by John Siciliano | Sep 15, 2017, 11:00 AM
The Trump administration is looking to create a “red team” to challenge the accepted science on climate change and the impact of carbon dioxide emissions on the Earth’s temperature, but there is no timeline on when that exercise will occur even though it is “very important,” according to Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt.
The EPA administrator sat down with the Washington Examiner for an interview that included discussion of the proposed red team-blue team process that he says will open up a dialogue over the science behind global warming to see what is true and what is not.
“The red team-blue team is still being evaluated,” Pruitt said. “I think it’s very, very important. I think the American people deserve an open, honest dialogue about what do we know, what don’t we know with respect to CO2 and its impact.”
The Trump administration has been criticized in recent weeks by environmentalists and others for ignoring the effects of manmade global warming in the wake of Hurricanes Irma and Harvey. Although climate scientists are careful not to equate weather with global warming, they do say that the increased intensity of the storms is a result of a warmer planet.
But the Trump administration feels a need to test that. The red team/blue team process Pruitt wants to set up has been widely used by the military to test assumptions when it comes to an enemy’s wartime capability. A red team would challenge the assumptions of the blue team.
In the case of climate change, the red team would include scientists known for their skepticism of the science held by the majority of climate scientists who say human activity is causing the Earth’s temperature to rise and will have disastrous consequences unless abated.
The Heartland Institute, which actively challenges U.N. climate change findings that the broader scientific community accepts, has been tapped by the Trump administration to recommend who should staff the red team.
But Pruitt wouldn’t give a timeframe for when the exercise would begin. “As far as the timing, that has not been determined. But I think it’s important for the American people to be able to consume that, to see that, to participate in that,” he said.
“I want it to be an open process where we literally put scientists in the room, both red team and blue team scientists, and they critique one another and talk to one another and inform each other about about this very important issue,” Pruitt said.
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EPA evaluating ‘red teams’ to challenge climate science despite earthquakes
EPA evaluating ‘red teams’ to challenge climate science despite a record breaking 12y interval without a major hurricane landfall.
EPA evaluating ‘red teams’ to challenge climate science despite a perfect record of failed climate predictions.
Only mentally challenged people think CO2 causes earthquakes
Only fraudsters think CO2 causes hurricanes!
LOL > Paul
Latitude,
Exactly how does the minutely increased CO2 level (1 additional molecule per 10,000) affect an increase in (earthquakes) geologic activity?
His statement was intentionally absurd to mock the absurdity of the headline.
The ‘science’ does not work that way. Works by the magic of numerology. Just find a correlation between CO2 and whatever and claim CO2 is the cause. Example: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275539054_Positive_correlation_between_CO2_daily_peaks_and_micro-earthquakes_occurrence_in_deep_fault-caves_an_empirical_model ‘Ergo’ CO2 causes earthquakes! QED 🙂
It doesn’t, unless you’re an educated hollyweird leftist.
“I want it to be an open process where we literally put scientists in the room, both red team and blue team scientists, and they critique one another and talk to one another and inform each other about about this very important issue,” Pruitt said.
A red/blue analysis is not a debate in a room. I don’t think he has looked at how this is used.
The original military use of Red Team/ Blue Team required interaction between the two sides, with each side trying to counter the initiatives of the enemy. What has not been mentioned is the requirement for an independent “Umpire” group to evaluate the results of the engagements and determine the “winning” side. In the case of disagreements in dialog, the best description of this process is the formal “debate”, certainly not to be confused with the political soundbite generators, moderated by the MSM, that have appropriated that term. After 30 years of constant harping on the theme of climate change, it will be most difficult to find a truly objective group to act as Umpire. This is most certainly so among the government decision makers, who are most adamant in their beliefs, one way or the other.
Nice,don’t forget: they lie. Who is going to be around to say they were wrong! False flags everywhere. Have to be somewhere else in their mind.How do they know what temp. Man caused.See the reaction people have when you ask them by how many degrees> There is a lot for the people that r wrong, They will just say in a few more year’s AND ! LIERS
BINGO!
Should it be broadcast live?
“Yes”, …… ABSOLUTELY, ……. it should it be broadcast live ……. and video recorded.
Otherwise, …… the truth will never be set “free”.
Such a “debate” would be pointless. The two teams will just regurgitate all their favourite points and spend the time talking past each other. It would be totally fruitless.
Your referring to such a gathering as being a “debate” appears to me to be a silly attempt on your part to DISCREDIT such an event even before it is held.
As far as I am concerned, “debates” and/or “debating” is little more that “play acting” that provides young people the experience of “public speaking”.
The “winner(s)” of a debate really doesn’t need to know diddly-squat about anything because the primary prerequisites for being judged a “winner” are …. 1) excellent memory recall of memorized subject matter; …… and 2) a smooth talking “velvet” tongue and a “warm” smile when addressing the observers.
Is this a true statement?: “The science held by the MAJORITY of climate scientists who say human activity is causing the Earth’s temperature to rise and will have disastrous consequences unless abated.”
Is a climate scientist more related to an astronomer or more related to an astrologer?
If you actually investigate what the consensus position includes, the two near-universally accepted statements are 1) the climate is changing and 2) human activity has some effect upon climate change. Therefore, if you agree that the climate is changing but do not agree that it is the use of fossil fuels, among all human activities that affects climate change, that causes the greatest effect among all human activities, you are also in agreement with 97% of climate scientists.
The vocal minority that insists that the use of fossil fuels is the largest influence on climate change is less than 10%
Plenty of weather..
….. but would someone please explain, that apart from natural, highly beneficial warming out of the coldest period in 10,000 years, and some temperature ups and downs due to ocean cycles…….
… in what way has the climate changed in the last, say 100 years ??
Seems to have been remarkably stable.
Andy, I, too, have raised just that observation: The climate has not changed in over 100 years!
Stable – it’s got better.
One thing that should never go unchallenged is an assertion that the 97% figure has any validity with respect to anything. The people responsible for inflicting it on us essentially pulled their numbers out their donkeys.
The plateau in world temperatures for a couple of decades is stability writ large and I’m pretty sure it has nothing to do with industrial CO2.
AndyG55 & Dave – If we are talking about ‘Climate Change’, here is a thought. Why don’t we breakdown all the areas of the world in to something like 5 main zones and further subdivide these into a total of 30 to 35 Subsections. Then on a map, interpolate onto a 0.5° longitude × 0.5° latitude grid.
Then after 25 or 30 years see where this ‘Climate Change’ is happening and how bad it is. We base the changes as ‘GOOD’ for areas that have More LIfe and ‘BAD’ for for areas that have Less Life. Let’s Call it a Köppen Classification Map, because that is just what Wladimir Köppen did starting in 1884.
Here is the map with Major Köppen type has changed at least once in 30 years during the period 1901-2010. http://hanschen.org/koppen/img/koppen_major_30yr_1901-2010.png
http://hanschen.org/koppen/img/area_major_1901-2010.png
In graph form for the changes. A & C have more life, i.e. Good – B Dry (includes cold dry) is still better than D (Snow) and E (Polar) i.e. Bad.
http://hanschen.org/koppen/img/area_major_1901-2010.png
So Good Areas, less than 1/2 percent and Very Bad Polar down 3.5% vs Just Bad Dry up 3% & Snow down 1.5%. Don’t see much Catastrophic going on.
It’s one of those shell games the progressive love so much – conflating climate change (of course it does) with CO2 (from humans of course) driving catastrophic climate change. Same way the conflate legal immigration with illegal aliens.
since when are climate scientists able to predict climate damage ? they can’t even record temperatures without faking them …
Thomas, it is absolutely true that 24 of the 26 accepted climate scientists agree that current warming is 100% due to man’s contribution to Carbon Dioxide and that it will create disastrous problems after 2100 CE. But what they won’t admit is that 11,221 other Scientists disagree with those beliefs
As this will be mostly a public relations exercise, the success depends on how well that is managed. Challenging the rent-seeking renewables lobby/industry and their green blob NGO enablers should be a major emphasis.
The major problem with the “science” is that it is overblown, not absent. Going full skydragon slayer is a temptation that should be resisted.
Mundia & Modia: The two worlds in which we live
We humans live in two worlds. One world, call it Mundia, is the world of immutable laws, e.g. gravity, electromagnetism, and supply and demand – it is the world that we see when we look out at the natural landscape. The other world, call it Modia, is the world of social relationships, e.g. love, hate, admiration, envy, loyalty, and gratitude – it is the world that we see when we look out at the social landscape.
While supporting the concept of the process, in my opinion there are real practical difficulties concerning the intended audiences for the results. In the military, it is a few commanders. Here, it is more than officials like Pruitt. The 14 agencies putting together the new National Climate Assessment anominrion? Congress (as if Shelton Whitehouse would pay attention)? Gavin Schmidt and Naomi Oreskes and like players? The general public via MSM (as if WaPo’s Chris Mooney could be persuaded) ? A more honest next IPCC (as if a US process could ever influence that regular warmunist lovefest)?
Just another report by Pruitt and the Trump administration will likely have little or no general impact.
Rud, I didn’t recognize your “anominrion.” My spell checker didn’t recognize it. Finally, the latest Merriam-Webster Dictionary didn’t recognize it. What is it?
I did take it in context to mean the upcoming National Climate Assessment would be a pile of misleading nonsense concocted by Obama Administration holdovers.
Red team observations might be used to fight Federal, State and local nonsense regulations in court.
Abomination. My bad, watching football and commenting simultaneously. See essay Credibility Conundrums for my take on chapter 1 of the 2014 NCA. The draft of 2018 is worse.
Rud, who are allowed to comment formally on Assessment drafts? How are they selected? Is it open to anyone at all?
In an early job, I directed Environmental Specialists in properly considering and responding to technical comments on Federal Environmental Assessments and Impact Statements. I likened it at the time as herding turkeys. The field has not improved.
Rud, agreed!
The current nonsense about the relationship between hurricanes and global warming clearly shows that facts have no currency any longer.
I noted that at the beginning (Harvey) there were a few Consensus scientists who were willing to get out there and advise caution in making such a connection; but now that the MSM and politicians have made their “opinions” clear, “establishment science” has suddenly grown very quiet.
One thing that needs to come out of any “Red Team/ Blue Team” meeting is a set of mutually agreed on, supported by science, statements. These statements can be trotted out whenever the MSM starts in with their usual bullshit. And can be shoved down the throat of celebrities, talking heads, pundits, politicians, whoever. It is essential to establish “true” statements of fact. I believe this is why the whole idea will be fought tooth and nail. No one on the alarmist side wants to see accurate, science backed statements floated in front f the public.
This will be the most difficult part of the whole exercise.
Quote
Abomination. My bad,
Unquote
Should read ” Abomination, My mistake”
Shakes head in astonishment
One of the things that troubles me with the R&B team approach is that the public, which generally doesn’t have the ability to judge claims, may simply see this as a spitting contest between two highly polarized groups. Something that might help would be if there were a couple of highly qualified joint-moderators who don’t have a dog in the fight, that could interrupt with questions or offer opinions on the veracity of technical claims. It would be a waste of time and talent if the public was unswayed by either side because they don’t have the ability to critique and reject claims. There has to be an expected outcome and a process for validating the outcome.
We can’t depend on the MSM or ‘celebrity’ scientists like deGrasse-Tyson to be objective. Yet, we need a panel of detached observers to judge the claims, and either already be familiar with the subject, or can come up to speed quickly before the exercise.
This is what the 1970s’ proposals for a “science court” included (Google for). Plus the ability to cross-examine.
I don’t see this happening at all…and if it does happen..I think it would be a disaster
Ask one question: Do you think man has had any effect on the climate?
..even the skeptic side will say yes
Game, set, match…..and that will be the take home
Not at all. The public isn’t that dumb. It’s very sophisticated about sports stats.
The biggest service that the ‘Red Team’ could provide in the described setting is to keep asking how CO2 is supposed to drive temperatures when a third of all human emissions happened as temperatures remained largely flat.
The current fallacious claim is that some other effect that has not been included in the climate models has driven down most of the warming that was predicted. However, the suggestion of such a large effect calls into question both whether CO2 is a dominant driver of temperatures and whether the science really is settled.
Simple.
1. the temperatures were not flat, they never are.
2. The theory maintains that temperature is the result of ALL FORCINGS not just c02.
3. The positive effects of c02 on warming can be counterbalanced in the short term by
a) negative forcing ( aerosols)
b) decrease in solar
c) Natural quasi period cycles.
You don’t address the elephant in the room – whether climate models represent a valid exercise. Most people here recognize the GHE effect. What many struggle with is the excessive degree of warming the models produce – and the way their promoters exaggerate the risk.
I’d be willing to accept the notion that warming over the last 20 years has been suppressed by the factors you mention. But do you accept the notion that the models could be wrong?
I’m not being argumentative. I’m interested in your answer.
SM – thanks for your courteous reply to my comment.
I hope Mann is on the Blue Team.
It might be fun to see him try to defend “The Hockey Stick” when the IPCC no longer uses it.
And when he can’t feed to questions he wants to be to his questioners.
Why do you assume the he, or any other prominent warmists, will agree to be part of this red/blue team approach? Unless the Feds tell them that they’ll lose all their govt funding for refusing.
Not assuming. Just hoping.
But, then again, if he or the other “headliners” of CAGW decline, who’s left? Al Gore? Bill Nye? That speaks again to the “consensus”.
The blue team might be recruited from the persons who assembled the report that the red team will be critiqueing. And those persons might nominate proxies to serve in their place.
“But, then again, if he or the other “headliners” of CAGW decline, who’s left? Al Gore? Bill Nye? That speaks again to the “consensus”.”
The vast majority of atmospheric science do research, publish papers and attend conferences, and don’t seek publicity. Just because you don’t know their names does not mean they are not part of the consensus on AGW.
Chris, is the consensus on AGW or CAGW?
*sigh* (again)
And when he can’t feed the questions he wants to be asked to his questioners.
Great idea. It’s about time some rational voices were heard
Would love to see it splashed all over social media and YouTube (no fair blocking by Zuckerberg, Amazon, and other lefty media titans!)
Red Team should include spokes-people who are calm, personable, unflappable, and prone to gentle humor. Tim Ball is an obvious choice, as well as Roy Spencer, Don Easterbrook, Nils Morner, and of course Anthony Watts and Andrew Montford. Judith Curry, Fred Singer, Jennifer Marohasy, Willie Soon, and John Christie would be good additions, with a bit more impish humor. Don’t overlook Marc Morano, Tony Heller, and the like who know their stuff cold and are great at point-counterpoint. Very sad that Bob Carter is no longer with us.
Skeptics have a very deep bench, whereas most of the Blue Team will present themselves as arrogant, know-it-all elitists (they can’t help it – – they were trained that way) who want to control all human activity under the bogus premise of “saving the planet”
Somebody cue up George Carlin’s exquisite comedy routine by that name.
Go get ’em!!
Don’t forget Steve McIntyre. He’s your safety (or cover in Rugby terms)!
Donna Laframboise is/was a journalist and would be good at poking ho0les in the false credibility of IGPOCC.
Jo Nova would be good too–funny and articulate.
By pure coincidence, prospective blue team members will find that they urgent personal matters to attend to and not be able to participate
What could land hit hurricanes possibly do with a serious climate science debate?
There is no serious “science” debate. It’s always populist green drivel as science. Dark age educational system at the root.
There is something to be said for banging folks heads together and not letting them escape into their own echo chambers.
The alarmists use a variety of slippery tricks to convince people about CAGW. I am confident that the alarmists’ case will wither if they can’t escape dealing with its shortcomings. They are proposing drastic solutions to the CO2 ‘problem’. The onus is on them to prove that the ‘problem’ exists and can’t easily be adapted to.
In other words: cage match no escape.
Maybe what is needed for the umpire team is one or two individuals well versed in logic, who could say, “appeal to authority, disallowed,” “straw man argument, disallowed,” “character attack, disallowed.”
Show the alarmist side for what it is.
A “science court” would have that feature.
The Blue team Red team approach – or hypothesis generation and falsification – will need more than just reciting rehearsed opinions and talking points for the venal and gullible. What is required is formal validation, actual experimentation, real world observation – unsullied by ‘adjustments’ and faked averaging (taking the mean of high and low temperature during a day is NOT the average temperature for the day. Then justification of metrics: why do climate ‘scientists’ measuring energy retention in the atmosphere instead measure temperature – which is not a measurement of energy content due to the varying enthalpy of the atmosphere; they should be measuring kilojoules per kilogram of the atmosphere.
There is a distinct probability that the energy content of the atmosphere has not been rising but instead the enthalpy is decreasing due to lower humidity.
The terms hotter, colder, warming, cooling are scientifically meaningless in the atmosphere and should be banned from all papers on climate; instead use real metrics for energy content of the atmosphere.
There are many sites where observation shows temperatures dropping yet which have been adjusted to show temperatures rising. Therefore, all claimed data from the past has been adjusted and therefore has ceased to be data but results of an unvalidated mathematical exercise. Professional metrologists and meteorologists should validate every homogenization and adjustment. If they fail validation they should be removed. If possible, if the climate ‘scientists’ have not destroyed and discarded the original data, then a return to the original data should be made.
It is not so much Red team as bringing in professional engineers to provide formal governance of data and of the formulae and processes to create information.
My old engineer friends would like that. I was recently told a talking point from a younger computer engineer that the reason it was settled because it was like gravity. There ought to be a relatively few simple points like gravity, maybe Feynman aside, is demonstrable both in the lab and the atmosphere, but not so in this case. This is a problem us biologists, as sometimes frustrating to toxicologists, often deal with because controlled conditions are well, controlled. Isn’t laboratory or industrial physical chemical engineering different from atmospheric engineering?
My physics is a bit rusty, but the definition of enthalpy which I found says:
a thermodynamic quantity equivalent to the total heat content of a system. It is equal to the internal energy of the system plus the product of pressure and volume.
You said the enthalpy is decreasing due to lower humidity. So the lower humidity is the result of a change in internal energy or the product of pressure and volume (in which case did pressure or volume decrease or maybe a bit of both?), or maybe a bit of both? This could get complicated…
Or is the definition of enthalpy not correct?
A reasonable definition. You mistake causation. A “lower humidity” if it exists, would result in a lower atmospheric enthalpy, because of the energy retained in water vapor as opposed to its liquid state.
@skorrent1
Thank you, I certainly did mistake causation.
Who would willingly be on the Blue Team? Surely none of the big names. I cannot see any honesty from any Blue Team member no matter who they get. If they put some EPA scientists up there they still will get no honesty. No one who propounds CAGW will ever admit to any uncertainty.
Dubious exercise at best…
My feeling is that this red / blue competition is a mistake. It lends legitimacy to a falsehood. Better to let the argument go away naturally as conditions continue to depart from the narrative. For most people, it already has.
Think of it as a criminal trial if you like.
If done honestly and ethically, it will show that the science is NOT “settled” and there is no “97% consensus”.
That is all just politics to achieve an ideological objective.
“CAGW” is just what stuck against the wall.
No disrespect CBob, but I would think it would have as much credibility on those inclined to believe in CAGW as the recent verdict in St Louis had on those who have a negative opinion of law enforcement.
Unfortunately here in the States emotion and opinion easily trump (no pun intended) facts.
The only path forward that I see is, as Pochas implied, is to take it event by event and respond to specifics; and not get dragged into “do you really deny Arrhenius?” (from my college Prof. son) or “the Science is Settled”. Most of the “broader discussions” cannot be addressed in debate soundbites that would be understandable by the general population.
Pick our battles. They have to defend the whole ball of wax. We can selectively chip away and take the “easy yards”, building on the general trend of the public showing, if not skepticism, indifference.
Don’t let specific and easily demonstrable falsehoods stand when they are uttered. (This means ALL of us have to pound in the science on hurricanes, for example. Write letters or rebuttles to your local editor with facts, and no ad homs.).
If the subject comes up, show that the poly bears are doing quite well, thank you. If the talk is SLR or flooding, dig out the history of Miami Beach, that was laid out below King Tide in 1917 and wiped out completely by a hurricane in 1926, etc etc.
There is a need for a process and conclusion that can provide justification for action. This is a political move by Pruitt and I think he knows what he’s doing. Whether this destroys or minimizes the threat from AGW it should provide cover for the dismantling of federal support for AGW researchers and make the playing field more level.
He can’t act against the climate mafia without reason. This is step one.
Yes.
“”I want it to be an open process where we literally put scientists in the room, both red team and blue team scientists, and they critique one another and talk to one another and inform each other about about this very important issue,” Pruitt said.”
What a brain dead idea.
The way you challenge science is with Better science.
Suppose you are in a room with Me on temperature and I start producing slides and graphs and data you have never seen.. New data from thousands of stations recently recovered from archives.
Data never seen before from south america, africa, and yes the arctic. 10s of thousands of new stations
none of which need to be adjusted. All rural. superb siting. fully calibrated with impecible records.
In this supposed meeting what the hell are you going to do as Red?
Give up?
no. you would ask quite rightly for time to study what I had presented. You would ask for time to evaluate
the research and respond. Science and understanding means YOU DONT HAVE TO BE THERE FACE TO FACE. Good science is indepenent of who did it. I show you my work and walk away. And your job is
to find the errors and improve on the work. They are constructing this thing like theatre. Popper would not agree. Do skeptics really want to limit their case to what can be done in real time, right there? Totally unaware of the new surprise research that might be sprung on them? Will they accept “the result”?
no side should. No side should find this approach acceptable to get to the truth of a matter.
Whatever, I had some hopes that they would fund a Real red team that worked like red teams in DOD.
They produce valuable documents and records of the best the opposition can come up with.
So they will stage this show. And both sides will claim victory and nothing will change. Sad
“Better science?” How are you calling this Science? Scientific Method involves “Homogenizing” Data?
How bold a schemer are you?
Fighting for your so-called Professional Life, going to need to find another one where BS-ing produces income, good luck with that…
Mother thinks that engaging in open debate, face to face is a brain dead idea. Can’t make this stuff up.
Steven Mosher:
You wrote “Good science is independent of who did it. I show my work and walk away. And your job is to find the errors and improve on the work”
Fine.
I offer my work:: Google “Climate Change Deciphered” and “Cause and Timings of El Nino Events, 1850-present”.
Now, do your job.
SM,
Inasmuch as there seems to be good evidence that research outside the accepted box has difficulty getting published in peer-reviewed journals, it would seem more likely that the Blue Team is the one to get surprises with evidence from the Red Team.
One solution to preventing surprises on either side would be to handle evidence in the manner that ‘discovery’ is handled in a court of law and anything not provided ahead of time be inadmissible. The depth of the research is such that not everything can be addressed in a reasonable amount of time, so the point and counterpoint would have to be restricted to a few salient points.
DoD is not a good model to work with. Much of the quasi-published material is either proprietary to the contactors, or classified with a need to know to have access. That is in contrast to basic science where the “…valuable documents and records of the best the opposition can come up with.” already have been published and can be placed in an appendix of a summary.
The important thing is to get positions, held as the Truth by each side, defended openly and not just ignored. The biggest hurdle for the Blue Team will be to get academics to put their research and reputation on public display. They have a history of refusing debate with those they disagree with.
SM’s point is that if you continue to do (good) science, that the truth will emerge over time, and I suppose science has worked this way in the past. Also, the passage of time and accumulation of observational evidence will eventually confirm or falsify climate science’s predictions.
The problem with the above is that it ignores the political realities – i.e. the huge amount of pressure being applied by the climate establishment, right now, to spend large amounts of money to address the “problem”.
Alarmists argue that the “consensus” should be respected and should be given the benefit of the doubt in the policy arena. Skeptics think not, and so here we are. The argument transcends science. We have the fossil fuel interests locking horns with environmentalists. In our system political disputes are usually sorted out by which of the special interests prevails. RIght now, we have pretty much of a stalemate.
How will a red team/blue team exercise help resolve this? Chances are it wouldn’t. Politics, along with the myriad of pressures brought to bear on the debate (including good science), will decide this issue. And it won’t happen overnight. This means SM’s approach will play into the debate more so than a red/blue team.
handle like a court?
cool.
close to 1005 of skeptical evidence will be inadmissable.
100% not 1005..
You know the best thing?
Red team blue team
A) is something I suggested long ago
B) it is a form of POST NORMAL SCIENCE
Now skeptics are approving of a process that recognizes that science and politics cannot be separated.
And what If I countered your new climate data with a talking unicorn, complete with rainbow colored horn, that presented a study conducted by elves, all credentialed by the University of Gaia, showing that Global warming is not caused by humans but is instead caused by troll flatulence. Oh my, what we will do then?
Now that we have that silliness out of the way, please answer a question that was raised by your ‘fantasy’ response; name any climate record, not proxies, that is presented without any adjustment. Even the most advanced instruments we have, Argo and the satellites, were immediately deemed to need adjustment when they provided data that contradicted the CAGW message. As for the rest, the record is continuously adjusted, as needed and with a variety of excuses, to meet the narrative.
By the way, the pronoun ‘me’ is not typically capitalized unless you have an extremely inflated sense of self worth or are simply uneducated. Which is is Steven?
Clyde Spencer writes above:
How True.
The American public is scientifically illiterate.
Somewhat related notes from the field:
1998 – The National Geographic Society gives up on it’s annual Scholastic Geographic Challenge after over half of high school students cannot name Canada and Mexico as the US’s neighbors to the North and South.
Today – Two thirds of Americans cannot name even one branch of the federal government.
This stuff is easy compared to science in any form.
The debate so far:
Carbon dioxide is now a *pollutant*. What was once “the staff of life” is now toxic. The Photosynthesis Equation used to be taught in grade school. Now, most American adults would not recognize it even if you hit them over the head with it. CO2 is also endlessly conflated with soot, and other pollutants.
Steam from cooling towers is routinely photographed and presented with the implication that it is pollution from the unrestricted burning of coal.
Asking the American public to even understand the issues, never mind weigh the evidence, is a reach way too far.
My Prediction:
Based on current trends, the Red Team will be branded as racist and fascist. CO2 pollution hits the poor and minority communities hardest. Even worse than Big Oil which puts profits ahead of people, the Red Team puts pollution ahead of people.
You can not win this debate in the public sphere using science, because the science is incomprehensible to the general public.
Then can we use logic instead?
“In sum, a strategy must recognise what is possible. In climate research and modelling, we should recognise that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible. The most we can expect to achieve is the prediction of the probability distribution of the system’s future possible states by the generation of ensembles of model solutions. This reduces climate change to the discernment of significant differences in the statistics of such ensembles. The generation of such model ensembles will require the dedication of greatly increased computer resources and the application of new methods of model diagnosis. Addressing adequately the statistical nature of climate is computationally intensive, but such statistical information is essential.”
http://ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/505.htm
It would seem AGW boils down to models, however, we can’t build an accurate model to either describe or predict current or future climate states because 1) we don’t know the system we’re modeling, 2) even if we did we don’t have the hardware to run the model that could and 3) after overcoming the first two we still need a methodology to determine the accuracy of our models.
There’s no good reason to believe in AGW.
Sy, the short answer is NO.
I live near a major University and have several acquaintances who teach there, some in the sciences.
I’ve tried that approach and it sailed over their heads like summer clouds, while they collectively gave me pitying looks.
Sadly, TonyL, you are on the mark.
Did anybody catch the red and blue ties in the picture?
So, instead of one tax funded program we would have two? If there some means of simply arm twisting journals into unbiased paper acceptance, I think things improve a lot. Unhappily it appears that scientific journals are sliding into the abyss of populism and authoritarianism along with the rest of the media.
Pruit is a clown. he is totally blowing the opportunity to give skeptics funding to do a proper Red team analysis on the weakest links in the AGW case.
I’m stunned that he wont set aside funds for guys like Anthony to do some of the work that SHOULD BE DONE!.
I mean for chrissake.
How long are we gunna argue about something like CRN ratings?
Does everyone here know that the CRN ratings (1-5) have never actually been tested? and documented in a quantified manner?
Or take airports. has anyone ever quantified in a rigorous way how close you can place a thermometer to an airport without impacting the results. I mean REALLY STUDY.. completely.
or parking lots or air conditioners.. Tons of work to do that any good red team would ask for.
Imagine if we could take the work of surface stations BEYOND just taking pictures and actually
quantify the effects of various siting issues.
How about surface stations project for the entire world?
Instead we will get a debate in a room.
Really? FFS.
All these years of fighting on blogs for better Science and we are going to settle for another debate?
All these years of fighting for political power to do the science right and folks will settle for a group discussion
CLUEBIRD! we had one of those in Lisbon years ago. Talbloke, heller, me, Stokes, McIntyre, Curry
Webster, mcKittrick, Von Storch
Yup.. It went nowhere
SM,
While there is merit in studying some things that are crying out for attention, such as you list, one has to be careful that progress isn’t impeded while waiting for those studies to happen.
One important difference between the Lisbon panel and what is proposed by Pruitt, is that there was no way to asses the ‘winner’ of the Lisbon exercise, and there was no one to implement recommendations. In this case, Pruitt and Trump could use a win to justify actually doing some things that are within their power. Who knows, they might even come up with some money to do the studies you recommend, to put the last nails in the coffin.
And just who decides who “wins”.
there are no nails or coffins.
science is never settled
I have to agree with you here, Mr. Mosher. Who knows what we would have discovered had government and academia spent money and effort on such empirical studies, instead of mindless modelturbation over these past decades.
Modelturbation.
Nice.
EPA evaluating ‘red teams’ to challenge climate science despite need of government to control everything and everyone.
Can scientists really determine that the intensity of any given storm has “increased”? If so, how do they do this?
We will watch with interest from New Zealand how the Red Team -Blue Team plays out .We are six days from our parliamentary elections on the 23rd and there is a real possibility that a change of government will cripple our agricultural economy with emission taxes on livestock methane and tax on irrigation water that if it is not stored and used during dry period it runs out to sea.
I CHALLENGE anyone to prove that methane emission from livestock can increase even a tenth of a degree Celsius the planets temperature over any time span from one year to fifty years ,Methane from livestock has a half life in the atmosphere of 8.4 years and it is broken down into CO2 and water vapor in the upper atmosphere .The CO2 is then absorbed by forage plants and is consumed by livestock and the cycle continues as it has done for millions of years as long as there has been ruminant animals on the earth. NO EXTRA SO CALLED GREEN HOUSE GAS IS ADDED to the atmosphere .When coal, oil and gas is extracted from the ground and burnt CO2 and methane added to the atmosphere And also cement manufacturing from limestone .Methane is gradually increasing but the increase cannot be blamed on livestock .There is no science .mathematics or statistics that can prove that methane from livestock warms the world .I am putting this challenge out .Lets see what you scientists and mathematicians come up with.
gwan – Since you indicate that you are from new Zealand -a few questions – my understanding is the the renewable energy / renewable utilities dont receive any subsidies
1)Are the fossil fuels subject to any surtax or carbon based tax? (which the renewables are not subject to?)
2) Is there any government mandates that require a certain percentage of energy to come from renewables?
3) Is there any government mandate that requires the utility companies to take the renewable energy first?
4) any other comments on NZ renewables?
thanks for any insight
Thank you for bringing that bullshit issue up. If you do the arithmetic, at the current rate of increase, methane might run global temperatures up by as much as 0.05°C by 2100. In Other Words: Zilch
The usual claim of methane pound for pound being 86 times more powerful at retaining heat than CO2 is a true statistic and about as useful as knowing that a Piper Cub will fly 86 times further on a gallon of gas than a Jumbo jet.