There are times when all you can do is shake your head and wonder. This series of tweets is a window into their minds.
And for the record, the reason Dr. Singer wasn’t referred to as a “climate denier” was… it’s a rule in the AP stylebook, you dolts.
One thing is for certain, that can’t be said of Mann, Gleick, and Oreskes. Fred Singer made tangible contributions to science which have improved our daily lives; like GPS. Did you know Dr. Singer was instrumental in making it happen? Weather satellites, also a pioneer.
Unlike Mann, Gleick, and Oreskes, Dr. Singer made real contributions to society; instead of whining about the future, he embraced it. This essay below says it all. – Anthony
My Long Goodbye to S. Fred Singer
By Marc Sheppard in American Thinker
The first time I laid eyes on climate science pioneer Fred Singer was in a scenic elevator at the Marriot Marquis in NYC, in March of 2008. The hotel was hosting the premiere International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC), and I was there to cover the event for American Thinker. Dr. Singer was there not only to dazzle the crowd of noted skeptical climate scientists, economists and policy experts from around the world, but also to launch his new Non-IPCC report, a rebuttal to the agenda-driven propaganda of the then recent IPCC Fourth Assessment (AR4).
We had exchanged a few emails prior to this chance encounter, but most were quick fact-checks or update-requests relating to article research. So I was more than a bit surprised when this science legend gave my press-badge the once-over, then smiled and said, “So you’re Marc from American Thinker… nice to finally meet you, Marc.” My struggle for a warm-yet-clever response lasted all of two heartbeats as the elevator door whooshed open, and out stepped the man whose climate knowledge I revered most. “Have to run … See you at lunch,” his words barely made it through the closing doors.
I knew he was referring to that day’s upcoming plenary lunch session at which he would officially debut what would become the climate-skeptics’ bible. Singer was editor and lead author of Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate [PDF], subtitled Summary for Policymakers of the Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change. The NIPCC had been established in 2007 by Singer’s Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP), whose weekly newsletters remain aggregators of “The Week That Was” in non-agenda-driven science.
Throughout their many revisions, the NIPCC reports continue to distinguish themselves from the IPCC in that they are not pre-programmed to “support the hypotheses of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) and the control of greenhouse gases.” Instead, they remain a non-political authoritative rebuttal to the multi-government-controlled IPCC’s “errors and outright falsehoods” regarding warming’s measurement, likely drivers, and overall impact.
Although I never caught up with the world-renowned atmospheric and space physicist that day, our paths would cross again many times. Over the next few years, we’d see each other at various ICCC venues and we’d exchange emails now and then when he’d happily reply to any research questions I asked. He was, after all, not only the most-prominent scientist in the world bravely speaking out against the scourge of climate alarmism, but also the most easily accessible. And what an amazing backstory.
Singer fled Nazi-occupied Austria as a boy in the early 1940s, designed mines for the U.S. Navy during WWII, earned his PhD in physics from Princeton University in 1948, designed satellites in the 1950s and became the first director of the U.S. weather-satellite program in the early 1960s. Over the course of his storied career, Singer published more than 200 peer-reviewed scientific papers. Indeed, the volume and breadth of his contributions and accomplishments are nothing short of astounding and far too numerous to consolidate in one space, although his longtime friends and NIPCC publishers over at the Heartland Institute have done a superb job of trying. This one blows me away:
Dr. Singer was the first to make the correct calculations for using atomic clocks in orbit, contributing to the verification of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity and now essential in the GPS system of satellite navigation. He also designed satellites and instrumentation for remote sensing of the atmosphere and received a White House Presidential Commendation for this work.
Imagine that! And that such a mind was so quickly (and wrongfully) dismissed by climate alarmists as belonging to an “oil shill”. What nonsense.
Singer wrote about his amazing GTR journeys in his 2015 AT piece “Einstein, Your GPS (and Me).” It’s a captivating read, indeed.
The Undisputed Dean of Climate Skeptics
Still, it was unquestionably Singer’s relentless work as the world-renowned “skeptical” scientist which rocketed him to either fame or infamy, depending on your AGW politics.
By the time I met him via email in 2006, Singer had already achieved a lifetime of successes as a climatologist, having established SEPP in 1990 and waged intellectual battle with the IPCC since its 2nd Assessment Report (AR2) in 1995, both in writing and at the many lectures he’s given over the years.
Two recurring themes in Singer’s prose and presentations were that climate sensitivity to CO2 is much lower than IPCC estimates (read his October 2014 AT piece “The Climate Sensitivity Controversy”) and that the UN climate models don’t match observed temperatures, mostly due to their ignorance of negative feedbacks (see 2016’s “Climate Change: The Burden of Proof”).
Singer often challenged the IPCC for proof of its claim that AGW was 90-99% certain, and to respond to the many “disputed and unsolved problems.” These include the true figure for climate sensitivity, whether water vapor and clouds represent positive or negative feedback, the impacts of natural forcings (internal ocean oscillations, volcanism and solar insolation), atmospheric CO2 residence time and the rate of sea level rise (SLR), which Singer often stated (including in last year’s AT piece on the subject) has been an unalarmingly constant 7 inches per century for 3000 years.
In his 2006 (coauthored) book, Unstoppable Global Warming — Every 1500 Years, evidence is presented which supports fluctuations in solar energy causing the title. The book describes how the frequency of the cycle originally emerged from a 1983 study of ice cores in Greenland. That figure was then verified by analysis of an ice core from Antarctica’s Vostok Glacier — at the other end of the world, which showed the same 1,500-year cycle through its 400,000-year length. These 1,500-year cycles analyzed include the Little Ice Age of 1300-1850 and the modern warm period which started around 1850 and we experience to this day.
Singer’s conclusion? Once you recognize that we’re dealing with natural and not human forces, all the “to-do” about AGW is 
“nonsense.” Attempts to mitigate CO2 — which is not a pollutant — are pointless, very expensive and completely ineffective. They’ll have no effect on the climate and in fact will have little effect on the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. Besides, “a moderate warming trend” will have “beneficial effects for humanity and wildlife.”
Brilliantly simple.
He was Scientist, Speaker, Author, Co-Author and Editor
Singer’s unique, soft-spoken wit was imbued in his writing, as in this example from 2007 where, in his characteristic good-humored fashion, he took on the IPCC’s typical mistake of confusing cause and effect:
“Some cite the fact that the climate is currently warming and the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is increasing. This is true, but correlation is never proof of causation. In Europe, the birth rate is decreasing and so is the number of storks. Does this correlation prove that storks bring babies?”
In that same piece, Singer also dismissed the canard of “consensus” in climate science:
“But even if a majority of scientists had voted for human-caused global warming, that’s not how science works. Unlike in politics, the majority does not rule. Rather, every advance in science has come from a minority that found that observed facts contradicted the prevailing hypothesis. Sometimes it took only one scientist; think of Galileo or Einstein.”
This emphasis on contrarian individual thought over groupthink was a repeating peeve of Singer’s. After day 1 of ICCC2 back in 2009, the NYT’s Andrew Revkin did a trash-piece titled, “Skeptics Dispute Climate Worries and Each Other.” Revkin played the old divide et impera card — characterizing scientific points of debate as “internal rifts” within skeptics’ ranks, sprinkling words like “division” and “dissent” to imply disruptive disunity throughout. And he highlighted Singer’s derogation of the single GHG-theory dissenting “Slayer” present.
The piece evoked a bit of angst among conference-goers the next morning. Not Singer. When asked, his response was characteristically simple and delivered with his trademark smile: “There’s disagreement among skeptics — and that is good.”
This was a position I’d relish just one year later.
And Ultimately, Mentor and Teacher
In early 2010, Fred approached me about submitting articles to AT and, of course, all hands were excited about just what a score this would represent for the site. And I was presented the honor and privilege of “editing” an S. Fred Singer piece prior to submission, which seemed a dream-come-true – at first. But, as providence would have it, a “disagreement” threatened to turn the dream into a nightmare.
For the first time since undertaking his tutelage, fate had chosen this, of all times, for me to take issue with one of the master’s lessons. The details are inconsequential, but suffice to say, there was a controversial slogan arising from the Climategate affair, the meaning of which the doctor and I fervently disagreed upon. And while this putative “detail” was mentioned almost casually in Singer’s piece, its alternate represented the very heart of many of my recent AT pieces, including an article mentioned in the Climategate emails. But Singer was, understandably, implacable in his position.
What a quandary I was in! To let the point go unchallenged was to denigrate not only countless hours of work but also my credibility on the subject. But how could a software engineer/data analyst possibly overrule the position of an exalted legend in the climate field on a matter relating to climate science? This could have easily become my worst experience ever at AT. But it wasn’t. It wasn’t because rather than pull rank, Singer mercifully suggested a compromise in his wording, and, in doing so, let me off the hook.
This is not to suggest that I had changed his mind, but rather to demonstrate best the man’s gentle nature, the strength of his intellect notwithstanding.
That was Fred. Later that year, when I mentioned in an email that WaPo had referred to him as “aging” in a recent hit-piece, he quickly responded with his typical good humor, “but very gracefully, I should note.” I could easily envision his smile as I read his words, despite my anger at WaPo for obnoxiously claiming that “very few climate scientists would describe [Singer] as ‘renowned’ for his climate research,” words which the venerated climatologist simply shrugged off.
And rightly so. Fred Singer was nothing short of a giant in his field and exuded the confidence which came with knowing it. But, at the same time, he was a modest, soft-spoken man, one whose wisdom and kindness enriched all he met.
Life has taken me in other directions since meeting one of my heroes on that March morning a dozen years ago in a scenic elevator in Times Square, and years have passed since last we spoke.
But I’ll never forget that day. Nor everything Fred taught me before and since.
Siegfried Frederick Singer passed away in his sleep on April 6, 2020 at the age of 95.
And this is my long goodbye to a great man whose legend and teachings will surely live on.
Marc Sheppard is a data analyst, software engineer, and writer. He’s been a frequent contributor to American Thinker and welcomes your feedback.
This is precisely why I only refer to Mann, Gleick, Oreskes, Schmidt, et. al. as Climate Fraudsters.
These alarmist fools say they believe in their own delusion, yet not one of them is willing to defend the garbage that the IPCC calls science because they’re deathly afraid of the political consequences of being so wrong.
Fred Singer knew how wrong they are and as evidenced by the hateful tweets, they know too.
Amazing for creeps like Peter Gleick coming out of the wood work to spit on the grave of reknowned scientist.
Someone who greatest claim to fame was a self-admitted act wire frawwd , document falsification and conspiracy to publish the aforementioned as part of political campaign for “the cause”.
Mann is a bullying POS who does not even merit a response.
Having thrown the scientific method under a bus they have no problem in doing the same to common decency.
If their case was so strong would they really need to destroy so much just get people to listen to them?
100%
It’s almost like a gathering of super villains from a comic book. Hard to imagine a more despicable group calling themselves scientists. For some, like Oreskes, it’s 100% political fervour that blinds them to truth. For Mann and Glieck I’m convinced it’s all about their personal careers and the opportunity to be nasty, vindictive a-holes to satisfy their egos. Real creeps. The worst of tribalism to boot.
“The Merchants of Pout”
🙂 !!!
More like Merchants of Snout.
No, I think “Merchants of Pout” sums them up nicely. Stuck at the emotional level of eight-year-olds that aren’t being allowed an ice-cream.
As a group that clutch of hens show themselves to be like un-vented natural-draft chicken stoves: absent a clucking flue.
That aside, those who follow closely will notice a remarkable resemblance between Prof Singer and Prof Philip Lloyd, a sometime contributor to this hallowed site under the name The Nutty Professor. Philip passed away a couple of years ago – the only person I know who was a qualified engineer, physicist and chemist. Some people can do it all.
Their expertise, breadth and writings will inspire us for generations.
Their smug, arrogant self-righteousness is insufferable.
Gleik an unindicted forger, Mann an unindicted serial conniver in chicanery, and Oreskes an unindicted character assassin; all ever so worthy of ipso-exaltation.
Just to say, no one could meet the standards of John Wheeler as a graduate advisor, as Fred Singer did, without being near, or actually, brilliant.
None of those three merit standing in Fred’s shadow.
They don’t even deserve to be called legitimate scientists, from a Popper-Feinman point of view. They forfeited that designation when they became activists seeking to prove, instead of neutrals seeking to learn.
They act more like Scientologists than scientists, full of their positions in the hierarchy of the Church of Omnipotent Greenhouse In Carbon.
Popper-Feinman
Or Feynman even.
Anyone who uses the term “climate denier” identifies themself as an intellectual write-off.
I am trying to compose a good advice for these four geniuses. Unfortunately, it looks anatomically impossible.
They will need the biggest of thongs.
Looks ideal for a certain Mr van Gogh.
Climate Profits (sic)
It is reprehensible that Mann, Gleick, and Oreskes et al, would descend to such ad hominem depths when Dr. Singer had just died April 6th and hasn’t even had a proper funeral yet. But I wouldn’t expect any different from this crowd who continue to deceive the world with their outright lies and deceit. RIP Dr. Singer! The world is better off for you having lived such a long and rewarding life.
Yes, there is the old saying that it is unseemly to speak ill of the dead. However, these vindictive individuals are as crass as they are clueless. They should be so lucky as to have anyone remember them after they pass, as they will eventually.
I think they will be remembered in a Lysenko way.
Let’s just hope they don’t become future heroes of the People’s Earth-wide Socialist Territories (PEST) government that replaced the UN/EU in 2024 after the collapse of the western world. 😉
I have a friend who believes the CC guff
when I name names of the ilk of mann oreskes etc he doesnt even know who they are
sorta sums it up for the gullible led by media bytes and no interest in who what is behind what they espouse faith in
scary really.
as for the dropkicks dissing Mr Singer, well their words and acts show them for the sad excuses they are
It just who they are…they aren’t behaving like assholes, they are assholes…
Nonsense. They’re nowhere near as useful. Apologist troll!
I’ve finally learned to set the cup down and swallow before reading beyond your name, Brad.
I’m saving on paper towels and keyboards now.
Well, you have to understand what is at stake for them.. they are trying to sell snake oil and hot air for too long now, they MUST reiterate that they are the only ones holding the key to science at any and every opportunity, no matter how tasteless it is!
As soon as people start to doubt and start to read a critical paper or two , thier whole house of cards is doomed.
If you do not know it, I really recommend to read the 10 year old rejoinder from McShane and Wyner
https://projecteuclid.org/euclid.aoas/1300715184
where they defend their claims of the original paper
“We find that the proxies do not predict temperature significantly better than random series generated independently of temperature.” against Mann and other alarmists..
I think that is a good use of your time, this paper is exceptionally well written and I find it telling that even 10 years later Mann and friends still do not have an answer to it, they choose not to mention it anymore after they really got shown off as the amateurs they are!
Would you lie about science for USD $16,000,000,000,000?
(That’s the sum one Democratic Presidential front-runner last year vowed to pay the climate-protection racketeers if elected, which, thankfully, he won’t be.)
After observing this diseased debate closely for a decade now, I’ve come to suspect that the answer to the above question is the only thing that separates a professional believalist from one of us.
he look on the bright side when they die it’s open season … what goes around comes around.
What are you talking about?!
Why would you wait? It’s already open season.
You can say heinously unflattering stuff about them, and they have no recourse because it’s true.
Go ahead and broadcast a Tweet calling .@PeterGleick a forger. He won’t make a peep. And he certainly can’t return the insult, because you’d have him dead to rights for libel, assuming you haven’t committed some crime I’m not aware of!
I do it all the time (and so do the skeptics people actually listen to).
Hmmmm. Not one comment yet on Gleick’s statement about not wearing knickers during the lockdown.
Have at it, please. Many visitors could use the entertainment today.
Stay safe and healthy, all.
Bob
That’s because his panties are in a twist. He’s such a waste.
Very well done, Joel!
> He’s such a waste.
I don’t get it. Maybe I’m not hip enough.
Anyway, let’s not forget, when emotions run high, that at the end of the day Gleick is human.
So next time you think of Gleick or his fellow enemies of science, take a deep breath and think human waste.
“Pantywaist” is too kind a descriptor for such a mentality as his.
In any case, I am rather certain a close inspection would reveal said panties to be twisted straight up into a veritable Gordian Knot.
But someone else is gonna have to do that particular research investigation.
Some facts are best left unfound.
Trying to emulate Nickerless Nickleby.
I may need some rather involved therapy to purge the mental image of that lot going commando.
So, thanks for that!
At least with such horrid mental images as Oreskes’ horrifically unsightly visage, I can at least attempt to rid my mind of it by dint of some careful gouging with a rusty grapefruit spoon.
All fur coat, and no knickers!
All fur coat and no knickers! It’s all about the money, isn’t it.
Galileo, Darwin, Einstein………got to refer to them as contrarians now I suppose
I dunno about Galileo and Darwin.
But before Lindzen, Albert Einstein was “the wrongest, longest,” according to Harvard Professor of the History of Science Naomi Oreskes.
Yeah, but Fred Singer didn’t have a Nobel Prize like Michael Mann…. wait…. erm…
Never mind.
> Fred Singer didn’t have a Nobel Prize like Michael Mann
He didn’t??? The vast majority of Earth’s population has a Nobel Prize like Mann’s: coveted, round, imaginary, lustrous, adorned with Alfred Nobel’s cameo, and countless other similarities. You’d have to try pretty hard to have anything different.
Brad, I still get a chuckle out of Mann touting himself as Nobel Prize winner, as if it was in one of the science categories. Was it also on one of his book covers?
Then the Nobel Peace Prize committee itself said, “Nope, not on our list of recipients.”
Busted! Fun times, fun times.
I know the other Nobel award which was so non-specific that anyone can lay claim to a Nobel. I though those were two different cases.
I was touched by the sincerity of Singer;s obiyuaries .
Lewandowsky and Mann’s responses show an entirely predictable and pathetic meanness of spirit.
What will Michael Mann’s obituary look like? Even his friends would have to struggle to come up with anything praiseworthy from this “Dustinguished Professor” Will his only legacy be a hockey stick as he shuffles off to oblivion?
I set it as a challenge to all readers to come up with the name of any alarmist who albeit thry are in a different camp one would have to say”This was a great scoientist and a fine human being who really contributed to human knowledge. He/she will be sadly missed” . Cant think of one myself but there must be some among that 97% of all luminaries
The depth of their science is only exceeded by the depth of their outward beauty.
….. well at least you didn’t post any images to make your point. For that we all thank you.
Does the E stand for Egregious?
There is a Dr Charlotte Tan out there, yet I have no reason to doubt her repute…
Gleick as always, with a TOTAL disregard for human decency and ETHICS.
He has none of either.
Mann with his usual bottom-of-the-sewer slime, all he is capable of.
They KNOW, don’t they ? They KNOW the truth, that alarmism is a lie. Hence the air of desperation. I pity them.
During his lifetime, Dr. Singer forgot more science that Mann, Gleik, Orestes et al combined will ever know. And best of all, they CAN’T STAND IT!
BTW, why don’t Griff, Loydo, Mosher, Stokes et al ever comment on articles such as this?
Griff and Loydo are probably banned; others like ATTF, Mosher, Stokes can’t think of anything condescending to say so they remain quiet.
None of them ever contribute to the discussion, they just snipe and nit-pick.
I dunno who the others are but Mosher makes no secret of admitting Oreskes is an idiot. He’s de-zaggerating it with uncharacteristic hypobole, of course, but at least he’s on the right side of the question.
I do respect Mosher; but he is a drive by snipper which is really annoying and rude. When he explains himself it’s a good read.
Mosher already sniped at Singer on the original post a few days ago.
Referring to Dr. Singer, a Jewish man, as a “denier” is beyond despicable.
You said it…especially considering his history,
That says it all, in one simple sentence.
Just don’t expect me to feel guilty for mentioning that Oreskes—also a Jewish organism—is a repeat den!er of such things as science, knowledge and truth. A career of intellectual crimes next to which even David Irving’s seems pretty low-level.
Fred is among the greats,the words of the Team(UN Nitwits) reminds me of the same idiocy expressed toward John Daley’s passing.
These are tiny people,of value to no one and well aware of their mediocrity.
The question of “How low can you go” cannot be answered for the likes of “Friends of Mann”
I doubt that Singer tried to refute global warming. Rather, those who make the claim should try to support their positions – which they have failed to do up to this point…
“Some cite the fact that the climate is currently warming and the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is increasing. This is true, but correlation is never proof of causation. In Europe, the birth rate is decreasing and so is the number of storks. Does this correlation prove that storks bring babies?”
From the article above. Classic. So, no, he didn’t deny the climate was warming…
As happens every Spring in the Northern hemisphere, CO2 levels are currently dropping, and it’s getting warmer. Not even any correlation at this time of year, though CO2 levels are increasing over longer timescales.
Maybe the drop over the last few days is due to Spring, maybe the WuFlu virus – who knows? I’m expecting to see articles going on about the drop in CO2 being due to the world economy being constipated, but I’m not convinced and I doubt Fred Singer would have been either.
The messages and themes of Mann’s febrile mental cinema, Gleick’s babyish forgeries and Oreskes’ Protocols of the Merchants of Venice perfectly reflect reality—across the real axis.
Climate skepticism was never the legacy of Singer, Seitz, Nierenberg and their token Gentile co-conspirator.
Climate skepticism is the legacy of Mann, Oreskes and Gleick.
Very true.
In any healthy science, there is always a cutting edge of new findings and research and speculation., which tends to divide into schools of thought and such.
But I am hard pressed to think of a single instance where dissenters from one view or another, even when dissenters are in disagreement with a prevailing view, are characterized by pejoratives like “denier”.
It is only the weakness of the warmista school of thought, and the case they have been able to make for their views, which has led to a literal demonization of dissenters, and a characterization of adherents to any oppositional school of thought with such pejoratives.
I am certain that at some future time, hopefully quite soon, that this will be seen to be a pathology within the world of science and in academia.
There is nothing healthy, let alone scientific, about the behavior of such people as the warmista cult.
Skepticism is the true hallmark of a scientific mentality
“Some cite the fact that the climate is currently warming and the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is increasing. This is true, but correlation is never proof of causation.”
When a physicist makes a statement like this it is not contrarianism it is disingenuous doubt-mongering.
How so Loydo?
Because what kind of physicists doesn’t have a basic understand of the physics of the greenhouse effect? Ask Roy Spencer or even Anthony Watts is he thinks that increasing CO2 levels and increasing lower troposheric temperature is merely a coincidental correlation. Is that what you think?
Comments like Singer’s are designed to cast doubt where none exists, in other words he was motivated by something other than the search for the truth.
Of course there exists doubts, even a lot.
As far as CO2 follows lightly increasing temereatures, there a reasons to doubt, CO2 warmth the earth.
Put your criticism of that statement in context, Loydo
To suggest Fred didn’t understand the basic physics just confirms your own later projection on this… “motivated by something other than the search for the truth.”
“Because what kind of physicists doesn’t have a basic understand of the physics of the greenhouse effect? Ask Roy Spencer or even Anthony Watts is he thinks that increasing CO2 levels and increasing lower troposheric temperature is merely a coincidental correlation. Is that what you think?”
No one disputes that CO2 is a GHG (or, more properly, a radiative gas). The issue, which you did not mention and are perhaps not aware of, is whether the human contribution to the CO2 levels in the atmosphere produce an amount of warming which is detectable and measurable. I seem to recall that science does not know for sure how much of the CO2 in the atmosphere is from us and how much is from other sources like the oceans’ warming from the Sun, the decay of dead plant matter and active volcanoes.
Second, another issue is the sensitivity of the climate to the GHGE of CO2 and other GHGs. Numerous studies have been done on this, but the climate modelers are only making guesses about the sensitivity when they produce their models. Those models already show the Earth running hotter than the satellites show it actually is. If you have info on sensitivity which is definitive and conclusive, by all means produce it.
Third, there is a known phenomenon called Urban Heat Island which is (I believe) tainting the surface temperature record and for which CO2 is being blamed to SOME degree. It has also been documented that numerous surface temperature stations are poorly sited and are tainted by man-made heat sources such has a running AC venting out heat or a station which is right next to a airport runway where it can be tainted by the heat from aircraft jet engines and the Sun beating off the runway or tarmac. Still others are located at the south wall of a building where the afternoon Sun reflecting off the wall will taint the temperature record there. NOAA (if I recall) knows this is going on, but neither does nor says anything about it because it threatens the credibility of the climate alarmist narrative.
So yes Loydo, this is why the correlation/causation axiom applies here. The problem of the scientific credibility of the CAGW narrative is considerably more complicated than you are apparently aware. Your comment above oversimplifies it considerably.
“No one disputes that CO2 is a GHG”
No one with any credibility disputes the increase in atmospheric concentration is 100% attributable to human activity either, or that the increase in average global temperature we have witnessed is probably caused entirely by that activity.
The unanswered question is sensitivity, not if but how much.
Singer would have known this full well. To cast doubt on it by implying that the correlation might be coincidental is, to his eternal shame, politically motivated, mendacious disinformation.
Loydo writes
Here you simply go off piste with what is known and accepted science. Sensitivity is at the heart of how much warming is due to anthropogenic CO2 and how much is “natural” and not caused by CO2 increases.
I think its fair to say that anyone who really gets climate change understands that climate has changed without CO2 influence over the last couple of millennia and therefore the attribution of the causes of current change is very much an unknown.
“…No one with any credibility disputes the increase in atmospheric concentration is 100% attributable to human activity either…”
And they call us skeptics deniers! So Loydo, do you deny that a large amount (maybe the majority) of the Earth’s CO2 is sequestered in the oceans? Do you deny that oceans warmed by the Sun give off that CO2? Interesting, to say the least.
Second, I did not state that sensitivity was a matter of “if”. I asked you to produce evidence that definitively and conclusively states what that sensitivity is. Spare me a strawman’s argument.
I do understand that the warming and the CO2 increase are not a matter of coincidence. The warming is a matter of attribution. You appear to be in complete denial that there are natural forces that have been driving climate since who knows when and still play a role today. Ocean currents, water vapor, the Sun and who knows what else are natural forces that are believed to affect the climate. Did God shut off the switch for these natural forces?
Loydo, you are treating the CAGW issue as a religion. You see it as infallible and unquestionable, and the doubt that you mentioned is not permitted. That is treating it as a religious or political doctrine, not a scientific issue. Believers in religious and political doctrines do not tolerate dissent or doubt and thus do not tolerate the questioning or challenging of their doctrine. Scientific discourse is about asking questions and challenging beliefs, which is what is being done here at WUWT. Many people and organizations have eco-activist, political and financial vested interests in the CAGW issue which they will protect at all costs. They credibility of the underlying climate science is NOT the issue with them. It is not unlike a cult.
Loydo, when you learn and understand the difference between religion and science, you can begin to understand why the skeptics are doing what they are doing. Until then, you are barking up the wrong tree at this website.
“Do you deny that oceans warmed by the Sun give off that CO2?”
The ocean is a currently a CO2 sink.
“If you have info on sensitivity which is definitive and conclusive, by all means produce it.”
No, that is why I say that is where the question lies, “not if but how much”.
The smart money is on about 3C/doubling. https://twitter.com/priscian/status/1068610920761434115/photo/1
Loydo, the human CO2 /year is only 4% of CO2 total emissions worldwide, never heard ?
https://wryheat.wordpress.com/2014/07/19/only-about-3-of-co2-in-atmosphere-due-to-burning-fossil-fuels/
Loydo, what do you think happens, when in springtime the photosynthesis starts ?
When the nights become shorter, while plants are respirating, than the days when plants photosynthesis is active ? (NH)
Loydo: Dr. Singer’s contributions to science are documented here for all to see.
What are your contributions to our understanding of the world we live in?
You say: ‘Comments like Singer’s are designed to cast doubt where none exists, in other words he was motivated by something other than the search for the truth.’
At least have the decency to refrain from remarks like this.
“correlation is never proof of causation” is a factual statement Loydo, but I give up.
I realize others have tried but also to no avail, I’m sure.
Because what kind of physicists doesn’t have a basic understand of the physics of the greenhouse effect?
Basic understanding of an unproven theory is exactly the problem. Advanced understanding is the answer, and Dr Singer was on the right path.
What in hell would YOU know about physicists or any other scientists, you demonstrably fatuous and pathetically predictable troll nitwit?
On which subject I just watched an episode of “Cosmos” because my wife wanted to, and Neil Degrasse Tyson said, I absolutely love this, best moment in the show:
“Arguments from authority have no meaning in science.”
Really, Neil? Can I quote you on that? 🙂
Again, Loy-doh makes no sense, and has no science to back up anything he says.
Your morality is similarly non-existent as that of Mann and Gleike and the Ork.!
You have NOTHING in the way of real science to back up your continued dumb assertions of human caused global climate change.
Evidence…… try it some day.
“When a physicist makes a statement like this it is not contrarianism it is disingenuous doubt-mongering.”
Loydo, are you suggesting that the axiom involving correlation and causation does not apply with the climate alarmist narrative? If you believe that correlation and causation have been definitively established between CO2 and the recent rise in temperatures, it seems rather odd that it did not show up in the ice core studies where CO2 trailed a rise in temperatures.
Although the Wikipedia writeup on correlation/causation actually references it as a statistical axiom, I see little reason why it should not also apply in science.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation
Quote:
“…In statistics, the phrase “correlation does not imply causation” refers to the inability to legitimately deduce a cause-and-effect relationship between two variables solely on the basis of an observed association or correlation between them.[1][2] The idea that “correlation implies causation” is an example of a questionable-cause logical fallacy, in which two events occurring together are taken to have established a cause-and-effect relationship. This fallacy is also known by the Latin phrase cum hoc ergo propter hoc (“with this, therefore because of this”). This differs from the fallacy known as post hoc ergo propter hoc (“after this, therefore because of this”), in which an event following another is seen as a necessary consequence of the former event.”
Loydo, “doubt” is an admirable asset in proper scientific practice.
Who said this about having a healthy approach to research –
“the easiest person to fool is yourself”
My mate used to say Dubito Ergo Sum.
Your quote comes from the Nobel laureate Richard Feynman.
But then, he was just kidding himself. The proof goes something like: Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts, so what would Feynman know?
QED.
OK Brad, I’ll see your mate’s Dubito Ergo Sum, and raise you with what most of my mates used to say about everything – Phuktaf Eye No.
OK Mr (or is it Dr?) Mr, I see your mates’ No Eye Deer, safe in the knowledge that it can’t see me.
Slowing my breath (I had Mexican for lunch), I quietly level the legal hunting crossbow I carry at all times, spanned and sighted, on the off chance of surprising the majestic, flavorsome Tiresias of the Forest.
Did you like/get my terminal acronym joke, BTW?
It’s late here Brad.
So as Scarlet said –
“I’ll think about that tomorrow”
Doubt and doubt-mongering are quite different.
The science creed, trust no-one especially yourself and doubt everything.
Or as some would say “In God we trust, all others must bring data”
Loydo is just following the mantra like a good little crying lefty she is.
Loyody, this fellow, of whom you may have heard, would strongly disagree with your post.
“It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is; it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.” – Richard Feynmann
Feynman says we learn from science that you must doubt the experts:
“Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts. When someone says ‘science teaches such and such’, he is using the word incorrectly. Science doesn’t teach it; experience teaches it”
(The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, p.187).
“It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is; it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.” – Richard Feynmann
I still disagree with this. Experiments are often wrong. He should have said observation instead of experiment.
‘Denier’ may be forbidden at the NY Times but apparently ‘denialist’ is OK for some.
‘Denialist’ was used 5 times (including the title) in Erica Goode’s 2018 promotional piece on the BioScience paper, which Mann co-authored, that tarred all sceptical blogs with the same slimy brush they used to misrepresent my credentials and trash my scientific reputation using multiple derivations of ‘denier’.
However, notice the offical link to Goode’s piece below suggests ‘denier’ was in the original title (and perhaps the entire article) but got changed ever so slightly to comply with the rules:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/10/climate/polar-bears-climate-deniers.html
Rest in peace Fred Singer, a great scientist.
Human caused global climate change is just like Grimm Bros fairy tales.
They are a fantasy.
“Denial” is not a word that has any meaning when talking about fairy tales.
Hi Susan,
‘Denialism’ is the more insulting allegation, since it’s incompatible with rationality. As with ‘contrarianism,’ the strong connotation is that the suspect denies for the sake of denying, that is, because he or she believes in disbelief itself. Which would be, if nothing else, infantile.
By contrast, one can be a perfectly rational denier of a literally bottomless list of ideas. Given that 99% of scientific hypotheses are wrong (which is a feature, not a bug, of the system), you’d have to be silly NOT to be a denier of just about any given conclusion, by default.
Richard Lindzen’s strategy of reappropriating the word ‘denier,’ and bearing its stigmata without embarrassment, seems to me the only good one, and it’s a pity we didn’t adopt this idea systematically, because then it would no longer be a weapon in the climate arseholist arsenal.
It’s worth pointing out an almost perfect symmetry here.
The belief in [C[A[GW]] is not, in my observation, a poor reflection on anyone’s intellect or character. (I feel sorry for skeptics who don’t have a dear friend or personal hero whose only ‘crime’ is to have been duped by the climate movement.)
The only exception is scientists who work in the so-called ‘…And Related Fields.’ Unlike laymen, they have no excuse for Believing. When they claim to lose sleep over global warming, they’re either lying or making such a complete hash of evaluating the evidence that they might want to consider a rewarding career in the Arts or waste removal industry instead.
Believalism, on the other hand, is synonymous with every negative personality trait in the dictionary.
Readers can find out more about the proper use of credal epithets here, of all places.
How long did it take before we proudly came to bear the appellation of “deplorable’?
IIRC, it was more or less overnight.
“… a rewarding career in the Arts or waste removal industry…”
I am fairly certain that a good majority of them are qualified for little more than to be employed in the craft of bovine meat patty inversion.
I like how Mann admits that he and his ilk are fearful of complaints about language. What a Mannsy-pansy.
He also blocks anyone who disagrees with him.
Somebody please remind Mann his predictions
It’s great that one can sense the palpability of their lifelong punishments. They can never escape from their lives of “scientific” and pseudoscientific f*ckwittery.
…. and the actual retribution has yet to start in earnest.
“One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”
All Mann has produced is trash. It was treasured back in the day when the IPCC used his stick.
But it’s still just trash. They don’t use it anymore.
He’s only defended (at times, by some) because he used to be their “poster boy”.
(And he’s willing to sue at the drop of a hat as long as “someone else” pays his legal fees.)
Singer and his work in so many fields is and will remain a treasure.
Only the trash will trash it.
Correction: “everyone else,” assuming PSU is taxpayer-subsidized. (I confess some unfamiliarity with the American custom.)
Or does Mann have private scientific-honor insurance? Nah, the premium would bankrupt most African republics.
The overlapping layers of graft, endless feather bedding, shady greased-palm sinecures, and all manner of unscrupulous dirty dealing, straight through to good old fashioned hat-in-hand groveling for public dollars, are so permeating, opaque, and built in, that I am not sure anyone truly knows the extent of the gravy train, even to those who ride it for a lifetime.
The only thing that is for sure is that they receive a lot and earn little or none of it.
“Someone else”, not “everyone else” pays his fees.
I wish I’d kept the links but, one way he gets his legal fees paid is via a group started by that guy who dressed up as a super hero. (I forget his name. Started with an M, I think.) It was set up as a fund to defend such as Mann from “attacks”.
(I followed the trail back then and some of the cash came from Soros groups.)
It was supposed to defend climate scientists, but it didn’t defend Tim Ball. So it’s only for consensus climate scientists.
Scott Mandia? I thought that was a vanity charity. Did it really raise enough to pay for Mann’s high-priced tobacco lawyer?
That was the guy, Mandia. I don’t know if and I never said they paid ALL of his legal fees.
The best I remember is that the group was called something like PEERS.
At the time they had a link to where they got their funding.
I looked at some of the groups that contributed and where they got their funding.
Many of the ones I checked, if not most of them, got their funding from Soros.
If they had the science they wouldn’t have needed the consensus vs denier weirdness. And if they didn’t have the bias their null hypothesis would have been the denier and not the faith. My guess is that this beast will self destruct.
https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/02/24/the-mann/
“Framing language” is a propaganda term, not a scientific term/
Climate science isn’t a science it’s like social sciences the science is only in the name.
We considered Fred a friend, as he spoke several time at our home in the Bay area, and stayed with us. he was a wonderful, kindhearted soul. May he rest in peace!
Also from a former NYT reporter, Dr. Michael Widlanski:
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/04/an_obituary_for_the_new_york_times.html
Beyond contemptible.
Or at least beneath.
Incidentally, I hope I’m not alone in enjoying the irony that the only climate change deniers known to man are the Menn who refuse to loosen their grip on the handle of the Hockey Stick. No amount of evidence will do it.
I’ll refrain from speculating about what these (overwhelmingly middle-aged, male) Shafters are trying to compensate for—the present company is above such phallus-y rhetoric, I think.
Dr. Singer was mercifully spared the warmist reactions to his passing. Upon reading their execrable screeds my first impulse was to suggest we prepare in advance their obituaries without actually wishing for their demise with the intent of letting them know the legacy they leave behind in the minds of so many. Then both reason and civility returned and I now suggest we leave it a mystery so that they will never know. Not knowing being their natural state.
No, it’s a good idea Rob. Mann is likely to outlive me, so I won’t be around to deliver the eulogy myself, but when his demise occurs I would like the following to be read at his funeral.
meh.
It’s a minor point but the NYT has its own style book (or it did). I doubt that it uses the AP’s.
Wikipedia manage to bring smoking negatively into the second sentence of their entry on Fred Singer.
Of course Wiki isn’t able to see and explain what realy happens around the smoking story.
What everyone should be very clear about, is what absolutely despicable human beings that whole crowd is.
Not even at the occasion of a person’s a death can they contain their anti-social sniping, or the juvenile babbling and vapid inanity which is the hallmark of their nauseating mutual admiration society.
I sense a richly deserved comeuppance brewing.
Change is in the wind.
Perhaps the dismal days of having to suffer these fools are drawing to an end.
It’s a consummation devoutly to be desir’d.
What a reward for the sh!tty year we’re having, what a Christmas gift to the world’s capitals, to see all the lamp-posts up and down Main Street decked with inverted perverters of the course of science.
‘Tis indeed a sad day that the hearts and minds of men and women of good character should be led to entertain such notions.
And yet…here we are…
Hang ’em high!
I can’t wait for Science Nuremberg.
The suspense is killing me—which, incidentally, will be the last words going through the minds of those found guilty of crimes against science (provided they don’t lose their heads as a result of a miscalculated drop length).
Ballad Of The Gibbet
Brothers and men that shall after us be,
Let not your hearts be hard to us:
For pitying this our misery
Ye shall find God the more piteous.
Look on us six that are hanging thus,
And for the flesh that so much we cherished
How it is eaten of birds and perished,
And ashes and dust fill our bones’ place,
Mock not at us that so feeble be,
But pray God pardon us out of His grace.
Listen, we pray you, and look not in scorn,
Though justly, in sooth, we are cast to die;
Ye wot no man so wise is born
That keeps his wisdom constantly.
Be ye then merciful, and cry
To Mary’s Son that is piteous,
That His mercy take no stain from us,
Saving us out of the fiery place.
We are but dead, let no soul deny
To pray God succour us of His grace.
The rain out of heaven has washed us clean,
The sun has scorched us black and bare,
Ravens and rooks have pecked at our eyne,
And feathered their nests with our beards and hair.
Round are we tossed, and here and there,
This way and that, at the wild wind’s will,
Never a moment my body is still;
Birds they are busy about my face.
Live not as we, nor fare as we fare;
Pray God pardon us out of His grace.
François Villon
.
….. metaphorically speaking, of course.
Similarly with the final hours of the lives of Joseph Goebbels and his family, still to be found on Wikipedia. A great read when having to deal with thinking about these genocidal freaks.
Gorgeous stuff, thank you philincalifornia.
I never understood why James Delingpole had to retreat to “metaphorically speaking, of course” after publishing his beautiful reverie on pseudoscientists, judges and black caps. I would’ve written
“Note—to obviate any misunderstanding (and the sacksful of outraged letters on my long-suffering editor’s desk that go with it), please read my lips: all that stuff about hanging people was merely an example of what we writers call literally what I mean with a straight face. Commenters who insist on wilfully misreading the piece as a mere figure of speech shouldn’t be surprised if they’re truncated like Marie Antoinette.”
Piltdown Mann
Except that was the pseudo-fossil of a vertebrate.
😎
I’ve always preferred “Meltdown Mann”.
It brings to mind what was behind Piltdown Man, what Mann has projected based on similarly robust scientific studies and his reaction to anyone that calls him out on his tree ring circus.
From the article: “Two recurring themes in Singer’s prose and presentations were that climate sensitivity to CO2 is much lower than IPCC estimates”
That doesn’t sound like a denier to me. Singer acknowledges CO2 is a factor, just that it appears to be a small factor (since its effect is so small it can’t be measured). So what are the Twitter CAGW Charlatans accusing Singer of denying? The magnitude of the CO2 effect? Shouldn’t this be called a difference of opinion, rather than a denial of anything? I think so.
Do the Twitter CAGW Charlatans know the magnitude of the CO2 effect? Allow me to answer for them (since I don’t do Twitter): No, they don’t. They haven’t been able to measure it in all these decades. They claim Singer is denying something they can’t measure.
There are a few people in the climate science community who are foisting a lot of unnecessary misery on the world over the subject of human-caused climate change. They have no evidence of CAGW, yet they claim they do, and scare many people with such unsubstantiated claims.
They should produce this evidence, they claim to have. That ought to shut up the skeptics. But they won’t, because they can’t, because they don’t have any evidence. All they have to offer is science fiction posing as science. A lot of posing going on. And a lot of smearing going on because smearing is the only thing the alarmists have.
What a weak case the alarmists have. They can’t meet the challenge of providing evidence of their CAGW claims, so they resort to assasinating the character of those who point this out, like Dr. Singer.
The Alarmists are hoping people don’t notice that they never have a factual rebuttal, it’s always a personal attack on those who disagree with them. They don’t want to debate the subject, they just want to shut the skeptics up, so they insult them and ban them from their websites and feeds because they can’t handle the heat, and the reason they can’t handle the heat is because they have no evidence for CAGW.
That’s why these guys are on Twitter. That way they can ban anyone that upsets their little (dishonest/delusional?) universe.
When you’re so rabidly infected with your own self-delusion and sanctimony that you can’t even abide the counsel of Thumper’s father, “if you can’t say something nice don’t say nothing at all,” when others are eulogizing your opponent, you’ve got a problem. Mann and Gleick (and Kalmus) have a serious problem.
Let me get this straight: just because someone happens to believe in climate, climate change, climate science, science and climate change science, it’s somehow wrong for reporters to call them a climate/change/science denier?
Political correctness gone mad!
Oh, what a tangled web we weave…
Anthony,
please consider endowing something like a Golden Stoat Award for the first believalist cretinous enough to say (in either a Beavis or a Butthead voice) ‘science her her advances one funeral at a time her her.’
You won’t have to wait long. They said it when Prof. Carter passed away, and I see no reason to assume they’ve suddenly stopped hating scientists.
For these cretins, ethical standards have zero values, nor human, neither scientific
They show their own bias and we knew the emperor had no clothes so the knickers comment was not required.
“S. Fred Singer, a leading climate change contrarian, dies at 95”
“And for the record, the reason Dr. Singer wasn’t referred to as a “climate denier” was… it’s a rule in the AP stylebook, you dolts.”
—Anthony Watts
IIRC, WUWT devoted a thread to the AP’s new rules few years ago. In that thread I commented:
That “doubter” was too wishy-washy. We are disputers of the climate consensus, or deviationists from it. We are heretics, not agnostics. We are skeptics, militant skeptics.
But given that the mainstream media won’t / can’t use that positively tinged term, lest it be tarred as being in denial itself, I suggested that it use the more neutral term “climate contrarian.” I said that it was allitierative (two “c”s) and paralleled “climate consensus-ite.”
Some commenters objected that “contrarian” connoted a person who is a knee-jerk naysayer, a born “aginer.” But that’s only true when the word is used unmodified, to describe a “global” trait. (And even then, it probably just as often connotes an independent thinker.) When the noun is modified by “climate,” that global taint is removed.
It is the best descriptor we can hope for from the media at present, and its use should be promoted there by us. The media should not use “denialist,” because that is a slanted, suggestive term. It chimes with and brings to mind the very common phrase, being “in denial” of some self-evident truth, generally for some disreputable reason.
> When the noun [contrarian] is modified by “climate,” that global taint is removed.
Well, OK, obviously the taint is no longer *global*, but so what? It’s still there: it’s merely been restricted to a named scope (the climate issue).
Accusing someone of knee-jerk rejection of a particular idea is no less infantilizing, it’s just more specific.
Note that as with ‘contrarianism,’ so with ‘denialism’: prepending the word ‘climate’ doesn’t solve the problem, because they’re still tarring us with irrationality (to wit, disagreeing with Teh Science for the sake of disagreeing). A ‘denialist,’ if such a species exists, believes in denial itself, and denies X not because he has any basis for doubting it, but because he believes in doing so.
‘Denier,’ on the other hand, is simply a religiously-flavored way of saying ‘disbeliever,’ and delivers no dysphemistic payload to its target, yet makes the person who wields the term as a weapon sound unhinged. It’s an own goal, so we should encourage the enemy to keep bandying it about at every opportunity.
To that end, I often go further and identify myself as a climate kafir, infidel, etc., which all have an identical denotation, yet (if they were foolish enough to take me up on the invitation) would have the connotation that something’s rather wrong with the person who calls me such a thing.
It’s like the N-word. Thanks to the brilliant idea on the part of the black community to appropriate it for themselves, we now live in a culture where its use as hate speech invariably backfires. If I described or addressed an African American person as a N____, I would succeed in exposing myself—not them—to odium and ridicule. (And rightly so.)
Which is why we need to take up Lindzen’s suggestion of greeting each other with a hate-free ‘yo what’s happening, my D______?”
‘Skeptic’ is problematic. There are unskeptical disbelievers (and skeptical believers), if we understand the word in its philosophical sense, a sense to which every critical-thinking person aspires, no matter which side of any given issue they wind up leaning towards. Whereas if we understand it in its colloquial sense of ‘doubter,’ it’s not nearly strong enough to describe most of us—a point you’ve made well.
I like to show good faith (when debating a believer who seems to deserve it) by happily conceding that I’m not necessarily any more of a good ‘skeptic’ than they are, and that they are more than welcome to call me a ‘denier’ instead, on one condition:
that they can say what, exactly, I’m a denier of.
If they call me a ‘climate’ or ‘climate change’ or ‘science’ denier they lose.
I made some other remarks above, to Susan Crockford, that you might find relevant:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/04/13/monday-mirthiness-gleick-and-mann-cluelessly-trash-fred-singers-nyt-obit/#comment-2965597
Quibbles aside, your comment is really well thought through. Thanks.
4/14/20 WUWT
“S. Fred Singer, a leading climate change contrarian, dies at 95”
“And for the record, the reason Dr. Singer wasn’t referred to as a “climate denier” was… it’s a rule in the AP stylebook, you dolts.”
—Anthony Watts
IIRC, WUWT devoted a thread to the AP’s new rules few years ago. In that thread I commented:
That “doubter” was too wishy-washy. We are disputers of the climate consensus, or deviationists from it. We are heretics, not agnostics. We are skeptics, militant skeptics.
But given that the mainstream media won’t / can’t use that positively tinged term, lest it be tarred as being in denial itself, I suggested that it use the more neutral term “climate contrarian.” I said that it was alliterative (two “c”s) and paralleled “climate consensus-ite.”
Some commenters objected that “contrarian” connoted a person who is a knee-jerk naysayer, a born “aginer.” But that’s only true when the word is used unmodified, to describe a “global” trait. (And even then, it probably just as often connotes an independent thinker.) When the noun is modified by “climate,” that global taint is removed.
It is the best descriptor we can hope for from the media at present, and its use should be promoted there by us. The media should not use “denialist,” because that is a slanted, suggestive term. It chimes with and brings to mind the very common phrase, being “in denial” of some self-evident truth, generally for some disreputable reason.
When I first began to study the CO2 story, I read Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth’ and then S.Fred Singer and Dennis Avery’s ‘Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years’.
The Singer and Avery book was excellent, broad reaching in the topics discussed and thought-provoking.
Gore’s book was clearly an expertly put together piece of biased propaganda reflecting the author’s skewed views; nothing more.
I’m sorry to hear of Dr. Singer’s passing – a true scientist, unlike the media-feted charlatans masquerading as such.
Gleick, Orestes and Mann, Prostitutes for the UN goals of achieving world control without representation. (Except of course they are not nearly as useful as prostitutes!)
Thanks for the Marc Sheppard essay.