by Judith Curry
Earth is in a lot of pain, folks. Time to think about sending it off peacefully, for its own sake. Look, at the end of the day, Earth is 4.5 billion years old and had a great life. The last thing you want to do is wait and draw this difficult ordeal out any further. – The Onion
While trying to find insightful analyses of the IPCC Report in the media, I at least came up with these two, that when juxtaposed, made me laugh but also provide some insights.
Joe Romm writes: Alarming IPCC Prognosis: 9°F Warming For U.S., Faster Sea Rise, More Extreme Weather, Permafrost Collapse. Excerpts:
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) now says we are as certain that humans are dramatically changing the planet’s climate as we are that smoking causes cancer.
So perhaps the best way to think about the IPCC, which has issued a summary of its latest report reviewing the state of climate science, is as a super-cautious team of brilliant diagnosticians and specialists (who, like many doctors, aren’t the greatest communicators). They are the best in the world at what they do — the climate equivalent of the Cleveland Clinic or Mayo Clinic or Johns Hopkins — where you and the rest of humanity have just gone through a complete set of medical tests and are awaiting the diagnosis, prognosis, and recommended course of treatment. (It has a big waiting room — called planet Earth.)
The diagnosis is that humans are suffering from a fever (and related symptoms) caused by our own actions — primarily emissions of carbon pollution. Indeed, team IPCC is more certain than the last time we came in 6 years ago and ignored their advice. They are 95% to 100% certain we are responsible for most of the added fever since 1950. They explain:
The best estimate of the human-induced contribution to warming is similar to the observed warming over this period.
To clarify the diagnosis, the best estimate is that humans are responsible for all of the warming we have suffered since 1950. You may ask why team IPCC buried this bombshell at the end of a paragraph on page 12 of their report in very dry language. You might think that with a patient who has as serious a condition as we do but who has simply refused the obvious treatment for two decades (!), they might be a tad blunter.
But like I said, communications is not their strong suit and I am afraid that is a terminal condition. After all, they made you get up at 4 in the morning on a Friday to get this diagnosis! Yes, their bedside manner isn’t that great either.
So what is the prognosis? As they told us 6 years ago (and 6 years before that), if we keep ignoring their recommended course of treatment, then, on average, total warming from preindustrial levels by 2100 is headed toward 4°C (7°F).
Of course, for two decades, their patients (humanity) have completely ignored the recommended treatment even though it is quite inexpensive relative to the cost of dealing with the ever-worsening symptoms, many of which are going to be irreversible.
So we have a super-conservative team of doctors who are bad communicators and a patient who, like most addicts, is self-destructive, very bad at listening, and focused on short-term pleasure over long-term health. That is a prescription for disaster.
The Onion carries this to its logical conclusion in Scientists Recommend Having Earth Put Down:
Claiming that it is the humane thing to do, and that the planet is “just going to suffer” if kept alive any longer, members of the world’s scientific community recommended today that Earth be put down.
“We realize this isn’t the easiest thing to hear, but we’ve run a number of tests and unfortunately there’s really nothing more we can do for Earth at this point. Earth’s ecosystems have hung in there for a while, and you have to hand it to the old gal for staying alive this long, but at this point the chances of a recovery are, I’m sorry to say, incredibly unlikely. It might be time to say goodbye.”
“Earth is in a lot of pain, folks. Time to think about sending it off peacefully, for its own sake.”
While admitting that the prospect of saying goodbye to the terrestrial planet is very difficult, letting nature take its course would only prolong the inevitable. [I]f Earth is not put down, humanity would ultimately be responsible for its continuing care, which would be “increasingly difficult as time goes on.”
“Look, at the end of the day, Earth is 4.5 billion years old and had a great life. The last thing you want to do is wait and draw this difficult ordeal out any further.”
“To be honest, there is a chance that had we taken more drastic steps earlier, Earth would have been able to survive for longer—much, much longer, even. But unfortunately, that is now a moot point. Right now, you should just cherish the good times you and Earth had together and give it a gentle and merciful send-off.”
JC comment: I guess the anthropocene is regarded as a terminal diagnosis for the Earth. Maybe we don’t need to put the planet down; perhaps we could just get rid of all the people.
Oh, Earth will have the last laugh. I imagine she is having one now, too.
“…(IPCC) now says we are as certain that humans are dramatically changing the planet’s climate as we are that smoking causes cancer.”
Call it the ‘tobacco-model;’ and, it’s not one wit different from the British tax on tea: The blood, sweat, toil and sacrifice of the productive is going to this evergreen army of Western bureaucrats whose justification for existence is that they used attorneys, courts, juries and the politics of fear and envy to gain a choke hold over sectors of the economy. One after the other on top of others the Left has driven up tax revenues on everything from alcohol, tobacco, gaming and fuel to transactions in goods and services of nearly every kind, from hotel bills to utility payments like telephone and electric bills.
He who made the earth to be inhabited is probably laughing uproarsly over such consernations.
Psalm 2:4 ESV
Isaiah 45:18 NIV
THE WORD OF GOD ON GLOBAL WARMING/CLIMATE CHANGE
Gen 8:22
While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.
2Ti 1:7
For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
……..AND IF THERE IS ANY DOUBT ABOUT THE TRUTH OF GOD’S WORD;
Mat 24:35 Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.
Mar 13:31 Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.
Luk 21:33 Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.
……THREE TIMES, I THINK HE MEANS IT.
A bit of a twist on what J.P. wrote:
For Gaia hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
Hat tip to The Lord.
Adapting Isaiah 41:21-23 NIV for today’s (inaccurate/false/unvalidated) “prophets”/scientist “gods”:
“Present your case,” says the Lord.
“Set forth your arguments,” says Jacob’s King.
“Tell us, you (“climate science” computer modelers),
what is going to happen.
Tell us what the former things were,
so that we may consider them
and know their final outcome.
Or declare to us the things to come,
tell us what the future holds,
so we may know that you are gods.
(Predict) something (accurately), whether good or bad,
so that we will be dismayed and filled with fear.
But you are less than nothing
and your works are utterly worthless;
whoever chooses you is detestable.”
Yes, the IPCC are super brilliant and super cautious. They could be alarming us ever so much more but are only trying to alarm us a lot!
“While trying to find insightful analyses of the IPCC Report in the media…” – JC
This certainly isn’t the place to look.
Funny you keep looking for it here then. Oh wait, you don’t look for insightful analysis…. so you’re right at home. My bad.
And you didn’t get better.
J.Romm claims IPCC are 95% to 100% certain we are responsible for MOST of the added fever since 1950.
This is the phrase they used back in 2007 when they could only claim 90% certainty.
This year they claim 95% certainty that humans are responsible for MORE THAN 50% of the warming. I am a sceptic and I think I could subscribe to that statement.
Holding on to a flawed theory can be a mistake, but so can trusting flawed Judith, I so appreciate the work you do. The Romm piece made me think of this on confirmation bias and the killing of insightful thinking:
“Tenaciously clinging to a belief despite contrary evidence can be a mistake, but so can prematurely discarding a belief at the first encounter with contrary evidence. All we can conclude is that we’re likely to miss the insight if we rely on a flawed belief, either in a theory or in data, and we make it worse if we’re pigheaded and fixate on that belief. As the saying goes, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you in trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” The more central the belief is to our thinking, the harder it is to give up.”
Klein, Gary (2013-06-25). Seeing What Others Don’t: The Remarkable Ways We Gain Insights (Kindle Locations 1989-1994). PublicAffairs. Kindle Edition.
Sorry, please eliminate the first part of my comment above prior to ‘Judith’:
Holding on to a flawed theory can be a mistake, but so can trusting flawed
flawed Judith??? we are all flawed!
So we are reduced to framing the argument well and telling others they are stupid if they don’t believe us?
That sort of stuff just serves to create more sceptics.
I’m floored
If it weren’t so frustrating to be making such outlandish claims, it would be funny.
There are close parallels between climate-change denialism and alcoholic denialism:
And yes, Sinclair Lewis did die of denied-to-the-death alcohol abuse.
The patterns of outrageous personal abuse, willful ignorance, self-centeredness, and immature bluster that are so commonly associated to climate-change denialism are entirely similar to the patterns of outrageous personal abuse, willful ignorance, self-centeredness, and immature bluster that are all-too-familiar to families who grapple with alcohol abuse.
Hmmmm … perhaps that’s why so many *former* climate-change denialists nowadays are successfully embracing the wide-open Curry/Hansen/Oreskes/Ruckelshaus/Berry/Benedict/Francis 12-Step Climate-Change Program.
It’s because today’s climate-change denialists increasingly understand that they are “powerless over denial” and must find within themselves the courage to turn away from the faux-fellowship of denialism, that Wendell Berry so memorably calls “the gleeful yahoos who are destroying the planet, and the mindless oafs who abet them“.
Good on `yah, 12-stepping climate-change denialists!
Well, if Wendell Berry says that, it must be so. Hard to argue with the guy that inspired the Unibomber. Bin Laden was upset about climate change, too.
So, does fan lack any fundamental understanding of his problem or not? I’m not sure which case is worse.
==================
Fan
THis is a description of the yahoo
Gulliver walks inland until he comes across a field of strange creatures. After observing them for some time he comments, “Upon the whole, I never beheld in all my Travels so disagreeable an Animal, nor one against which I naturally conceived so strong an Antipathy.”
Do you REALLY hate sceptics so much that you liken us to Hitler by calling us demagogues and deniers or believe we have a strong resemblance to something that is so disagreeable as a yahoo?
tonyb
FOMD translated for brevity: The Sky is Falling
What a loon.
Now, now. Everybody be nice to fan. I wish these comments could be trumpeted from every media outlet in the west. All this florid, mindless hyperbole with the flashy colors and characters, are a perfect example of what “climate science” is all about.
Welcome back Springer.
Always enjoy your acidic comments.
Plus your perspective but the comments are fun to read.
Scott
LOL … link added by FOMD!
George Turner, please be aware that the cumulative effects of Wendell Berry’s impeccable politeness, sustained commitment, personal integrity, and foresighted reasoning have already been more far more forceful in their effect than any of Ted Kaczynski’s packages!
Now, ain’t that pure common-sense, George Turner?
Why not watch fer yerself, an` see if yah don’t agree!
Fan
You really are out there aren’t you. But I still have hope for you, unlike some of your brethren.
Do alcoholics look at one glass and claim their is too little ice in his drink and the willfully and blindly ignore that glass next to it overflowing with ice?
It’s always distressing when an opponent produces a finely tuned, informative and empirically supported argument without the need for abuse, wilful ignorance, self centeredness and immature bluster. You should give it a try Fan, maybe you’ll get an army of admirers by dispelling the generally felt notion that you’re what the British call a “toss-pot”.
Sorry, that notion is now un-dispellable. He’s on my permanent ‘scroll-by’ list, one of only half a dozen or so.
“The patterns of outrageous personal abuse, willful ignorance, self-centeredness, and immature bluster that are so commonly associated to climate-change denialism are entirely similar to the patterns of outrageous personal abuse, willful ignorance, self-centeredness, and immature bluster that are all-too-familiar to families who grapple with alcohol abuse.”
Hi Fan,
This is so facile, and so insultingly patronizing, I don’t even know where to start. I’m a naïve guy. I like to believe people are generally sincere, even if wildly misguided, which makes getting through life a little easier than it might otherwise be. Cynicism though always tempting, is a dead end.
That’s my only excuse…as with Joshua….for not seeing it earlier. Both of you are professional provocateurs who thrive on negative attention. Simple as that.
Active alcoholics can’t help themselves. What’s your excuse?
Fan
I can’t believe you said that. There are numerous examples of outrageous personal abuse etc etc from warmists on this -and other-blogs. They are not traits reserved for sceptics.
Personally I wish both groups would have a more mature conversation and treat each other with respect.
tonyb
Our first encounter with smiling hatred this morning. It’s nice to know you care, fanny.
As a non-drinking alcoholic and one who help others overcome drug and alcohol abuse I find you comparison between able to analyze data and addiction insulting.
You quite clearly know nothing about either addiction or science.
You are a scab on the backside of humanity to use such a comparison.
Me too, doc. Every member of my immediate family….including my now 92 mother whom I just recently had to scape off the floor of her assisted living apartment after she took too many benzo’s, is an addict. Most in recovery thankfully. Fan has at last gone too far.
I’ve always wondered if there was such a thing as an addictive personality?
The analogy is to short-term comfort versus long-term distress. From that perspective, I can see how it fits.
Long Term = Ice Age
The precautionary principle is clear, if there is even the slightest chance more CO2 will put off the next ice age, we have to burn all the fossil fuels we can.
Good, sunshine, you have preached that for a while now (possibly kim too), almost like you believe it. Keep going and people will just pat you on the head and not listen to anything else you preach either.
You don’t believe in Ice Ages or the Precautionary Principle?
Then why would anyone do anything after 15 years of flat temperatures.
Jim D: “Quick, spend trillions because ____________ “
sunshine, you say we should burn everything. We get to 1000 ppm. Then what? You think that will be comfortable? This is (one place) where you deviate from sanity.
Reminds me of the story my mom told me to keep me from drinking alcohol. I had a great-uncle who was a binge drinker. He would disappear for days at a time. Eventually, his physician told him that one more binge and he would die. He binged and he died at the age of 96.
Some families are intimately acquainted with binge-to-death addiction; that is why posts that ignorantly mock and denialistically portray these addictions are appreciated variously.
What I wrote was factual. Facts are neutral. They neither mock nor applaud.
The experience of many folks (including me and all my relatives) is that abusive alcoholics commonly proclaim precisely this self-serving “factoid” excuse. Have you ever been party to a situation like that, Theo Goodwin?
Please let me say to all Climate Etc readers, very seriously and completely sincerely, that (the way I listen to it anyway) Wendell Berry’s 2012 Jefferson Lecture, which addresses issues of sustainment, can be appreciated as concerning the sustainment of healthy sobriety *and* the sustainment of healthy families *and* the sustainment of healthy communities … *and* the sustainment of a healthy planet.
Because there’s a very considerable commonality that is naturally shared among these various kinds of sustainment, isn’t there?
That commonality is Wendell Berry’s main point.
You have made yourself a pariah. Don’t try to blame it on Wendell Berry.
Don Monfort, the Climate Etc folks who watch Berry and/or read Berry will either way come to appreciate that for a whole lot of conservative-minded folks the sobriquet “pariah” is a badge of honor
So thank you for the compliment, Don Monfort!
AFOMD, you are completely lost, aren’t you? Nobody denies climate (it’s right before our eyes), nobody denies alcohol. You better get your terminology right before you talk to intelligent people. And don’t deny that you are somewhat confused. What a silly comparison between alcohol and climate. Pure rhetoric without content. Are you in denial of (your own) ignorance?
As is said in Judith’s next topic:
Thank you for your well-intentioned remarks BenPal!
You spot it
u got it.
You are very clever, Fan, and merit praise for propaganda skills.
The Onion made me cry.
Thank heavens we still have the mega-tonnage in the subs and silos. Let’s rock and roll!!!
Oh yessirree, the radically corrupt, politicized and advocacy-ridden IPCC, falsely flying the flag of science (flying the flag of false science?), whose utter lack of even a shred of integrity is quite clear from not just the Climategate revelations but even more so their utterly unrepentant reaction to it, is now categorized as “super-conservative”.
This indeed is the stuff of modern political correctness.
From the climate layman’s perspective, the overriding issue is the trustworthyness of the IPCC. Only if it can somehow one day gain trust, will whatever it says have any traction with any thinking member of the public.
But right now, it’s only precommitted utter dimwits like Fanny and those (like the IPCC itself) primarily motivated by the ideology of governmental expansionism, who profess any trust in the IPCC.
We don’t trust this mob of doctors called the IPCC, so we should seek a second opinion before we put the planet down. I for one would. as I scientist who has cataloged many IPCC mistakes and omissions. am ready to provide a second opinion. I think professor Curry could easily form a team of like minded scientists. What do you think?
A 2nd opinion is good, but we’re way, way past just a second opinion, most of which tell us the same thing – there’s a problem.
Continuing to get ‘2nd opinions’ hoping to hear what you want to hear is ‘doctor shopping’.
This is what happens when the first opinion is not convincing and “stolen” emails reveal the docs to be dishonest.
And exactly what is the problem Michael? Usually, when a problem arises, there are symptoms. What symptoms have expressed themselves to date? Increasing number of climate refugees? Spread of tropical disease into temperate climes? Islands sliding beneath rising oceans? How about rising oceans? Famines? Decreasing agricultural output? Increasing extreme weather?
About the only “symptom” one can point to is reduction in Arctic ice. The problem with that is the “doctors” are trying to figure out how to spin that as a “problem”. Hence we get hypothesis such as the meandering jet stream playing havoc with the weather. No proof. Just a hypothsis, which some want displayed as fact.
“The patterns of outrageous personal abuse, willful ignorance, self-centeredness, and immature bluster”
sounds a lot like Michael Mann.
Excellent !
So what we just need to do is to remove the mankind.
If all what’s left after we are over are fishes, the nature will need maximally 400 millions of years untill the descendants of some fish rebuild an industrial civilisation.
The biggest advantage I see in this precautionary measure is that the nature will also have all the time necessary to rebuild trillions of tons of fossil fuels so that our fishes may rediscover the joys of the fish caused climate change.
Perhaps there will be also a fish Hansen raving about the Apocalypse that is nigh and an octopus IPCC writing reports.
Nietzsche already said that everything was an eternal recurrence :)
Yes, we should take heed of the advice from a UN council, largely made up of socialist and tyrant thug nations.
Joe Romm has brain fever apparently. I hope his team of doctors is better than the Hockey Team or he won’t be long on this Earth.
Follow the money folks.
America is working on a ‘final solution’ to AGW.
“Under the 2014 proposal, the Energy Department’s nuclear weapons activities funding — which includes modernization efforts for bomber-based and missile-based warheads — would be increased roughly 7 percent, or around $500 million, above the current level of $7.227 billion for these activities.”
“Representative Steve Palazzo (Republican, Mississippi): There are 13 agencies within the government that fund over $2.5 billion in climate change research.”
The doctor on my first visit..
“Your temperature is 37 degrees, that may be a little high”
The doctor on my 2nd visit..
“Your temperature is 37 degrees, up a half of a degree on last time. That could be a problem.”
The doctor on my 3rd visit..
“Your temperature is 37 degrees, up three quarters of a degree since your first visit. I’m almost certain that that could be a problem for you.”
The doctor on my 4th visit..
“Your temperature is 37 degrees, up a full degree since your first visit and I am certain that that is going to be a problem for you.”
Of course, for two decades, their patients (humanity) have completely ignored the recommended treatment even though it is quite inexpensive relative to the cost of dealing with the ever-worsening symptoms …
But of course the “symptoms” haven’t gotten any worse — we’ve had almost two decades of unchanging global temperatures.
In many cases, benign tumors need no treatment. Doctors may simply use “watchful waiting” to make sure they cause no problems.
http://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/benign-tumors-causes-treatments
And doctors wait watchfully because the cost of treatment (pain, risk, disfigurement, lost productivity and financial) is greater than that of waiting — as is likely the case with climate change.
“…a super-cautious team of brilliant diagnosticians and specialists…”
I didn’t know Romm was such a comedian. He’s funnier than the Onion.
The fine minds that gave us the hockey stick, Himalayan glaciers gone by 2035, the desertifying Amazon, ever rising temperatures that annoyingly refuse to rise, and increase confidence as their models diverge ever more from their reported temps, are not just cautions, but “super-cautions.” (Why not super-duper-trooper-cautious?)
I guess this makes Romm a “super-cautious” “journalist”.
We have to suppose universe earthoids are mostly all-tropical with vast jungles and hunkering post-primate hunter-gatherers vaguely gaffing about some mythical way-back age with tablets, many kinds of hrududus and some bright white type of rock. :)
Remarks of Senator Barack Obama
Real Leadership for a Clean Energy Future
Monday, October 8th, 2007
Portsmouth, NH
We can’t be afraid to stand up to the oil and auto industry when the future of our economy is at stake. When we let these companies off the hook; when we tell them they don’t have to build fuel-efficient cars or transition to renewable fuels, it may boost their short-term profits, but it is killing their long-term chances for survival and threatening too many American jobs.
…
Most of all, we cannot afford more of the same timid politics when the future of our planet is at stake. Global warming is not a someday problem, it is now. In a state like New Hampshire, the ski industry is facing shorter seasons and losing jobs. We are already breaking records with the intensity of our storms, the number of forest fires, the periods of drought. By 2050 famine could force more than 250 million from their homes — famine that will increase the chances of war and strife in many of the world’s weakest states. The polar ice caps are now melting faster than science had ever predicted. And if we do nothing, sea levels will rise high enough to swallow large portions of every coastal city and town.
…
The first step in doing this is to phase out a carbon-based economy that’s causing our changing climate. As President, I will set a hard cap on all carbon emissions at a level that scientists say is necessary to curb global warming — an 80% reduction by 2050. To ensure this isn’t just talk, I will also commit to interim targets toward this goal in 2020, 2030, and 2040. These reductions will start immediately, and we’ll continue to follow the recommendations of top scientists to ensure that our targets are strong enough to meet the challenge we face.
In addition to this cap, all polluters will have to pay based on the amount of pollution they release into the sky. The market will set the price, but unlike the other cap-and-trade proposals that have been offered in this race, no business will be allowed to emit any greenhouses gases for free. Businesses don’t own the sky, the public does, and if we want them to stop polluting it, we have to put a price on all pollution. It’s time to make the cleaner way of doing business the more profitable way of doing business.
…
Once we make dirty energy expensive, the second step in my plan is to invest $150 billion over the next decade to ensure the development and deployment of clean, affordable energy.
That starts with the next generation of biofuels. We know that corn ethanol has been the most successful alternative fuel we have ever developed. I’ve been a champion for ethanol. In just two years, the Renewable Fuel Standard I helped pass has sparked an historic expansion of ethanol production. It has helped displace foreign oil and strengthen our rural economy. And we should fight the efforts of big oil and big agri-business to undermine this emerging industry.
…
The third step in my plan to combat climate change is to call on businesses, government, and the American people to make America 50% more energy efficient by 2030. This is by far the fastest, easiest, and cheapest way to curb our emissions and save money at the same time. Since DuPont implemented an energy efficiency program in 1990, the company has significantly reduced its pollution and cut its energy bills by $3 billion, and cities like Keene and Portland, Oregon have led in meeting new efficiency standards. There is no reason the rest of America can’t do the same.
We will start by dramatically improving the efficiency of our buildings, which currently account for nearly half of all carbon emissions in America today. When I am President, we’ll set a goal of making our new buildings 50% more efficient within several years. The federal government will lead by making all of its buildings carbon neutral by 2025. And I will set a national goal of making all new buildings in America carbon neutral by 2030.
…
(Jim2: This one is a real but tragic laugh)
From the moment I take office, I will invite the world back to Washington and let it be known that the United States of America is ready to lead again. That we are ready to rejoin the community of nations in taking on the greatest challenge of this generation.
There are many innocent victims of him droning on so.
===============
I’d always laugh approvingly when I saw someone carrying a sign proclaiming GWB the “worst President ever.” However the joke’s on me when it comes to Obama, whom I never dreamed might be as bad. If Obamacare turns out to be the disaster many predict, it will certainly seal the deal..
Obama is one of the purest progressives we have had as president, ever. He is perhaps eclipsed by Woodrow Wilson, one of the founding fathers of the U.S. progressive movement. Perhaps.
What matters to progressives/statists is not the impact of the policy, but the degree to which it increases the power of the government, and thereby the progressives. By the proper measure he is doing a bang up job. Obamacare is taking control of the healthcare economy. The EPA is seizing control of vast swaths of the energy economy. College education has become a wholly owned subsidiarity of the state. Control of primary and secondary education is in the process of being fully nationalized through a con job called “Common Core.” The Fed is buying boatloads of Treasury bonds (Peter paying Paul, with Paul’s Monopoly money) to enable the spending of trillions of dollars the government does not have, which will virtually ensure a future economic collapse. Said collapse causing people to turn to…you guessed it…the state in the “crisis”.
On domestic policy, Barack Obama is the most successful progressive president since Franklin Roosevelt, perhaps even eclipsing FDR.
And don’t get me started on the fecklessness that passes for foreign policy.
Interesting that the automobile industry was on his Emmanuel Goldstein list then, and a couple of years later he “saved GM”.
If the pause continues through the next report, the alarmist community is finished. Doubling down on the apocalyptic language guarantees it in that event.
They have been finished since Climategate-Copenhagen. It’s just momentum that has carried them along and that is petering out.
Don Montford
The IPCC is like a super tanker and at present the captain and his crew on the bridge are only vaguely aware of the plebs shouting up at them from a dinghy bobbing in the ocean alongside.
The captain need firstly to be aware of other courses he can plot. THEN agree with them THEN turn the super tanker around.
We are deluding ourselves if we believe their momentum is already slowing.
Sceptics need to be much better organised in order to be properly competitive with the IPCC although we have Nature on our side. However we are a disparate bunch with various viewpoints as can be seen by the inter party squabbling that goes on here.
tonyb
What must we do to unite against the alarmists, tony? Become a dogmatic and hysterical army of drones, like them? Don’t worry about the squabbling. The pause is killing the cause.
Don
The pause has barely been mentioned so that won’t kill it. Temperatures would have to drop notably by the time of the next assessment for them to take notice.
We don’t need to be drones but we ought to have a strategic game plan
tonyb
Tony said:
“We don’t need to be drones but we ought to have a strategic game plan.”
——
A bit shocking to hear you say this Tony. Such a statement would never come from an honest skeptic, but from a true believer that your perspective is the “right” one.
As a honest skeptic I get up everyday and can’t wait to learn something that might give me a change of perspective and I could never imagine developing a “strategic game plan” to defend truths I only hold as provisional.
Seems you are a member of the true-unbelievers (just as committed to their cause as true-believers) and perhaps still think you are actually an honest skeptic.
Rgates
Come off your high horse, I think you are taking our comments far more seriously than was intended. Sceptics do have a sense of humour you know and can be modest and self deprecating.
Of course we can’t (and shouldn’t) ‘organise’ but we all need to investigate alternative view points otherwise only one version of whatever the truth is will be presented.
As a true sceptic you surely want to hear ALL points of view don’t you and not allow alternative viewpoints to be squashed and ignored or not even heard?
tonyb
The current pause is explained as a compensation of increasing temperatures by a fortuitous sequence of cooling Pacific events as documented by the ENSO index, SOI.
http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/9159/hpi.gif
Since the SOI has not shown an significant overall trend in the last 130 years, these events will get swamped out by the overall warming trend. History is often a good predictor of the future.
‘ a fortuitous sequence of cooling Pacific events ‘
Not fortuitous for the Koolaid drinkers awaiting Thermogeddon
Yeah, well, the warming trend had better return, or the IPCC is toast. Probably toast anyway since their goals are never going to be met, but the guffaws will be loud and persistent if, 5 years from now they are still trying to explain away the pause like you just did.
The trouble is webby’s limited understanding of history and causality.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/ENSO11000.gif.html?sort=3&o=143
Natural variation caused cooling – heck it’s like tossing a coin – what are the chances of another head? What are the chances of another decade to three of no warming? Calculate right and beat the house – calculate wrong and you are another Vegas loser.
Chief shows uncalibrated historical records.
Note the good agreement with current data
http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/9159/hpi.gif
‘According to Fig. 5, a series of intense El Nino events
(high red color intensity) begins at about 1450 BC that will
last for centuries. In that period normal (La Nina) condi-
tions have but disappeared. For comparison, the very strong 1998 El Nino event scores 89 in red color intensity. During the time when the Minoans were fading, El Nino events reach values in red color intensity over 200.’
http://www.clim-past.net/6/525/2010/cp-6-525-2010.pdf
We are comparing runoff intensity directly – which is directly associated with El Nino intensity. History as I say. ENSO has decadal to millennial variability that is obvious in the Moy’s 2002 Laguna Pallcacocha.
The best defense is a good offense. It is clear that was their thinking in the document.
Some one at the Open University suggested that the population should be reduced and suggests voluntary euthanasia – perhaps members of the IPCC should lead the way
I’ll have to agree with one part of what Romm said. After reading all of ch10
in particular the paragraph he mentioned, I have to wonder why they buried the that there.
Assuming they are bad communicators is one explanation. However, its easy to turn that around. Assuming their conclusion is correct, we are 95% certain that more than 50% is human caused, one has to wonder how they left that last paragraph in the document. which is correct?
in Ar4 chapter 3 and chapter 6 were the worst argued chapters.
Peter Thorne has done a masterful job writing the chapter of observations, so the error of ch 3 are fixed and actually acknowledged openly.
I havent read the paleo chapter in detail to see if Ar4 ch6 shortcomings have been addressed. But it clear to me after reading and re reading ch 10
that it needs a do over. For clarity if nothing else.
So the Onion thinks it is over, based on the pronouncements of this austere group:
“Earth’s ecosystems have hung in there for a while, and you have to hand it to the old gal for staying alive this long, but at this point the chances of a recovery are, I’m sorry to say, incredibly unlikely.”
C’mon, Onion, you left out a lot of detail. When my grandmother was “put down” the key information was that she had suffered brain damage from which she could not recover. Something like that applies here. The report from the IPCC and its endorsement by the craven media clearly reveals that Earth has suffered brain damage that is extremely likely to prove irreparable. Mercy requires euthanasia.
George Carlin on saving the planet:
Not to mention, Carlin wrestled with all us life with alcohol-and-opiate addiction.
Alcoholism, misanthropy, personal abuse, and willful ignorance. Gosh, no wonder George Carlin’s a hero to Climate Etc‘s climate-change denialists!
Gosh, no wonder George Carlin’s a hero to Climate Etc‘s climate-change denialists!
Of which I am not one. I also doubt most people here are out right not believing there is some human causal factor to the warming or that it could cause the climate to present challenges to human existence. I go with what I see and mainly stick to what’s been proven so far (see my last posts on open thread weekend). Fan please don’t cast dispersions and put people in boxes when you don’t know them. I am here to learn from all different points of view including yours. The Carlin video is just humor. It has some political flavor but so what. The guy is dead; he may have been all of what you said but he was still funny to a lot of people. Nobody is (was) perfect. Lighten up :-) I know you can.
* cast aspersions (that too lol)
ordvic-
When I read the post, my first thought was- “Earth plus plastic!”
Thanks for providing the link to Carlin’s bit. Good stuff.
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I like the spin of turning the “pause” into just an “example”, apparently chosen at random, to explain it as an artifact of cherry picking, while giving a faint nod to natural variability. I think they may have hired some of the PR people from Philip Morris.
“In addition to robust multi-decadal warming, global mean surface temperature exhibits substantial decadal and interannual variability (see Figure SPM.1). Due to natural variability, trends based on short records are very sensitive to the beginning and end dates and do not in general reflect long-term climate trends. As one example, the rate of warming over the past 15 years (1998–2012; 0.05 [–0.05 to +0.15] °C per decade), which begins with a strong El Niño, is smaller than the rate calculated since 1951 (1951–2012; 0.12 [0.08 to 0.14] °C per decade) .{2.4} ”
In one dishonest stroke they deal with the “pause” while evading the question of the accuracy of their models and predictions.
lol
What ever happened to “five years”? More than 40 years ago I heard about five years…
With apologies to Bowie,
“Pushing thru the market Square
So many mothers sighing
News had just come over,
We had five years left to cry in
News guy wept and told us
Earth was really dying
Cried so much his face was wet
Then I knew he was not lying.
Oh is there concrete all around
Or is it in my head
Yeah
I’m a dude dad
JC comment: I guess the anthropocene is regarded as a terminal diagnosis for the Earth. Maybe we don’t need to put the planet down; perhaps we could just get rid of all the people.
——-
When faced with absurdity and even disappointment, humor is often the best coping mechanism. And perhaps the perspective of an honest skeptic and admitted warmist can add to the joviality.
Human activity has very likely altered the character of this particular interglacial. The term Anthropocene is a valid way to capture this change. If humans were to suddenly disappear and some intelligent species 20 million years in the future were to be studying this geological layer, they would be able to identify a difference from other interglacials separate from any human artifacts they might find. The spike in CO2 and other chemical traces recorded would be just one big clue, but not the only.
But the step from accepting AGW as likely to CAGW is a big one, and there is even a chance the warming we cause could turn out to be a net beneficial to life on earth, especially if it delays, minimizes, or even cancels the next advance of glaciers. But trying to really be honest in answering the “Okay, we’re warming the Earth, so what?” question must come back to the effects on the biosphere, which of course includes ocean dwelling life. Life is pretty darn adaptable within a range of change to the climate and within a given timeframe. Change that is too extreme or too rapid makes extinction more likely. Currently we are seeing some stress on some species, and the overall background rate of extinction appears to be rising. Whether or not this will affect humans or our food supply crops is the open question. Our numbers can put strains on Earth’s food and fresh water resources if we develop without the ethic of stewardship. With an ethic of stewardship and keen awareness of our effects on the planet, we might find that our awareness of our ability to warm the planet turns out to be one more tool we use to take conscious control of the Anthropocene as we certainly must do if our numbers continue to expand. Without that conscious stewardship and Anthropocene management, a Malthusian catastrophe for our species grows in probability, and we would simply join the majority of other species that came and went on this planet.
Well said, Gates. On top of this, the warming is insidious (a perfect word for it if you look it up). If we saw 1 degree C immediately for every 100 ppm we added, we would soon stop doing it, but we don’t. The warming is slowed by the ocean’s heat capacity, but not mitigated at all in its final effect. We are already committed to over a degree since pre-industrial, and by 2100 we could have committed to another 3-5 C just from emissions in this century.
But JimD, those of us fimiliar with the carbon dioxide spectrum know that it’s greenhouse effect is not LINEARLY related to its abundance in the atmosphere, as you apparently wish. Although somewhat of a simplification, since it’s strongest infrared absorption bands are already saturated, the greenhouse effect of additional carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is approximately logarithmic. What this means is it’s necessary to bake the carbon dioxide out of all the earth’s limestone rocks, coral reefs, etc, to begin to get conditions similar to the atmosphere of my planet. Just burning up all the remaining fossil(?) fuels will not be enough.
One degree per 100 ppm turns out to be a good approximation through the range expected by 2100. It is a little conservative at the low end, and a little progressive at the high end, but stays within the uncertainty range.
+ 1
“The spike in CO2 and other chemical traces recorded would be just one big clue, but not the only”
These “intelligent species” would probably rapidly find out that all those chemical substances didn’t come from outer space but were and still are part of the planet. And they would continue to use them to secure their own well-being on this planet.
An extinction layer would serve as a lesson to them, maybe proof to show for the ‘deniers’ of the future before embarking on another round of wholesale carbon emission.
JimD, the fossil record is pretty clear on the subject of extinction level events; collisions of the planet with large racks and comets is bad news for the biosphere.
Take a look at the moon and note all the impact craters; we have been hit as often. Currently, only one species is anywhere near sophisticated enough to defend the Earth and its biosphere from future collisions; Humans.
If you want to preach duty and stewardship, I will help man the barricades. However, if you want to hold back our species, including those born in the Third World, I reject you and all your works.
We can have wealth and ecology. We will end up with neither if we pay attention to the watermelons.
The third world is mostly also the warmest part of the world. The unprecedented temperatures for humankind will hit them first through no fault of their own.
Jim, what’s happened to “Polar Amplification”? You know, it’s where the poles warm more than the equator!
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/01/polar-amplification/
“Polar amplification” usually refers to greater climate change near the pole compared to the rest of the hemisphere or globe”
R Gates the Skeptical Warmist: Currently we are seeing some stress on some species, and the overall background rate of extinction appears to be rising. Whether or not this will affect humans or our food supply crops is the open question.
Good post overall. Research to date supports the idea that increased CO2 promotes increased crop growth and increased Net Primary Productivity of the natural vegetation. Research is continuing. The food supply is mostly provided by derived species, and crop breeding also continues. On this point, there isn’t even a prima facie case that the direct effects of CO2 are harmful to the food supply.
Perhaps a new term- BAGW – ought to be adopted by those believe that AGW will prove Beneficial to life on Earth.
R Gates: those believe that AGW will prove Beneficial to life on Earth.
I am trying to avoid conclusions for a while, and concentrate on the maybes.
Matthew Marler said:
“I am trying to avoid conclusions for a while, and concentrate on the maybes.”
_____
A true skeptic simply chooses the most likely out of a range of maybe’s– never getting to 100% certainty on anything, and thus never becoming a true believer.
R Gates: A true skeptic simply chooses the most likely out of a range of maybe’s– never getting to 100% certainty on anything, and thus never becoming a true believer.
The idea of “true skeptic” is worthless.
“Currently we are seeing some stress on some species, and the overall background rate of extinction appears to be rising.”
I read this far RG, in good faith and with a mind as open as I could pry it.. And I’ll try again after I calm down. But this is mere speculation on your part. “Appears” is a weasel word, used frequently by those of the alarmist persuasion.. There is always, always, always, some stress on some species. Just as there is always extreme weather, something else we often see the word “appears” in connection with…and in precisely the same spirit. You can’t say one way or another with anything like near certainty that the “background rate” of extinction is rising. Hence the *appears*
Should have said, hence the *weasily* “appears.”
What gives Gates, you almost sound reasonable…a little squeamish on the reference to the Malthusian catastrophe though. But why quibble.
Dennis,
I’ve decided to start taking my medications again and it really helps– thanks for asking!
RG,
A list of species which have gone extinct in the past 50 – 60 years?
RE: putting strains on Earth’s food – apparently Earth, or more precisely, the farmers who till it, haven’t gotten the word. We are headed for record outputs in a variety of staple grains world wide. What is really amazing is this is occuring at the same time as a decrease in ariable land that is under cultivation.
As I’ve mentioned many times, if you truly believe the world is headed towards food shortages, you need to be advocating for efforts which will reduce the percentage that is lost to spoilage and waste. Anyone calling for action on climate change to address food issues is either ignorant of the basics or dishonest in their arguments.
I suggest that the IPCC be put down.
well check out my latest post :)
Unlike Tomas Milanovic who takes a 400 million year perspective upon the re-invention of the industrial revolution, I think we should take a cue from an Irish tradition and have an olde fashion Irish Wake now!
Give Mama Gaia a smashing good sendoff.
Ferment all the corn into sour mash.
Brew all the barley into beer.
Make all the red grapes into Bordeaux and all the white grapes into Chardeny as we don’t have time to wait for barrel aging and all that stuff.
Sweat meats and cheeses, crackers and fruits.
Toast to the wonderful times we’ve had. Drink and make Mary until the sun rises again. I think Mama would like that.
” Drink and make Mary until the sun rises again”
Have you asked Mary if its OK?
Do we all form a queue or is there some sort of ticketing system?
Doc Martyn
There is another Mary, Mary Magdalene
“Throughout the centuries there have been many extra-biblical speculations about her role before and after she met Jesus. These have included harlot, wife, mother, and secret lover” Wiki
Seems like a good group to have at a Wake.
On the other hand:
“The best estimate of the human-induced contribution to warming is similar to the observed warming over this period.”
So the best IPCC estimate is wrong.
Instead of Mama Gaia, let’s have a wake for IPCC.
I’m ready to party.
Sign in the stands at a Georgia Tech – William & Mary football game from several years ago:
Beat William and bang Mary!
One of my favorites to this day.
If these guys are the best experts in the field, every climate scientist in the world needs to hide his or her head in shame. As Steve Mc has pointed out so many times, sloppiness is a constant feature of the work. Mann’s flawed, homemade code and the use of upside down data; Rahmstorf’s silly use of made up data from the future, Monnet’s bizarre flight of imagination in polar bear land, Jones’ Chinese fraud and refusal to share data, Harry Read Me, Briffa’s magic tree, Steig’s Antarctic smear, the SST wild ass guess, the list just goes on and on and on …
Anyone who can extend a satellite record back to 1880 is either a genius or a fraud.
Now Doc, there was an alien data archive found in Machu Picchu that just required the right translation following ritual sacrifice of Tofu and Mung beans by a virgin airline.
JC comment: I guess the anthropocene is regarded as a terminal diagnosis for the Earth.
That is a bit of bad timing, just as I have after the summer break returned to the occasional blog comment, and started prefixing my graphs with ‘igitur terra amata’ attributing the major fundamental changes to the restless planet.
The IPCC says that the climate ‘scientists’ are 95% to 100% certain that the temperature increase (0.6C?) we have had (these last decades of warming)is more than 50% attributable to human activity.
Let’s analyze that:
So it cannot be 100% since 95 to 100% has a mean of 97.5%.
But this near certainty is about half of the rise in temperature, which means half of 0.6C which, if I get correctly, means we are talking about 0.3C? What was that? Are we talking about 0.3C? But we have had ZERO for the past 17 years, ok, let’s say 15 years. ZERO change for 15 consecutive years and the IPCC says that they’re 97.5% certain that we humans are to blame for a non-rise in temperature.
We are to blame for a temperature stasis of 15 years.
Yes, they have set a low bar to say that they are 95% certain that 0.3 C of the warming since 1950 has been due to CO2, but some people don’t even believe that much. I think, by now, it is just a reflex reaction against anything the IPCC says, however low they set the bar.
The satellite data says it isn’t. What’s a guy to do?
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/cloud_palleandLaken2013_zps73c516f9.png.html?sort=3&o=30
But it would be easy to make the earth cool down. All we need to do is create some artificial volcanic dust clouds in the sky. Surely we have enough high explosives to do that.
the earth has a ”self healing / self repairing system” no worries
Indeed it does, but one ought not equate such a “self-repairing system”, with a “save the humans” system. What’s good for the Earth might not always be what’s good for homo sapiens.
This post and comments clearly demonstrates that rhetoric is never up to providing us with any viable solution to our problems. Judith’s head post simply was begging the question as to whether the IPCC (as opposed to the Earth) should be put down.
Judith,
You could not have summed up the desire of those who think of themselves as greens and environmentalists better.
Lets just prune humanity.
I am 100% certain that my chance of winning the lottery is 0.00000000000001%.
Hence I am 100% certain. I win.
That’s how the IPCC works and they are paid lots of money for saying that, they are awarded Nobel prizes and we are taxed trillions of dollars/euros/GBP/AUD for as a result of that ‘certainty’.
In fact this says it all about those educated between their wits and funded beyond their intelligence. It has though a nice lovely poetic parallel that the author is to dumb to spot.
Smoking does not cause cancer – it causes some cancers – indeed and here I can only weep with the symmetry – it causes only a small fraction of cancers
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MQi_vn2P2Y&w=420&h=315]
Yes Judy,
We can joke about that, and even find it funny, but there does seem to a genuine psychopathology which is the bent mandrel around which the environmental movement [among others] has become wrapped, namely that Humanity is somehow the enemy of Nature, and that Nature is better off without Humanity – or at least the vast majority of us.
The voice of Agent Smith, “Humanity is a disease, and we are the cure.”
The ideology of many has become become apocalyptic, millenarian, and anti-human in the extreme. Watch what you allow on the tube for your children. It is a purity neurosis gone pathological. We love to hate ourselves. Since Schopenhauer we have been preached to that it is better we had never been, that [human] life is ultimately negative. Is it any wonder our institutions have become aberrant as well? As scientists who tend towards reductionism, we like to treat these phenomenon in isolation, like there is no relationship between our scientific edifices and our media edifices.
We love to destroy humanity in our dreams and we love to be its rescuer. Both are sick. The voice that preaches extinction is the voice of sickness.
I have my moments of anger and fear, I’m human, but I know that what flows from that is evil – some people don’t, or they can’t tell the difference.
W^3
The voice of Agent Smith, “Humanity is a disease, and we are the cure.”
.
And that’s why it is a movie and not reality because our Universe has already condemned Agent Smith to eternal failure. It is really just a matter of perspective.
Remove the mankind totally. What happens?
Well there are those chimpanzees and gorillas that are oh so near to creating a primitive civilization. Give them what, 5 millions years ? In 5 millions years what is an eye blink you have a new scientific and industrial mankind back. Admittedly a bit more hairy than we were and with smaller noses but otherwise we’d not be very surprised by what they do and how they live.
So now as one realizes that what one actually considers a “poison” for the Mother Earth is not man specifically but intelligent beings that dominate and transform Nature for their benefit, one can extend the cure to all apes too. Add dolphins just to be sure. What happens ?
.
Well there are those annoying mammals that have a brain too big for their good. Give them 50 millions years and they’ll begin to speculate about quantum mechanics and general relativity. Using cars and fossil fuels too.
.
And the chain goes to infinity. Even exterminating everything above worms doesn’t cure anything. It only takes more time, a few hundreds of millions of years, to get things back where they are today.
.
So clearly Mother Nature doesn’t care about what we do or don’t do inside one totally insignificant century from 2000 – 2100. We make no significant difference on time scales that are noticeable . A minority of people living inside this insignificant century may be scared and irrationally overestimate their own importance. But who will remember them only 200 years later ? Nobody.
.
So yes, there are and will always be minor problems for us mankind and all kinds of inconvenient to deal with as they come. The oceans will rise as they must in every interglacial. Perhaps during a short time we’ll help them to do so a bit faster. The temperatures will rise as they must in every interglacial. Perhaps during a short time a bit faster. There will even probably be no ice in summer on the North Pole in some time what nobody cares about annyway.
.
The real and I mean really scaring and important problems will start when we’ll begin to slide down to the next glacial. And the only question I have for all the alarmist of this insignificant 21st century is to give me an estimate of when this will happen. But as it is in several thousands of years, it would be ridiculous to care about that today anyway.
A most excellent post. Kudos.
The sad fact is just this, and nothing less:
On 24 Oct 1945, FEAR separated humans from the reality of mankind’s connection with his Creator via invisible force fields emanating from the Sun’s pulsar core.
See middle paragraph of this one page synopsis:
http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10640850/Synopsis.pdf
Why is there not a LOSU statement included in the AR5 Summary For Policy Makers. Not providing policy makers with this key information is really the most visible attempt by the AR5 lead authors to leave government officials with the impression that this science here is well understood, when a quick glance at the LOSU statement embedded deeply within the full report makes it clear that the science which promotes the AGW hypothesis is not well understood at all.
It would have helped, but any LOSU claim by the IPCC above “poor” is deceptive fantasy anyhow.
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