The ones that might see everything the most objectively in such a football game and don’t care who wins……….are probably not watching the game. The refs in a football game are one notable exception.
In similar fashion, many root for and interpret political and scientific “facts” based on whether it helps or hurts the side they align with.
With regards to climate change(which is synonymous with “human caused” climate change), we are told that the refs are the IPCC, world governments and (97% of) climate scientists that often work for and our funded by those governments. Not by coincidence every one of those authoritative bodies, represents only one side.
This would be like Michigan playing at Ohio State/in Columbus, OH on Saturday and Ohio State to picking its own very experienced refs that also are die hard Ohio State fans that have money bet on Ohio State to win the game.
As the refs interpret calls in favor of their team during the game, Michigan spectators are called “Deniers” for questioning the expert calls. When video replay shows bad calls(like climate models being too warm) the refs, ignore this evidence, make no adjustments and instead, defend their call on the field.
When somebody like Trump gets elected, maybe one or more of the Ohio State refs is replaced. OSU claims that it’s a UM ref that makes all their calls in favor of UM.
One huge difference with regards to the climate change. One side claims to have everything for everyone to gain or lose with their position and is willing to go to some extremes and exaggerations in order to generate more support. This is the same as justified lying. The other side does have its real deniers who state silly things like the earth is not warmer or there is no greenhouse effect. However, the true deniers on that side represent a tiny fraction, compared to the justifiable liars on the other side.
Somehow, all those inside these extremes just cannot see things half way………except for people like me, the “Luke Warmers”. We believe almost everything that the extremists believe about CO2 with one tiny exception. We think the global climate models are too warm and the effect of CO2 is amplified too much…………maybe 50% too much. Maybe is the operative word and with rock solid scientific evidence to support the maybe.
One side will not budge or adjust from their position and are willing to make it even more extreme in order to prompt(political) action. I don’t know of any legit Luke Warmers that do the opposite with gusto………or they would no longer be Luke Warmers.
It’s clear, of all the climate science groups, which one has the more scientifically honest, objective position. The Luke Warmers. There are few in such a group in college football stadiums on Saturdays in the Fall………people that don’t care who wins but just cane to watch a game that’s called fairly by the refs.
And that’s the way that climate science ought to be.
To Mike Macfuire regarding your later comment on July 22 at 8:01am
You like the lukewarmers.
I disagree.
They are the worst of all !
(1) The CO2 is Evil Cult makes ridiculous end-of-life-on-Earth predictions with no scientific backup, that are easy to dismiss as nonsense. They’ve been making the same wrong predictions for 30 years, based on a false belief that CO2 controls the climate (at least the average temperature).
(2) The skeptics say no one knows what the future climate will be, which is correct based on the very limited knowledge of what causes climate change.
(3) The lukewarmers say CO2 does control the climate but is not dangerous.
Some say there are natural climate changes too, but CO2 is still important.
They should say they don’t know what the future climate will be, but often say
CO2 will cause modest warming.
The truth is no one knows what the future climate will be.
The climate since the age of man made CO2 began in 1940 has had three
different trends . . Two of the three trends do not support the claim that
rising CO2 must cause warming:
(a) Negative correlation of CO2 and temperature
from 1940 to 1975,
(b) Positive correlation of CO2 and temperature
from 1975 to 2000, and
(c) No correlation of CO2 and temperature
from 2000 to 2015.
You may have been a popular well paid TV meteorologist,
but your knowledge of climate change is low …
and you just don’t realize that yet.
Lukewarmers are dangerous because they are trying to please everyone,
and are often smarmy about how logical, moderate and intelligent they are.
The exact causes of climate change are unknown.
Thats why climate models make wrong predictions.
30 years in a row of wrong predictions so far.
That falsifies the GCMs — they are failed prototypes
— not real models of a well known process.
If CO2 really controlled the climate, it would be easy
to make accurate average climate predictions.
Where are the accurate climate predictions?
“Meteorologist Mike Maguire, a commodities trader in Evansville, Indiana
who uses weather data to make buys in the world’s markets.”
Stick to weather reports and commodities trading — good luck with both.
The future climate is impossible to predict
… yet that doesn’t stop lukewarmers.
Don’t they teach that in meteorologist school ?
My climate blog for non-scientists:
Don’t bother reading — you already know “everything”
http://www.elOnionBloggle.Blogspot.com
So, he was a Y2K alarmist and the world didn’t end. You’d think he’d have learned something. Y2K was a non-issue and alarmists didn’t understand the complex man-made system that is 10,000x simpler than the climate.
+1000
The Y2k problem (6 registers instead of 8 to record a date) is infinitely less complex than the climate on this rock.
http://www.printactivities.com/ColoringPages/Farm-Animal-Coloring-Pages/Chicken-1.gif
The media assumes something needs doing. Of course the media is always beating on drums of some kind. Over 100 years of madness should be enough to make anyone a skeptic. https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/07/29/a-brief-history-of-climate-panic-and-crisis-both-warming-and-cooling/
“The media assumes something needs doing. Of course the media is always beating on drums of some kind.”
Seems to fit this thread IMO
“Climate bargain, going cheap! Pay now, save $Trillions, stop Storms, Droughts, Bad Stuff. Ends today!”
http://joannenova.com.au/2017/07/climate-bargain-going-cheap-pay-now-save-trillions-stop-storms-droughts-bad-stuff-ends-today/
The most powerful motivator of all is FEAR. Marketers use fear as a motivator as often as they can. They present a scenario they hope will invoke our sense of fear. Then they show us a solution – a path back to our comfort zone – that entails using their product or service. Fear is used to sell virtually everything: cars, tires, life insurance, and now global warming.
Nothing new to see here folks – move along.
Typical SMH garbage. A genuine comparison to Y2K would go something like this:
– We had concerns over a bug which … [explanation]
– We let dates roll over to Y2K on a multitude of computers and found minimal effect.
– We rephrased the problem and proved it was even worse than we thought.
This didn’t happen with Y2K. But it has been happening for 30 years with C6.
(C6 = Capitalist Caucasian Caused Catastrophic Climate Change)
The computer companies made an absolute MOTZA out of the Y2K scare.
Alan, you left out the “male” part.
No Alan. Unscrupulous leftist one worlders in the U.N. and self appointed elite seek world government. Global warming then climate change are only the means to tyranny. Your racist and socialist c6 is nonsense.
Please inform the UN to therefore include non-capitalist and non-Caucasian countries on an equal basis in the economically punitive emissions derived from their “science”. When I see equitable treatment of all emitters for what is supposedly a global issue, I will reduce it to C3 … which is still nonsense.
C8 = Capitalist Caucasian CO2-Caused Coming Climate Change Catastrophe
Can anyone top C8 ?
Cult of the Capitalist-Caucasian-Created Catastrophic Carbon-Caused Climate Calamity