Climate skeptics are gaining ground.
Zack Colman, E&E News reporter
There’s always been a vocal subset of conservatives who cast doubt on climate science, but what were once fringe views among broader Republicans — like warming’s a hoax — are enjoying a growing acceptance in the GOP, worrying academics, scientists and sociologists.
“They have taken over the [U.S.] EPA,” Naomi Oreskes, a professor of the history of science at Harvard University who has studied climate denier groups extensively, said in an email. “A very sad state of affairs.”
The groups sowing climate doubt are more emboldened than ever before, sociologists and historians said. Their effectiveness in the era of President Trump is a reflection of a deepening polarization in U.S. politics and a normalization of climate skepticism on the right, they said.
Democrats and Republicans have never been further apart on climate change, according to public opinion polling released last week by Gallup.
The results illuminate the anti-science sentiment within the GOP. The poll found that 82 percent of Democrats believe global warming has already begun compared with 34 percent of Republicans (Climatewire, March 28).
That rift has contributed to major differences between the Republican administrations of Trump and former President George W. Bush, said Riley Dunlap, an environmental sociologist at Oklahoma State University. Bush’s government internalized climate skeptics, but the groups scoring victories were largely silent when policies went their way. Now, however, those same organizations like the Heartland Institute and the Competitive Enterprise Institute boldly proclaim success — and then push even further.
“It’s like they sense victory. They are proclaiming victories, and they keep pushing,” Dunlap said. “This extreme radicalization of the Republican Party means they don’t have to hide it. They don’t have to dress it up like Bush 43 did. They can be in-your-face deniers.”
That’s materialized in recent weeks. EPA said it would no longer use science without publicly available data to craft regulations, honoring a long-sought industry goal (Climatewire, March 19). The agency also instructed employees to use skeptic talking points when describing its climate change research, according to a leaked memo obtained by HuffPost.
Organizations like the Heartland Institute had fought for the “secret science” initiative when it was introduced by House Science, Space and Technology Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas). It never got through Congress. Opponents argued it would prohibit use of hallmark public health studies that rely on confidential patient data (Climatewire, March 26).
But EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has invited those ideas into the building. He set Smith’s bill in motion within the agency. And climate skeptics were there to celebrate some of those victories, like when Pruitt banned scientists from serving on EPA’s independent advisory panel if they received agency funding. The move hollowed out years of expertise, critics say, and Pruitt installed a number of industry researchers in their place (Greenwire, Nov. 3, 2017).
That emboldened the far right.
“We’d love to have that debate with Obama and the left on the science because we’re going to win,” Heartland Institute President Tim Huelskamp said in a recent interview.
Less climate, more Russia
In some sense, using Democrats as a foil contributed to the rise of climate skeptics. They fought against President Obama’s climate policies for eight years. But it began even before then. “Traditionally, we get social movements because they’re not in power,” Dunlap said.
He explained that skeptics ramped up activity under President Clinton while the Kyoto Protocol was in play. That trajectory continued under Bush when former Vice President Al Gore’s Academy Award-winning climate documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” elevated climate change in the cultural zeitgeist. Obama doubled down on that with actual policy initiatives — a failed push for cap-and-trade legislation, regulations to curb power plant emissions and playing a key role in the Paris climate accord.
Read the full story here
I don’t know about you, but I feel empowered, especially when Naomi Oreskes starts whining about it.
The results illuminate the anti-science sentiment …
Au contraire my dear fellow. It illuminates the return of common sense.
We’re having a constant stream of Pro-Trump rallies in Canada and I’m getting rather sick of them. The problem is that these rallies are thinly disguised as anti-pipeline rallies. The fools involved don’t have a clue that they’re actually supporting Trump and his MAGA policies.
The lack of pipelines forces Canada to sell it’s crude oil to the US at half price, after which we buy it back refined at the world prices. This gives Trump a huge and unfair trade advantage over Canada and robs Canadians of revenue needed for hospitals, schools and roads.
Whenever you see a pipeline protester, think “OMG! There goes a Trump Supporter!” or think “Look at all those MAGA signs!”
To quote Mr. T: “Pity da foos”
You’ve got to be kidding.
Do I understand this correctly when I say that a pro-pipeline protest would therefore be anti-Trump and thus both for and against fossil fuels? Or is it that you have the electrodes of the battery mixed up?
Speaking as a Canadian from oil country, this is complete nonsense. Not sure what you’re smoking there, man.
Guys,
Shoshin is being ironic. Shoshin is saying that pipeline protesters in Canada are inadvertently supporting US fossil fuel production and profits at Canadian expense.
“The fools involved don’t have a clue that they’re actually supporting Trump and his MAGA policies.”
If they’re holding “Pro-Trump” rallies, why wouldn’t they have a clue that they’re supporting Trump? None of that makes any sense unless you meant to write “Anti-Trump rallies.”
Canaduh. Known around the world as dullards with an identity crisis.
Only one of you got it! Sad… bigly sad…..
What, exactly, is stopping you from building your own refinery?
Environmental something or other?
Actually yes, Canadian environmental radicals (funded by dark funds from US radicals like Tom Steyer) have hijacked and wrecked our system. Building a refinery anywhere in Canada now is almost impossible. Even building an LNG export facility is virtually impossible. We’ve spent the last eight years arguing about building LNG export plants while the US was building LNG export plants. No point building them in Canada now; the US beat us to the market.
Forget pipelines to the west coast, we can’t even build pipelines to the east coast. Quebec opposes them as it’s also been corrupted by the dark enviro cash. But Quebec’s opposition doesn’t stop them from demanding billions in cash (called Federal Equalization Payments) from Alberta anyway. They don’t care where $$$ come from as long as Quebeckers can get social programs like $10/day daycare, something that is unaffordable in Alberta by the way, but mysteriously is available in Quebec. Go figure.
And meanwhile, our vacuous but well coiffed Prime Minister plays Mr. Dressup (the Canadian version of Mr. Rogers but with a bigger more exotic wardrobe in the Tickle Trunk).
Shoshin,
Fair points, thank you for the reasoned response. Especially given I was being sarcastic without having any real knowledge of the issues I commented on.
Thanks again (mean that).
Jones
Shoshin – I agree with the basic concepts behind your thoughts and frustrations. I am also a Trump supporter. But as I see it Canada SHOULD look out for itself. Trump of course supports the pipeline through the US for obvious reasons – it is a shorter and therefore cheaper way to get oil supplies to US refineries. The costs of building the pipeline being less mean a lower amortization cost. Canada SHOULD build another pipeline to Prince Rupert to enable it to sell its product to the highest bidder and therefore get the best value for itself. The fact that the strong environmental lobby in Canada has prevented that is not in any way connected to Trump (in my opinion). Perhaps with the Keystone pipeline in place the Alberta sands oil deposits are not large enough to support the amortization of both shipping options is a question I have not seen asked or answered. But I do not think Trump would say or do anything to hinder such a pipeline (except perhaps offer a higher priced oil contract for the Keystone shipped oil?).
And yet, Trump wants the pipeline.
Don’t blame Trump for the folly of the Greens.
Building new refineries and LNG terminals is all but impossible in the US as well.
I got it!
Hey Shoshin, you Albertans need to ditch Canada and join the U.S. I have known a number of Canadians and by far my favorites are Albertans and New Brunswickers. Albertans would probably not be conservative in the U.S. but you would be practical middle of the road types who would make a good addition to America. And your natural resources would be appreciated here.
Well sed, Ed!
Yup. Climate scepticism is all about the REAL science.
Duh! And how am I labeled an “extremist” … for believing in REAL science? Demonstrable, provable, predictable (with at least > 50% accuracy), repeatable SCIENCE!
Kenji – You have to understand it’s not about what you can prove. It’s about which numbers you can fudge to feel good about what you can’t prove so you can get rich and blame it on the oil companies. Sheesh, haven’t you learned anything about C02 by now.
It is about time common sense is coming back. The far-left climate zealots have one goal: power over society at any cost. They are the Morlocks of the world and must be rejected.
“They are the Morlocks of the world and must be rejected.”
The Morlocks lived underground in the darkness and did all the work that kept the future world operating, while the Eloi lazed around in the sunshine doing nothing, knowing nothing, and attacking the very Morlocks who kept them alive.
And you think the eco-fascists are *Morlocks*?
Just today, this article was published re: U.N. pushback to David Keith’s alarmist driven agenda…finally.
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/solar-geoengineering-too-uncertain-to-go-ahead-yet/
David Keith is a Canadian. This is what happens to people who grew up being brainwashed by the man- made global warming propaganda and then funded by Bill Gates to ‘save the planet’.
I agree!
What a bunch of hypocrites and liars!
Cheers
Roger
http://www.thedemiseofchristchurch.com
http://www.rogerfromnewzealand.wordpress.com
When I read Oreskes using “anti-science” I know she means “anti-religion”. Then everything else she writes makes sense.
“worrying taxpayer-funded academics, scientists and sociologists”
Funny how that works.
From the article:
“There’s always been a vocal subset of conservatives who cast doubt on climate science, but what were once fringe views among broader Republicans — like warming’s a hoax — are enjoying a growing acceptance in the GOP, worrying academics, scientists and sociologists.”
This statement falsely assumes that the global warming crisis is real – and it is NOT.
Actually, the hypothesis that humanmade global warming is dangerous to humanity and the environment is already disproved.
We have quality temperature data back to 1979 (more if we get the OLD Surface Temperature data “pre-adjustments”) and good CO2 data back to 1958.
When we run a full-Earth-scale test we calculate Transient Climate Sensitivity (TCS) equal to no more than ~1C/(2xCO2). That is all. The actual TCS and ECS may be much less, near-zero.
This TCS (~1C/(doubling) is proved by Christy and McNider (1994 and 2017) and many other analyses. There is NO credible evidence that climate sensitivity to increasing atmospheric CO2 will cause dangerous global warming, wilder weather, etc. Those claims are false alarmist myths that have no basis in reality.
There is no credible global warming crisis – it exists only in the fevered minds of scoundrels and imbeciles.
Allan
“There is no credible global warming crisis – it exists only in the fevered minds of scoundrels and imbeciles”
Man, am I glad I’m on your team!
😁
The Piltdown Mann con is a bigger fraud than the earlier one. Time to laugh it away like the pervy old emperor without any clothes…
At least the quote acknowledges that “academics, scientists and sociologists” are distinct categories.
In practice there may be some overlap. But scientists can be patent clerks instead of academics.
And sociologists can be completely divorced from scientific thought.
Hello M Courtney – is Richard S OK?
Best, Allan
“There is no credible global warming crisis – it exists only in the fevered minds of scoundrels and imbeciles.”
This is why RICO lawsuits must happen.
I always appreciate your assessments, Allan.
ALLAN MACRAE, Yes-ish.
The cancer is in remission meaning it’s not getting worse but isn’t getting better either. He’s constantly woozy from the pain killers.
Cancer is now in the bones, lungs and prostate (which is a pain in the arse).
They aren’t doing radiotherapy as it isn’t thought worthwhile but the chemo seems to be holding things steady for now.
Thank you M
Richard S Courtney is one of the most intelligent and principled men that I have ever known.
Please give him my best regards,
Allan MacRae, P.Eng.
Calgary
Post script:
You and Richard may find this story of interest.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/01/01/almost-half-of-the-contiguous-usa-still-covered-in-snow/comment-page-1/#comment-2708670
I wish your father a positive outcome. This sort of thing is hard on everyone, speaking from experience.
So, now the sociologists and historians are jumping on the CAGW gravy train?
If you look closely at the last century or more, sociology has been behind all of the crazy ideas of the political inclined left. Could it be that Carl Marx is considered on of the founding fathers of sociology.
https://www.scribd.com/document/98605183/The-Founding-Fathers-of-Sociology
I think Marx derived his political theories from his understanding of economic history and extrapolated the trends he saw in the middle of the industrial revolution. His “special sauce” was the personal outrage he felt at being unable to be wealthy himself and being unwilling to work.
He was the forerunner of what we see so much of today. Individuals who pretend to speak for the working class that they secretly despise. Lots of union leaders like this, liberal intellectuals too.
Taking on a leadership position on the left is relatively easy because unlike business or law or engineering or the “hard sciences” , there is no real performance criteria. You only need to profess outrage and point fingers.
There’s never a shortage of followers who see the prospect of getting something given to them.
The independently wealthy Engels often picked up the tab for Marx’s rent, to keep Marx and his family from being thrown out of their flat. Engels himself was one of the original “limousine liberals”.
…..And don’t forget about the severely addled “liberal economists” who keep trying to jump on board the wagon (which must be powered by “alternative energy.”)
They’ve been on the CAGW train for a very long time.
Can we stick to the alarmists’ nomenclature please ! They initially called it global warming (anthropogenic global warming, man-made global warming etc). As time moved on even they noticed, but did not formally announce, that the globe wasn’t warming much (nor significantly). So to keep the people in the pews, they changed it to – climate change. That moniker (climate change) is like that statement in the Declaration of Independence…
However our Founding Fathers, with all their wisdom, assumed that the ‘self-evident’ part really did not need to be formally attributed for climate change as even they knew the climate is always changing. Let’s keep using the words global warming like in their initial scare tactic – to show those in the pews how silly this notion of global warming really is.
I’ve always felt that actually the real situation is more like
Or as I was drilled at skool:
“Life is rough, tough, and desperately unjust
Get used to it”.
We have the right to pursue happiness. There is no guarantee that we would catch it.
Mods, two posts in the bit bucket.
@ricksanchez.
If you’re going to do that, then call it what it really was originally called:
The Greenhouse Theory.
Theory is a scary word. It suggests the science isn’t settled. Let’s try Global Cooling. When they used that one the science was settled. Was that three crisis’s ago? How time flies when everyone on the planet is dying horrible deaths from mother nature, huh? Hope I don’t burst into flame going to work tomorrow. Cheers.
Something about life being tough out there in the Academy Award winning cultural zeitgeist. Cry me a river.
The atmosphere will win, exhibiting its operation relentlessly against the accumulation of too much heat. It will be very interesting, years from now, if I am still around, to hear the academic diagnosis of the failed climate scare.
I find it ironic that the writer of ‘Shock Doctrine’ is now the purveyor of it.
Rather hilarious that some can claim others are “anti-science” when their own science can’t predict anything.
I’m definitely against any science that has no ability of predict, no theories that have withstood data.
+1
arthur4563
As an uneducated man, I understood science to be about observation. From that, a theory of predicted outcomes of the next step is made, then the results proven or disprove by observational experiments.
It seems to me that the CAGW elite have overstepped the scientific mark by announcing their predictions as a matter of fact, unproven by observational confirmation.
Therefore it doesn’t seem to me to be science at all, more like clairvoyance. Not sure I’m convinced by clairvoyants.
But like I said, I’m no scientist.
There was a professor from Southampton University on British TV this morning who said that climate change would lead to the return of a native butterfly. He then said that climate change was causing the decline of other British native butterflies.
This is an example of what passes for science in our Universities
Close enough, HotScot:
“The essence of science is the ability to predict.”
Best, Allan
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/09/20/from-the-the-stupid-it-burns-department-science-denial-not-limited-to-political-right/comment-page-1/#comment-2615837
The essence of science is the ability to predict, and the IPCC and its minions have a perfectly negative predictive track record – NONE of their scary predictions have materialized. That means that the IPCC has NEGATIVE scientific credibility, and nobody should believe anything the IPCC or its minions say.
I have two engineering degrees in earth sciences and have studied this subject since 1985, and I have found NO evidence of dangerous humanmade global warming, and ample evidence that it does NOT exist.
The debate on global warming alarmism concerns one parameter – the climate sensitivity to increasing atmospheric CO2 (“ECS”). Global warming alarmists falsely suggest that ECS is high, yet their estimates of ECS have been declining for the past decade and are still far too high to be credible. There is ample evidence that ECS is low, probably <=1C/(2*CO2) and possibly much less than 1C.
Here is just one of many lines of evidence that ECS is low:
The ~35-year global cooling period that commenced in ~1940, even as fossil fuel consumption sharply increased, adequately falsifies the hypothesis that increasing atmospheric CO2 is a significant driver of global warming. The CAGW hypo is further falsified by the current ~20-year “Pause” in global temperatures, as atmospheric CO2 continued to increase.
That is why the global warming alarmists have more recently been falsifying the temperature data records to minimize the ~35-year cooling period and increase their alleged warming during the Pause.
There was a ~22 year period of global warming starting about 1975, but much of that warming period was a natural recovery from two major volcanos, El Chichon in 1982 and Pinatubo in 1991. Real global warming probably did occur after the Great Pacific Climate Shift, circa 1977.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/09/15/report-ocean-cycles-not-humans-may-be-behind-most-observed-climate-change/comment-page-1/#comment-2613373
Conclusion:
Since 1940 there has been ~22 years of positive correlation of temperature with CO2, and ~55 years of negative or ~zero correlation. The global warming hypo is contradicted by a full-Earth-scale test since 1940. CO2 is NOT a significant driver of global warming.
Regards, Allan
Allan,
and my garden plants are flourishing like they didn’t 30 years ago when I moved into this house. Something’s making them grow, and it certainly ain’t me.
And English weather today is no different to what it was 30 years ago either, just as unpredictable.
I’m afraid that’s the best scientific observation I can muster.
Ciao Allan.
🙂
So the green blob no longer controls the EPA to the degree they once did? Imminent disaster!
The green blob needs to be flushed down the bowl.
And so we get the mouthpieces making mountains out of mole hills as they try to get Pruitt.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/epa-insiders-bemoan-low-point-in-agencys-history-people-are-so-done/ar-AAvzQiJ?ocid=spartanntp
So true that you know your over the target when the flak is heaviest.
I’ve noticed recently that they seem to have changed tactics slightly. Instead of attacking targets, or their views, head on, they seem to be emphasizing differences within the administration or Republican party. Some of these difference are clearly just trivial or entirely imaginary, but seem designed to try and drive wedges between their opponents, or imagined opponents.
It would seem that the scheme to sell “the science is settled” by silencing scientists isn’t working anymore.
Gunga Din
It’s called backlash. Inevitable really, as will the one be from our youth when they discover how they were lied to as schoolkids.
We all did it.
Warmunists are sounding a bit gloomy and depressed these days. Poor dears. Perhaps they should seek counseling. Things are only going to be getting worse for them from now on.
False. The entire corporate world is on board, except for coal companies. This includes insurance companies, large institutional investors, banks – in other words, companies whose views have a major impact. The US federal government is now led by skeptics, along with Russia. Wow, what great company.
“The entire corporate world is on board, except for coal companies.”
The “corporate world” is “on board” with very fad if by “on board” you mean spouting garbage PR on social responsibility or other BS.
Not sure what impact it has, except to make people dumber.
Not sure what the impact is? OK, I’ll spell it out for you. More and more companies are moving to 100% renewable energy. Good luck in selling your coal fired power to those guys, or even natural gas fired. Insurance companies are starting to refuse to insure properties in areas deemed at high risk from rising waters. Institutional investors and banks are moving away from fossil fuel investments, which will make it harder for those companies to find financing. Even the oil companies are starting to move. It’s game over. Can Trump do some damage by, for example, weakening the fuel efficiency commitments that Obama mandated? Sure. But corporate America (and the global corporates) have made their decision, that’s not going to change. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ceraweek-shell-shell/shell-ceo-urges-switch-to-clean-energy-as-plans-hefty-renewable-spending-idUSKBN16G2DT
Personally, I think countering some of the excesses of the Obama era’s climate policies is a good thing.
But I don’t think going to the opposite extreme is good for Republicans or for the Trump administration. And this is what I keep hearing.
To Scott Pruitt’s credit, his public position on the realities of climate of climate change seems about right (sort of a conservative lukewarmism). But the messaging from Trumpites are a reflection of his avowed denialism, and this is not helpful. Public policy should be more than an in-your-face rejection of the positions of the previous administration.
Republicans will gain more than they lose by easing up on rank climate denialism. Reacting to the Naomi Oreskes and Michael Mann’s of the world is exactly what these provocateurs want – to drag the climate dialog into the gutter with them.
What Trump actually believes about climate change is a tough nut to crack. Once you get past a few bread and butter issues, Trump has few strong convictions and will fall in line with hard-right values. In my view he can expand his base by taking a moderate approach on climate. But will he do it? Probably not.
Sounds like appeasement. Didn’t work out too well for Chamberlain.
Oh I see. Anything other than pure denialism is “appeasement”. You make a good Trump accolyte.
There is a Scot Pruitt hatchet piece in HuffPost this morning.
https://goo.gl/Fk7nUq
I no longer read Huff
You have to know your enemy and what they’re up to.
…so he huffed, and he puffed, and he…
…..blew those temperature numbers up, but he still couldn’t prove how a gas affecting %0.025 of climactic warming was going to burn us all up…..
yah that’s it supplicate to the liberals. Sarc
This is why we lose. Just ignore them and push through. Better yet, ridicule them publicly. That’s what I would like to see more of from the current administration
There is no “climate denialism” scraft1. There’s climate assertionism.
Disbelief in what is not in evidence is not denialism. Assertion of what is not in evidence is stupidityism, unless it’s liarism.
Climate assertionism, in my experience, is a combination of liarism and stupidityism, all buttressed by incompetenceism.
“This extreme radicalization of the Republican Party”…….give me a f’in break
It is pretty radicalized. Not specifically about the climate things, but Trump and his followers are a cult of personality. Anything he does, they agree with, even if it is 180 degree turn from what he said an hour before that they also agreed with.
It is not healthy, and it is not going to turn out good for the nation.
Trump’s positions would basically follow the DNC platform of 1992. What was that you were saying about radicalization?
Uh…no.
Trump is not “politically correct”. Trump doesn’t put the UN and the “Globalization” above the US. He doesn’t put the self-proclaimed Elites above the ordinary US citizen. Etc.
The Republicans haven’t run a candidate since Reagan that didn’t believe that a Republican-controlled Government can run your life better than a Democrat-controlled Government. (“The Swamp”)
Trump isn’t perfect but the “deplorables” voted for him because they want him to succeed in what he said he’d do. He’s trying.
(And we’re getting tired of the RINOs hindering him.)
PS If that means the Republican party has been “radicalized”, it’s about time!
The Democratic party was taken over by radicals decades ago. (I doubt JFK would recognize it today.)
Maybe I should have been more clear. I do not see Trump as a threat. I see the cult of personality, the weak minds of his followers, and see some serious extremism there. They want a fight, they do not care what fight, just any fight will do. So, it is not just Trump. It is the fact that so many people are so very stupid and angry that is the problem, particularly when you add the numbers now in the Republican party with the number of stupid and angry idiots that have been running the Democratic party for decades. Trump, like Obama before him, is a symptom of the disease, not the cause of the problems.
We used to be able to count on the Republican party to be the adults in the room who were working for the betterment of the nation. I no longer see that as true about the party, and it is a shame.
Anyways, when you start acting like reasonable people you can be considered reasonable people. I agree with the Pruit EPA on this and many other things. I agree with Trump about 50% of the time. When he changes his mind on what he wants, I change my agreement with him on that subject. Unlike the extremist losers who simply back Trump no matter what his policies are.
Unlike the extremist losers who simply back Democrats no matter what their policies are….
astonerii, you do realize “cult of personality” was what put and kept Obama in power, right? You do remember how often he flip-flopped his positions as well?
“Trump and his followers” are far from the whole of “the Republican Party.” He has lots of resistance from within the Republican Party…and has ever since he started his campaign.
“I do not see Trump as a threat. I see the cult of personality, the weak minds of his followers, and see some serious extremism there. They want a fight, they do not care what fight, just any fight will do. So, it is not just Trump.”
I think that is a complete misrepresentation of Trump’s followers. There are no extremists included in Trump’s followers, or at least there are no extremists who are accepted by Trump’s followers. That is a Leftwing talking point meant to demonize Trump and his supporters. You say you are not a Democrat. If so, you should stop parrotig their propaganda.
Take me for example. I’m a conservative. The less govenment the better. I am happy with just about everything Trump has done so far policy-wise. About the only thing I don’t agree with is his proposal to completely pull out of Syria, and will voice my objections if he really does this, but with Trump, you don’t know if that’s his position or just his bargaining position. Trump wants those in the area of concern to bear more of the burden, so he presents them with a worst-case scenario to wake them up to reality.
You claim Trump changes his positions all the time and since his followers still follow him, this makes them mindless robots. Please provide examples of Trump changing his position. I don’t see that he has done so, but am open to some evidence. I don’t recall Trump changing any of his core principles, and I think I would notice.
“Not specifically about the climate things, but Trump and his followers are a cult of personality.”
Preposterous. Many of his supporters basically don’t like him at all.
“Anything he does, they agree with”
I have not seen that anywhere.
“even if it is 180 degree turn from what he said an hour before that they also agreed with”
Not sure what you are talking about.
“a cult of personality.”…do they give you people flash cards?
It is a pretty simple test to see if something is a cult. Look at their response to when facts change. Trump changes his positions on things all the time, and what you need to look for when that happens is for the changes in support for those positions. If he changes position and all of those who supported his old position suddenly have decided to support his new position, or simply declare they believe he really has not changed position at all, that is an activity of a cult or personality. This has been a constant since he first stepped into the primary race.
Just look at the Global Warming fanatics. No amount of facts contrary to their belief that CO2 will destroy the world can convince them to the contrary. The heat is hiding! Well, the past temperatures were measured wrong and every last one of them was measured too high! There is no urban heat island effect! And other rationalizations.
I see the same detestable rationalization happening with those who support Trump on anything and everything. When I start seeing people actually stand up and complain about him when he changes his position on things, I will see things differently.
Anyways, enjoy the trade war. I know I am looking forward to seeing the end results of it. I may not enjoy the results, but the educational aspects of it is going to be epic.
Who gives a flying…….when the conservative side starts rioting, attacking, and burning cities…..you might have a point
astonerii
With the best will in the world, isn’t it a politicians job to change his mind to ever changing circumstances.
I mean, were politicians to change their mind relative to climate change, in the face of sceptical science, not to mention the abject failure of CAGW scientific predictions over the last 40 years, we wouldn’t be in the ridiculous climate mess were in right now.
As a Brit, what I see is a man of the times, as Churchill was, a warrior (genuinely having served as an officer in military campaigns) leading a country in a decisive and controversial manner from the precipice of destruction.
Trump seems to be the businessman America needs in the most business driven era of the world’s history.
The UK needed a warrior to lead them through WW2, America needs a business warrior to lead the US through a business war.
Something I have maintained for many years.
And whilst Trumps policies might fail, his ambition is commendable.
Case in point for the extremist Trump supporter in the Republican party. I very clearly attack Global Warming Alarmists in my post. I very clearly state that the Democratic party has been extremist for decades. And in response ignorantly attacks me as if I am a Democrat.
Trump cannot be criticized. Much like Obama could not be, remember when late night comedy declared that there was nothing to find funny in attacking Obama? Much like Clinton could not be.
Take the middle ground and you get shot at by both sides. It’s why diplomats tend to wait until the war is over.
Anyway, I consider cults of opposition to be far more worrying. People who identify by what they are against, instead of what they are for. Who are sitting on the branch they want to saw off. Who seek only the defeat the Enemy and never stop to think about what happens afterward should they succeed — about how much they *need* the other side to be the Bad Guys so they can be the Good Guys. Self-righteous indignation riding roughshod over self-reflection.
astonerii, when Trump signed the budget bill, he was criticized by almost every conservative in the country who cares about the deficit. I agree that some supporters defend him irrationally at times. But I think that is because they are trying to make up for the fact that Trump is criticized irrationally by almost everyone in the media. Obama was never criticized like that by the MSM.
Keep in mind that Trump is not your typical politician. He is a negotiator. And part of his strategy is to bluff in order to get the opposition to come to the negotiating table. Both Mexico and Canada refused to renegotiate NAFTA until Trump threatened tariffs. Now they’re willing to discuss changes. China has also expressed its willingness to talk. So let’s see what the end result is before making judgements. I could be wrong but I don’t think Trump really wants tariffs. He wants to renegotiate some bad deals, and the threat of tariffs is his leverage.
A good poker player knows how to bluff. But a bluff will not work unless you can sell it. People are too used to Republicans like McConnell and Ryan who don’t know the first thing about bluffing. When McConnell said he would not use the power of the purse that Congress has, and would not shutdown the government no matter what, he was showing his hand to the opposition. You can’t win doing that. All Obama had to do was threaten to shutdown the government and McConnell surrendered every time. That’s how he killed the bill to end Planned Parenthood funding. He simply said he would shutdown the government to prevent the bill from going into effect, and McConnell immediately withdrew it. Maybe you like wimpy politicians who show their hand to the opposition and then wonder why they can never win. But I’ll take a Trump, with all his faults, over such wimpy cowards any day.
In the US, The Bill of Rights has been losing to the “two steps forward, one step back” attacks for way too long.
A “mom &pop” bakery, whose owners were Christians, has to pay a $100,000+ fine because the “bride” in a lesbian wedding got her feelings hurt when they suggested other bakeries to make the wedding cake. Yet, a worker refusing to serve a cop at a drive through or to decorate a cake for a cop’s retirement in a large chain-store is applauded?
Being appalled by such things is not wrong.
No self-reflection is required to realize that there’s something wrong here.
” And in response ignorantly attacks me “…..know it all snowflake warning
It’s not a personality cult, it’s tribalism and American politics are awash in it and has always been. That’s why the national debt is always no problem to the ones who are in power, but a catastrophe to those out of power. A politician will flip flop several times over a long career on such issues.
Trump muddies the water because he’s not an ideologue and he’s always adjusting his positions. Makes him a harder target.
Trump exists to stir the pot and he’ll stir the whole pot. It’s also his negotiation style. He’ll always take the extreme position at the outset of an endeavor until everyone is running around like their hair is on fire. The trade war business is a perfect example. He’ll push that line as far as he can initially but will eventually compromise. Does it every time. Everyone falls for it every time.
“Everyone falls for it every time.”……yes, and it’s hysterical to watch
The greenhouse theory (or at least one prominent version of it) depends upon N2 and O2 being heated up by IR action on CO2 and H2O. When has this actual mechanism been demonstrated?
If we take two boxes three meters square each and put N2 in one and air with 4000 ppm CO2 in the other and heat them both equally from below, according to theory the overall temperature in the CO2 box should be higher than the N2 box. But how can this be, when no extra heat has been added to the CO2 box?
The adds are the same. The minuses are not. The difference is the temperature.
Explain please.
Easy to explain once you understand the science.
The CO2 doesn’t add heat. It slows the rate at which heat leaves the system. As a result the box has to get hotter in order to radiate away the heat being added.
@ MarkW April 7, 2018 at 7:45 am
How exactly does heat get radiated away in an enclosed box? We can assume the boxes are insulated.
If I’m not mistaken, N2 doesn’t radiate heat, therefore its rate of cooling is significantly less than CO2’s.
Your answer is confusing to me with regard to the question asked, no doubt because I don’t understand the science, so I’m asking for this to be explained clearly and distinctly.
The question regards the specific mechanism for how CO2 heats N2 and O2 in the box. I expect that someone has actually proved that the alleged mechanism exists? No? Because the greenhouse theory– at least one of the many confused explanations for it– depends upon this.
MarkW April 7, 2018 at 7:45 am
“… the box has to get hotter in order to radiate away the heat being added.”
How is the heat added?
I find that the explanations for how GHGs warm an atmosphere are confused, and they are also ungrounded in experiment.
“How exactly does heat get radiated away in an enclosed box?”
How exactly does heat get radiated away from my house in Minnesota in winter?
It hasn’t been explained to me to my satisfaction so I doubt that it happens and the lefties just have me buying natural gas that does nothing but cost me money. Insulation has never heated my house so that’s another scam on the American taxpaying public as well.
“The question regards the specific mechanism for how CO2 heats N2 and O2 in the box.”
It doesn’t heat it then. It slows the loss of joules from the N2 and the O2, or the atmosphere if you will. You gave us constant inputs. Slowing the outputs raises the temperature until a new higher equilibrium is reached. This path you are on has been traveled by many.
Don, if the heat doesn’t radiated away and heat is continually pumped in, then the temperature in the box will rise until the box melts.
CO2 is the insulation in your example.
MarkW April 7, 2018 at 12:16 pm
“Don, if the heat doesn’t radiated away and heat is continually pumped in, then the temperature in the box will rise until the box melts.
CO2 is the insulation in your example.”
Wow.
I find it hard to believe that a constant heating at, say 15C, would cause the CO2 box to melt. Would love to see the experiment.
It really is simple Don, if the heat you are putting into the box can’t escape, the box will heat up.
Please try to learn at least a little basic science.
Good thought, but let me try and refine this as a thought experiment.
Let’s start with two identical glass containers, one filled with 79% N2/21% O2 and one filled with 100% CO2. The containers are placed in a temperature controlled chamber until they are at constant room temperature. We then add exactly the same amount of heat ( X-Joules) to each container and monitor the temperature of the gas in each. Because the specific heat of each and densities are not the same, the temperatures of the two containers will not be the same but both will be warmer than their surroundings. Now both containers will start to cool as soon as the heating stops. This process will require heat to be transferred from the gases to the container inside surface, conduction of heat through the container walls and then transfer of heat from the outside surface to the surrounding environment.
Now heat transfer from the N2/O2 to the container can only be by conduction – i.e. gas molecules slamming into the container walls thereby losing kenetic energy and heating the container. In the CO2 container, however, heat will be transferred by both conduction and radiation. Now since radiant heat transfer is proportional to the difference of the fourth powers of the emitting and receiving material temperatures per Stefan-Boltzmann, the transfer of heat out of the CO2 container should be more efficient than from the N2/O2 container. So we should see the CO2 container cool to room temp faster.
However, even if someone did the experiment and confirmed what I’ve suggested, it would not invalidate the GHG warming theory. That is because the theory is not that GHGs produce heating, only that they slow cooling by absorbing LWR headed from the surface to space and then re-radiating it in all directions including some back toward the surface. The delay in cooling that results is what causes the temperature to be slightly warmer. But I think the effect of an increase in CO2 of a mere 100-200 ppm must be far smaller than the many other factors that have a substantial effect on air, land and ocean temperatures.
Rob B: Blocking the LWR simply means the the energy is absorbed heating the container which then is cooled by convection, conduction and radiation from its outer surface. Both containers must eventually equilibrate with their surroundings. But they will not do so at the same rate.
Rick C PE April 7, 2018 at 10:27 am
Thanks for the explanation. I think this is good except that I was thinking of insulated boxes, and I was specifically wondering how CO2 would heat up N2 and O2. You are assuming a 100% CO2 container, which is fine. But a key mechanism of warming is supposed to be that GHGs transfer energy to N2 and O2– at least that’s one alleged mechanism among a few, and is the specific mechanism mentioned in the Happer-Koonin-Lindzen submission to the Court in a case that has attracted some attention. The mechanism you cite, that GHGs slow cooling, might be contradicted by what you say earlier, namely that CO2 allows the container to cool faster. And in fact if we had just an N2 and O2 atmosphere, it seems that there is no way that this atmosphere could cool except through collisions with slower-moving molecules, presumably from higher up or from the cooling ground, and so this atmosphere might overall be warmer than one with GHGs.
How can GHGs slow cooling? It seems any radiative effect is paltry compared to convective movements, and GHGs are largely “transparent” to convection. If GHG gases are radiating downward, what are they warming? Not N2 and O2, since these don’t absorb IR. The surface? Heat goes from a warmer body to a cooler. So we are sort of left with the basic idea that GHGs are warming N2 and O2 through molecular vibrations, and I wonder what proof there is for this. Any atmospheric warmth caused by radiation would also seem to be immediately countered by a powerful rising and cooling effect: convection is a stumbling block to the theory of radiative heating.
I mention all this because to me there’s a lot of floundering when we start to look at actual mechanisms that are said to justify GHG warming. I don’t know the answers, but I favor the answer that atmospheric pressure accounts for nearly all of the greenhouse effect because this is a simple and elegant solution that also seems to make sense intuitively.
As for the intuitive part, it seems that if we had an asphalt pavement in the hot sun in an atmosphere of N2 and O2, we’d feel the heat coming off the pavement: no question at all where the heat is from. And just as in Death Valley, we’d probably find an enhanced lapse rate near the surface under the noonday sun. This heat is convected upward, so that 10 meters off the ground it’s still pretty warm: why would it not be? We have molecules of N2 and O2 conducting off the hot ground, and the dense atmosphere near the surface means the temperature– the average kinetic translational energy per unit volume– is pretty warm. The atmosphere would cool more-or-less according to the lapse rate, which has terms for gravitational acceleration (which in practice translates to atmospheric density) and for heat capacity but not for radiative effects. How is this any different from what happens in the world with GHGs in the atmosphere? So what do GHGs really add, except an adjustment for an environmental lapse rate due to the heat capacity of water vapor? Water vapor would cause the atmosphere to warm up more slowly and cool more slowly (due to heat capacity) but I wonder if its radiative effects are overblown?
Rob Bradley April 7, 2018 at 10:40 am
According to the Nahle experiment, blocked IR does not warm a container. The basic idea of blocked IR should certainly be tested more thoroughly.
Don132: I you have a mix of CO2, N2 and O2 molecules and the CO2 is warmer than the others, they will be continuously slamming into each other which will result in the higher temperature (energy content) molecules slowing (losing energy) and the cooler molecules gaining energy. Very quickly the temperature of the mixture will become uniform.
Whether to boxes are insulated or not only affects the rate of cooling. It would not change the physics of heat transfer.
This is an area of science were the physics is well defined and there are very good thoroughly validated computer models. Before I retired I had access to some of them and did a lot of heat transfer analysis work related to HVAC systems and building energy requirements. By the way, we never considered modeling the effects of CO2 concentrations since they were clearly negligible.
When CO2 absorbs a photon, it can then transfer that energy to other molecules by colliding with them.
Rob B “Rick C PE, you are correct, that both containers must eventually equilibrate with their surroundings. But if the IR is blocked by the glass in the CO2 container, both containers will cool at exactly the same rate.”
No, blocking the IR means the energy is transferred to the glass (well about 84% of it, some is reflected) and this has to increase the temperature of the glass. This has to increase the delta-T between the container and its surroundings which means greater rate of heat loss.
You can see this effect in any building supply store by comparing the energy performance of windows with low emissivity glass (Low-E) to those with ordinary glass. The Low-E is a thin metal coating that lowers the surface emissivity from about 0.84 to around 0.15. This lower emissivity means a higher reflectance in the IR band. Thus the windows with low-E coatings reduce absorbtion of IR keeping the glass temperature cooler and thereby reducing heat loss from the building. The improvement in energy efficiency is on the order of 15%. All well documented in precise physical testing.
Rick C PE April 7, 2018 at 12:17 pm
“Don132: I you have a mix of CO2, N2 and O2 molecules and the CO2 is warmer than the others, they will be continuously slamming into each other which will result in the higher temperature (energy content) molecules slowing (losing energy) and the cooler molecules gaining energy. Very quickly the temperature of the mixture will become uniform.”
OK. I’ll buy that. But let’s say that CO2 is 0.04% of the atmosphere. How does it manage to significantly heat the other 99.96% of the atmosphere?
MarkW April 7, 2018 at 12:18 pm
“When CO2 absorbs a photon, it can then transfer that energy to other molecules by colliding with them.”
Has an experiment ever been done to prove that this theory of energy transfer actually exists? It seems it would be simple enough to do. I understand that in theory it can and does happen, but in actuality, does it really happen quite the way the theory describes? Does the vibrational and rotational energy of CO2 get transferred to N2 and O2, without any missteps or hiccups? And if CO2 is 0.04% of the atmosphere, how can that small amount do any significant heating of the atmosphere, even if the transfer were direct and one-to-one?
Rick C PE April 7, 2018 at 12:40 pm
“You can see this effect in any building supply store by comparing the energy performance of windows with low emissivity glass (Low-E) to those with ordinary glass. The Low-E is a thin metal coating that lowers the surface emissivity from about 0.84 to around 0.15. This lower emissivity means a higher reflectance in the IR band. ”
True. Would the window still work if it were a gas instead of a window? Or would the reflectance mean very little in light of convection?
I suppose to sum up my issue with the greenhouse theory, it is this: we say that GHGs trap heat to make the earth warm, but there’s a much simpler explanation for how heat gets trapped: the atmosphere is much denser at the surface, and a denser atmosphere in contact with a sun-warmed surface concentrates that warmth at the surface. It’s basic physics that temperature is the average kinetic energy of a volume of gas, and as that gas warms and rises its volume expands and hence its average kinetic energy must go down, even if the kinetic energy of the molecules themselves remains the same. This is the essence of the lapse rate. If N2 and O2 conduct heat from the surface and don’t radiate IR, then overall they hang onto their translational energy even though the gas volume within which they reside thins and cools. Why would it matter if the earth radiated from the surface or from higher up? This won’t stop conduction.
Not only does adding CO2 not warm the atmosphere to any extent, but it seems to me that GHGs also do not, and cannot, warm the atmosphere to any extent, because the atmospheric pressure gradient is the main player in containing surface warmth and determines the lapse rate, in conjunction with the heat capacity of gases.
But this is all very weird because it stands radiative physics on its head and people don’t like that. So once again I say, if you really believe that N2 and O2 are warmed by CO2, instead of assuming this, why not do an experiment to prove it? Why doesn’t someone do an experiment to prove this heat-trapping capacity of GHGs, instead of resting on modeling or theory?
Don, I hope you see this, it seems I’m always about a day behind on these threads.
You are almost there with your understanding of the Greenhouse effect. Your instincts are correct that the non-condensing GHGs in our atmospheric concentrations have a minute effect. It is only the condensing GHGs, i.e. H2O, that has any meaningful warming effect. Further down this thread there is a reference to a paper which accurately describes the physics and the maths of “The Greenhouse Effect at the Molecular Level”. It is here:
https://digitalcommons.conncoll.edu/physicsfacpub/1/
WBWilson April 8, 2018 at 9:20 am
Thank you for the link to the paper. My first reaction to it is that my eyes glaze over: another take on the math and radiative effects.
I think it would be simple to prove that water vapor warms an atmosphere beyond the heating provided by conduction/convection. Why not take a two three-cubic meter well-insulated boxes with walls of near-zero absorption of IR, control for pressure, etc., one with 3% water vapor and one with zero water vapor, and then heat them to say 288K? The box with water vapor should end up warmer, according to theory, because IR is bouncing off the water vapor, or else because the water vapor is exciting other molecules and increasing their internal energy.
OK, maybe I don’t have it quite right; maybe the experiment needs to be tweaked in order to demonstrate the assertion that water vapor retains/enhances atmospheric heat due not to its heat capacity, but due to its radiative properties. So let’s design an experiment and measure this. It bothers me that we’re not testing our ideas through physical experiments; the math might work out but still we need to confirm that we’ve got it right and there’s only one way to do that.
Don, yes.
This is the quality of intellect that supports the global warming narrative. They seriously claim that moves to ensure all science supporting public policy is based on transparency and free of conflict of interest are negative events. They call people science deniers who have done nothing but point at the science and demonstrate that it doesn’t show what the catastrophists are pretending it shows. They rant and rave about the coming catastrophe (warming) but when it doesn’t happen they either change the date or change the catastrophe (climate change) and they conveniently forget the fact that either event is a natural phenomenon and the burden of proof is on them to show that humans are playing any substantive role.
When objective data don’t support the theory they change the data – true scientists would revisit the theory. These people come from the same mold that created eugenics, race segregation, national socialism, lysenkoism, and the Great Leap Forward that caused the unnecessary deaths of tens of millions of Chinese.
The only deniers are the people who look at the evidence and come to the conclusion that a trace element in the atmosphere that used to be over 20 times higher in the past will somehow today cause a runaway global warming and tipping points to be crossed.
They have to deliberately deny that the Earth’s climate is not very sensitive and is in fact very corrective in nature.
YES – this. If any honest scientific inquiry was being done by the Climate Fascists, they would have determined they were wrong a long time ago. I’m tired of the “den!er” label being used on people who don’t believe in the AGW religion, as if the Climate Fascists are standing on some kind of factual “high ground,” when NO empirical, observational evidence supports their catastrophist nonsense and in fact all they did was start with their pre-conceived conclusions and work their way backwards to provide some pseudo-science “basis” for them.
It’s a simple matter to clean patient data so that the individual involved can’t be identified.
There is no reason why this requirement would block medical research.
As always, it’s an invented excuse.
BINGO! ANY reason to (ahem) DENY access to the “man behind the curtain,” thereby destroying the illusion he has created!
The roaches are scurrying. Remember, the greatest eco-crime perpetrated by Pruitt is requiring fully transparent science, and we can’t have the holy deliberations questioned. Be a good little serf and do as you’re told.
I’m sure Mosher already sent his congratulations.
By pushing the catastrophe button, the warmist/alarmist camp put themselves in an untenable position. It has been over thirty years now, without much of anything happening outside of the imaginations of the doomsayers. Each passing year makes their predictions less plausible.
Continually moving the goalposts only drains the patience of observers and makes amusing fools of those predicting the end of life as we know it.
It doesn’t help that the main proponents of catastrophe are not seen to be making any personal commitment to reducing their own carbon footprints.
Falsely attributing events such as Harvey or Irma to climate change only elicits groans of exasperation from anyone with a lick of common sense.
Of course, common sense like virginity may not be as prelavent as it once was.
The theory of CO2 is over 100 years old……….
Has anyone ever captured one of these mysterious photons that CO2 absorbs and then re-radiates, what is the difference between the discreet packages of heat that nitrogen when cooling discharges and a photon.
I think he’s talking about the period since “global warming” alarmism and Eco-Fascism really began to make headlines.
Why is there such a thing as an environmental sociologist at OKSU or anywhere else?
When Oreskes is worried it means we are winning.
I think you’re right. The eco-Left tone is much less confident. I would say that the AGW push is their centre piece gambit for greater political power and its advance has been halted.
Soon to be in retreat, hopefully, as economics and possibly weather trends show what nonsense it is.
Yes. Nothing more than a global government, make work project to justify their existence to control and tax and regulate. Hey if I had a PhD in something, I would be all in as well. Sure beats teaching 2nd year calculus to undergrads for my entire career.
Free cash and prizes. Travel the world, attend conferences in exotic locations, get published by connecting everything to climate change.
Oreskes is always wrong. Please fight harder.
Do watch this video clip of an Australian giving a talk to our House of Commons about global warming ! He is entertaining and spot on the truth ! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCWcoS7iHtA
While not a scientist, I have contributed pro bono to some University programs funded by NIMH grants and therefore have taken the basic course on private info in such studies.
I am thus confused by the oft repeated claim that the transparency asked by Pruitt (in what Huff Post thinks is some sort of bombshell leaked memo) that personal information will be compromised.
If I study, say 6 cities, and then report that x percent of those studied in Chicago demonstrate…….how am I violating the requirement that PERSONAL information remain private? Isn’t this type of study performed every day (e.g. EPA reports linking “pollution” to asthma or heart disease ?)
“It’s like they sense victory.”
Indeed. A potential victory for fact-based science!
Veritas vos liberabit! (The truth shall set you free!)
Up here in British Columbia we have a carbon tax and no science has been offered to justify it except what (scientists say). What scientists say is the only proof required and oh to save the world and look good on the world stage.
Also our Prime Minister, Trudeau 2.0 aka pretty socks, wants to put a price on “carbon pollution”, his words yesterday. After all he is an ex drama teacher, really. Also he offers no science.
When they say Carbon pollution, do they mean soot? That can be easily controlled with scrubbers and baghouses.
Or do they mean CO2 which isn’t really Carbon pollution at all, No more than water vapour is Hydrogen pollution.
He wears brown shoes with a blue suit. You can’t trust him.
If you are an old fart engineer in your 80’s, and have lots of time to collect climate data you come to one simple conclusion. The differentials are decreasing: Arctic-Tropical temps, Winter Summer temps, daily local Hi-Low temps. This tends to reduce severe weather events. The natural temp trend currently is up providing more suspended moisture, while lower differentials would seem to reduce air movement and trend to less precip. All in all with increased CO2 it may provide a more climate comfortable world with longer and larger growing seasons.
Should have added Higher temps provide higher dew points that decrease daily differential temps.
Except it isn’t warming. Winters are reverting back to how they were in the 60s and 70s. I’ve noticed colder winters over the last 10 years. Longer duration as well. Thriving ski industry in my area, after we were told 20 years ago “the inevitable end of the ski industry”
The Nenana Ice classic and their 102nd year of data may have a record early breakup this year. The earliest date for breakup is April 20th. The Tanana river near Fairbanks Ak.
http://www.nenanaakiceclassic.com/
The ice and snow at Nenana look real solid at this point. No signs of any melting, just cold, hard ice.
If you go to the Ice page you see break up in years 16, 15, 14, were 23, 24, 25 April and with ice thickness >35 inches on 6 April. this year it is at 26 inches on 6 April. We shall See.
The risk of constructive expropriation may be lower in Russia than it is in the U.S. or the EU.
Here is the world’s largest owner of hydrocarbons (proved reserves, audited by DeGolyer & McNaughton are 4× those of ExxonMobil):
http://www.gazprom.com/
That is one interesting whine by that reporter/activist.
So to sum up,Public policy must NOT be made with all relevant evidence available to the taxpayer.
Demands to see all supporting evidence for public decisions/policy is Undemocratic and anti-science..
Threatening persons on the public payroll with enforcement of the stated rules and procedures is bullying..
Asking to “see your servants work” is voodoo..
I wonder at the willful ignorance of my Progressive comrades.
these people are almost beyond parody.
As a side note I see some cartoon network is reworking Chicken Little, shaping the gullible fool as the hero of the tale.
Soon the Emperors new clothes, such wonderous fabric ..so fine ,so smooth..What colours..
I am sure the above “reporter” will fully agree, not only ignore the message,but shoot the messenger.Then go back and erase or corrupt history.
It is high time for skeptics to have more empowerment, especially after going thru the last administration. The writer of the article tries to compare the Trump and Obama admin. take on global warming/climate change to past administrations, but yet I don’t recall any that went as far left as Obama. Granted, I can only really remember back to the elder Bush’s only term (and maybe a little of Reagan’s last term) because before that I was a teenager and I didn’t really pay much attention to politics. Even so, I don’t remember there being much talk about any of it, especially in the MSM, until Al Gore’s sci-fi fantasy hit theaters.
I hate to say it, but I almost wish I could go back to my youth when the cold war was really the only major existential fear most everyone had. And at least it was a very real fear…..unlike “climate change”. Back then Hollywood movies of the sci-fi, horror and disaster themes had plots based upon nuclear war and its after effects, instead of silly opuses about CO2 caused climate disasters. True, there were films back in those days premised on environmental disasters,but those were due to pollution, toxic waste, nuclear meltdown, radiation leaks and the like. And again, those were very real fears, even though some of them (nuke disasters) are very rare. Not saying they will literally create monsters, but they do indeed cause quite a bit of environmental damage when they happen. That’s one reason why I don’t watch much tv or movies these days in my favorite genres – because I am sick of these “global warming” disaster and environmental proselytizing themes that they tend to be full of.
That said, it makes me wonder if writers of the above article (and so many like it) ever go back and re-read what they write, not to proof read but to seriously think. I can just imagine if you substituted weather, meteorology, climatology, etc, with another unrelated branch of science and based such arguments around it. And I can also imagine how silly it would sound!
Just imagine that paleontology (one of my keen armchair interests) being so politicized. One hundred years ago almost no scientists believed that dinosaurs are closely related to birds, and the idea that some had feathers would have been heretical. The sluggish dino-lizard theory persisted well into the middle of the 20th century, and even into my own childhood. Sauropods went around in swamps with their necks held high and t-rex dragged its tail like Godzilla. Today most all scientists believe that is not true and accept that modern birds are dinos that never went extinct. But imagine if the bird/lizard dino debate still raged on, and also imagine all of the fudging data, erroneous study conclusions, improper data cataloging, and worse, academic hostility and ostracizing of those with opposing views going on. Imagine how laughable it would be if you had a “ruling” faction of paleontologists who got all of the tax payer funding to push the idea that dinosaurs are not related to birds. Imagine some altering fossils to fit their narrative, and wrongly interpreting other fossils. Worse yet, imagine those scientists black listing and driving out the pro-/dino/bird paleontologists so they couldn’t get funding to carry out their work. And then non paleontologists would go to museums, most of which are publicly funded, and see dinos mounted in their old tail dragging, neck arching poses. Non paleontologists with an expertise in animal anatomy could plainly see that the skeletons were not mounted correctly, and some of the poses are physically impossible, but, oh well….there is nothing they can do other than shake their heads and know that what they are seeing is wrong. And of course, anyone who dare criticize the “settled dinosaur science” or offer up more concrete evidence of the bird link, is called a denier, a fringe element, anti science and whatever else. And then you have a few of the most radical pro-lizard faction demanding that pro-bird scientists and their defenders be arrested and jailed!
Such a dino/bird scenario is totally comical to imagine, but this is exactly what is going on with climate science, and sadly the warmists don’t see how ridiculous they appear!
But then again, paleontologists’ findings (or lack of) don’t allow politicians the excuses they need to try and rule the world and create much human suffering and death.
This side continues to present it as righteous them with the settled science and those that oppose them as blocking their authentic cause to save the planet using politics.
They go thru a history of recent presidents and how deniers behaved until Trump made them feel more empowered and embolden…………….as if we/they were waiting for the right time and were suddenly able to climb out of the denier sewer because the president of the US has lifted the lids for us…………..making it possible.
Overlooked is the fact that the vast majority can be wrong about something and the minority right. In most realms, as the truth/realities are reconciled with 2 opposing positions, the power and number of each position no long matters……………..the truth/observations of the reality do.
One group is slipping and one group is gaining more traction based on the truth/observations of the reality.
It’s been happening slowly over the past decade. Trump has created a political environment that pushes the US away from the damaging climate change politics of the previous administration………withdrawing from the absurd Climate Accord, for instance.
However, Trump is not causing the weather/climate to obey his commands. He is not causing the earth to massively green up. He is not causing the average global temperature to go up slower than the broken models. All those things were going to happen and expose the weaknesses of one side’s CO2 science.
Under President Clinton, the authentic science and real climate would not have changed……….politics can’t change this. The politics would be much different though.
We can only guess on what that might mean. Trump may be a climate realist but because of the “block Trump at any cost” belief system for many, his position on climate WILL be rejected by millions, just because it’s HIS position.
Clinton, having the opposite position, may have resulted in some of her supporters being able to see the problems/becoming climate skeptics because they wouldn’t have the “accept everything Clinton” belief system which brainwashes them to think with tunnel vision(as they do when opposing Trump).
As is obvious, too many people connect the science with politics…………..with one side aligning against the other with the objective being to win………not discover the truth or authentic science.
The longer the battle goes on between the 2 groups, the less weighting the marketing schemes get(dying polar bears as climate change mascots), the less weighting the speculative and too warm global climate model projections get, the less impact the exaggerated weather events get, the less impact the politics get……..regardless of the person who is president.
Let the authentic data/observations keep leading the way.
While the truth SHOULD work to undermine the AGENDA, unfortunately, it doesn’t get the job done adequately. 12 years without a major hurricane hitting the U.S. and all you heard was crickets from the “media.” Then, one active season and the “media” gives us the “all climate change, all the time” BS to attempt to “blame” so-called “climate change” for the “bad” WEATHER.
And FAR TOO MANY otherwise intelligent people still “believe” in human-caused climate catastrophe. Because it’s a matter of “identity politics” for them, and the only information they consider to make their judgments about it IS the media hype everyone is bombarded with 24/7.
Here’s hoping that the truth does indeed awaken the AGW faithful from their politicized pseudo-science induced coma, but I’m getting impatient and another progressive Eco-Fascist administration could quickly re-establish the economic catastrophe of “climate” policy all too quickly if we don’t get a lot more traction a lot faster.
Rarely in Earth’s recent history (the last 2.5 million years or so) has the climate been so stable or so benign. Combined with our recent usage of fossil fuels and other benign technologies that we invented (discovered) this had led to a population of 7.5 Billion people. The only scary thing to me (bedsides political instability creating unnecessary havoc arguing this and that) is a major cooling event out of left field that deals humanity a temporary crippling blow. If you study history, it is usually such a cooling climate catastrophe that has caused such mayhem in the human record the last 5000 years. There is no real evidence in our collective history the last 5000 years that any warming period caused any major detrimental issue with humanity…on the contrary, there is plenty of evidence that sudden cooling events led to the downfall of many civilizations. Warming is good, cooling can be very bad, especially our current civilization, as we have never been recently stress tested to a major sudden global cooling event in our modern technological world. Why is this never discussed by the rabid marxist CAGW crowd? Or even us so called ‘deni@rs’?
Actually…I just read the next post here this Am on Easter Island, and I see much of that post was about exactly my paragraph above. I should have made my comment above there…although it is applicable here too. Catastrophic Global Cooling (CGC) would be more applicable to what we would should really be worried about, if we are serious about really understanding what the word catastrophic means.
I agree with your sentiment and have expressed a similar sentiment on many occasions, although not in any specifically dedicated post. But I have also said this – I can virtually GUARANTEE you that the Eco-Fascists will come up with some pseudo-scientific “explanation” of how the COOLING is ALSO the “fault” of human activities, specifically the burning of those “evil” fossil fuels. Just like they did last time during the ’70s “Global Cooling” scare. This is because at the end of the day their objective is CONTROL of energy, which by extension provides CONTROL of EVERYTHING.
I’m reminded again of a great and apropos movie line – “The arrogance of man is assuming that man is in control of nature, and not the other way around.” – Ken Watanabe (as Dr. Serizawa), Godzilla (2014)
I’m no expert, but wasn’t Climategate the opportunity to go on the offensive? Instead the big lie of AGW was reasserted by the globalist media with no sufficient offensive. Yet the facts are entirely on our side.
And the majority of Americans are unconcerned about AGW and open to the ugly truth, but it’s just not addressed, so no one is stirred to action. And the ugly truth is that AGW is the foundation of a fascist world government. Profit is secondary and sounds no alarm bells. The demonization of carbon dioxide is pure evil genius – ‘peaceful’ compliance with a world government of draconian regulations, austerity and restricted movement, while ‘elites’ live as they always have.
Straight from the horses’ mouths…
“We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis.” – David Rockefeller, Club of Rome executive manager
“The only way to get our society to truly change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe.” – emeritus professor Daniel Botkin
“We need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination… So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts… Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.” – Stephen Schneider, Stanford Professor of Climatology, lead author of many IPCC reports
“In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill.” – Club of Rome
“We’ve got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy.” – Timothy Wirth, President of the UN Foundation
“It doesn’t matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true.” – Paul Watson, co-founder of Greenpeace
“No matter if the science of global warming is all phony, climate change provides the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world.” -Christine Stewart, fmr Canadian Minister of the Environment
“Climate change is real. Not only is it real, it’s here, and its effects are giving rise to a frighteningly new global phenomenon – the man-made natural disaster.” – Barack Obama
“The concept of national sovereignty has been immutable, indeed a sacred principle of international relations. It is a principle which will yield only slowly and reluctantly to the new imperatives of global environmental cooperation.” – UN Commission on Global Governance report
“Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class – involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, air-conditioning, and suburban housing – are not sustainable. Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?” – Maurice Strong, founder of the UN Environment Programme & architect of the UN Oil for Food Scandal
“Maurice Strong was a pioneer of sustainable development who left our country and our world a better place.” – PM Justin Trudeau
“A keen and anxious awareness is evolving to suggest that fundamental changes will have to take place in the world order and its power structures, in the distribution of wealth and income.” – Club of Rome, globalist think tank that includes members of the Trilateral Commission.
“All these dangers are caused by human intervention and it is only through changed attitudes and behaviour that they can be overcome. The real enemy, then, is humanity itself.” – Club of Rome
“Now is the time to draw up a master plan for sustainable growth and world development based on global allocation of all resources and a new global economic system.” – Club of Rome
“The only hope for the world is to make sure there is not another United States. We can’t let other countries have the same number of cars, the amount of industrialization, we have in the US. We have to stop these Third World countries right where they are.” – Michael Oppenheimer, Environmental Defense Fund
“Sacrilegious though this may sound, democracy is no longer well suited for the tasks ahead. The complexity and the technical nature of many of today’s problems do not always allow elected representatives to make competent decisions at the right time.” – Club of Rome
RENEWABLE ENERGY IS THE CARROT – SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IS THE STICK:
“The prospect of cheap fusion energy is the worst thing that could happen to the planet.” – Jeremy Rifkin, New York Times journalist on climate change
“Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun.” – Prof Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University
“Complex technology of any sort is an assault on human dignity. It would be little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy, because of what we might do with it.” – Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute
“Effective execution of Sustainable Development will require a profound reorientation of all human society, unlike anything the world has ever experienced – a major shift in the priorities of both governments and individuals and an unprecedented redeployment of human and financial resources. This shift will demand that a concern for the environmental consequences of every human action be integrated into individual and collective decision-making at every level.” ~ United Nations Sustainable Development/Agenda 21
https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/index.html
“UN Sustainable Development is the action plan implemented worldwide to inventory and control all land, all water, all minerals, all plants, all animals, all construction, all means of production, all energy, all education, all information, and all human beings in the world. INVENTORY AND CONTROL.” ~ Rosa Koire, liberal CA activist & former supporter of AGW
http://www.democratsagainstunagenda21.com
Overpopulation & eugenics:
“A cancer is an uncontrolled multiplication of cells, the population explosion is an uncontrolled multiplication of people. We must shift our efforts from the treatment of the symptoms to the cutting out of the cancer. The operation will demand many apparently brutal and heartless decisions.” – Prof. Paul Ehrlich, The Population Bomb
“A massive campaign must be launched to de-develop the United States. De-development means bringing our economic system into line with the realities of ecology and the world resource situation.” – Paul Ehrlich, Professor of Population Studies
“[T]he resultant ideal sustainable population is hence more than 500 million but less than one billion.” – Club of Rome, Goals for Mankind
“One America burdens the earth much more than twenty Bangladeshes. This is a terrible thing to say in order to stabilize world population, we must eliminate 350,000 people per day. It is a horrible thing to say, but it’s just as bad not to say it.” – Jacques Cousteau, UNESCO Courier
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Guidestones
The Georgia Guidestones is a granite monument erected in 1980 in Elbert County,Georgia, in the United States. A set of 10 guidelines is inscribed on the structure in eight modern languages, and a shorter message is inscribed at the top of the structure in four ancient language scripts. In June 1979, a man using the pseudonymRobert C. Christian approached the Elberton Granite Finishing Company on behalf of “a small group of loyal Americans”, and commissioned the structure.
1. Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.
2. Guide reproduction wisely — improving fitness and diversity.
3. Unite humanity with a living new language.
4. Rule passion — faith — tradition — and all things with tempered reason.
5. Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.
6. Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.
7. Avoid petty laws and useless officials.
8. Balance personal rights with social duties.
9. Prize truth — beauty — love — seeking harmony with the infinite.
10. Be not a cancer on the earth — Leave room for nature — Leave room for nature.
https://www.wired.com/1997/02/the-doomslayer-2/ The Doomslayer
The environment is going to hell, and human life is doomed to only get worse, right? Wrong. Conventional wisdom, meet Julian Simon, the Doomslayer.
That was straight from the horses other orifice I think.
““Maurice Strong was a pioneer of sustainable development who left our country and our world a better place.” – PM Justin Trudeau”
Ole Justin is completely out of touch with reality, isn’t he. Canada is like a ship without a rudder, with Justin at the helm.
No, Canada has a rudder. It’s just that Captain Trudeau is using it to steer the country into the rocks.
Fortunately, it looks like the crew are going to mutiny and replace him with a new captain at the next election. And the Carbon Tax is one of many reasons for that.
“I’m no expert, but wasn’t Climategate the opportunity to go on the offensive? Instead the big lie of AGW was reasserted by the globalist media with no sufficient offensive. Yet the facts are entirely on our side.”
Climate Gate was quite educational.
An amazing contrast between public and private messaging.
Especially the five inquiries.
Certainly exposed the rampant corruption in our little kleptocracies..
Credibility is a strange thing, once it is lost, it does not grow back..
Climategate exposed what many suspected, our bureaucrats are lying to us.
Our media is complicit in promoting this mass hysteria over the weather.
Could be that this exposure paved the easy acceptance of President Trump and his “Fake News” dismissal of media venom.
When the young adults finally wake up,civic institutions are going to suffer.
being deliberately sold propaganda, in place of education erodes trust in authority.
And “trust our authority” is all the Alarmed Ones have.
Or is that “Respect Mah Authority” ala Southpark.
The Doomslayer link corrected: https://www.wired.com/1997/02/the-doomslayer-2/
Another view of history …
https://youtu.be/ySnk-f2ThpE
https://youtu.be/0wlNey9t7hQ
Good news AJB, You are free to boycott “Big Oil”. No one is taking your money out of you paycheck and sending it to them. If enough people feel like you do, they will lose their power. You are also free to advocate to others that they should boycott “Big Oil”. That is the difference between providing a product or service, which requires that you compete for customers, and having the government take money you earned and give it to an organization that you disagree with. The former is why we don’t have to work the fields everyday to produce enough food to live on. The latter is why revenues go up consistently, but it is never enough to satisfy the hunger for OPM.
Rob: The federal government is buying a product for people that they have determined can’t afford it. They are not giving your money to the oil company. They are buying a good from that company on behalf of a person that needs it, but can’t afford it. There is a difference between buying something, and transferring wealth from someone to someone else. They are transferring the wealth to the entitled person, but requiring that it is used for heat. It is the same as food stamps. The entitled person gets the benefit, the store sells the food.
But Russ, I have no desire or the freedom to boycott “Big Oil”. It is how the world works, for now at least. Nor, I would suggest, does the producer of these videos. As he repeats several times, it has nothing to do with oil but everything to do with monopolization, governance and control. The resource grab continues to accelerate as population increases. I would call that inevitable.
AJP – It has everything to do with oil, because that is what people are willing to pay for. If I had a mini-nuclear reactor at home, and an electric car, I would have no need for oil, and if enough people did that “Big Oil” would become a bit player that produced oil for the chemical properties it contains. And then you would would still be worried about “Big Whatever” that produced products that people want and are willing to pay for. And there is no monopoly on oil. There is a market for oil that is not a free market, but is much closer to free, than to monopolized.
Rob – Your tax dollars are going to entitled citizens. If they heat with Natural Gas, nothing goes to oil companies. If they heat with electric nothing goes to the oil companies. Your tax dollars go to the recipient of the product. Are you saying that your tax dollars go to Big Food when a person buys food with food stamps?
The PRODUCT goes to the entitled person. The government pays for the PRODUCT. Which means far more of it goes to Natural Gas suppliers, since more people heat with gas than oil. I know you are not this stupid, so you must have a disorder when it comes to admitting you are wrong. You would do better arguing that the government gives your tax dollars for all the oil products it buys to run naval ships, aircraft, tanks, and vehicles of all sorts. But that would only be slightly less wrong than the dumb argument you are currently failing to make. The government buys all kinds of “stuff”. Whether they use for their own operations, or transfer it to “entitled citizens” does not matter. Your elected officials decided it was an appropriate use of public funds. And the remedy is to vote them out of office. If enough voters suffer from BODS then that will happen.
Now you’re being silly, virtually all facets of modern life are dependent on oil. Demand is very different from dependency. Forget ideological concepts of capitalism versus socialism, you would never be permitted to have a mini-nuclear reactor at home. It’s about control Russ.
AJP – I could list far more things that are not dependent on oil, than those that are. Oil is a source of energy that has characteristics that make it good for many things, BUT if a better alternative comes along consumers will choose the better alternative. We are dependent on oil, because we choose to have great demand for a product that has helped lift us out of the drudgery of manual labor. We are free to go back to that any time we choose to, or are forced to by idiots with power.
You could replace mini-reactor with solar panels if it makes you feel better. I spend my hard-earned dollars on the best alternatives available to me. I don’t have unlimited choices because you, and me, and Rob, and everyone else has failed to give me better choices than I have. Removing the best choices because you don’t like being dependent on them does not improve our situation.
Like most trolls, Rob makes a big deal about pennies, but completely ignores other programs that are costing big bucks.
Rob – You don’t get anything out of most of the money you send to the government. That is a relationship that is defined by “being forced to send” money to some entity and getting nothing in return. The government takes your money and gets a PRODUCT in return. There is a difference, but it takes a modicum of IQ to identify it. It seems that is a step to far for your ability.
You prove yourself wrong Rob!!
There is a difference between being taxed, and getting nothing in return, and the government or anyone else buying a product, where they get something in return. Because they have the choice of what they choose to buy, or they can choose to buy nothing and save the money.
Can I choose to not pay my taxes and save the money?
The government can certainly choose not to buy heat for those they are currently buying heat for. And if they do, will you save the money, or will they? And what does that say about whose money it is, that they are spending?
NO!!!
They take money out of your paycheck and GIVE it, or spend it, on whatever they want to. They GIVE it to foreign governments. They GIVE it to entitled citizens. They GIVE it to grant recipients. They GIVE it to universities.
They do NOT GIVE it to big oil.
They buy products.
They buy oil, aircraft, ships, staples, paint, desks, computers, tanks, bulletproof cars, guns, chairs…..
And if they paid for your education, they should get a refund.
And the implication is that by “sending your money to them” the government was not expecting anything in return. That in essence they were “GIVING” your money to the oil companies against your will, in order to expressly benefit the oil companies.
That is not the same as buying a product. And you know that, but you obviously have no intention of acknowledging your error.
If you want poor people to freeze in the dark, so Big Oil will sell 0.00000001% less oil, put that on a bumper sticker and run for office. You have made your case for what is important to you, and I am sure you will get some votes from other people that can’t see the world because their colon blocks their view.
Originally you said
Now you say
We never discussed my paycheck which has actual earnings. We were discussing YOUR paycheck, which is just a figment of your imagination. You have made errors, and you continue to do so, while stating the opposite. It is no wonder you are obsessed with criticizing successful businesses. They do so much to provide what people want. And your special skill is to irritate, and that does not provide compensation.
I am done digging. It was a grave for you. I know that someone that has nothing better to do than argue semantics on a blog, might as well lie down and take a dirt nap. Take my advice and find something better to do with your time, or just get it over with.
So, Obola’s national government TAKES money from my pocket too (47% pf my money is taken by the government) and GIVEN to the “deserving” voters (of largely democrat politicians). Now, the LIHEAP welfare program – like many welfare programs) pays more to those who have more people in their household, who have lower incomes, and who are already receiving local, state, and national aid. And YOU’RE the one complaining because this somehow benefits oil companies because now people can get more money to pay for heating bills? ?
By the way, notice that the “more people in household” = “more pay” does NOT correspond to “How much do the welfare receivers actually spend on heating oil”? Instead, each additional person “qualifies” that household an additional $6,000.00 in annual income. All money that the government takes from me.
Now, the government takes more money than this for wasting on “art”, eco-fantasties, renewables for such politically-connected companies as Solyndra, solar-powered pavements, windfarms, $60,00 dollar per gallon green fuels, etc. Do you complain about those wastes?
The projection and reverse autopsychology in that piece are so thick you could stab it with a fork.
I don’t know too many people who use the “warming is a hoax” strawman to make their point except when an eco-warrior is telling me I probably believe it is. I reply that warming is as real the observations prove but the anthropogenic causation theory is too loosely knit for me to cross that bridge to confident assumption. The political activism and circular thinking displayed by those who claim consensus is dangerously unscientific to the point of being deliberately deceptive.
I am not anti-science. I just don’t believe in the conclusions of climate scientists and their close relatives – astrologers. Both have models that appear to predict all events – after they have happened.
The predictions made before the event are more likely to be true in the case of astrologers, but I still don’t believe in them. In both cases, their work is not peer reviewed by skeptics. The other sciences do permit and publish research that indicates other answers.
““It’s like they sense victory. They are proclaiming victories, and they keep pushing,” Dunlap said.
In most sports , in most countries, you cannot proclaim victory without scoring goals. Nice to know that the sceptics are putting the ball in the back of the net sufficiently often to frighten the opponents.
And on the subject of Radicals , no less an authority than the Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm speaks warmly of
“the perennial Radicals demands, such as parliamentary reform, the fight against high taxes, tithes, placemen and sinecures and the whole system of Old Corruption ” in his preamble to the chronology and causes of the “Captain Swing ” machine breaking and rick burning riots of 1830 in southern England.
Ref: “Captain Swing” : E J Hobsbawm , G Rude , (1969).
“Pruitt banned scientists from serving on EPA’s independent advisory panel if they received agency funding.”
What part of ‘independent’ do the warmists not understand?
What is the confidential public health data that impacts global warming studies?
Where are the claims by the author of this propaganda that the current climate is similar to those “projected” by the climate models??
Where is the claim that the hot spot has been measured in the tropical troposphere and it is in agreement with the predictions of the AGW conjecture??
Where is the claim that Trenberth’s “missing heat” had been found and it is approximately what would be expected under AGW conjecture ??
Where is the science to support this political agenda, and how does it actually support the requirement for “urgent action before it is too late” to avoid tipping points from a destabilized climate ??
Frankly I am amazed that so many can still cling to the hope that global temps that are well within the range of historical normal variation, will start showing evidence that it is outside that range. They are still living in a mindset that passed down knowledge from ivory towers to the unwashed masses. The unwashed masses are not beholden to the analysis of those that are beholden to grant application acceptance. And there are still more questions than answers for “settled science”.
I also don’t like to bet on the wrong horse, especially when it is my money I’m betting with.
Pruitt is still too lazy or stupid to reverse the endangerment finding on CO2.
Pruitt is living in a snake pit, that is surrounded by packs of starving hyenas. The stupidity part was throwing them red meat with his personal decisions. The endangerment finding took a lot of political capital to get it enacted, and it will take just as much to reverse it. That does not mean he can’t do it, or won’t do it. I just means it will require some momentum, that he does not currently have. He is doing a good job of ignoring it, and that alone is a start. The tide is turning, but it does not turn at the rate most of us would like to see. A major source of AGW support got hammered again this winter. Making the case that it is “expected” is wearing a little thin for those that carry water for Libs, but are no longer getting any pork.
There are people who actually believe that the president has the power to re-shape the world with a mere utterance.
Remember, Obama and all of the Democrat leadership wanted single payer, yet even with super majorities in both houses, Obama Care was the best they could come up with.
Nirvana Fallacy, aka making the perfect the enemy of the good.
Coke contains CO2. You should be able to heat your house simply by putting bottles around the walls. But don’t shake them or they’ll overheat. You should be able to grow hot house tomatoes in conference halls, and power generators from gymnasiums. Heat no longer just goes up – it apparently goes down as well (from the “greenhouse ceiling” over the earth). It is the new reality of science..
What makes me bolder is not the science, but the socialistic demands of those who are attempting to use climate scaremongering as an excuse to usher in the long sought, but totally unsustainable, Progressive Utopia.
The science is settled: the climate is changing and always will be changing. In fact, something would be very wrong if the climate stopped changing. The issue was never really change, but the extent to which the change was going to harm our biosphere.
I don’t deny that less than 25,000 years ago northern Illinois was covered by more than mile of glacial ice. I don’t deny that less than 12,000 years ago mammoths were flash frozen in Siberia with fresh grasses still in their stomachs. I don’t deny that 1,000 years ago Vikings in Greenland were cropping barley so they could use the grain to make beer. I don’t deny that millions of Europeans died in the Great Famine of 1315–17, caused by cold and wet conditions. I don’t deny that the Thames River froze solid to such an extent that during 26 separate winters from 1408 until 1814, Londoners were able to hold a Frost Fair on the ice.
Up until now, advocates of “climate change” demand solutions that converge far more on socialism than on anything else. This is a means to an ideological ends having nothing at all do do with protecting the biosphere. It is intended to advance the long awaited secular Utopia.
It seems with every passing day the one constant in the debate about this issue is far more about how socialistic the policy solutions must be than any other factor. That tells me that the “settled science” involved is far more Scientific Socialism than any real science.
1+
Best summary on board.
It’s rooted in socialism not science.
You have done well I always tell warmanistas to look at history and they will see that climate always changes over time, from cold to warm then back again to cold.
NASSA/RSS data shows global average atmospheric water vapor (TPW) has been increasing 1.5% per decade for at least 30 yrs. Rational extrapolation looks like 8% increase since 1960. This added ghg is countering the cooling that would otherwise be occurring. The WV increase must eventually stop and might have stopped already.
Hitran output (using quantum mechanics) corroborates that CO2 has no significant effect on climate.
Agreed co2 has no significant effect on climate. google “The Greenhouse Effect at the Molecular Level” by Michael Monroe . He compares the water vapor molecule to the co2 molecule by integrating the heating effect over the absorption spectra of each molecule and concludes that the water vapor molecule is 10^17 more of a greenhouse gas than the co2 molecule.b
You mean: The Greenhouse Effect at the Molecular Level, by Michael Monce PDF
RB – You take the word ‘database’ too literally. What Hitran produces is the relative probability of emission of photons by the selected molecule species as calculated using quantum mechanics. It demonstrates that photon emission from the thermalized energy in the gas molecules is about 1000 times more likely from WV than from CO2. An example of Hitran output is included at http://energyredirect3.blogspot.com . Yes, the output of Hitran can be used as input to other programs but that does not diminish the usefulness of its output
RB – Even when the link to the image is provided (which corroborates the six other examples of compelling evidence listed in my blog/analysis) you are apparently too fixed in your thinking to challenge the ‘consensus’.
RB – With any sort of interest in the subject most folks would challenge/verify the statements by following the provided links to the source data. You obviously did not which discloses that you have little interest, and perhaps little ability, to understand. Your complete failure to grasp what Hitran does corroborates that.
RB – It looks like you might have learned a tiny bit more but you are still profoundly both uninformed and misguided. Take the blinders off. Your preconceived notions are not serving you well.
To begin, photons emitted from the surface as Planck spectrum radiation which are absorbed by ghg are essentially all thermalized. They are thermalized because it takes about 5 µs for a molecule to emit a photon after it absorbs one (the duration is called relaxation time) but only about 0.0002 µs to start sharing the energy with surrounding molecules. The process of absorbing photons and sharing the energy with surrounding molecules (by gaseous conduction) is thermalization.
Hitran does the QM analysis to calculate the possibility and probability of photon emission at specific wave numbers for each specie of gas molecule being examined. The results are presented in numerical (for input to other programs, ergo, why it’s called a data base) and graphical formats (which I use). A useful graph produced by Hitran is included as Fig 2 in http://energyredirect3.blogspot.com . The ordinate, ‘scaled intensity’ provides the relative probability of emission at each wave number. Near the emitting surface, the emission from CO2 is barely discernable compared to WV. That is why ‘CO2 has no significant effect on climate’.
As to ‘vacuum wave numbers’. Think about it. If it were in a vacuum, there would be no molecules. Wavelength varies slightly depending on the medium. They are referring to the wavelengths as they are when the medium is a vacuum. (If it’s any consolation, early on I also misinterpreted this.)
Hitran corroborates other compelling evidence that CO2 has no significant effect on climate. Click my name to see what actually does explain average global temperature change.
RB – You ask a question that is clearly answered at the link above and/or the blog/analysis you get when you click my name. Apparently you are too stubborn to look or too set in your perception for any reality to get through.
You assert that I said “ghg are essentially all thermalized” which I did not say and wouldn’t because it is nonsensical. What I do say is that photon energy absorbed by ghg is essentially all thermalized. That is validated by the simple observation (from my blog/analysis) “A common observation of thermalization by way of water vapor is cloudless nights cool faster and farther when absolute water vapor content of the atmosphere is lower.” It is, of course, also validated by the observation that relaxation time takes tens of thousands of times longer than conduction time as described above.
I have debunked the pathetic link you provided before. Perhaps you noticed that it is a letter which requires no peer review or other corroboration. It is a classic example of confirmation bias. That is, they think they found what they were already certain was there. They cling to this phantasy and ignore multiple compelling evidences that CO2 has no significant effect on climate. I list six examples in my blog/analysis.
I’ve always been a “vocal in your face denier” to everyone when the subject comes up.
“Republicans are ‘anti-science’. Incorrect and a typical progressive twisting of the language. Republicans/conservative don’t buy “Socialist-Science” or the progressive mob science branded at the 97%. Republicans are “Friends of Science” and true supporters of data driven, verified and validated Science. Not the pseudo-science of the political activism and agenda driven scientism.
From the article (I don’t think I need to visit that site again):
There it is, ladies and gentlemen, in a nutshell. They announce it quite matter-of-factly. Actually requiring publicly available data to base regulations on is anathema to their way of thinking. They want the EPA to have the Power of Kings, believing it to be a divine right to rule by the personal political whim of EPA bureaucrats. Unfortunately for all the rest of us, that is what the EPA did in making the endangerment finding. In doing so, the EPA arrogated to itself the ability to punish at will, and so effectively rule, the US energy sector.
Being able to so rule the energy sector by institutional fiat alone, gives that institution the power to hobble or cripple the entire US economy. It is possibly the biggest single power grab in American politics since 1776, and this aspect of it went completely unremarked by the lame-stream media. No wonder people are now so unwilling to vote for whoever the media tells them to vote for.
The mainstream media is OK with American athletes being on permanent medication with substances known for their effect on performance and concentration, because there is a “medical justification” (excuse from a doctor).
A doctor is an “authority” and they will not question an “authority”.
The “intelligence community” is the “authority” on Russian meddling (whatever that is) in election. So whatever they conclude (even if they don’t trust their own conclusion) is gospel.
It works for every domain and anyone who doubt any of that must have “ideation”.
This Scientist has never been impressed by a “theory”. There is no AGW “science”.
To be a theory it must make predictions that can falsify the premise of the theory. AGW does not make predictions that can be tested and independently verified. It does not meet the requirements for a theory and therefor is merely conjecture.
AGW “science” used to make predictions. They all failed.
Which is why they now proclaim that being able to make predictions has nothing to do with science.
“…a vocal subset of conservatives…”
When I first began to notice something peculiar about the whole global warming movement, I considered myself a fence-riding independent with liberal pro-labor leanings. When I started reading here, I discovered that my skepticism and respect for critical thought puts me with both feet on the right side of the fence and about to dismount.
I believe that the non-vocal subset of (by his definition) “conservatives” put Trump in the office. The left is in classic-denial of the mass defection of free-thinking moderates who they have abandoned for the minority voters. The party has been couped by progressive socialist despots.
I certainly have no problem admitting that I have moved my vote in a conservative direction as a result of the assault on logic, science, and reason, by the cacophonous global warmers. Old-fashioned decent respect for opponents also seemed to be one of the early casualties, but environmental activism never seemed to have much of that in the first place.
While no side has clean hands, finding myself in the camp which is now regularly and loudly smeared and insulted by those on the left, who used to claim to be liberal, is currently doing nothing to make me consider voting for them again. The scientific and institutional corruption sailing under the flag of global warming alarmism has caused me to look more carefully at other points in the collective manifesto, and I don’t like what I see.The left (in the US and in the UK) need to have a complete generational clean out of their ‘Augean Stables’ before I could vote for them again.
Most of the time the only people who get wealthy from “pro-labor” policies are politicians and union bosses.
(By “the party” I refer to democrats.)
Doesn’t look like Zack Colman is any relation to John Colman. If he is, he must have been the “back sheep” of the family:
Quote:
“The results illuminate the anti-science sentiment within the GOP. The poll found that 82 percent of Democrats believe global warming has already begun compared with 34 percent of Republicans (Climatewire, March 28)”
Anti-science??? Who is actually using anti-science?. Maybe it is the CAGW Democrats, and others without common sense.…
Is Dearest Little Zack or this poll he refers to, saying the Northern Hemisphere Warming only began very recently? Not 30 years ago? Hey, there’s plenty of time to get things ironed out in. But I do find this idea that an increase in a trace gas as the cause of what little warming there has been is a quaint notion.
Has the world warmed since the bottom of the Little Ice Age?
If you say yes, than you to can be considered part of the 82%.
If realizing that there is no evidence to suggest that the warming since the Little Ice Age is outside natural variation means that I am a “denier”, I suppose I am due to be rounded up for the Inquisition.
Guess what? I did not vote for Trump. (Or Killary.) I do not agree with or like much of what he does, promotes, etc. I do appreciate that he seems to be holding the line on all the awful policies that are being proposed in the name of CAGW. Has it “emboldened” me? Not really. I was already somewhat vocal in my doubts, though I cannot afford to push too hard since I want an advanced degree. With the state of academia being what it is, having a reputation as a skeptic could be the kiss of death.
I have yet to hear of anyone who has actually suffered in their career because they believe in global warming. There are a number of people whose jobs have been threatened, sabotaged, and/or lost because they dared express a modicum of doubt. Yeah, skeptics are DEFINITELY the bad guys.
P.S. Shame on “historians” who are either unaware of (in which case they are bad at their jobs) or ignoring (in which case they are liars who are bad at their jobs) past warm periods. I remember learning about wine grapes growing in Britain, etc. back in high school, possibly even in elementary school. Talk about denial…
I wish I knew what the following were:
climate denier
climate skeptic
climate doubt
climate skepticism.
Can anyone illuminate me?
http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.2867245.1478770841!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/article_750/13955988.jpg
I tried to add balance (in red) to the article:
Manmade cClimate warming skeptics are gaining ground.
There’s always been a vocal subset of scientists conservatives who cast doubt on manmade CO2 climate warming models science, but what were once skeptical fringe views among broader electorate Republicans — like manmade CO2 warming’s a hoax (see Mark Steyn’s, A Disgrace to the Profession: The World’s Scientists – in their own words – on Michael E Mann, his Hockey Stick and their Damage to Science – Volume One)— are enjoying a growing acceptance in the electorate GOP, worrying liberal government funded academics, scientists and non-science educated sociologists.
“They have taken over the [U.S.] EPA,” Naomi Oreskes, dubbed “the environmentalist Noam Chomsky” now a history professor of the history of science at Harvard University who has studied manmade CO2 climate warming denier groups extensively, said in an emotional email. “A very sad state of affairs.”
The groups sowing manmade CO2 climate warming doubt are more emboldened than ever before, non-science educated sociologists and historians said. Their effectiveness in the era of President Trump is a reflection of a deepening polarization in U.S. politics and a normalization of manmade CO2 climate warming skepticism on the right of Lenin andTrotsky, they said.
Democrats and Republicans have never been further apart on manmade CO2 climate warming change, according to public opinion polling released last week by Gallup. The results illuminate the anti-science skeptical sentiment within the Congress controlled GOP. The poll found that 82 percent of Democrats believe manmade CO2 global warming has already begun compared with 34 percent of Republicans (Climatewire, March 28).
That rift has contributed to major differences between the Republican administrations of Trump and former President George W. Bush, said Riley Dunlap, an environmental sociologist at Oklahoma State University. Bush’s government internalized manmade CO2 climate warming skeptics, but the groups scoring victories were largely silent when policies went their way. Now, however, those same organizations like the Heartland Institute and the Competitive Enterprise Institute boldly proclaim success — and then push even further.
“It’s like they sense victory. They are proclaiming victories, and they keep pushing,” Dunlap (who is a tenured professor of sociology) said. “This extreme radicalization of the Republican Party means they don’t have to hide it. They don’t have to dress it up like Bush 43 did. They can be in-your-face [manmade CO2 climate warming] deniers.”
That’s materialized in recent weeks. EPA said it would no longer use science without publicly available data to craft regulations, honoring a long-sought industry goal (Climatewire, March 19). The agency also instructed employees to use skeptic talking points when describing its manmade CO2 climate warming change research, according to a leaked memo obtained by HuffPost.
Organizations like the Heartland Institute had fought for the “secret science” initiative when it was introduced by House Science, Space and Technology Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas). It never got through Congress. Opponents argued it would prohibit use of hallmark public health studies that rely on confidential patient data (Climatewire, March 26).
But EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has invited those ideas into the building. He set Smith’s bill in motion within the agency. And manmade CO2 climate warming skeptics were there to celebrate some of those victories, like when Pruitt banned scientists from serving on EPA’s independent advisory panel if they received agency funding. The move hollowed out years of expertise, critics say, and Pruitt installed a number of industry researchers in their place (Greenwire, Nov. 3, 2017).
That emboldened the far right, the right, the middle of the road and about 20% of the left.
“We’d love to have that debate with Obama and the left on the science because we’re going to win,” Heartland Institute President Tim Huelskamp said in a recent interview.
Less climate, more Russia
In some sense, using Democrats as a foil contributed to the rise of manmade CO2 climate warming skeptics. They fought against President Obama’s climate policies for eight years. But it began even before then. “Traditionally, we get social movements because they’re not in power [but could be if enough voters agree, which is what happened],” Dunlap (who is a tenured professor of sociology) said.
He explained that skeptics ramped up activity under President Clinton while the Kyoto Protocol was in play. That trajectory continued under Bush when former Vice President Al Gore’s Academy Award-winning (although laughingly error riddled) climate documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” elevated manmade CO2 climate warming change in the cultural zeitgeist. Obama doubled down on that with actual policy initiatives — a failed push for cap-and-trade legislation, regulations (including attempts to eliminate coal production jobs, coal power plant jobs and power plant coal usage which currently generates about 30% of US electricity) to curb power plant emissions and playing a key role in the Paris climate accord [which was so named so the Senate could not reject a Paris climate treaty, using Article II, Section 2, Clause 2, of the United States Constitution].
[+] A promotion by the Heartland Institute casts doubt on climate change. Heartland Institute/Facebook
That such groups have sympathizers in the Trump administration has diffused manmade CO2 climate warming skepticism to the party base through elite signaling, the process by which party officials pass down cultural and ideological preferences to their constituents, Dunlap (who is a tenured professor of sociology) said. Such “elite cues” deepen polarization and offer the veneer of legitimacy for certain viewpoints, he said.
It goes beyond manmade CO2 climate warming. Republicans also formed more favorable opinions of Russia, and they decreasingly value a college Bachelor of Arts education, a reflection of President Trump’s views of Moscow and the anti-elite hypocritical leftist sentiment running through GOP-branded populism.
There are some exceptions. The Climate Solutions Caucus in the House boasts several dozen Republicans who have tried to stand apart from a base that largely rejects manmade CO2 climate warming science. But even then, those members don’t reflect the wider party. Dunlap (who is a tenured professor of sociology) said those members represent “purple districts” and are not the best gauge of the GOP’s rightward shift.
“[Skeptics] have done such a good job, and the Republican base is heavily skeptical,” he said. “And in general, it looks like if you’re a Republican, you’re more comfortable going along with the Republican line on [manmade CO2] climate [warming] change denial than you are on being reasonable [with leftists that wish you imprisoned].”
There are other signs of growing confidence among conservative groups that reject mainstream science, said Robert Brulle, a sociology and environmental science professor at Drexel University who has long tracked climate misinformation (see Mark Steyn’s, A Disgrace to the Profession: The World’s Scientists – in their own words – on Michael E Mann, his Hockey Stick and their Damage to Science – Volume One). One is the battle that’s occurring over the endangerment finding, which resulted in the largest power grab by an Agency in American history, a political “scientific” document that justified EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases (mainly water vapor and CO2) [across America’s economy.
Overturning the finding is the “holy grail” for those organizations. Attacking sound science (see Mark Steyn’s, A Disgrace to the Profession: The World’s Scientists – in their own words – on Michael E Mann, his Hockey Stick and their Damage to Science – Volume One) emulates the campaign that tobacco companies used to keep health regulations at bay, Brulle (who is a tenured professor of sociology) said.
Yet Pruitt has balked at going after the finding (Climatewire, Dec. 8, 2017). Pruitt may suspect that challenging the endangerment finding is a losing battle. EPA would have to counter volumes of studies that confirm humans are driving temperatures higher, largely through burning fossil fuels (although all temperature prediction models have proven embarrassingly inaccurate, causing some “prophetically false” scientists to “adjust” actual data to fit the manmade CO2 climate warming claims. Various summaries of these “adjustment” deceptions is outlined at https://realclimatescience.com/).
Eviscerating EPA?
That reluctance on the part of Pruitt has pushed manmade CO2 climate warming skeptics to get louder and grow bolder. In years past, they might have tried to quietly influence the debate.
“The proof is in the pudding. You’ve got to do it,” said Steve Milloy (who is not a tenured professor of sociology), a prominent manmade CO2 climate warming skeptic and former Trump EPA transition team member. “The oil and gas guys that think that none of this is going to hurt them; I think they’re wrong. Have they heard of the whole ‘keep it in the ground’ movement?”
Milloy (who is not a tenured professor of sociology) and others also have backed Pruitt’s wishes to hold a “red team, blue team” debate on climate science as a prelude to attacking the endangerment finding. The White House has rebuffed those efforts, to Pruitt’s chagrin (Climatewire, March 14).
But outside groups remain committed. Sources said a model resolution supporting such a debate is expected to emerge at the American Legislative Exchange Council’s August meeting in New Orleans. ALEC has received considerable cash from the conservative billionaire Koch brothers (described as being committed to free societies and free market principles) wanting to and Exxon Mobil Corp., and many of its legislative members have pursued far-reaching efforts to discredit manmade CO2 climate warming science.
That such groups are in sync with the Trump administration is demoralizing for federal science (some with a sociology Bachelor of Arts degree) officials, said Brulle, who (is a tenured professor of sociology) regularly confers and colludes with EPA career staffers. He said that could have long-lasting effects for environmental [job] protection.
“It’s the slow dismemberment of EPA’s ability to retain liberally motivated people who want to do something about the reality of [manmade CO2] climate [warming] change,” Brulle (who is a tenured professor of sociology) said. “That is a new strategy — the objective is to just eviscerate the capacity to address manmade CO2 climate warming change inside EPA.” [Perhaps by arresting manmade CO2 climate warming critics as suggested by Lawrence Torcello, a philosophy professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology.]
Policy reversals happen whenever someone new occupies the White House. But these cuts are deeper, he said. It’s the deconstruction of the administrative state that former strategic adviser Steve Bannon (who is not a tenured professor of sociology) sought when Trump entered the White House. That could leave the next president with fewer specialists, egads.
“In that way, I think that might be the newer strategy,” Brulle (who is not a tenured professor of sociology) said. “That might be, I think, the more long-lasting and pernicious effect of the Trump administration — is that they push out good liberal people.”
The term ‘skeptic’ isn’t correct. ‘Enlightened’ is more appropriate.
“I don’t know about you, but I feel empowered, especially when Naomi Oreskes starts whining about it.”
I feel disgusted whenever the name of that vile human being comes-up.
Why is it the media never debates the science but appeals to authority,i.e.Al Gore declaring that skeptical Noble laureates are flat earthers because they don’t agree with the fraudulent consensus.
“EPA said it would no longer use science without publicly available data to craft regulations, honoring a long-sought industry goal”
In essence, honoring the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution: due process should apply to any accusation of harm, not just a claim of harm of a particular victim, but also to claims to harm to the community or harm of nature. Industrial corporations are persons with constitutional rights, too. (Even if you want to deny these rights to corporations for some reason, the owners of the corporation then can claim the same constitutional protections.)
Until now, “
SimonScience Says” was the game; Science Inc. could be represented by any federal body or even the totally “independent” from the federal state “Academy of Sciences” (getting barely almost all its funds from the state). And of course almost nobody in the so called “science community” protested against these egregious abuses, and the ABA didn’t either (I guess ABA was too busy to protect the “right to privacy” to protect any other right.).The deep cause is the irrational cult of “Science”, as if it was pure knowledge – unlike “sport” with all the cheating and bad behavior.
Science is form of sport competition, with all the lack of sportsmanship that can be seen in most sports. Science is a high stakes domain with a lot of money and sports with the most money are not known for better sportsmanship, honesty and transparency.
Just because there is competition doesn’t imply that competitors are likely to tell about the cheating of others as:
– they may have been involved in schemes almost as bad,
– there is shared interest in protecting the image of the field as a mostly clean one,
– everybody has a lot to lose if there is a complete investigation of the bad practices.
Just like in sport, the mainstream media plays along as a few bad cheaters are denounced (human cloning) while a lot of slightly less obvious cheating is implicitly approved. The endless focus on a few cheaters gives the illusion that people in the field do care about fraud.
Just like there is doping in sports, there is “doping” in “science”, especially in bio-medicine, and it should worry everybody because the gold standard of medicine, “evidence based medicine”, relies entirely on studies that don’t say what people say they do.