That’s direct quote from Scott Adams in this video he posted yesterday. Well worth your time.
In this video, ‘Dilbert’ creator Scott Adams solves the climate debate and saves the world (really).
Watch:
https://www.pscp.tv/ScottAdamsSays/1gqGvnVYBYBGB
h/t to Joe Born
There’s also this classic Hockey Stick cartoon from Josh, also well worth your time.
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It’s very important to remember that Adams does not profess to be an expert in Climate Science, or science of any kind.
What he does claim (with justification) is that he is an expert in ‘Persuasion’, and that is the prism through which he is viewing this topic.
His book ‘Win Bigly’ is a great read on this topic, and it has caused me to try to view things through the ‘Persuasion Filter’. Especially where the usual filters have fallen down.
In the case of Climate Science, I have long ago given up on trying to understand how so many otherwise intelligent people have fallen for a vastly overstated problem, and solutions which make absolutely no sense.
The answer, I’m afraid, is that the alarmists have been very persuasive to certain key groups of people.
If that is to change, whether we like it or not, we need to better understand the persuasive tactics at play as well as just the science and facts of the matter.
Facts alone do not persuasion make.
For those of you who like to listen to podcasts rather than watch videos I find the podcasts very engaging through my headphones at the gym.
The reason the Alarmists have been persuasive is because the Left has had control of Academia and Main Stream Media for a very long time. It’s not they are better at messaging, it’s that they control the messaging.
The rise of the internet has resulted in the MSM losing control of the messaging (and losing money). To counter this we are seeing the Left-leaning Tech Monopolies censoring and banning people with opposing views, including not just Conservatives, but also True Liberals, Independents and Libertarians. Basically, if you’re not Far Left, they will do everything in their power to silence you.
No. You are wrong, Although I would have agreed with you a while back.
The actual reason is they understand very well the art of persuasion, which is very important when the facts aren’t on your side.
Adams lists the following techniques (in decreasing order of persuasiveness)….
– Big Fear
– Identity
– Smaller Fear
– Aspirations
– Habit
– Analogy
– Reason
– Hypocrisy
– Word Thinking
While there is much to debate in the detail of it, the point is that ‘reason’ is well down the list when trying to be persuasive. It’s tough to accept – but quite obvious when you do.
The alarmists ran with ‘Big Fear’, and ‘Identity’ and it has been very effective.
We’ve been trying to counter with ‘Reason’ and ‘Word Thinking’ and they are clearly not working.
That said, if you buy into this viewpoint, it is hard to counter Big Fear with anything other than Big Fear.
‘It’s not they are better at messaging, it’s that they control the messaging.’
The control factor is all-important, true – but remember – they’ve got almost all the artists – singers, actors, authors – people who’s bread and butter are stocking emotion – making the unreal seem real – the ‘suspension of disbelief’. Remember Willie Nelson in ‘Wag The Dog’?
They aren’t creative – actually, they’re lock-in-step conformists – but they have artistic talent and they can make bullshit smell nice.
How were people persuaded that MSG is bad for them? Simply by being told vague symptoms associated with it after dining at Chinese restaurants. There were never any scientific studies.
How were people persuaded that fat is bad for them, and grains are good for them? By supposedly-authoritative people lying to them.
Don’t call them “alarmists”. That gives them too much respect. Call them “hysterics” instead.
MSG gives me headaches. I no longer go to Sizzler steakhouse and can detect in all foods, not just Chinese.
You detect it in all foods because the only taste receptors you possess that can detect the presence of proteins are glutamate receptors. You are thus only able to detect, indirectly, proteins in your food that have decayed enough to produce substantial quantities of glutamate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umami#Taste_receptors
If you can’t taste glutamate in your food, it is not worth eating.
I’ve followed Scott Adams’ blogs for years and now his Periscopes. I’ve also followed Watts Up with That for years. How exciting to see two brilliant minds exploring the same subject and in the same venue. I can hardly wait for more!
As a persuasive communications tool for claiming that CO2 is the earth’s temperature control knob, nothing else mainstream climate science can present to the uninformed public comes close to the Hockey Stick.
If you were a mainstream climate scientist — and if in the context of a contentious public policy debate over what to do about climate change you were assigned to present the science behind today’s mainstream theories concerning what causes climate change — the hockey stick would be far and away the most persuasive piece of evidence you could present to the layman that carbon dioxide is the main driver of recent warming.
Remember, we are talking of The Stick as being persuasive to the uninformed layman, not necessarily as being scientifically valid and correct.
As communication tools go, the Hockey Stick graph is easily understood; it has the look and feel of real science; and it has a strong visual impact as graphical presentations go.
And, as Scott Adams and other persuasion experts will tell you, visual communication is more effective as a persuasion tool than is verbal or written communication by itself. Moreover, verbal or written phrasing which evokes visual imagery in the reader’s mind is also more effective than is a stream of words which can’t stimulate visual imagery.
If the Hockey Stick was all you had as the science basis for AGW theory; and if you as a mainstream climate scientist could successfully defend its scientific accuracy and validity; then that graph all by itself becomes a powerful argument for taking strong action to limit our carbon emissions.
I’ve said in other comments here on this blog that as a layman in trying to understand today’s mainstream climate science theory, you have to crawl before you can walk.
In looking at Steve McIntyre’s explanations of his issues with the Hockey Stick, he has skipped the crawling phase and gone directly into the walking phase, however abbreviated his presentation of the walking phase is.
If a skeptic is to successfully criticize the Hockey Stick in front of a national audience of laymen, the starting point for the communication of that criticism must be simple enough for the layman to understand. Josh’s cartoon doesn’t do it as the initial starting point, because the cartoon has already gotten into the walking phase.
The other problem a skeptic has to face in criticizing the Hockey Stick is the question of whether it goes well beyond being a product of flawed statistical analysis and flawed scientific reasoning into the realm of being outright scientific fraud.
If as a skeptic you are fully acquainted with the issues, then that kind of argument can be made. But if you are speaking to a national audience, you can’t make that statement right up front as the starting point for your criticism, because you will be labeled as a crank and will lose the argument before 95% has ever been presented.
If the question of the Hockey Stick being scientific fraud comes up at some point in the debate, that question must grow and develop in the laymen’s own minds as the presentation moves forward. Only then can the issue of fraud be addressed directly.
Even then, once laymen begin raising the question as the debate progresses forward, the question of scientific fraud must be addressed carefully in terms that emphasize the earlier explanations of how technically the Hockey Stick has been produced; i.e., it is much more a product of climate science communication needs than it is a product of a disciplined scientific investigation.
Let’s suppose that in the course of the Adams moderated debate, the Hockey Stick ends up being thoroughly debunked as a valid scientific analysis. What happens next?
What happens next is that other important topics in today’s mainstream climate science theory must be marshaled to support the claim that climate change is accelerating and is dangerous. These topics must include:
1 — The fundamental basis of today’s mainstream climate science including the postulated water vapor feedback mechanism.
2 — Ocean warming versus atmospheric warming as the true measure of the presence and the rate of increase of climate change.
3 — The accuracy, validity, and uncertainties of evidence that dangerous impacts from climate change are already occurring.
4 — The accuracy, validity, and uncertainties of the modern temperature record and of the paleoclimate temperature record.
5 — The accuracy, validity, and uncertainties of the general circulation models, the sea level rise projections, and the projections of future AGW-related environmental, human, and economic impacts.
6 — The costs and benefits of alternative public policy responses to climate change including the practicality of relying on wind and solar for our energy needs, and the future role of nuclear power.
7 — The costs and benefits of massive government spending on Green New Deal programs versus the use of government-mandated carbon pricing mechanisms combined with an aggressive application of the Clean Air Act.
It is quite evident that the debate Scott Adams wants to moderate must be done in an extended series of debating sessions, and that a portion of each session must be devoted to educating the layman concerning the scientific and analytical basis — or the lack thereof — for the arguments being presented.
Sorry, but this literally makes no sense. Perhaps you are glossing over some important details do to limited space, but the hockey stick is a graph of temperature over time. CO2 is not mentioned. (Arguably, the audience is either aware of the growth of CO2 versus time, or will be shown that graph as part of a presentation, but you literally said it is a persuasive scommunications tool. You didn’t state that it might be persuasive coupled with other information. Is that what you meant?)
Some versions of the Hockey Stick graph include the Keeling Curve, others don’t.
In any case, anyone who has taken a high school science class in the last fifteen years, or who has seen news stories covering the science of climate change, has seen some version of this iconic graph and understands very clearly what message it is sending.
To wit: ‘CO2 has been the earth’s temperature control knob for the last several thousand years, and it will continue to be the control knob for the next several hundred years at the very least.’
As a communication tool, the Hockey Stick is very effective in pushing its basic message, which is that the earth’s temperature rise over the last one-hundred years is directly and strongly correlated with much increased GHG emissions.
In other words, correlation is causation is the name of the Hockey Stick’s communication game plan. As both a communication tool and as a marketing tool targeted at the general public and at the science interested layman, it has no peer.
As far as I am able to observe the situation, not a one of the mainstream climate scientists now raising alarm about the dangers of climate change harbors any doubts whatsoever concerning the Hockey Stick’s validity as a scientific research product.
And so to raise doubts concerning the accuracy of the Hockey Stick in the minds of the millions of people who have seen it and who clearly understand its message is one means of sparking a useful public debate over the science of climate change.
Another and perhaps much more effective means of sparking a useful public debate is for climate activists to began demanding serious personal and economic sacrifices on the part of the voting public. Doing that kind of thing will get everyone’s attention, no doubt about it.
An easy way to counter the message of the Hocky Stick Graph, is to overlay it with other historical temperature reconstructions. The HSG is the only graph that has the shape it does.
Greg, that is fine as far as it goes. But the problem this presents is that some knowledgeable skeptics of today’s climate science regard the science of proxy thermometry as being a total crock.
At least as far as its ability to achieve a 0.1C per decade resolution, something which is necessary if the paleoclimate temperature record is to be usefully compared to the modern temperature record.
Scott Adams himself has seen similar kinds of computational exercises in the business world.
For those who are skeptical of these kinds of exercises, and who would label these exercises as computational voodoo, then why should any paleoclimate temperature record based on proxy thermometry have credibility?
Beta: I was thinking of the historical graphs that were created before Mann’s Hocky Stick. Even James Hansen created a historical temperature graph that had the Mediaeval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. Mann’s Hocky Stick has neither.
As for any specific paleoclimate reconstruction, yea, none of them are accurate. They are an attempt, but each one has its own issues and doubts. And even with sediment analysis, two locations of the same lake will produce two different temperature series. None of them can be said to be the real-deal.
That is the beauty of the GND Beta; it will now be possible to show the individual what the fear-mongers are asking of them in monetary and lifestyle hits. That is why one of the authors of the Senate version of the GND, Sen. Markley (D ranged), is outraged that Senators will be forced to vote on his bill; people will see the costs and identify the people supporting them.
What has happened in France is instructive for predicting how an anti-carbon policy based on Green New Deal methods geared towards massive government spending on green projects would fare, versus one based on putting a stiff price on carbon and imposing highly coercive government regulation of all carbon emissions.
While the policy of sharply raising the prices of carbon fuels was being considered in France, its future impacts on the average French energy consumer were mere abstractions. Only after the policy was in effect and was having its predictable impacts did the Yellow Vests have any incentive to out in force to oppose it.
Macron’s anti-nuclear policy is in the same boat. Shuttering nuclear power plants and replacing them with wind and solar as part of an anti-carbon energy policy is completely absurd. However, the predictable impacts happen in the future and are likewise mere abstractions at this point.
The service lives of most nuclear power plants can be extended to eighty years. How far will Macron and his energy policy advisors backtrack on their announced plans for shuttering these plants if and when the cost and reliability impacts become too large to ignore?
You seem to have missed the point.
As a test, I did a google search for “hockey stick graph”. That search triggered a list of images. I looked at the forst 34, and only a sinlge one included CO2 data.
It might well be the case that this graph is an important tool as part of an argument that CO2 is an important driver of climate (whichh, by the way, is true), but when you say ” nothing else mainstream climate science can present to the uninformed public comes close to the Hockey Stick” you leave the impression that the graph itself tells a story. As you own response helps clarify, the graph is part of a message, but only a part.
Scott’s message was primarily about communication challenges. One communications challenge exists when you gloss over implicit items, expecting the audience to know them. Making them explicit is tedious, but necessary.
Phil
you say
that CO2 is an important driver of climate (whichh, by the way, is true),
I say that the influence of CO2 is nothing,
really,
just doing an empirical experiment
click on my name
here is the hockey stick that convinced me..
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/09/hockey-stick-observed-in-noaa-ice-core-data/
Can you believe this was ten years ago?
well
sorry
we cannot see the graphs anymore
someone did not want us to see them anymore?
I had no problem viewing them and yes, that was a great article.
Thanks for the link back henryp.
Those may be the visuals that Beta Blocker thought necessary in the comment just a little above.
All the graphics were missing for me too.
The very first one goes to
Which is being hosted by the Foresight Institute. Therefor it’s not a WUWT image archive, it’s the external link gone missing.
H.R.
thanks!
Greg:
Indeed, like H.R., I was able to see the graphs again by going to the first link, which include both the graphs and the scriptures.
https://foresight.org/some-historical-perspective/
We must keep that link, as the grpahs clearly prove that man’s influence is nothing compared to the natural elements that governs the temperature on our planets.
well
sorry
we cannot see the graphs anymore
someone did not want us to see them anymore?
We are still waiting for an upgrade to the commenting software, before pictures will appear in the posts again, henry.
Now you have me wondering what the heck I was looking at. No graphs in the article itself, but the top link or one of the top links in the article took me right to the graphs.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/02/20/scott-adams-the-hockey-stick-is-literally-a-symbol-of-lying/#comment-2636159
He is not really talking about climate change, he is talking about how you persuade people; and using climate change as an example.
I have has some training in physiological operations and I agree that the stating point is to identify your target audience, because no one campaign will appeal to everybody.
All 3 of arguments he lists can be covered by the one basic truism “if it seems too good to be true, it is not true.”
Simplistic arguments with clear conclusions appeal to the young or ignorant. Experienced people know that things are never that clear cut, and if someone is claiming they are, he is lying. So presenting simplistic claims to experienced people gets those claims rejected.
When he said that “The hockey stick is literally a symbol of lying” he was not talking about Mann’s one specifically. He was saying that many con men use such simplistic graphs, so experienced people automatically reject them.
Regarding convincing me. The first thing I want is a clear agreement on what we are debating. The alarmists like to pretend that if they can prove that the climate is changing, everything else follows, it does not. The first thing I rejected is the idea that a hotter planet is a problem, it was only later that I realised that the heating and its causes were being lied about as well. As for the “green” solutions, they all bad.
To the ignorant, scare tactics are more persuasive than factual evidence, because they play upon people’s most basic emotions. The ignorant person will err on the side of caution that something bad will happen if nothing is done. Because they don’t know which side of the issue is right or wrong. That there is more exposure to them through media on one side of the issue, they will accept that as proof it is true and the other side must be wrong. Perception is persuasive when you’re being indoctrinated to believe in anything by massive media and institutions of indoctrination your whole life, that is just from one side. Making your Bullshit Filter so plugged up that nothing else can pass through it.
Belief in an ephemeral concept like climate change is at the surface of the average humans perceptions; it does not grab him at the gut level. That is why the alarmists are now pushing extreme weather impacts on individuals; it gets at their guts. The “if it bleeds, it leads” media and fellow travelers hype it endlessly.
Here’s the fun part: When practical people (most of us) are shown the true costs, they vote with their wallets. Think Yellow Vests.
The main point here is why we do not want young people and “journalists” making decisions for us. They are inexperienced and easily persuaded by bull***t.
As of the time of this video, Scott did not have an advocate lined up for the warming side. What are the odds someone will debate Tony? This isn’t going to work as a 2 hour live debate. It has to be done online as a series of blog posts with heavy use of data analysis. Some people will be able to follow the arguments and presentations; others will not. While I see this as valuable in increasing the understanding of the issues, I don’t think it will move the needle much. There is too much money and reputational risk at stake. Scott will be lucky to even start the process by finding Tony’s debate opponent.
Now, there’s a “gotcha”! The climate scare people have been notoriously unwilling to engage in public debate with any really serious skeptics, so how is Adams’ idea going to move forward? That is, assuming that his “debunk the skeptic” model is a good model for debate, which it might not be (see Andrew Miceli’s comment above).
As for Tony Heller being a good pick for a skeptic, I recently saw his video ripping apart an unwise NASA tweet, otherwise I know little about him. Never mind, anyway, it just seems it would be a more natural fit for Heller to be debunking various CAGW claims? Then if some alarmist is willing to stand up to be debunked, who is impartial enough to declare who won the debate?
How about we just have the debate and not declare any winner. Do we really need a trophy statement at the end? It’s not going to change anyone’s mind anyway. Just let it be.
I think Scott is smart enough to realize that if there isn’t a “Top” Climate Scientist willing to debate Tony, then Tony is right and wins the debate in a walkover. At least I hope so.
And given their track record of dodging FOIA requests, conspiring to delete emails, data and their work, there is no way in hell any of them will step up to the plate.
If you go to Tony’s site, it looks like Tom Steyr has picked up the gauntlet. It remains to be seen if he backpedals on this, or simply ignores any follow ups.
I hope potholer54 isn’t the one. He clearly demonstrated his lack of knowledge in the Heller/potholer youtube exchange. Sadly he may be the only one willing as no CAGW proponent wants the egg on his face.
Scott is doing good work here.
Perhaps persuasion is a better mode?
For science has been wilfully evaded in the committees of the Climate Change Bureaus for decades.
What many people seem to have missed,is that C.A.G.W also known as Climate Change is a creation of our bureaucracies.
Their success in propagating this Meme of Climatic Doom,is dependent on their willingness to ignore science and commission the manufacture of evidence to justify the preplanned policies.
I look forward to the mass cull of the bureaus,once the taxpaying citizens clue into how much these abuses of power have cost us.
For inherent in the cover ups is the obvious,;”your government has declared war. On you.”
Canada seems to have lead the way.
Seems we might be good at something after all.
Systemic Corruption as a fully fledged Kleptocracy.
Do you mean that Canada is leading the way in being even more corrupt than some other countries, or in being more easily obstructed and/or pushed around by extreme enviro-protesters?
For certain, the three TV networks here in Canada, CBC, CTV and Global News all fit the naive “youngsters/journalists” profile that Scott Adams appears to be poking fun at. In fairness, I get the sense there may be some hope for Global News at the local news desk level — on the national level, they are as bad as the other two, from what I’ve seen anyway.
The question that arises is, if Adams can make the alarmist side sound so incredibly naive, as compared to lots of business people with more experience/skepticism, doesn’t that pretty much end the debate as far as he is concerned, right there — or shouldn’t it end right there, in favor of informed skeptics, generally? I like Adams ideas sometimes, but I also worry that his thought processes are tricky enough that he could end up becoming an apologist for ‘poor misunderstood climate science authorities’, who, in themselves obviously couldn’t be that inexperienced/naive/misinformed, etc.
Real Temperatures don’t lie
=======================
Are you interested in seeing real temperature data (NOT temperature anomalies).
I am talking about actual absolute temperatures, like 21.2 degrees Celsius. Not an anomaly, like +1.0 degree Celsius.
I have got the average temperature, the hottest month (summer) temperature, and the coldest month (winter) temperature, for 216 countries.
I have combined the temperature data, with population data, to show how real temperatures vary, for all of the people who live on the Earth.
====================
For a graph showing temperature and population by country, see:
https://agree-to-disagree.com/temp-population-by-country
====================
For graphs showing detailed temperature data for 216 countries, see
https://agree-to-disagree.com/how-hot-is-that-country
https://agree-to-disagree.com/temp-population-by-country
===============
The graph is excellent once you figure out how to read it.
https://agree-to-disagree.com/temp-population-by-country
===============
The graph is excellent once you figure out how to read it.
Where is the formal scientific definition for the “theory of climate change”?
I keep hearing how it is a fact, it is settled science. Well habeas corpus. show me the body of science where it is formally defined.
My favourite chart of Tony Heller’s is the one of atmospheric CO2 versus adjustments made to temperature over the years. It’s an almost perfect linear correlation…
” It’s an almost perfect linear correlation”
That was the whole idea behind creating the bogus, bastardized modern-era Hockey Stick chart (the chart that dishonestly shows the 1930’s to be cooler than subsequent years). They wanted to show a correlation between CO2 increases and temperature increases.
The bogus, bastardized Hockey Stick chart is the ONLY “evidence” the alarmists have.
Here’s a comparison of the real temperature profile versus this made-up, bogus, bastardized Hockey Stick chart from NASA’s website:
https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hansen_07/
You will see two charts side-by-side. On the left is the Hansen 1999 US surface temperature chart, and on the right is a bogus, bastardized global surface temperature Hockey Stick chart.
Notice how the temperature profiles of both charts are *very* different. The US chart shows 1934 as being hotter than any subsequent year, Hansen saying that 1934 was 0.5C hotter than 1998. Hansen 1999 only goes through the year 1999 but we can extend this view by using the UAH satellite chart to compare 1934 to “the hottest year evah!”, 2016, because the UAH chart also shows the comparison between 1998 and 2016 and what it shows is that 1934 was 0.5C hotter than 1998, and that makes 1934 0.4C hotter than 2016. So, 1934 is the hottest year evah in recorded history not 2016.
So the Hansen 1999 US chart shows a temperature downtrend in the US since 1934. The exact opposite of what the alarmists say is happening globally, claiming temperatures have been on a continuous upswing for decades and it is hotter now than any time in history.
The chart on the right is the infamous Hockey Stick chart. A chart that has been manipulated by dishonest people to tell a lie about what is happening in the real world.
Notice how the data manipulators have cooled the past and warmed the present changing the Hansen 1999 temperature profile of periodic wamings and periodic coolings, to a temperature profle of constantly climbing temperatures. This was done to make the Hoekey Stick chart appear to be correlated with the rise in CO2 which shows a similar continuously climbing profile.
The temperature record manipulators cannot justify the changes they have made to the temperature record. It was all done in secret, and the manipulators don’t want to tell anyone what they did or how they did it.
The Hansen 1999 US temperature chart profile is the real temperature profile of the globe, not the bogus, bastardized Hockey Stick charts.
How can I say that? I say that because if you look at just about any unmodified, historic temperature chart, they all look like the Hansen 1999 US chart. They all show the 1930’s to be as warm or warmer than subsequent years.
You can understand why the Climategate charlatans wanted to hide this: If it was as warm in the 1930’s, when CO2 was not a significant factor, as it is today, then that means the warmth of today is not necessarily caused by CO2, and it means that we are not experiencing unprecedented warming today.
That blows up the whole CAGW narrative.
And the bogus, bastardized Hockey Stick chart is the ONLY thing the alarmists can point to as “evidence” that CO2 is heating up the atmosphere. They have nothing! A fantasy surface temperature chart is evidence of NOTHING!
I will be happy to produce local and regional charts from various parts of the world that match the temperature profile of the Hansen 1999 US chart, upon request. NONE of these unmodified charts resemble the bogus, bastardized Hockey Stick chart profile. The Hockey Stick is unique.
Here’s the UAH satellite chart:
That would indeed be interesting. But here’s the problem. Just as their half-truths and poor logic have made us skeptical of establishment scientists’ data, so too do Tony Heller’s theoretical errors and prickliness in the face of their being pointed out cast doubt on what he provides.
Supposedly the code for reproducing his plot and thereby verifying his data’s provenance is available. And I would like to think it would confirm the conclusions his plots imply. But short of doing that–for which few of us have the time and ability–we’re left to wonder.
If instead someone meticulous like Steve McIntyre had audited Mr. Heller’s data (for, say, changes in location and time of observation) and someone articulate like Ross McKitrick could put what Mr. McIntyre found into English, then a much wider audience could have confidence in what Mr. Heller’s graphs seem to say.
Until then, Mr. Heller’s graphs remain merely tantalizing. There are too many red flags for some of us to rely on them.
And, since I know nothing about Mr. Abbott, experience with Mr. Heller suggests it would be prudent to require some similar “chain of evidence” information for Mr. Abbott’s data. If it could be relied on, though, I would find it compelling.
I have some statistical training, but I had never carried out a Principal component analysis (a key aspect of the temperature reconstruction) as part of my day-to-day work. I did download the spreadsheet a few years ago and reproduced the results, so I’m one tiny data point that can confirm the results.
I can’t argue with that, Joe. The more varification the better as far as I’m concerned.
Not all the historical charts I was offering to supply come from Tony Heller. Some do, some don’t
Here’s what my (slightly exaggerated) impression is of what Mr. Heller’s data are: non-adjusted numbers from a fixed set of stations that have all been in existence throughout the time sequence and haven’t been moved or had their observation times changed.
If that’s what they are, they’re in my view far superior to the data we usually see, even if they are limited to U.S. stations. And (before he blocked me for pointing out his video’s errors) that’s why I was repeatedly tempted to cite the resultant graphs. But I don’t have confidence that I really knew what I was seeing.
Frustrating.
The most interesting thing about Mr. Adam’s presentation is the make-up of the two groups being persuaded. One group is experienced in reality, wise and difficult to fool. The other group is less acquainted with reality due to lack of experience or constant exposure to artificial environments like ‘academia’.
Put more bluntly, Adams has divided humans into two groups: those who can detect BS and those who cannot. Those who can detect BS are skeptical of a man-made climate change crisis. Those who cannot detect BS are preparing to sacrifice modern civilization to a deadly cure for which there is no disease.
I guess I can see why Scott Adams picked Tony Heller as the most persuasive skeptic; Mr. Heller makes a lot of easy-to-follow videos that provide a lot of historical data and sources.
But when–as we all do–he makes errors, he doesn’t own up to them.
An example is the basic feedback-theory error I describe in the thread at https://twitter.com/JosephHBorn/status/1095049917272182784. It’s quite understandable that someone would make such an error; even EEs, who in my experience are those most likely to understand the field, can flub it. So you’d think if he committed the error in a video he would be happy someone caught it so he could correct the video.
Instead, Mr. Heller blocked me when I brought the error to his attention.
I’m not a data guy, so I would love it if I could count on someone like Mr. Heller to inform me about the data. But when someone not only gets something I know about wrong but also refuses even to discuss it, I question what he tells me about other things.
So I wish that someone with as big a following as Scott Adams would have picked someone more reliable than Tony Heller as his duty skeptic.
It is important to understand that Scott Adams isn’t trying to determine the scientific truth of climate change and of global warming.
He wants to moderate an informed debate between the mainstream scientists and the skeptic scientists, and to do this in a way which is understandable to the layman and which uses the most persuasive arguments each side can muster.
By using a format where the debate progresses through a series of Periscope interviews he conducts with scientists on opposing sides of the question, he avoids the problem of the contentious rhetoric that might be hurled by each side at the other while the debate is in progress.
There is a problem with Adams’ approach. His format cannot do what he wants it to do unless a prior foundation of common understanding is created wherein the most basic tenets of today’s climate science are presented and described as a necessary prior step in preparing for the debate.
Summarizing mainstream climate science theory in a way that is understandable to the layman; that is short enough to keep the layman’s attention without causing their eyes to glaze over; and that is true to the basic tenets of the mainstream theory is a tough nut to crack.
The practical reality here is that mainstream climate scientists now own the ground on which the scientific debate must take place. Anyone on the skeptic side who doesn’t recognize the reality of the situation will lose the debate by default.
What if no one from the mainstream side shows up? Moreover, what if someone shows up but there isn’t common agreement among the mainstream scientist, the skeptic scientist, and the debate’s moderator as to what mainstream climate theory actually states?
If there is no opponent, there is no debate. Moreover, if the opponents show up but there is no common understanding of the theories behind mainstream climate science, then the debaters will be talking past each other and the moderator will not be able to keep the debate on track.
In any case, if no one from the mainstream side with stature and credentials shows up, then one of the skeptic scientists must put on a mainstream climate scientist’s hat and defend the mainstream position with as much clarity, ardor, and determination as the mainstreamers would do themselves.
This isn’t what most readers of the WUWT blog would ever recommend doing. On the other hand, the debate cannot accomplish its objectives unless both sides are fairly represented — even if circumstances dictate that a skeptic scientist must explain and defend the mainstream position.
This first attempt at the debate is a trial run. Once an assessment of the first trial run is complete, it will be found wanting in some number of ways. And so another trial run will probably be attempted, one which is better framed and better managed than the first.
How many trial runs will be necessary before The Adams Method has been perfected? My guess is three or four times between now and the 2020 election.
It seems Heller was referring to this effect I just found on Wikipedia: “Mathematically, positive feedback is defined as a positive loop gain around a closed loop of cause and effect.[1][3] That is, positive feedback is in phase with the input, in the sense that it adds to make the input larger.[4][5] Positive feedback tends to cause system instability. When the loop gain is positive and above 1, there will typically be exponential growth, increasing oscillations, chaotic behavior or other divergences from equilibrium.[3] System parameters will typically accelerate towards extreme values, which may damage or destroy the system”
So your disagreement with Heller that above 1 feedback is also with common knowledge.
Sorry, I have no idea what your last sentence means and how it follows from what went before. But, contrary to what Mr. Heller seems to believe, instability does not necessarily follow from feedback’s exceeding stimulus.
“So I wish that someone with as big a following as Scott Adams would have picked someone more reliable than Tony Heller as his duty skeptic”
Who to pick from the unreliable alarmist side?
Why, James Hansen, of course.
Very interesting observations from Scott Adams. I must admit when I first saw Mikie Mann’s infamous hockey stick almost 20 years now, my thought was exactly BS! What informed my opinion was the realization that the medieval warm period and little ice age were not included on the graph. BIG RED FLAG! My BS detector pegged!
Given the recent roll out of the “New Green Deal” by the loony left in this country, I just shake my head at the idiocy of the left. Here’s how to refute the New Green Dealers: If CO2 is such a problem and that if even just 1/2 of the claimed environmental catastrophes are certain to occur, then a sensible and informed greener person would be screaming for a “New Manhattan Project” that would kick-start crash development and construction to entirely convert our energy grid to NUCLEAR POWER! Nuclear power is the only solution if indeed CO2 is the planet destroyer they claim. The fact that none of the ranting Greeners or true believer Democrats are proposing such a crash program of nuclear power generation CLEARLY SAYS that they are NOT SERIOUS. They only are jumping on the Climate Change Bandwagon because they see a path to more liberal governmental control of the economy and a huge pot of tax revenues to exploit!
It really does just boil down to this this straight forward observation: If a greener or liberal is not in favor of nuclear power they are not serious. The problem of CO2 must not be as bad as they are screaming it is. QED!
Scott Adams is OK & at least isn’t a liberal sycophant, but many of us here have been studying the AGW issue for far longer than him & have the proper backgrounds to do so, so I’m not really interested in his “project”. Adams says the real issue isn’t scientific? WTF?
Scott isn’t arguing more and better science is unnecessary. He is making the point that there are two groups talking past each other, and the problem isn’t a lack of good science, it’s a lack of appropriate communications tools.
You aren’t the target for his project. The targets include mainstream Americans who have neither the desire nor the time to delve into the subject in great depth, and rely on mainstream media to help form their opinions, as well as legislators and other policymakers who need a better understanding of the issues.
Citizen, here’s your ‘high quality’:
https://www.google.com/search?q=high+quality+pro+warming+blog&oq=high+quality+pro+warming+blog&aqs=chrome.
Have a good time.
LdB February 20, 2019 at 7:13 pm
Woah she passed an economics curriculum, I don’t want to think about how she did that.
_________________________________________________
Economics and CAGW – ain’t that the same.
Predictions on economic development drawn out of thin air; and foresaying doom until it gets real.
– voila, the next finance crisis, I told you!
First year is ‘Colloquium in Retail Shopping 101’
What would it take for me to change my mind?
Predictions that happen. From both CO2 & natural cycles camps.
And I don’t mean schlock “snow will be a thing of the past” self immolating stuff.
I mean how many degrees warmer or colder over what time span.
Any debate about climate change must start, maybe even end, with the theory that water vapor will greatly magnify any effects of CO2. ECS is the only game in town; hammer on the lack of a hot spot in the tropical troposphere.
Water vapor has its own effect.
There is no evidence that it “amplifies” any CO2, Methane, other GHG, or all of them in toto.
Where does the extra energy come from to amplify?
Patrick, you seem to be arguing against the radiative theory of GHGs. Is that true?
Dave
Click on my name to read my report showing there is no man made warming
You didn’t answer my question, HenryP. Are there radiative effects related to GHGs?
Dave, yes. Some gases do radiate, or rather: re-radiate.
Hence, with high % RH you would still put on your sunglasses, even when the sun is shining in your back? The re-radiation coming off the water (g) still irritates your eye, hence you want your sun glasses,
in fact
The best way to experience re-radiation is to stand in a moist dark forest just before dawn on a cloudless night. Note that water vapour also absorbs in the visible region of the spectrum. So as the first light of sun hits on the water vapour around you can see the light coming from every direction. Left, right, bottom up, top down. You can see this for yourself until of course the sun’s light becomes too bright in the darkness for you to observe the re-radiated light from the water vapour.
A second way to experience how re-radiation works is to measure the humidity in the air and the temperature on a certain exposed plate, again on a cloudless day, at a certain time of day for a certain amount of time. Note that as the humidity goes up, and all else is being kept equal, the temperature effected by the sun on the plate is lower. This is because, like carbon dioxide, water vapour has absorption in the infra red part of the spectrum.
We can conclude from these simple experiments that what happens is this: in the wavelengths areas where absorption takes place, the molecule starts acting like a little mirror, the strength of which depends on the amount of absorption taking place inside the molecule. Because the molecule is more or less like a perfect sphere, ca. 62,5% of a certain amount of light (radiation) is send back in the direction where it came from. This is the warming or cooling effect of a gas hit by radiation. Think of putting your brights on in misty conditions. The light is returned to you?
Unfortunately, in their time, Tyndall and Arrhenius could not see the whole picture of the spectrum of a gas which is why they got stuck on seeing only the warming properties of a gas.
If people would understand this principle, they would not singularly identify green house gases (GHG’s) by pointing at the areas in the 5-20 um region (where earth emits pre-dominantly) but they would also look in the area 0-5 um (where the sun emits pre-dominantly) for possible cooling effects.
For proof that, for example, CO2 is (also) cooling the atmosphere by re-radiating sunshine, see here:
http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/0004-637X/644/1/551/64090.web.pdf?request-id=76e1a830-4451-4c80-aa58-4728c1d646ec
They measured the re-radiation from CO2 as it bounced back to earth from the moon. So the direction was sun-earth [CO2]-moon -earth. Follow the green line in fig. 6, bottom. Note that it already starts at 1.2 um, then one peak at 1.4 um, then various peaks at 1.6 um and 3 big peaks at 2 um. It all comes back in fig. 6 top.
This paper here shows that there is absorption of CO2 at between 0.21 and 0.19 um (close to 202 nm):
http://www.nat.vu.nl/en/sec/atom/Publications/pdf/DUV-CO2.pdf
There are other papers that I can look for again that will show that there are also absorptions of CO2 at between 0.18 and 0.135 um and between 0.125 and 0.12 um.
We already know from the normal IR spectra that CO2 has big absorption between 4 and 5 um.
So, to sum it up, we know that CO2 has absorption in the 14-15 um range causing some warming (by re-radiating earthshine) but as shown and proved above it also has a number of absorptions in the 0-5 um range causing cooling (by re-radiating sunshine). This cooling happens at all levels where the sunshine hits on the carbon dioxide same as the earthshine. The way from the bottom to the top is the same as from top to the bottom. So, my question is: how much cooling and how much warming is caused by the CO2? How was the experiment done to determine this and where are the test results? (I am afraid that simple heat retention testing might not work here, we have to use real sunshine and real earthshine to determine the effect in W/m3 / [0.03%- 0.06%]CO2/m2/24hours).
Anyway, like I said, I did an empirrical test and I could not find any warming caused by more CO2. I am afraid the plusses cancel the minuses? the effect is too small compared to the natural factors at work.
Thanks, henryp. I appreciate your effort.
Dave, I am so sorry. The link to the report that must try and understand does not work anymore.
Here is the latest link.
http://w.astro.berkeley.edu/~kalas/disksite/library/turnbull06a.pdf
But Mr. Heller is not the right guy to make that argument.
Beginning at 11:53 of his video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE-zY0roNfw he completely flubs how feedback works. At 12:06, for instance, he says that “If the feedback is greater than the signal, it will go out of control and there’s no way to stop it.” Not true.
H.R.
thanks!
Greg:
Indeed, like H.R., I was able to see the graphs again by going to the first link, which include both the graphs and the scriptures.
https://foresight.org/some-historical-perspective/
We must keep that link, as the grpahs clearly prove that man’s influence is nothing compared to the natural elements that governs the temperature on our planets.
I like Tony Heller.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/08/02/carbon-leak-may-have-warmed-the-planet-for-11000-years-encouraging-human-civilization/#comment-2419813
Summary of the big picture:
a. The global cooling period from ~1940 to 1977 (during a time of increasing atmospheric CO2) demonstrates that climate sensitivity to increased atmospheric CO2 is near-zero – so close to zero as to be insignificant.
b. There is overwhelming evidence that the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere and the oceans is not dangerously high – it is dangerously low, too low for the continued survival of life on Earth.
c. CO2 abatement and sequestration schemes are nonsense.
Regards, Allan
View this animation of the warmists’ reduction/elimination of the global cooling period from ~1940 to ~1975:
Source: Tony Heller
https://realclimatescience.com/all-temperature-adjustments-monotonically-increase/
Animations such as that are indeed compelling, and I would love to use them.
But my experience with him on other things makes me question whether his presentation isn’t all that it seems. Don’t get me wrong; I’m inclined to believe that animation. But without completely vetting the data myself–which, admittedly, I’m too lazy to do–I won’t cite it.
My top 5 climate skeptics
Richard Lindzen
Freeman Dyson
Judith Curry
Roy Spencer
Chris Essex
If you convince all 5 to change their mind, I will too with good scientific evidence of course
While your approach has some appeal, it is ultimately an appeal to authority, a logical fallacy.
I am often persuaded by Judith Curry, but I believe her because she convinces me, not just because she say so.
You missed the part “with good scientific evidence of course.” Their expertise is important in judging what is good scientific evidence in their respective fields
Lindzen – atmospheric physics
Dyson – mathematical physics
Curry – climatology
Spencer – meteorology
Essex – fluid dynamics, chaos theory
“When you’ve lost Scott Adams …”
What was that quote about Walter Cronkite?
Geez, what a fully dysfunctional website: https://www.pscp.tv/ScottAdamsSays/1gqGvnVYBYBGB