As promised, I attended Al Gore’s climate change lecture at Rice University last night. Rice University is one of the most beautiful university campuses I’ve ever seen, so it was a delight to see it again. The architecture is outstanding, and the buildings are placed in a garden-like setting. It was lovely to walk from the parking lot to the fieldhouse. The speech was held in a packed Tudor Fieldhouse which seats 5,750. By the time the Rice University Provost was introducing Al Gore, there were no empty seats that I could see, see Figure 1.
Figure 1
A couple of minutes later, when Al Gore came on stage he received a standing ovation, I must say I was a little surprised, like I was in an alternate universe. However, about 40% of Texans vote Democratic and these voters are concentrated in Houston, San Antonio and Austin. As an example, Houston went for Hillary Clinton by over 160,000 votes. This was very apparent in Tudor Fieldhouse. The crowd even cheered when Gore railed against the fossil fuel industry and called for dismantling it. Although, I noticed lots of people (including the couple next to me) got up and walked out at that point. When the lights came up for questions, there were many empty seats, perhaps a quarter or more, had walked out during the speech.
As some predicted, prior to the speech, questions were pre-screened by the provost (Professor of statistics Marie Lynn Miranda). She is an unquestioning true believer in catastrophic man-made global warming (CAGW) just like Al Gore, so the three hand-picked questions she asked were softballs that merely prompted more vitriol about “deniers.” Yes, he used the word a few times. Once he said, “I know I’m being dismissive of them, but what can I do?” This was accompanied with an irritatingly smug and superior smile, like the one that lost him the election in 2000.
The first question is the only one I’ll discuss here. It was (paraphrasing): Why is the media ignoring climate change? Al Gore’s answer was very long and rambling, but he essentially said, even though climate change is the most important issue facing human civilization ever, the media ignores it because too many people turn off their TV’s or radios or change the channel whenever it comes up. He believes the media are not informing any more but, they are entertainment only. That was interesting, I agree with him on that point. Then he went on to say the internet and social media are not a positive thing today, they are divisive; but he had hopes for the future of social media. The media is toast, since both sides now think it has devolved to entertainment.
Points made in the lecture
The lecture was in two parts. In the first Gore asserted that humans are causing “dangerous” climate change, without offering any proof. He further asserted that 16 of the 17 warmest years “on record” were in this century, asserted that greenhouse gases (“mainly carbon dioxide”) were the cause since they “trap” 400,000 Hiroshima bombs worth of heat on the Earth every year. He presented no evidence that the greenhouse connections are related to the warming or that heat is “trapped” by them. The “evidence” that man’s emissions cause climate change is computer-model based, and not based on, or supported by, observations as discussed here. The popular concept of greenhouse gases “trapping” heat is very misleading and inaccurate as described by Rasmus Benestad here.
The idea that 16 of the 17 warmest years “on record” are in this century is debatable and depends upon which surface temperature record one chooses to use and the estimate of error-of-measurement one chooses to use. For a discussion of this see Pat Frank’s post here. This statement also ignores the very small change in temperature in this century, versus the latter part of the 20th century, as can be seen here. Further, the measured global temperature record only goes back to 1880, at the earliest, and this was the end of the Little Ice Age. The Little Ice Age is the coldest period on Earth since the beginning of the Holocene as can be seen here in figures 3A and 3B. Do we really want to go back to the cold and miserable Little Ice Age? This was a very difficult time, as discussed here. I and most people like it warmer than that.
So, Gore’s assertions are very contestable, yet he moves on undeterred, and describes cherry-picked catastrophes all over the world, with emotional pictures. According to him, all are linked to man’s supposed changes to the global climate. He asserts that hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria were all made worse by global warming. He acknowledges “some say no link of climate change to extreme weather can be shown.” He doesn’t mention a source, but I suspect he was referring to the excellent work by Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. (here) and Dr. Cliff Mass (here). Dr. Judith Curry, a hurricane expert, has also discussed global warming and hurricanes here. Dr. Curry, in the cited post, says:
“Thinking that reducing fossil fuels is going to help with extreme events on the timescale of the 21st century is a pipe dream. Even if you believe the climate models, and we are able to drastically reduce fossil fuel emissions by 2050, we’re going to see miniscule impacts on the climate and the weather by the end of the 21st century. Any benefits would be realised in the 22nd and 23rd centuries. If we think we have enough wisdom and knowledge to what might happen in the 22nd and 23rd Century — personally I’d rather see us deal with here and now, and maybe focus on what we might be facing out to 2050. That seems a more practical and realistic goal, for what we should be trying to do. That’s my opinion.”
But, then he asserts that the “probability” of “record breaking” extreme weather events are increased, although he contradicts himself to the “extreme” within a few seconds, the crowd did not seem to notice.
He moves on to blame global warming (or climate change) for “record breaking” precipitation, droughts, wildfires, etc. Sea level rise will flood Miami and other low-lying cities. “Rain bombs” are the new scary monster. He says CO2, through warming, supposedly increases water use by plants, ignoring evidence that CO2 decreases water use per pound of plant. Further, he says climate change also caused the “Arab Spring,” destabilizes governments, and we are in the sixth great extinction event. Fifty percent of all species will be wiped out, and on and on. If it’s in the news, global warming caused it.
Al Gore believes that fossil fuels receive $700 billion in subsidies. He didn’t supply a period of time, but this was just for U.S. A 2015 report by the EIA, exclusive of welfare programs like LIHEAP (Low Income Home Energy Assistance), the U.S. industry receives $3.4 billion in subsidies per year (see here).
He also believes that solar and wind are at grid parity (cost of producing electricity) with coal and other fossil fuels and soon will be cheaper. This is sheer fantasy as explained here and here.
At the end he received a standing ovation.
Conclusions
The climate alarmists appear to be losing the battle for public attention and concern, but you would never know it from the reception to this speech. Those opposed to the idea of catastrophic man-made global warming, if they even came to the talk, left before the end.
The speech was all over the place, floods here, droughts there, sea level rise, wildfires, etc. Mr. Gore, there is always a flood, a drought or a very high tide somewhere, they don’t have to be caused by the same thing. As a skeptical scientist, with some knowledge in the area, I was unconvinced, but the others in the audience seemed happy with what he had to say.
I interpreted Gore’s speech to be more anti-fossil-fuels than pro-CAGW. He stated that he wanted to completely replace fossil fuels with other sources of energy. He is also pro-nuclear.
These issues are very political these days and very unscientific, which is a shame. But, then, many other issues are as well.
I had two questions, but was never asked for them, they are below:
16 of the 17 hottest years on record have occurred in this century. The record goes back to 1880, the end of the Little Ice Age, which geologists believe is the coldest period since the end of the last glacial period, 12,000 years ago. Why use such an unusually cold period as a benchmark temperature?
Both Nature magazine (2012 editorial) and the IPCC (in AR5, 2013) have determined that we cannot compute the man-made global warming contribution to any storm or to any trend (increasing or decreasing) in extreme weather. This is also the conclusion of Dr. Roger Pielke (University of Colorado). Can you comment on this?
If I had been allowed to ask the questions, I wonder what he would say? Would he call me a denier and go to the next question?
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It was less of a lecture and more of a pep rally. You have to understand that on the Rice Campus he was preaching to the choir.. Though located in the Energy Capital of the World, the Rice Campus emits a faint blue glow at night. Ok, that’s a joke, it doesn’t. However, Gore holds some emeritus position at the University on one or another advisory committees and while I would never suggest that the level of scholarship at Rice is anything less than top tier, those present generally were not there to learn. This is virtue signalling at its finest.
Anyone who gets a standing ovation for being introduced and then a second one after a vapid gooey speech, probably got a Peace Prize for doing nothing too.
Yeah, I stayed to the bitter end but I got there at 6:15 for a 6:30 start and easily found a seat on the ground floor about midway up to the stage for a “Sold Out” first come, first served event. At least a quarter of the house didn’t bother with the question period Would that I capitalized on the Wisdom of the Crowd.
The Web pegs Gore’s remuneration @ur momisugly 100K plus travel, per diem, etc, etc. I chose the wrong career field.
Where is our resident Court-Jester, Griff, on this …. I need a good laugh!!!!!!!
I suggested he was Ed Miliband some time ago and there’s been silence since. If I’ve inadvertently killed Tinker Bell I can only apologise for spoiling everybody’s fun.
I don’t know whether to thank you or cuss you, Nigel. I find I kind of miss the little twit.
But perhaps he has just changed his moniker to ‘Rob Bradley.’ The trolls will always be with us.
What? A quarter walked out? Quite a statement from an audience paying dearly to listen and learn. Apart from learning a lesson of politician enriching himself at their expense (with saving the world from mankind nonsense), how could anyone could call it a success? Perhaps the wiser students can make a case for a refund. But no worries for Al either. The parents willing to pay for any manmade disasters may be willing to pay extra also for this latest anomaly.
Al Gore has almost no scientific evidences in his talks. I have carried out research work about the basic effects of GH gases. My purpose is to fight back against the IPCC’ s climate science with scientific means. I want to comment the following statement of Andy May:
“The popular concept of greenhouse gases “trapping” heat is very misleading and inaccurate as described by Rasmus Benestad here.”
There is a following claim in Benestad’s paper:
“The basic principle of the GHE in general terms is that the air is opaque to light in the long-wave range (IR) but transparent to short-wave radiation (visible light). Most of the energy from the sun that is not reflected away is absorbed at the planet’s surface, as a cloud-less atmosphere is transparent to visible light while clouds tend to reflect it (accounted for through the albedo A).”
It is an astonishing common belief that the cloud-less atmosphere does not absorb visible light (shortwave radiation). The measurement based analysis show that in the case of cloud-less sky the solar radiation is 342 W/m2, the reflected flux is 53 W/m2 meaning a net flux of 289 W/m2 absorbed by the atmosphere & the surface. Because the measured surface absorbed flux is 220 W/m2, the atmosphere has absorbed 69 W/m2.
By the way, the absorption by the atmosphere is almost the same in all sky conditions: clear sky 69 W/m2, cloudy sky 72 W/m2, and all-sky 71 W/m2.
Dr. Antero Ollila
Of course the atmosphere absorbs a reasonable amount of incoming solar irradiance, since at the equator under clear sky conditions (no clouds) the amount of solar irradiance is around 1050 to 1100 W/m2, such that about 260 W/m2 of incoming solar irradiance is absorbed by the atmosphere.
PS. i have not checked the precise figures. These are just ball park figures relevant to the principle (not quantification) being discussed above.
Once a lenient political dialogue has been discovered, those arguing in it with science only might be recognised classy. Comparable to someone successfully golfing 18 holes in row with a putter only. But, based on Richard’s revelation on BBC, looks like underworld freezes over first before such recognition is granted to anyone.
Your point seems valid to me. Hope you don’t mind me pulling out the driver now and risk calling out a fore afterwards. Based on what is observed in the rest of the solar system (e.g. pV=nRT overwhelms the GHG conjecture to a point) 100% of atmosphere can be considered as a “greenhouse gas”. In my understanding the following statement is accurate description of GHG conjecture:
Ultraviolet is neither. The effect of which is terrible enough for some to fear holes in the ozone layer. Why would GHG conjecture look only into IR and visible? If they go further, what exactly is measured in the “absorption of solar radiation”? And how? This is how NASA discovered the sun since 2010.
Looks to me even the emitter is still a puzzle and, yet, it’s implied the absorption on Earth is measured/known globally in three meaningful figures per m2. What I’ve seen so far, I’m not buying it.
Dr. Ollila, The atmosphere does absorb some energy from the sun during the daytime. It also emits radiation, both during the day and at night. Over some period of time the absorption and the emission balance. The atmosphere (except for water vapor) does not trap energy for more than a few milliseconds. Water vapor can hold energy for longer periods (hours or days) as latent heat, but even water vapor eventually emits it’s energy. 99.9% of the stored heat energy on the Earth’s surface is in the oceans, they can store heat for 1500 years before they release it. The only “trapped” thermal energy on the planet is in the oceans, atmospheric thermal energy “storage” is insignificant.
Just to illustrate the grip that the warmists have on MSM (and the biased agenda pushed by the BBC), see the following article. What hope is there for rational discussion when you have such apologists in charge of the media.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5013881/BBC-apologises-climate-sceptic-Lord-Lawson-interview.html
This newly coined cliché, the “hottest year on record” needs to be looked at.
If the “record” now only includes the last circa 150 years of written records, why are proxy tree ring and ice core guesses regarding co2 simultaneously admitted as being records/recordings?
Conversely, why are other much warmer periods excluded from the cherry picked minute timescale?
It appears that scientists will not stand over the “science” of theorising when it suits them not to, by deferring to written records to permit them to say “hottest year on record”.
Considering that all of the “years on record” have been subject to “corrections” it would appear that the record can be rerecorded at will.
There was no apparent warming or noticeable climate trends for the US for most of the 20th century according to NOAA’s Hanson and Maul in 1988, but now, in the 21st century, NASA says it’s adjustments account for 0.5°c of the warming experienced by the US in the 20th century.
And there were pretty much no records for the rest of the world for the so called years on record.
How can any year seriously be taken to be the hottest on record when the records are so full of modern upward adjustments?
I guess it softens the scare to say “recent adjusted record”.
In my view, “adjusting” or homoginizing” even “correcting” a record, renders it no longer a “record”.
It is not that which was recorded. It is something else.
Fantasy comes to mind.
Gore – a disgusting man
Disgusting, I’ll give you.
Man, you need to prove.
Andy, I have a question and it may have already been answered. Did the university pay Gore to speak?
Al Gore’s usual speaker’s fee is $ 300k. Maybe he gave a Rice – discount, but I doubt it.
I must admit that I do not know whether he got paid, but it is said that his greedyness is correlated to his universal ignorance.
I also do not know if he was paid, or if this was part of the deal to get his New Leaders board advisor position.
“The “evidence” that man’s emissions cause climate change is computer-model based,”
err no.
it is basic physics.
the best evidence that you will probably not get is shaun lovejoys work.
Simple solutions for simple minds.
In the real world, there are confounding factors, feedbacks and other things to worry about.
That’s why they use models instead of just a paper and pencil to do their “projections”.
Sorry, Steven, that is not correct. Basic physics tells us that CO2 absorbs and emits IR and it tells us that additional CO2 might delay the transport of heat from the surface to space and might increase atmospheric temperature. It does not tell us by how much, is it very small or very large? Are the main feedbacks net negative or net positive? Is the effect larger than the current ocean and sun drivers of climate or smaller. Physics tells us none of this. Al Gore asserted that man causes climate change, basic physics cannot tell us this is true. A computer model can estimate the magnitude of the effect, but how good is the model? Not very good when compared to observations, I’m afraid. You are way past your data here.
Any sane intelligent person understands climate does adjust/change. Human element contributes to this adjustment…..but Al Gore has not only enriched himself by exploitation but is a phonatic and condescending nimrod.
In typical elitist fashion he denegrates challenge. People should be wary!!
It’s a sad commentary on our university system that you can find so many true believers of basically junk science. But then, how many of those in the audience are majoring in the sciences? I would guess that not many are. I would hope not. It would be most enlightening to quiz these gullible folks with a basic knowledge test to see just exactly how little they know about the subject. Like, for example : what were the average temperatures during the Medeival Warm Period compared to this century? What were the CO2 levels during that period? Etc etc. Andy May is now in a position to know what Gore’s standard spiel looks like – he should construct such a quiz and administer it to members of the college audience after Gore’s speech, as “a measure to determine Gore’s effectiveness in imparting knowledge about global warming o the general public.” Also a sheet that contains footnoted contradictions of every point made by Gore, along with a recitation of all of Gore’s past mistakes in estimates of the future, etc (Mt Kilamanjoar’s “disapearing snow.” etc. Pass that out as a “review of Al Gore’s positions.”
Apocalypse is not necessarily something bad; it literally means ‘a revelation’, which could be good, bad or indifferent.
Not sure I’d look forward to the revelation these four were bringing.
Thank you for your report, Andy. I think it is good to analyze why other people believe in other things and to question ourselves if they may be right or not. I do not think you wasted your time.
According to your report we can analyze Al’s talk and the public response.
The basis is truthful or he would have a harder time convincing people. The planet has been warming for centuries, but most people only care for the last decades when they were alive, and most people won’t bother finding out what happened before. For all practical purposes the world has warmed during our watch, and thus the claim that the last years are among the warmest is obvious and uninformative. In a warming world the latest years are expected to be the warmest.
Then Al abandons the realm of science to play with people’s emotions. There is no scientific evidence that the warming enhances the frequency or effects of extreme weather except in the case of heatwaves. However, it is in human nature to believe that whatever bad that happens, specially when they are victims or identify with the victims, is worse than anything that happened before. This is related to the way our memory works. So people are preconditioned to believe that bad things are worse now than in the past, and to try to blame somebody for it. Most people would respond positively to the story that Al tells, specially since most scientists don’t clearly contradict it, and some even support it.
Lastly, Al puts the blame on the fossil fuel industry, which is the main, but not the only, producer of the GHGs that are emitted to the atmosphere. He is again playing to people’s emotions. It is a natural human response to not accept responsibility for anything bad and try to put the blame on somebody else. The story gets thus completed with a guilty party that deserves punishment. The consequence, that a reduction of emissions would lead to a reduction in the warming and in the extreme weather effects, is left untold for people to assume. This is because again it is completely unsupported by science. Significant reductions in GHGs emissions are very likely to have negligible effect on climate change even by the same models that put the blame on emissions. The cost of the emissions reduction is also ignored or downplayed in a typical agenda-driven proposition.
Presented with this information and told this story most people would logically believe it and support it. The interesting question is why after so much information in favor of AGW, so many people don’t believe it, and doubt or reject it. The most likely explanation is political. In countries where there is no political distinction on climate change and every political party supports AGW conclusions, over 90% of the people believe on AGW tenets. The conclusion is that most skeptics are politically motivated and only look for reasons to distrust AGW after taking a position. Nothing wrong with that, but it has to be taken into account before criticizing harshly believers of AGW. It is clear that both positions can be supported on science, and both are.
It is quite easy to doubt AGW without any scientific proof! After 60 years of this running catastrophe, I can’t tell the weather from the early 1970’s. Any differences are pitifully small, such that they cannot even be established beyond considerable doubt.
It is an eco-Socialist religion, based around weather variations that our ancestors shrugged off many, many times over past millennia even though they had a fraction of the ability to deal with such changes. We are consistently the silliest intelligent species that could be imagined.
Believers in this nonsense should be too embarrassed to show their ignorance. Mostly humanities students and grads, masquerading as knowledgeable about the natural world.
Thanks Javier, good points. To be a good skeptic, we must look for convincing evidence and analysis. Hearing Gore’s talk, I was unconvinced. He showed evidence that CO2 is increasing and most is from humans. I believe that CO2 is increasing and most of the additional CO2 is from humans, check. Then he shows us emotional pictures of weather related catastrophes all over the world and asks us to connect these to the additional CO2. Big problem! We’ve always had weather catastrophes, how do we know today is better, worse, the same?? We don’t. How do we know the weather events we see are being affected by man-made CO2? We don’t. Until these holes in his analysis are filled, I will remain skeptical. He is making the assertion man controls the climate, the burden of proof is on him – although he does his best to reverse that.
The revelation of the inanity of AGW will be an apocalypse for money grubbing parasites like Gore and Mann.
How much was the student activity fund hit for this?
You may resume your normal carbon lives after Gore jets away.
Why isn’t this Hate Speech? He Hates the Human Race, he Hates Capitalism, etc etc etc
First there was the back stab that led to Rice University’s founding, then there was Al Gore to repeat the act….for a fee.
Why is there no requirement for Rice to provide a platform for a contrary view? A lecture by any number of people aimed at Gore’s talking points and given either immediately before or after his speech would be just the ticket to take the shine off his baloney.
With all due respect for my junior colleague, professor Miranda and her undisputed reputation in her own field, I cannot help asking with what competence she prescreens the questions for Mr Gore? As far as can be told from her bio, her research activities do not remotely relate to climate science. Not that Mr. Gore’s do it, either – or rather, he has no contact with any kind of field of research whatsoever. His frequent appearances as an expert in the field are grotesque. He should by now accept the fact that his constant decline to engage in a true, objective discussion has turned him into a veritable laughing stock.
“I cannot help asking with what competence she prescreens the questions for Mr Gore?” Trust me, she didn’t pre-screen the questions. She just read the one AL wanted.
Frederick Neitche (sp?) famously said, “there are no facts, just interpretations.” Al and Frederick would see eye to eye it would seem.
“Why is the media ignoring climate change? ” That is not what I am seeing. If, in fact, there is some truth that statement it many be because the media realizes public opinion is not interested so it is not worth wasting air time on it.
It’s been unseasonably warm here the past few weeks, but the front that came through Sunday really cooled things off this week. Thanks for bring the Gore Effect to Houston, Al!
Arguably the center of the US O&G industry, Houston Texas, and he gets a standing ovation? The charlatan, should have been run out of town..
This is a truly an excellent report and analysis of Al Gore’s presentation! Despite where we stand on this important issue, all sides need to agree to learn to work towards cleaning up our Earth without taking a ladt stand with either the intolerant, emotionally apocalyptic approach of Gore and many others, and the totally unreasonable fuel industry’s resistance to giving an inch or planning its evolution to alternative means of energy!! Joining these two belligerant but powerfully capable camps will yield wonderful environmental successes for the greater good of all life on Earth despite the direction and/or pace of where mother nature is headed!!