By Robert Bradley Jr.
“If ‘some humans survive’ is the only thing we care about, then climate change is a non-issue. I think it’s certain that ‘some’ humans will survive almost any climate change. They may be living short, hard lives of poverty, but they’ll be alive.”
“Future humans, as they live in a climate dystopia: ‘I thought he cared about the environment’.”
“I find the path we’re on now — the rich world survives (if lucky), but abandons everyone else — to be morally problematic.”
Professor Andrew Dessler of Texas A&M is the alarmist’s alarmist. At a lunch some years ago, he remarked to me (and his more moderate colleague Gerald North) that humankind would have to live underground because of anthropogenic warming. And he stated that fossil fuels had made us slaves, a deep-ecology argument that has been ably turned around by Matt Ridley).
The IPCC estimates climate sensitivity between 1.5° – 4.5°C; Dessler estimates 2.4° – 4.6°C. The mid-to-upper range is a lot of warming–and much more than what we have seen to date well into the carbon-based energy era.
Dessler knows he is right. And I do not doubt that he believes himself, being a nature-is-optimal-and-fragile ecologist at heart and not knowing (or at least not acknowledging) important contrary arguments outside of his field of specialization (Vaclav Smil on energy density; Robert Mendelsohn on climate benefits and free-market adaptation).
Professor Dessler is certain that man-made climate change will be steep and wreck the ecosphere and economy. He attributes bad motives to those who disagree with him. And he downplays contrary argument and evidence. Sum it up and you get … an angry scientist letting off steam via stormy tweets.
I have previously described Dessler as the The Certain Climate Alarmist. I have warned Texas politicians to beware of his offer to present his (one-sided) view of climate science and public policy without a skeptic (of climate alarmism, not climate science) in the room.
————
As part of my research of Dessler’s oeuvre, I performed a tweet review to understand the professor’s mentality for background re his books The Science and Politics of Global Climate Change (2011) and Introduction to Modern Climate Change (2016).
I categorize more than a dozen notable tweets in the last six or so months. (A far more interesting dive would look at several years of his tweets.)
Adaptation a Joke
- Adaptation does indeed work. When temps get too high, switch from black t-shirts to white ones. (January 4, 2019)
Comment:
Adaptation is no joke; it is a growing, central part of the whole climate debate. The mitigation window has long been closing. The climate math worsens over time with the log (not linear) forcing of CO2. Dessler himself pretty much said as much:
If we want to protect ecosystems & keep the Earth looking pretty much like it looks now, I have some bad news for you. That boat has sailed. The only possible way to achieve this is aggressive geoengineering (both SRM & CDR), and even if that’s possible it’s not a sure thing. (November 20, 2018)
And there is evidence that nature, not only humankind, is adapting to change to “internalize” the negative effects of weather/climate to leave the positive effects of the human influence on climate.
Also, Professor Dessler should make peace with what might be the most important climate statistic of all: the dramatic decline in human mortality from climate/weather extremes. In this regard, the risks of climate policy, not only the physical side of climate, should be acknowledged.
Blatant Disrespect for Skeptics – some examples of Dessler’s Tweets
And, of course, let’s not forget Roy Spencer’s window into the denial machine. You can be a scientist that no one takes seriously and national TV will come to you so you can mislead the audience. Pretty nice gig — and pretty easy. (December 18, 2018)
===
I often think about how great it would be to be a skeptic. You don’t have to write papers, which is really hard. You don’t have to write proposals, which is also hard. You don’t even have to do research. Instead, you just say things that mislead to audience craving to be misled. (December 18, 2018)
===
While he had credibility at one time, lately [Richard] Lindzen’s pronouncements on climate are more of a clown-show than anything else. Again, the fact that people still quote him is because there’s no one better. (December 17, 2018)
===
The column quotes Lindzen to cast doubt on CO2’s impact on the climate system. Some people don’t believe the 97% consensus, but if the consensus weren’t so strong, why would the same few people get quoted all the time: Lindzen, Curry, Spencer, Christy, etc. — the list is short. (December 17, 2018)
===
I love the Monckton et al. amicus brief the same way I love the Jackass movies. They’re dumb and of no redeeming value, but man are they entertaining. So here’s the question. Does anyone know what he’s referring to that has already been published? (March 22, 2018)
===
If you wonder why “gone emeritus” scientists become skeptics … Ray Bates is a retired guy that the scientific community long ago moved past. But, as a skeptic, he’s suddenly the center of the debate, taken seriously by people who want to undermine policy. (December 24, 2018)
===
Ultimately, I can’t be a skeptic because I can’t throw science under the bus. (December 18, 2018)
Comment:
This is a scary reminder that the “Climategate” mentality–where the ‘tribe’ employs methodological tricks, perverts the peer review process, and even dreams of physical harm to their intellectual adversaries–is alive and well.
While not of Climategate infamy, Professor Dessler has directly contributed to the freezeout by orchestrating a political statementfor his colleagues to sign at Texas A&M. He also dismissed Climategate as a mere distraction rather than a scandal.
Why would I or you go into this field where you would be discriminated against and marginalized by the Desslers of the world? Same thing for Sociology and History or Critical Studies in academia that are overwhelmingly Statist (versus free market) and intolerant of opposing views.
Politicization of quite unsettled science does two things: it attracts the wrong people to the field and discourages the right talent.
Certain Science, Certain Alarmism
I think we need a hashtag for #ScienceIsNotModest to educate climate deniers that we actually do know what’s going to happen. @stephenmoore @VanceGinn … .@StephenMoore: “Scientists should have the modesty to admit we have no idea what’ll happen as climate change continues. Too many variables to hazard a decent guess, but giving government more power is the most dangerous threat to our planet.” #ampFW https://ly/2DOpzzC
Comment:
Note the “denier” insult. Why can’t he just say “skeptic” as in critic of climate alarmism? And yes, Moore is right. The major threat to energy sustainability is Statism where an intellectual/political elite make energy choices instead of each of us as voluntary consumers. (Dessler loves the authoritarian Green New Deal, not surprisingly.)
The Pause (“Hiatus” of Warming)
I was just joking when I previously said that “no warming since 2016” would become a denier thing, but I didn’t take into account that deniers don’t have any better arguments, so they’re stuck making these transparently dumb arguments. (January 3, 2019)
are we still arguing over the hiatus? here’s what you need to know: slowdowns (and speedups) occur naturally. don’t let short-term variations mislead you. trends over 10-15 years can be quite different from the long-term trend. can we move on now? (December 19, 2018)
Comment:
Funny thing, coming out of the very hot El Nino-driven 1998, Richard Kerr in Science magazine reported the scientific consensus that that this level of global warming would soon be the new normal. And then in 2009 that a warming “jolt” would replace the “pause.” Yes, there was an El Nino driven jump in 2015/16, but we could well be back into the “pause.”
Not Easy Being Green
I fully support scientists who make the decision for themselves not to travel, fully aware of the consequences. But we should not bully younger scientists to commit career suicide in return for a de minimus contribution to the climate problem. (December 30, 2018)
Comment:
Everyone’s “de minimus” still adds up to a “de minimus.” Even major public policies result in de minimus. Asia is building or planning to build 1,200 coal plants–that’s a reality that puts the whole US in a bit of a “de minimus”.
Mitigation Policy
In the end, those arguing against carbon taxes are all eventually revealed to be climate deniers. I know of zero exceptions. November 30, 2018
Comment:
Does Dessler know of any alarmist that is against government pricing of CO2? I would take alarmism more seriously if climatologists said that the climate was highly sensitive to GHG forcing, the mitigation window was closing, and we needed to focus on free-market, health-is-wealth adaptation.
Unmitigated Alarmism
… I find the path we’re on now — the rich world survives (if lucky), but abandons everyone else — to be morally problematic. November 20, 2018
Comment:
With views like this, one would think that the good news about carbon dioxide–from CO2 fertilization to lower real-world (versus model) warming–would be welcomed with huge sighs of relief. But twitter rants against skeptics seem to be the substitute against mid-course corrections that maybe, just maybe, the climate alarm is overblown.
Something is very wrong here….
I am amazed that any rational human being, let alone a credentialed scientist, would believe that 2-4 degrees of warming will cause a collapse of the ecosystem and the downfall of civilization. But here we have one. This is a little like sitting around the campfire telling ghost stories than being too afraid to go to sleep. They tell absurd alarm stories then believe their own lies.
I agree Mumbles, however we can’t ignore the power of the message when it’s well done. The idea of man-made global warming as a threat has been successfully oversold.
What is going on with the science community?….where is the balanced unbiased discussion?
From where I sit (Toronto), the science is apparently settled. We have to decarbonize, to think otherwise is to be closed minded, so my wife told me. In her defense she is only looking out for me. So I understand.
Time will tell.
“”””What is going on with the science community?””””
Think the science community as a workplace. Just follow company rules. Do what the customer wants you to do.
Easy money, easy living.
Follow the money.
Looks like Michael Mann has been cloning around again
First Gavin Schmidt and now this clone
You spelled “clown” wrong.
“Think the science community as a workplace. Just follow company rules.”
Go along, get along.
They have to keep coming up with fresh material to maintain a spot on the most lucrative lecture circuits. That’s why their productions get more and more imaginatively frantic. Climate Change Inc. is a tough company to work for, you either go over the top or get crushed by those who do.
So do Stand-up Philosophers
The power of his persuasiveness is inversely proportional to the education of his readers.
His persuasiveness is on the increase year by year.
What’s going on with the science community is government funding. The world governments with the U.S. Leading the way established the IPCC to creat…aaaahhh discover an adverse link between man and his environment.
This CAGW is a Central Planning Hobgoblin. It is well funded and the science community are in fact mostly University Level concubines. Kept well fed, well dressed and well healed by merrily building upon the hobgoblin growing it ever bigger and more menacing.
This is so well orchestrated at the highest levels that the public schools have taken on the role of the pied piper with the magical flute (Al Gore Documentaries) leading our children into darkness and holding them as ransom. The parents need to pay obeisance to the Piper in order to avoid their childrens’ derision and hate.
This has been masterfully orchestrated with an eye on the long game. The worlds Swamp creatures will not go quietly into the night in the face of scientific evidence. they have too much invested and too much yet to gain. World Domination and Control by Central Planning.
Hey Bill…thanks for the reply…so, what’s next?
I’m retired. I curl, golf, ski, travel, cottage and sit on my condo board…they all think this man made global warming threat is real…it’s on TV etc., so I won’t argue with them.
Unless it’s pushed in my face, I’m silent and offer no opinion. IMHO many (citizen scientists, engineer types etc.) know what I’m talking about and do the same…that is, say nothing.
Oh well…what can we do?….I’m convinced only time will tell.
Too hot for you there? I know a lot of Canadians that have places in Florida.
“From where I sit (Toronto), the science is apparently settled. We have to decarbonize,…”
From where I sit (Durham, NC, USA) Toronto is much too cold. Some warming would help. 😉
its been put on sale but nobody is buying it …
“what is going on in the science community?”
In the peer reviewed world, also known as the science community, there is little room for discussion. I find it odd but I certainly don’t try to discuss my views (skeptical) much because it is quite likely I’ll be ostracized. It is FAR from mainstream to be skeptical within the community. That’s not to say skeptics don’t exist beyond myself, but they’re smart enough to know it can hurt their career to do so.
A big part of the problem is $$. When I started attending national meetings 20+ years ago there were few if any papers presented on climate change (then global warming) in spite of the fact that Hansen had been going on about it for over a decade. Now? There will be a dozen separate symposia on “climate change” at minimum with more than a healthy smattering of talks mixed into all of the other symposia (never mind the student papers). Why? Simple, there is an absolute ton of money for climate change research, to the point that putting “climate change” into your proposal is all but a guarantee of success with certain funding organizations. That nobody recognizes the funding pie is still the same size as it ever was is beside the point, so other fields not dealing with climate change suffer. Granting organizations fund crisis (see “Zika”) over all else and it has been this way for a very, very long time now.
You really want to know how much academia is concerned about climate change? Cut off the grant funding for a period of 2-5 years and I guarantee it will dry up faster than you can wipe your derriere. But that is not going to happen.
Within my local Society most know I’m a skeptic (I do very much enjoy pointing out that the term “denier” is a pejorative term and no way to start a debate and it’s really rather unscientific to presume my position without hearing my arguments) and I am looked upon by a not insignificant number of members in the society as being a little out to lunch. Yet very few of them can actually carry on an effective debate without resorting to “memes”. And they, like most scientists are far too lazy to go looking into information outside their field. Truisms rule the day.
We already have 300+ years of experience
with global warming since the very cold
1690s during the maunder Minimum.
Probably +2 degrees C. or more
warming since then.
We had +0.6 degrees C. warming since 1940,
which is less than +0.1 degrees C. per decade.
We’ve had no warming from 2003
to the end of 2018 per UAH
satellite data.
So who should we believe?
Actual climate change,
that was 100% good news?
Or predicted climate change,
from Dingbat Dessler,
which is always 100% bad news?
Predictions of a coming climate change catastrophe
started in the late 1950’s.
How many decades should we wait before it becomes
obvious no one can predict the future climate ?
My climate science blog:
http://www.elOnionBloggle.Blogspot.com
Furthermore, how long before they stop trying to blame it, even diametrically opposed outcomes (from a cooling ‘catastrophe’ to a warming ‘catastrophe,’ and always with the same cause, fossil fuel use) on humanity?
Why stop the mass-hypnosis when all but the most resistant are already under your spell and don’t even know it?
The same tech that has made communication easier has also made indoctrination possible on a global basis. All that’s required is the instilling of a sense of moral correctness about following the imaginary path to the assurance of benign weather and moderate temperatures for the future generations that we owe successful lives.
When folks are deliberately deceived, it is usually by playing on their emotions, and their ignorance.
We need a MGTOW movement on climate science to counter the forced indoctrination of the masses! If the Mainstream Media, Inc., can brainwash a whole world into believing a peposterous Russian Collusion Hoax REGARDLESS OF THE OUTCOME OF PERHAPS THE MOST EXHAUSTIVE, EXPENSIVE INVESTIGATION EVER UNDERTAKEN, our only hope is to assert the truth and resist as individuals! It may never be enough to turn the tide of intentional indoctrination, but at least those who join the movement can sleep at night!
4 degrees C warming is roughly the equivalent of moving from Toronto to Washington DC. Somehow, even supposing it’s real, I don’t think this is an existential threat that the human race needs to dislocate every aspect of our societies and cultures and give control to government agencies.
Yep, that’s the perspective that probably helps.
People like Dessler have now been trumpeting the worst case scenario for two or three decades.
Not only is the worst case scenario not happening, but it is clearly not the problem they would like it to be. They claim to be experts in economics and, err, just about everything else, while failing at their own discipline.
Offer most people in the UK a changed climate similar to that in Southern France and they will bite your hand off. That’s why the UK Met Office has stopped promising us a Mediterranean Climate.
If folks were aware that most of the anomalously high temperatures that drive global warming are still below freezing or slightly above, there would be less support for the policies and global order changes among the public. This is the media’s well-kept secret, along with recent increases in spring snow cover over the NH.
Remember, the underlying supposition is that this will lead to a thermal runaway and catastrophic climate scenarios. It’s not the 4c, it’s the melting polar caps, the mega droughts and/or floods, and the eventual polar shifting leading to crustal movement and the end of the world. Or something like that.
Meanwhile, back when I was in school (creak, creak) we were taught that the most likely trigger for an Ice Age to start was when winter snows remained over the summer for more than one cycle. Er – how’s the skiing in the Rockies in July?
https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=yfp-t&p=in+the+year+2525+youtube#id=0&vid=d7641a383096a64c96159f9f9b96ae87&action=click
Jeez, it looks like a “me too” bandwagon of dire predication. Not much originality these days, is there?
” They tell absurd alarm stories then believe their own lies.”
They’re losing, or have lost their minds. Yellow journalist Holthaus wrote an article for Grist about a study that concluded air pollution from growing corn kills thousands of people per year. He then actually said this on twitter:
https://twitter.com/EricHolthaus/status/1113946354617860097
It’s been said many times before, but it’s worth saying again, that the behavior of people like Dessler creates skeptics.
Do you think he’ll enjoy shoveling snow off his sidewalk in June, as I did a few years ago???
I’m simply grateful that we’re having what seems to be a normal, slowly warming-up Spring this year. It’s chilly, but wet and the pile of snow in my yard is now completely gone. If there is any more snow I will photography it, with a date-time stamp. I’m simply hoping for a semi-normal summer – whatever that is – and a nice, slow walk into autumn. After that, we’ll see.
I’d be interested in a comparison with this year’s response to solar input (or lack of it) compared to the last 40 years, going back to 1979, instead of a 200-year time span.
Yes, yes there is something very wrong. When bigotry is inculcated in our institutions of higher learning, then we can expect to produce legions of bigots. Note that changing the word bigotry to ignorance is a symmetrical transformation. Having taught a summer course last year I was horrified to be exposed to the depths of ignorance displayed by the students.
Moral relativism and aggrieved status must necessarily engender feelings of; resentment, insecurity, and anger. For example, black females may simultaneously coveted and despise “white privilege”. Consequently, racist stereotyping is perfectly acceptable if you’re a member of an aggrieved class; simply because you’re speaking from an oppressed position.
CAGW believers suffer these same dissonant feelings but endure the additional shame of knowing they are no better than the very people they despise. Hence, the propensity to attack non-believers and latch on to idiotic tokens of action like; Earth Hour, adopting Polar Bears, and early adoption of unproven technology.
IMHO, this is precisely why we should embrace anyone willing to engage in a sensible discussion about any topic. For us, this is nearly always the Luke Warmist folks.
Dont tweet. Do casually follow Prof. Dessler’s egregiously bad ‘climate science’. Exhibit A is his 2010 paper finding positive cloud feedback in an almost perfect random shotgun pattern via linear regression with an r^2 of 0.02!!!
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/330/6010/1523
Oy! If an r^2 of 0.02 is sufficiently robust to justify such certainty, well…dang! This changes everything!!!
rip
I think it’s certain that ‘some’ humans will survive almost any climate change. They may be living short, hard lives of poverty, but they’ll be alive.
He’s got that all wrong. It’s not “climate change” that is going to make “surviving humans” live ” short, hard lives of poverty” it’s his desire to deprive them of cheap, abundant, reliable energy that will do that.
Exactly!
Some people are poor, some are rich. How unfair! Everybody should be poor.
Socialism in a nutshell.
+Infinity!
It is “climate POLICIES,” not “climate CHANGE” that will cause mass deaths, poverty and misery. Just not for the “anointed ones” who seek to lead the slaughter, and who of course will not be subject to the “rules” they seek to inflict on the rest.
AGW is not Science – April 4, 2019 at 12:32 pm
The per se “anointed ones” truly believe that they won’t be subject to the “rules” they seek to inflict on the rest ……. but as the mass deaths, poverty, misery and slaughter of the “NON-anointed ones” increases exponentially ……. me thinks the “anointed ones” will quickly follow suite because they are incapable of providing the goods and services for themselves that they are highly dependent on for their own survival.
Case in point, how long will the “anointed ones” in Venezuela be able to survive the accelerated
creeping economic collapse of goods and services?
Just look to history. The French revolution eventually got around to chopping off the heads of the leaders of the revolution.
Will there be any “chopping off of heads” when America’s Civil War II really gets heated up between the “liberal left” and the ”conservative right” ….. and is there any doubt which group the 20+ million illegal immigrants will support? To wit:
Dessler publicly stated that if observations disagree with models the observations must be wrong. Pseudo science at its best!
Adaption? I drove across Death Valley in July when it was 120 deg F, motor overheated, heater on full high heat, cooler full of beer than we (we is a group of geologists, always a bad combination) drank and poured over ourselves, then at almost 10,000 feet on the east side of Mt. Jeffeson, in Nevada, hunting Bighorn Sheep, 30 deg F below zero and a meter of snow fell overnight. Adaption? Forget about it!
“I find the path we’re on now — the rich world survives (if lucky), but abandons everyone else — to be morally problematic.”
But condemning millions, if not billions of people to the devastating poverty that would result from intentionally diminished the developed world’s prosperity which currently props up the developing world would not be “morally problematic”?
Or will it be like with the rest of the shallow green agenda: Out of sight, out of mind.
Yeah but AFTER they kill off billions, the REST (i.e., the pushers of the propaganda) can live in wealth and comfort.
And then find that they have to do all the dirty jobs themeselves.
That’s funny, Lindzen has flushed things down the toilet with more scientific knowledgeable than this buffoon.
Dressler is just going through a mid-life crisis. He will need professional help to shore up his ego when the anthropogenic climate change edifice comes crashing down.
I agree that he may need professional help, but this isn’t a mid-life crisis. He has been like this for decades. He has always reminded me of the Mark Twain quote about science: “There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.”
I think it’s certain that ‘some’ humans will survive almost any climate change. They may be living short, hard lives of poverty, but they’ll be alive.
Here I am, a survivor of Net Neutrality repeal and Trump’s tax cuts just to name two, only to have Mr. Dessler tell me that I’m probably gonna die anyway. Sometimes it’s just not worth getting out of bed in the morning…
When Dessler actually debated Lindzen ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9Sh1B-rV60 ) he was very much less convincing than his esteemed opponent. The more I hear from Lindzen the more respect I have for his integrity, intellect, and incite and not just his climate knowledge. I’m afraid watching Dessler has the opposite effect for me.
“integrity, intellect, and incite”
Or insight, even.
Paraphrasing Andrew Dessler:
“Comply. I know what’s good for you. Bow down in awe of my smartitude!”
History is replete with absolutist megalomaniacs like Dessler….
“humankind would have to live underground because of anthropogenic warming”
What’s wrong with these people ?
The blender approach of throwing in current events policy topics like income inequality, poverty, climate alarmism, and climate adaptation geoengineering is all code for look at me and I want to write a book and market alarmism to the public and to future political power brokers. It does work for a time–just ask Ravi Batra and the estate of Matt Simmons.
Gen4 nuclear power is safe (cannot meltdown) and uses the waste from Gen2 (there are no active Gen3) as fuel. This will even work if the Global Cooling or staying the same is what is coming. No emissions. No fossil fuel. No CO2.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor
I think the EPR is considered Gen III, and one started up last year in China:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taishan_Nuclear_Power_Plant
Regards,
rip
George, the Democrats will fight hard to prevent extremely clean nuclear energy — which is already by far the safest base load energy source available. They would be aggressively promoting and funding Gen4 projects if they were actually concerned about CAGW.
They don’t and they won’t because Gen4 Nuclear *fixes* the non-problem without the GND.
Very well said DocSiders I agree with you 100 %.
What is it that with these people that scream that we are all going to fry but are absolutely against Nuclear power plants .
If they really believe that the world has a problem with the use of fossil fuels then Nuclear will fix the problem.
These doomsayer climate scientists should be shouting this from the roof tops .
What don’t they get this, and why do they shut their eyes and ears to this , as the modern world has used fossil fueled energy to lift billions out of poverty around the planet .
Cutting back on cheap and abundant energy will push billions below the poverty line and create famines in many countries that rely on imported food .
That seems to be their goal .
DocSiders, I hope your cynicism is misplaced. I hope that the population who really fears CAGW will get the word and make their legislators adopt Gen IV worldwide.
Most of them have been convinced that radiation is even worse than CO2.
One young twit assured me that because of the radiation leaking from Fukushima, the Pacific would soon be completely void of life.
What’s the old saying? “When you’re a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail”. When you’re a climatologist .. the whole sky is falling. Find me ONE “Climatologist” who calculates that the climate is functioning “normally”? You won’t … because such a “Climatologist” would never receive Federal (or any other) $$$ funding.
Are you sure that the picture is one of of Professor Andrew Dessler and not one of Professor Michael Mann?
Curious, I think they all want to look like Michael Mann. It is part of the herd-mentality of the warmists.
In reply to: Andrew Dessler’s name calling
Snarky comments support the assertion that you are not interested in solving the paradox that CAGW and AGW are not supported by the observations, yet it is full speed ahead for the push to install green scams that do not work.
When there is no solution to a problem (CAGW), the logical response (as opposed to force spending of trillions of dollars on stuff that does not work) would be to re-look at the assumptions to confirm there is CAGW/AGW.
Emotion and group think blinds people.
A) Global Temperature not Rising Paradox and Fundamental Problems with CAGW/AGW theory
Temperature changes in the last 150 years vs CAGW theory supports the assertion that there is no CAGW.
Detailed analysis of the temperature changes and other observations in fact does not support AGW which is interesting as that indicates there is/are fundamental assumption errors in the AGW theory.
B) Missing CO2 Sink Paradox. Observations support the assertion that humans were only responsible for roughly 5% of the recent rise in atmospheric CO2. This is really interesting as ‘new’ science is require to explain the observations.
Atmospheric CO2 changes vs Human CO2 emissions are not in agreement with the CAGW necessary ‘Bern’ model of assumed CO2 sources and sinks and resident times. CAGW’s response to falsification of the Bern Model by observations was to create the so-called missing CO2 sink.
C) No Amplification of AGW Paradox
The observations do not support the CAGW necessary amplification by increased water vapor in the upper troposphere. If there was amplification there would be a tropical tropospheric hot spot which there is not. In order for there to be amplification there would need to be more water vapor in the troposphere which there is not.
If you were interested in solving the climate paradox, here are 22 observations/analysis results that point towards a solution.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/05/12/22-very-inconvenient-climate-truths/
Dessler’s “… we actually do know what’s going to happen.” indicates his fundamental ignorance of the difference between facts and guesses. And it is scary coming from someone with influence.
Influence is nothing more than power by a different name so it stands that absolute influence corrupts absolutely. Even when the power of influence is used over the power of authority. (from Lord Acton) https://acton.org/pub/religion-liberty/volume-2-number-6/power-corrupts
Justine Trudope, Canada’s April Fool, recently flew with his family to vacation in Florida.
As a result Trudope recklessly exposed his family to much greater climate change than even the worst case IPCC projections.
A shock of all shocks. None of them died as a result. If fact it appears they preferred the hotter climate.
There is only one prediction you can make about the climate that is very likely to be accurate. It’s going to get much colder for a very long time. 11C and 90K yrs, precisely. http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Glacial_eras.jpg
Wasn’t he one of the “experts” who proclaimed that Texas had entered a permanent drought.
K. Hayhoe at Texas Tech.
Mohatdebos, you are probably thinking of this article:
https://www.chron.com/opinion/outlook/article/Texas-is-vulnerable-to-warming-climate-2079164.php
Though it’s not clear if he is including himself in the “we” that predicted it or if the “we” refers exclusively to the writers of the “The Impact of Global Warming on Texas (2nd Ed.)” book. I’m thinking it’s the later.
This collective GAGW psychopathology, and the resulting corruption of science, is a far greater threat to mankind than CAGW will ever be.
Dressler sounds like a true believer. No evidence is going to convince him otherwise.
Democrat power seekers probably aren’t believers. The GND would not effect global emissions enough *Fix* the problem (even if the USA goes “zero emissions” by 2050)…only reducing projected GAT by around 0.06 C…they don’t really believe in CAGW. To them, it’s just the perfect tool to acquire power.
I am not aware of *ANY* of the CAGW predictions of doom coming true…or even trending towards disaster. After 30 years, droughts, heatwaves, tornados, cyclones, sea level rise, crop production, etc….etc…have not “moved off the dime” of pre-AGW trends, except for some like hurricanes and heatwaves and crops which have trended opposite the predictions.
The H2O amplification, the positive feedback that CAGW depends upon, isn’t happening according to the data…sooo….they look feverishly around looking for ways to explain it away or they concoct Fake Science to make it go away. **They should be jubilant** that there are no measurable signs of the predicted amplification. WUWT? What’s up with that… is that they cannot tolerate losing the AGW tool to acquire power and advance socialism.
The AGW theory is not implausible, but taking AGW to CAGW with near extinction level casualties is not believable in the slightest. Especially when everything is trending towards more peace and prosperity and *FAR* fewer weather related deaths than any time in history EVEN WITH RAPIDLY GROWING POPULATION (many more at risk).
I wonder how Dressler will handle a 0.5 C cooling over the next 3 decades (as oceanic and solar cycles over the last few centuries indicate is likely). It’s not likely to cool him off.
He will claim that cooling is the new warming.
Every religion has its self-appointed protectors of the orthodoxy, the liberal clergy.
Andy Dessler clearly positions himself as a noble Protector of the Climate Alarmist orthodoxy. Such a position allows all sorts of relative moral reasoning, it is the very basis of noble cause corruption. Most importantly, he is lost as a scientist when contrary evidence is presented that refutes or opposes his belief in the high end of climate sensitivity.
All of the “evidence” of high sensitivity always lies in the distant future. The models running too hot today and in the recent past is never taken as evidence of their failure by believers like Dessler. To them it simply is taken that climate sensitivity to CO2 forcing changes must be even higher than imagined, as high sensitivity scenarios equates to very long times to equlilbrate.
There is no help for a True Believer like Dessler. Skepticism is the essential basis of the scientific method, and why Feynman famously said, “Science is a belief in the ignorance of the experts.”
As an appointed climate expert, Dessler cannot recognize his own ignorance because his belief lies elsewhere on in his “noble crusade.”
It is my understanding that the upcoming CMIP6 models, to be used in the future UN IPCC AR6, will have a higher average ECS than did the average of the CMIP5 models used in the UN IPCC AR5.
Skeptics are playing a Wack-A-Mole game.
My understanding is that the solar influence fraction is increased and CO2’s is reduced. The trend long term is for the ECS to reduce with time. Perhaps we will hear about a value less than 2 degrees per doubling of CO2.
Two degrees with inflation is only one and a half, it seems. The target is shrinking as the sensitivity falls.
If only solar forcing and no impact of CO2 were to be considered there is a real chance of an Ice Age. We are approaching a Grand Solar Minimum (it even has a name — Eddy Minimum).
In the history of life the average CO2 has been 1000 ppm. CO2 is how plants make carbohydrates. Plants starve at 150, at 200 they are stressed; 400 is good for plants and 800 even better.
And you can bet that he uses fossil fuels like everyone else, I even bet he has NO solar panels on the house (ala Mann), just another hypocrite alarmist.
“Every religion has its self-appointed protectors of the orthodoxy, the liberal clergy.”
In the “Groupthink” book, they were called “mindguards.”
Yes I’ve been called a denier by Dessler on twitter, which is an ignorant lie. His work looks to me to be weak also. That could be due to the fact that clouds are a very difficult subject where its hard to get convincing results though.
I’ve also found that he never responds to real scientific criticism, preferring to simply fall back on his own authority and his publications. It’s a sad combination of negative personality traits.
The rise of social media and attachment of value to aggrievment status has morphed society to confer status for “calling out” offenders of one’s personal belief system.
Thus, reason and well constructed arguments take a back seat to scoring brownie points with fellow believers and sycophants. Of course, this behavior (not unlike the narcissistic selfie culture) is indicative of insecurities and the need for external validation.
Our friend Dr. Lew is a prime example. His lack of intellectual capacity and sense of self-worth compel him to label detractors as, anti-science and irrational. Naturally, his dim views are validated by peers and impressionable students.
Moral relativism and aggrieved status must necessarily engender feelings of; resentment, insecurity, and anger. For example, black females may simultaneously coveted and despise “white privilege”. Consequently, racist stereotyping is perfectly acceptable if you’re a member of an aggrieved class; simply because you’re speaking from an oppressed position.
CAGW believers suffer these same dissonant feelings but endure the additional shame of knowing they are no better than the very people they despise. Hence, the propensity to attack non-believers and latch on to idiotic tokens of action like; Earth Hour, adopting Polar Bears, and early adoption of unproven technology.
IMHO, this is precisely why we should embrace anyone willing to engage in a sensible discussion about any topic. For us, this is nearly always the Luke Warmist folks.
Dessler is a worthy representative of climate green alarmists activists :
– his tweets speak for himself.
Rob,
I wrote this comment after CNN’s Jeff Zucker received the “First Amendment Award” and gave his political bias to show.
CNN’s Jeff Zucker and Michael Mann use pretzel logic to discuss First Amendment and “Academic and Intellectual Freedom.”
In particular, Penn State University’s Professor Michael Mann has no sense of humor, nor does he have a sense of irony.
Speaking at the “Lecture on Academic and Intellectual Freedom,” Mann gave a speech preaching for the end of climate change debate at the University of Michigan, after Michigan’s President Mark Schlissel introduced guest speaker Michael Mann by saying that the University of Michigan will always be “an inalienable forum for discovery, debate, and discussion.”
This 27th annual lecture honors three former U-M faculty members—Chandler Davis, Clement Markert and Mark Nickerson—who refused to testify in front of the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee in 1954.
Honestly, Michael Mann sounded more like a member of the Un-American Activity Committee than an academic advocating “discovery, debate, and discussion.”
“The “97% of scientists” trope, even used by Andrew Dessler, has become an artifact without facts.
It is the proverbial turd in the toiler that refuses to be flushed.
Marxist doesn’t want people to endure hardship and poverty.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Well, they don’t *want* it …. they *demand* it.
Don’t you know ?
Marxism is the best system, except all the other.
There is a fine line between a person with deep convictions and one diagnosed with Paranoia, a fairly rare type of schizophrenia (not to be confused with ordinary paranoid schizophrenia). This illness develops in later life, whereas ordinary schizophrenia is an illness of youth. There is no deterioration in intellectual powers – and no obvious symptoms of schizophrenia. A similar type is called Paraphrenia – here we see hallucinations present.
Watch this space.
That’s harsh, you make it sound like a disease or something! *rimshot* A little caution against over-trusting others is a good thing! *rimshot* If you just paid attention to what’s going on around you, you’d be paranoid too! *rimshot* With the kind of people I work with, I figure being paranoid just makes good sense! *rimshot*
As I once told a friend, there’s a fine line between being committed and ought to be committed.
From the article: “I often think about how great it would be to be a skeptic. You don’t have to write papers, which is really hard. You don’t have to write proposals, which is also hard. You don’t even have to do research. Instead, you just say things that mislead to audience craving to be misled. (December 18, 2018)”
Wrong!
The only basic skill a skeptic needs is the ability to distinguish between fact and fiction.
It’s not up to skeptics to prove CAGW promoters wrong, it is up to the CAGW promoters to prove themselves right. The CAGW promoters haven’t managed to do that to date. That’s what skeptics have distinguished so far.
I mean those guys have tenure, titles certain grip over policy and public opinion. That’s quite a responsible job.
Then why don’t the have periodic assessment, proficiency checks, medicals, and so on ?
I mean, tragically enough, there have been cases of affected pilots who purposely flew their passengers to final destination. Which is horrible which ever way one looks at it.
However those guys can nose-dive entire nations into catastrophic situations with orders of magnitude more casualties.
And no one is accountable for their psychiatric stability and mental health condition. Which is even more horrible.
Once again, they try to focus on “3 C degrees of warming” as if this should scare us. Toads boiling, lizards stampeding, mice and marmots hiding higher up in their mountain bunkers awaiting certain doom.
What this really means, even assuming that the increase were true, is “really cold places become warmer, and really warm places stay pretty much the same. Really dry places might become wetter, and really wet places stay pretty much the same”. How exactly is that scary?
Oh, I forgot to mention the seas boiling up with acid, hermit crabs scampering about the beaches screaming in holy-terror looking for shells that have all dissolved, coral reefs melting, and whales exploding from breathing in too much CO2.
How can ANYONE take the alarmist’s seriously? I wish they would all just go to church (any church) and beg for forgiveness the old fashioned way instead of making up pseudo-scientific doom scenarios.
I have noted almost all of the warming seems to be taking place in places where it is terribly cold. Alaska is apparently getting warm fast, for example. I live in a subtropical region and we are actually having a cool spring. We have noticed hardly any difference in 40 years, and looking at NASA temperature maps reinforces that – it shows 1 degree C warming over a century, effectively no change. How can that really change anything?
What is this!?
Every few years, alarmists have public meltdowns where they fling false accusations, wail with self pity, cry about their dysfunctional depressed lives and throw public hissyfits about their latest specious certain doom claims.
Dressler and the others need to see an analyst. Genuine analysts,not the quacks they normally conspire with and hang around.
I find it amusing that amid all this green climate nonsense it take a good dose of CO2 to make things green.
One of Dressler’s comments really scares the bejezus out of me—-more so than any catastrophic climate change claim possibly could. That would be his desire to see geo-engineering solutions. Momma nature seems to be able to deal with what ever our measly species manages to throw at her, (even the minuscule portion of atmospheric CO2 we manage to release) but something like millions of orbiting mirrors, atmospheric seeding with sulfides, or fertilizing the ocean with untold quantities of iron seem to me to just be asking for the full force of unintended consequences.
Climate science says that it is the change in climate caused by increased co2 that is the problem.
They propose a reduction in co2 as the solution, without considering if there are more cost effective solutions.
Where is the reports that lays out the various solutions and their cost benefits?
Because to me it looks like only one alternative has been proposed. This
Is forcing the entire world to pass through the eye of a single needle, without any idea of the size of the eye.
“Dessler estimates 2.4° – 4.6°C …”.
=================================
During a debate in 2010 Prof Dessler came up with climate sensitivity of 2.7C (~13 min):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9Sh1B-rV60
However he then allowed for cloud uncertainty by giving a range 2.0 – 4.5C by assuming over double the uncertainty to the upper range than the lower.
There have always been people who can justify such acts as the ‘burning of witches’ with a straight face and total unquestioning dedication and claim is was for the ‘good’ of those being burned .
Dessler is merely following a very old path .
Judge Smales sentenced children younger than Danny Noonan to death. He didn’t want to do it, but felt he owed it to them.
How about a Fresca?
Mmmm……Mmmm!
“You can be a scientist that no one takes seriously and national TV will come to you”
Isn’t that inherently self-contradictory?
If no one takes you seriously, why would national TV (or anyone else) come to you?
Does anyone know if Dessler supports nuclear power? Could be an intersection tell.
I meant to say interesting, not intersection.
I meant to say; Does anyone know if Dessler supports nuclear power? Could be an interesting tell.
It’s mind boggling that any educated scientist can be so sucked in by a political movement as alarmism. To go to the inevitable name calling ad-Homs clearly puts the lie to his beliefs. By repeatedly using terms such as deniers the chicken little follower syndrome is shown. Enough with the CO2 lies!
“Dessler knows he is right. And I do not doubt that he believes himself, being a nature-is-optimal-and-fragile ecologist at heart”
This is true, in lesser degrees in most cases, of many leading alarmist bigshots. It is a fact that should be harped upon by us contrarians, because it is the only non-conspiratorial way to discredit the Consensus in the public’s mind. It is the only logical explanation for their bias.
Donna Laframbois documented the high number of IGPOCC bigshots affiliated with green organizations in her “The Juvenile Delinquent …” book. Similar documentation of the membership of climate change committees of scientific societies and the authors-list of documents like the recent National Climate Assessment should be attempted. It is noble cause corruption—IOW, do-gooderism run rampant. Can’t the some foundation fund such examinations? Can’t the NSF or some organization og government conduct a survey of climatologists. Ideally it would be a condition of receiving research funding for recipients to declare their membership in such organizations, or their subscription to their publications or websites. At a minimum, politicians on climate change related committees should ask alarmist witnesses about their memberships, past and present.
Spencer got it right when he said ‘I will leave it to the readers to draw their conclusion’
Dessler got it wrong when he said that ‘97% scientists agree’
Update …
The latest tweets from Professor Dessler (April 2nd, not April Fools) says his “personal best estimate” of ECS (equilbrium climate sensitivity) is 2.7C (about one-fourth below his latest presentation’s midpoint).
And this from yesterday: “There are, on the other hand, things we don’t really know about the climate system. We need to better understand how low clouds respond to changes in the climate (i.e., SST, stability, mid-trop RH).”
Hedging??
Why do they need “better understanding” of clouds if the science is settled? Is he admitting that the UN IPCC climate models are frauds masquerading as revealed, unarguable truth, without the basic understandings of the multidecadal physical processes?
From one of Dessler’s Twits.
“I often think about how great it would be to be a skeptic. You don’t have to write papers, which is really hard. You don’t have to write proposals, which is also hard. You don’t even have to do research.”
Wow… all that ‘really hard’ work to do, and yet still have time to keep an active Twit account running.
HashTag – put-your-phone-down-and-get-back-to-work
As the Minnesotans 4 Global Warming sing…. “If we had some Global Warming”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=qJUFTm6cJXM
Cheers. 🙂
Did anyone go read his
political statement“climate manifesto”?Now that’s something I would sign.
D*** it! Somehow I missed closing a bold.
“I often think about how great it would be to be a skeptic. You don’t have to write papers, which is really hard. You don’t have to write proposals, which is also hard. You don’t even have to do research.” —Dessler
The little boy who called out the emperor didn’t need to write or research either.
Hansen was eventually retired when his paranoia became an unbearable embarrassment.
Dessler is well on his way.
Give em enough rope, I say.
Right now a lot of people, especially liberals, are sad over the cyclone hitting Mozambique, and yelling about how climate change disproportionately affects poor people.
It is true, the situation in Mozambique is very sad.
How much is climate change is to blame for a typhoon hitting a country on the coast during the peak of their their typhoon season? I will leave the scintillating question to the experts. Cyclone Idai was at it’s Peak what we call a Category 3, and made landfall as a Category 2. If it had made landfall where I live I probably wouldn’t have evacuated.
But the question of why the impact was so strong is clear – Mozambique is poor, poor poor poor.
Why is Mozambique so poor? Some would say”the lingering effects of European colonization” but it appears that ended over 40 years ago. Communists pushed out the Portuguese. This caused economic chaos. Then there was a civil war which lasted 15 years. Then the Communists won, which as everyone knows is terrible for an economy. Most people live on subsistence farms and in little huts. Little huts can’t stand up to a hurricane.
What is this guy a professor of? Postmodern feminist origami?
I’m late to the party, but…
Humans live in Dubai, they live in Greenland. We have a huge tolerance.
Humans do agriculture in Australia, in Rwanda, in Norway, in Canada. There is a huge range of temperature and precipitation where agriculture is possible.
That we could not adapt to a 2 degree or even to the pretty improbable 4.5K rise worldwide in bullshit. If the world warms by 4 degrees, many things change a lot, but then again, the calamities seen so far a warming of about 1 degree are basically nothing compared to what Maduro, Stalin and other totalitarians have caused.
Warming is all right. Do use nuclear power, no problem, if you are afraid. China emits so much if they stopped now, the atmospheric portion would practically stop growing. Will China kill us? Don’t believe so.
“Why can’t he just say “skeptic” as in critic of climate alarmism?”
I think critic is a reasonable term, though I have used contrarian, partially because climate science critics have told me they do not consider it an insult and because it seems more apt relative to the positions generally taken by adherents.
It is really unreasonable of you all to continue to demand the “skeptic” label. Skeptic has had a strong meaning – closely tied to scientific skepticism – long before movements sprouted up online in response to unwanted scientific findings. I’m sure you are aware that longstanding skeptic groups like CSICOP also dispute the use of the term for backlash type movements against scientific disciplines.
Traditionally, skeptics are the primary people *combating* conspiracy theories and the spread of false but viral urban myths, asking critical and skeptical questions about them. These things are absolutely rampant in the climate science critic community – I’m sure some of you well-intentioned folks would like that to be different but (a) you’re miles from slowing this down and (b) probably not recognizing how common these things are including unfortunately here at WUWT (there are certainly even more egregious epicenters, like Goddard.)
It’s honestly *way* too much to hijack the “skeptic” term and expect others to respect this. It is akin to wanting to claim the title of doing “real science” on blogs (absent peer review, empiricism, scientific testing, etc.)
There are people who question aspects of climate science who you could call skeptics, but those are people who ask, analyze and dig into data, and *also* critically question conspiracy theories, urban legends etc. They do not assert alternative or pseudo-scientific theories (think electric sun, Ned Nikolov, greenhouse-effect-is-violation-of-2nd-law etc.) as true without evidence, they do not repeat ‘fraud’ narratives without evidence, and so on.
I agree with you, Geoff. Just as all people who question the rightness of climate science aren’t “skeptics”, not everyone who generalizes about a diverse group of people can be called “a pompous ass.”
But still, a lot of them are.
Anyway, here’s the gist of a conversation you might be interested in that I’ve been having on my blog with some well-educated people, who were very well-behaved guests, and never sounded sarcastic and condescending. Some people are just naturally polite, you know?
But I digress. Here’s the topic of discussion: Just as mathematics have the rules of operation order, the physical sciences have rules for determining the significant digits and uncertainty in measurements, and to propagate the uncertainty throughout the calculations.
They’re very simple rules, and are taught right at the beginning of every physical science course one will ever take, be it physics, chemistry, engineering, etc. They explain the ins and outs, and whys and wherefores of taking physical measurements.
I won’t bother to go over them, because someone obviously so well-rounded in the sciences as you undoubtedly know them well already. So you will be as shocked as I was that none of the four who joined in the discussion knew or understood the rules at all. Most of them described them as “guidelines, rather than rules.” One seemed to think that “significant digits” meant “the digits that occurred most in the answer.” If a digit occurred three or four times repeated in a result, that number was highly significant, but if it only appeared once, then it wasn’t really significant at all.
The reason I was hosting this discussion was because many of the global average anomaly results one sees in the literature carry the precision of the result far beyond what is justified in the data. How can one expect to report a result with three places to the right of the decimal point when one started with measurements only to the tenths.
I quoted many articles and web pages from the US National Institutes of Health, Penn State University, the University of North Carolina, the Faraday Physics Department at the University of Toronto, and still they argued against the rules
I asked them all why they were so resistant to these rules, especially when they undoubtedly follow many other rules of math every day, but they didn’t answer.
What is your opinion on the subject?
I hear your sarcasm and condescension. My comment was non-sarcastic. You are free to judge it condescending, but we will disagree – we are not all “entitled to our own facts” which deserve equal respect, and in fact this truth is the very center of scientific skepticism.
Another relevant quote: “Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.” – RW Emerson
“many of the global average anomaly results one sees in the literature carry the precision of the result far beyond what is justified in the data … What is your opinion on the subject?”
I think I may have asked a question / made a comment about this here:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/04/04/australia-surface-temperatures-compared-to-uah-satellite-data-over-the-last-40-years/#comment-2673709
“I think critic is a reasonable term, though I have used contrarian, partially because climate science critics have told me they do not consider it an insult and because it seems more apt relative to the positions generally taken by adherents.”
I’ve been advocating the use of “contrarian” for so long I’ve forgotten all the reasons for my stance. (I flatter myself that I may have had some influence in its burgening popularity.) Three of them are 1) it’s acceptable to the other side; 2) it’s more accurate—we aren’t just dubious, we’re disbelievers; 3) it’s alliterative (“climate change contrarians”) The AP’s recommended term, “doubters,” isn’t very good.
I wonder which term was used for the scientists who disagreed with Wegener, Bretz, and Einstein?
I’m pretty sure it was just “scientists”, or maybe “other scientists”.
Not schlubs like us, but people like Curry, Lindzen, Soon, et all deserve better than a #hashtag on their names.
Perhaps it would depend on context. Were Wegener, Bretz, and Einstein’s critics claiming (without offering supporting evidence) that their targets were perpetrating fraud (faking/repressing data etc.), or did they dispute on scientific merits, attempting to challenge via scientific tests? Did they testify to Congress making claims that are not backed by published research and fly in the face of evidence which is? Those are the behaviors Dessler seems to be commenting on.
He of course uses the d-word, and it is fair game to be offended. Your use of “alarmists” is hardly a testament to any authentic interest in neutral terminology, however.
“Skeptic” is an appropriate term for those who doubt the climate “consensus”. You purport that “skeptic” is too high and lofty a term for the doubting rabble and should be reserved only for those doubters of the highest intellectual caliber. Well, that philosophy is not in accordance with the dictionary definition of Skeptic. “Contrarian” certainly is much more palatable to skeptics than the “denier” label but connotes deliberate reflexive opposition to mainstream ideas. As such, I see it as a demotion in credibility for those questioning the climate orthodoxy. But the motive this effort to demote us from skeptics to contrarians is manifest in your gratuitous attack on Tony Heller. We have here, Geoff Price, the unctuous concern troll.
“You purport that “skeptic” is too high and lofty a term”
No, I state that it has a clear, prior meaning that contradicts the new meaning.
“the doubting rabble”
The point is that mainstream AGW critic opinion does not do even a fraction of the doubting that it should – conspiracy theories and false factual claims are incredibly rampant and recirculated for years. It is quite trivial to highlight examples of this.
“But the motive this effort to demote us from skeptics to contrarians is manifest in your gratuitous attack on Tony Heller.”
Exactly the point – Heller literally and unapologetically speaks of “global collusion” and “fraud”, the dictionary definition of conspiracy theories. His argument is that adjustments motivated by things like moving station measurement times from noon to dawn are unjustifiable. For crying out loud, global raw data shows *more* global warming than adjusted global temperature data, and still his supporters advocating belief in the global conspiracy rage on, egged on by sites like his and this one.
We just disagree and you put your finger on the central point – advocating conspiracy theories is *not* the dictionary definition of skepticism, it is closer to the opposite. If you want to convince others that your position is different, you’re not going about it well. Otherwise it sounds like you might prefer ‘critic’ to ‘contrarian’. Thanks for the response.