by Judith Curry
My big time crunch is easing somewhat. Here are some items that caught my eye this past week.
GA State Climatologist ousted
Dr. David Stooksbury of the University of Georgia has been ousted as the GA State Climatologist. Masterresource has has the full story. Stooks found out about this through a media query and from a memo that was sent to people at NOAA, I have been in close communication with my colleagues at UGA about this. For the record, Stooks has served as State Climatologist with distinction for over a decade, building trust with government agencies and farmers.
Chip Knappenberger speculates that this is because Stooks did not show sufficient “denial” of global warming, in a very conservative “red” state. Stooks was a Ph.D. student of Pat Michaels, so I always assumed he had a bit of skeptical streak. He has scrupulously stayed out of the global warming debate, saying nothing that would invoke the ire of climate scientists nor of the politicos on either side. If Knappenberger is correct, then I suspect this may be associated with a report that he sent out earlier this summer regarding temperature records that had been broken in the state of GA. Note, global warming was not at all mentioned, but even the report of broken summertime temperature records may have been enough to trigger this. I just don’t know why the Governor has ousted Stooks.
Note, the position of State Climatologist is essentially unfunded. Stooks and his associate Pam Knox have provided very valuable service to the state of GA. His office built trust with state and local govt agencies and also the farmers. During the drought of 2007/2008, he spend much time meeting with the previous Governor. While I know nothing about the new state climatologist, successful crop production depends on knowledge from the state climatologist. I hope the Governor knows what he is doing, and I would certainly like to see some justification for this action.
Communication front
After the tepid response to Al Gore’s 24 hours of reality, a climate activist may be asking “how can we possibly get our message across?” Try a soap opera [link].
The Caribbean is abuzz about Callaloo. Not the traditional stew for which the region is known, but a steamy new soap opera that began airing in ten countries earlier this month.
For the next two years, a cast of colorful characters will deliver messages about climate change, human health and sustainable development through 208 carefully crafted episodes of a radio drama designed to entertain listeners through love triangles, personal struggles and happy endings.
My Island – My Community is rooted in the principles of Entertainment-Education, which incorporates vital information into entertaining media programs to simultaneously educate and amuse audiences. Callaloo is complemented by hour-long national talk shows that engage listeners in conversations around local issues. Community mobilization campaigns will complement the work, making it easy for local residents to engage directly with the issues.
The drama role models actions communities can take to adapt to the rising sea levels, stronger storms and loss of biodiversity associated with climate change, to secure a sustainable future for the islands they call home.
This is really exciting, too bad I don’t speak spanish. This could be a really effective method for building local and community resilience to weather disasters and climate change.
Department of good news . . .
The champagne crop is improving with warmer summers in Europe [link].
Climate change may be one of the greatest perils of our time, contributing to droughts, floods, deadly heat waves and super-charged hurricanes.
But for the moment, France’s Champagne makers are raising their glasses to it.
They say the climatic shift has made their lives easier and their Champagne better, allowing producers to harvest earlier than before.
“[Europe’s warmer summers] are a good thing for us,” said Pierre Cheval, independent producer of the Gatinois Champagne. “They mean the grapes mature when the days are longer and it reduces the risks of diseases linked to humidity. Also, it’s much nicer for us to harvest at the end of August than in late September. I remember harvesting once under the early snows of October. That was not fun!”
Climate change also appears to be a boon to UK seafood [link].
UK waters may become more productive fishing grounds as climate change brings new species in from the south, according to researchers.
Fish such as red mullet, hake and sole have become more abundant in the last 30 years, as the waters have warmed.
But established favourites such as cod and haddock may be on the wane.
JC note: this thread is an open discussion on current events and news about climate etc.
Thanks for the message, Professor Curry.
We live in a very uncertain period.
I am personally convinced that Earth’s heat source is its pulsar core, and nobody, absolutely nobody can predict when or what that will do next.
Hang in there!
Oliver K. Manuel
In a paper to be published in Ap. J. Letters, Dr. Yuri Cavecchi and an international team of scientists from MIT, University of Amsterdam, Montash University and the University of Leiden now report powerful explosions, “bursts,” from neutron stars.
http://eprintweb.org/S/article/astro-ph/1102.1548
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-09-neutron-star-thermonuclear-explosions.html
This appears to confirm our earlier reports of
a.) Neutron repulsion as a major source of nuclear energy
a.) Neutron emission as a source of energy in ordinary stars
c.) Neutron repulsion as the driving force for solar eruptions
Opponents and proponents of AGW are descends of two responses to threats of nuclear war: Rational Hippies and frighten world leaders secret agreements to endorse the Bilderberg model of a stable H-filled Sun and global climate change as a common enemy to unite nations and promote world peace [1]:
1. “Historical roots of Climategate”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kissinger_Mao.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10640850/20110722_Climategate_Roots.pdf
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10640850/20110722_Climategate_Roots.doc
But Earth is heated by a variable star, powered by neutron repulsion in its neutron-rich core. That is why Earth’s climate has always changed and life continues to evolve [2]:
2. “Origin and evolution of life”
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10640850/JMP20112600007_31445079.pdf
Fanaticism replaced consensus science after errors were found in government claims that we caused global climate change.
Judith
I do not know anything about Stooks and his associate Pam Knox, but if you are in a policy making position, is it unreasonable to want to remove someone from a position that refuses to acknowledge that the “science isn’t settled”?
To my knowledge, they have both stayed out of the AGW debate.
Does staying out of the debate include staying silent about the science being settled?? Sorry, but that seems unreasonable.
Isn’t it reasonable to want to remove someone who will not acknowledge publically that the science in not settled?
It should be part of the Pledge of Allegiance required for all state officials:
“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty, unsettled science, and justice for all.”
I apologize for seeming harsh, but I believe that there will be more pressure on people employed or funded by government to take public positions refuting the idea that the science is settled regarding what is happening to the earth’s climate.
A “position of authority” was initially developed (and I must say initially accepted) that was based on the idea that all knowledgeable scientists agree that these circumstances, are leading to this future, and therefore if you do not agree to implement these ideas then you are therefore a “denier” and doomed to be too stupid to be listened to further.
I believe that if a scientist in the employ of the state they should accurately explain the science. If they take a position or make a conclusion that turns out to be wrong, then they are likely to have happen to them what happens to others who make misjudgments in industry- they lose their position.
In the case of the climate it seems unreasonable to state the science is settled or not to state is isn’t
What are you blathering about, Rob? There is no such thing as a science that is “settled.” Yours is a strawman argument.
Vaughn, I think we know perfectly well what Rob is blathering about. That the science is settled (enough for policy purposes) has been an AGW mantra for decades. 98% and all that nonsense.
More specifically, whether the science is settled is not a strawman argument, it is a central feature of the political landscape, which is what Rob is discussing. That science is never settled, in some philosophical sense, is irrelevant.
That the earth has warmed over the past century at an unprecedented rate is settled or unequivocal, whichever term you prefer. This is what these terms can be used for and, if you read the original quotes, is how they are used. They often go on to say that much of it is very likely anthropogenic, but don’t say AGW is settled or unequivocal.
Jim:
“That the earth has warmed over the past century at an unprecedented rate is settled or unequivocal”
What is the basis for your statement that the warming over the past century has been unprecedented?
Even the MWP didn’t start with a warming rate of 0.7 degrees in a century, let alone 0.5 degrees in 30 years. It took several centuries and may not have even reached 0.7 degrees.
Even the MWP didn’t start with a warming rate of 0.7 degrees in a century, let alone 0.5 degrees in 30 years. It took several centuries and may not have even reached 0.7 degrees.
If you repeat it often enough Jim D, it doesn’t become true. Try to falsify it for a change. All you do is CONFIRM. That’s pseudoscience!
Jim D
You wrote:
No, Jim. It is NOT “unequivocal” that “the earth has warmed over the past century at an unprecedented rate”.
That it has warmed is extremely likely, if one accepts the validity of the HadCRUT3 temperature record, despite its known shortcomings regarding SST and UHI distortion of land surface temperatures.
That it “has warmed over the past century at an unprecedented rate” is not at all clear. During the early years of the MWP as well as the Roman Optimum it may well have warmed at an even higher rate. Our knowledge of globally and annually averaged temperatures of the past is too rudimentary to make a claim of unprecedented rate of warming. This is simply arm-waving.
The “very likely anthropogenic” claim has been debunked elsewhere, so no need to repeat here. Suffice it to say that the claim is made for warming after 1950 and does not include the 1910-1940 warming cycle, which cannot be attributed to AGW and is statistically indistinguishable from the most recent 1970-2000 cycle.
Max
Vaughan, it’s disingenuous to fob that quote off as a sceptical strawman argument.
I have heard and seen many a politician utter the exact phrase: “the science is settled” with regard to climate change, without qualification, on national TV and in the press – John Prescott is the most memorable for me.
Unfortunately, mainly due to the fact that most of these occurred a decade or more ago, when most of the MSM did not yet have a significant web presence, there are few, if any, verifiable records of this quote surviving on the web.
Judith, do you remember this case?
“Gagged!Thrown out on the street! In the nineties, Henk Tennekes was made to clear his desk and resign as Director of the KNMI Dutch Meteorological Institute). His sin? In a newspaper column the world-renowned meteorologist had disproved all the bold claims about climate change.”
http://www.climategate.com/wp-content/uploads/UKVersieHenkTennekes.pdf
Thanks for the reminder. Climategate is the visible tip of a very deep, dangerous iceberg that grew out of public view since the Bilderberg group decided in 1967 that Earth’s source must be a homogeneous ball of hydrogen in hydrostatic equilibrium,
http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?bibcode=1968SoPh….3….5G&db_key=AST&page_ind=0&data_type=GIF&type=SCREEN_VIEW&classic=YES
And Henry Kissinger met with Chinese leaders in the early 1970s
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kissinger_Mao.jpg
To unite nations and end the threat of mutual nuclear annihilation by making global climate change the common enemy of all nations
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10640850/20110722_Climategate_Roots.pdf
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10640850/20110722_Climategate_Roots.doc
I deny denying. I affirm it’s cooling, for how long kim denies knowing.
=====================
Neutral territory is No Man’s Land. Staying out of the debate is being caught in the crossfire.
Policy experts ought to make statements of belief, such as we have. Uncertainty needs highlighting by all concerned.
=======================
Kim, NASA seems to be trying to get information out about Earth’s violently unstable heat source before a solar eruption takes out our entire communications network:
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-09-sun-spacecraft-characteristics-solar-flares.html
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-09-sunspot-bristling-flares-x18-m67.html
But most physics bloggers refuse to consider anything that might destroy their illusion of the Sun as a steady H-fusion reactor.
Oh what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive!
– Sir Walter Scott
But, oh, how we improve our style
Once we have practiced for awhile.
H/t Frances LaFere.
===================
Oliver,
Sure would like to know how the suns core would have room to have a H-fusion reaction and then have to have that reaction travel through all that massively dense material to reach the surface of the sun and beyond.
Interesting how we measure the rotation of the sun by the corona(atmosphere) and not by the surface of the sun.
Joe, I posted links above to a new paper to be published in Ap. J. Letters on powerful explosions from neutron stars.
Most solar physicists accepted decades of reports that neutron stars are but the “dead nuclear embers” of H-fusion stars.
Joe interactions between neutrons are repulsive [1] not attractive [2].
Each neutron in a neutron star has ~100 MeV more energy [1] than estimated [2] for the dead nuclear embers of H-fusion stars.
Each neutron is energized by ~10-22 MeV [1] relative to a free neutron instead of bound together by ~93 MeV [2]. In a neutron star,
i.e, E (neutron) = +(10-22) MeV [1]
Not E (neutron) = -93 MeV [2].
1. “Neutron star masses, radii and equation of state”, in Proceedings of the Conference on Compact Stars in the QCD Phase Diagram, eConf C010815, edited by R. Ouyed and F. Sannion, Copenhagen, Denmark, Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics, pp. 3-16 (2002).
http://www.arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/?0201465
2. “Neutron Repulsion”, The APEIRON Journal, in press (2011)
http://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0201465v2
Oliver,
The only reason I know you are on the right track in researching the sun is that the planets are held by magnetic repulsion to a narrow window and not allowed to envelope into many different tracks of rotation around the sun.
This is efficiency at it’s finest to loose as little energy as possible.
Something to add to your research is that it is also NOT totally correct as the suns different sizes to the poles means different speeds of rotation. A single calculation cannot cover the less neutron repulsion that is occurring as you measure to the poles and the further distance compared to the size of the suns equator.
Please try not making the same mistake as current scientists of treating the planet like a cylinder and NOT an orb.
The sun also slows down which effects the planets slow down as well.
As I understand it, the science is Never settled. Debate and new ideas always come along and failure to accept and acknowledge other options make science into dogma. Sometimes the ‘consensus’ is hogwash. Wasn’t the science settled that the Earth was flat and that mice were generated by clothing in closets? Relativity can be questioned by anyone, but don’t dare even mention the CERN cloud experiment on the warming sites. Including (not so) Scientific American. AGW has become a religion and Gore is the chief shaman.
I think every statement by scientists should begin with “What we currently believe is ….” Statements about knowledge fly in the face of history, with each generation of scientists seeming to believe that they will have the last word.
Then its settled that science is never settled.
theoretically anything can be questioned.
practically, however, something is always accepted as settled.
Come on Steven.
Don’t you know that careers and experts were created and will protect the theories to the bitter end?
It is generations of students that suffer and become tainted experts in fields of fantasy as they are locked into what was taught to them.
Facts and evidence are no match to the generalized equation replicated in models by many bad proxies in a time frame that is absolutely inconsequential to the overall time frame of this planet.
interesting that the sun has a corona if it’s only H-fusion driven
Interesting that pressure is NOT considered in the suns corona even though all planets with atmospheres have pressure.
I accept it is cooling. I assume because of all the manipulation of data by warmenizers that it is actually cooling quicker than we thought.
First, Steven, I would like to apologize for an earlier post where looking back on it I think I was way too harsh in my criticism of you.
I wouldn’t say anything can be questioned, I would say everything must be questioned. Things move forward by those who do. I think this is Trenberth’s and the Team’s problem – their arrogant belief in what they know makes them defend their current understanding to the last barricade and this has led to the creation of some Rube Goldberg style explanations and wagon-circling when a better solution would be to simply admit they don’t know. Unfortunately, I think this is the rule in science, rather than the exception.
The UN wants to redistribute planetary wealth and AGW serves that end magnificently – I think this is why the science is ‘settled.’
I think of the dieting industry in the same way, which is $60bn because its products don’t work, and not because they do. But don’t tell them that.
Finally, I admire John Locke above all other thinkers and so doubt to me is essential in everything. In order to live, of course, we must make certain assumptions based upon history, but this can leave us blinkered to the miraculous. There is little doubt in my mind that the resistance to Svensmark came from not wanting to see the results because they were untidy.
Have a great weekend.
All things must be questioned?
do you question a stop sign or follow the instruction?
do you question that all things must be questioned?
, you like Locke.. seriously. You might want to consider Locke’s position on appealing to authority.
Maybe you should doubt doubt
Of course you should question a stop sign. If a semi-trailer has lost its brakes and is going to crash into me, to heck with the stop sign. The answer to all of your questions is….. it depends. Hence the questions :-)
Dr Curry- This seems an interesting article on the effects of El Nino:
http://www.usnews.com/science/articles/2011/08/18/ancient-clams-yield-new-information-on-greenhouse-effect
Thanks for this link, v. interesting
Looked at that paper. They have no idea what El Nino is and are picking up El Nino like oscillations in the Eocene which is impossible.
Bloggers
What caused global warming in the 19th century?
http://bit.ly/pFtIKR
Girma, your graph shows an R^2 of 0.5523. That’s low enough that nothing whatsoever can be inferred about it.
Now, now Dr. Pratt. The heart of the Dessler rebuttal of Spencer is data with an R^2 value of ~0.02. Why ruin a climate debate with statistics?
do you even understand what moberg did?
Girma. the fact that it warmed between 1850 and 1940 has nothing to due with the truth of the following sentence: more C02 will warm the planet.
The sentence is false as you did not include limits ie the coexistance problem with ch4 and co2 eg Kasting and Pavlov and Pavlov.
Let’s see if we can get you on the record. Asnweer these simple questions simply yes or no
1. Is it warmer now than in 1850?
2. Do GHGs ( water vapor, C02, ch4 ) keep ou r planet warmer than it would be without them?
3. If you answered yes to 1, does the increased level of C02 have anything to do with the warmer temperatures?
Your proposition failed as at was ill posed ie you did not constrain your argument.Trying to justify said howler does make it any more correct.
steven mosher
Normally I do not respond to questionnaires that might be loaded (especially not from someone as intelligent and erudite as you are) but here goes:
1. yes – slightly (0.65C), of which an undetermined portion could be a result of UHI distortion, etc.
2. yes
3. yes – but possibly only with an imperceptible portion of the warming
So you got your desired three “yes” answers, but with major caveats, which are based on rational skepticism of the premise that higher CO2 levels have been a principal cause for the higher temperatures.
And since these caveats cannot be removed based on empirical scientific data the uncertainty remains: “is AGW the principal cause of the observed warming or are other (natural) factors as have been observed throughout the geological history of our planet more important?”
As you are fully aware (and as our host here has emphasized over and over again), we are still stuck with this scientific uncertainty, despite the three “yes” answers.
And that is what the debate here is all about.
Max
good, so you’ve made some progress. We cam go at each question individually now.
You say .65 C of warming.
Lets talk about the evidence that leads you to believe that. Your caveats will come second.. But lets talk about what kind of evidence led you to believe this. We will see how you weigh and consider evidence. we will see what kind of burden of proof you require.
Steven,
My take on what kim is saying is that CO2 is making a difference that is trivial.
If kim is making that argument then he better have good evidence for that positive assertion. be skeptical now
steven mosher
You ask kim to be more skeptical of the premise that CO2 is only a minor player in our atmosphere, yet you appear to be totally unskeptical of the premise that CO2 is a major player.
Why the double standard?
The “null hypothesis” here (despite Trenberth’s clumsy attempts to drastically modify the scientific method in order to save our planet from ourselves) is that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, the magnitude of whose effect on global temperature has not been determined by empirical data based on actual physical observations or reproducible experimentation.
So it’s up to those who suggest that CO2 has been the principal cause for past warming to demonstrate this with empirical evidence, and up to rational skeptics of this premise to reject the premise until such time that it can be supported by empirical evidence.
So Kim is acting as any rational skeptic should.
N’est-ce pas?
Max
Not if Kim is claiming CO2 is making a difference that is trivial.
That’s a positive assertion which requires evidence.
Outside of the laboratory, the effect of CO2 on climate has not been detected yet. I don’t know whether its effect is trivial if it can’t even be seen yet.
========
manaker.
as lolwot notes kim has made a positive assertion. he’s made other positive assertions about the cooling we can expect.
Here is my point. If you prod a skeptic long enough and hard enough they will give birth to their own little theory. When you poke further you will find the evidence that they accept their own theory on is less reliable than the evidence they reject when it comes to other theories. The double standard is there.. not in asking the skeptic to prove his point.
For myself, I know radiative physics works both in and out of the lab. I know this because I built devices that rely on it working both in and out of the lab. You know this ( but maybe cant admit it ) because every day you rely on devices built using these principles. That working theory says that doubling C02 will add 3.7Watts of additional radiative forcing to the planet. The physics doesnt care if those watts come from C02 or the sun.
We can calculate to a first order the impact of adding 3.7W. Its about
1.5C.
Numbers above this ( IPCC) and numbers below this (Lindzen) are all less certain than the first order certainty of 1.5C, so I take anybody who argues for numbers above this and below this with a huge grain of salt. They are making arguments about second order effects. If I have to bet, I’ll bet above 1.5C. Someone who is going to argue that second order effects drives it below 1.5C has some serious arguing to do.
People who want to claim that doubling C02 will not add 3.7W can go argue that 2+2 = 5 some other place
As you should see, moshe, I know nothing from trivial. You are responding hunter’s characterization of my point.
You know, or should know, that I expect two decades of cooling from the concatenation of cooling phases of the oceanic oscillations. If the Livingston and Penn observations mean cooling, we may cool for a century or two. Beyond that, the crystal darkens.
I accept radiative physics, and suspect that anthropogenic CO2 will warm the earth, though I don’t see it yet. I’m afraid its warming effect won’t be enough to counteract the cooling from natural processes.
So trivial or not? CO2’s fertilizing effect is already observable and not trivial. Where’s the warming? Please, we need some warming.
==============
Mosh: I assume you also expect first order feathers to fall as fast as first order cannon balls. My feather blew up into a tree. So much for order.
Abstraction is the God of physics, but it is also the Devil of reality. The second order (by your ordering) may be much bigger than the first order. Consider that. If you order it differently the effect of CO2 disappears. As Kim might say, order up.
steven,
I would offer as evidence the trend lines of storms, droughts, floods, snow, slr, to name a few, that show trivial changes while we have, as you point out, increased CO2 substantially.
Kevin’s quattrifoglia could be finding the pot of missing heat at the end of the rainbow, distilled into the biosphere.
==================
Steve,
How do you calculate this?
Steven
After human emission of CO2 for 100 of years, for its effect to be completely swamped by other climate variables so that we have slight cooling in the last decade demonstrates its effect on the global mean temperature is minuscule.
Girma:
does radiative physics work?
do you accept it’s conclusions?
steven,
This is the frustrating part.
The climate system is much more than radiative physics.
Yet when the reality is pointed out- that not much is going on in the climate- people want to reduce the issue to one dimension.
Hunter,
It’s not complicated. yes it’s true the climate is more than radiative physics. However
1. lets start with what we know. You know that radiative physics works. you use your cell phone.
2. If you have any evidence that the climate as a whole works to violate radiative physics, please point to it.
If you start with what you know, and stick to what you know, you’ll find yourself in between skeptics who sell doubt and warmista who sell certainty.
A. is it warmer now than it was in 1850?
B. do ghgs warm the planet or cool it
Steven
(You have done a good job on your CLIMATEGATE book. Thank you)
Regarding CO2, the problem is the dosage.
There is solanine in potatoes, but its effect on human is minuscule so it never kills us.
Similarly, CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but its effect is minuscule so it does not enhance the natural global warming.
Steven, I want to believe the observation than any theory:
http://bit.ly/f42LBO
steven,
Radiative physics is not the only reason cell phones work.
Radiative physics is not the only thing driving the climate.
I have forgotten where I have ever said that the climate violates any laws of physics. Please remind me.
If things were as simple as you seem to imply, you would not have had to write the Crutape Letters, because there would have been nothing to hide.
Your closing questions, aimed at wringing out an answer you want, actually hurts your argument a lot and underscores mine.
The climate has warmed and cooled in the past with CO2 following the warming, accroding to the accepted record. Since the CO2 went up and temps did not follow then, that would imply that my humble point, that the cliamte is more than radiative physics, is correct.
The reality, as I have stated before, based on all records available is nothing dramtic is going on in the climate.
I am not asserting that CO2 is not playing a role. I am suggesting that when the record shows over long periods of time that the role of CO2 today is not making the climate do anything more dangerous or dramatic than it has done in the past when CO2 was at lower levels.
This is in line with what Spencer and Pielke and others have pointed out.
I do not believe it is radical or anti-science to point this out.
If I was a climate scientist, I would find it fascinating that the climate system is not a simple system where you turn one dial and get a predictable response.
Back to the cell phone: If my cell phone stops working, I do not think that radiative physics has broken down or been violated. I check the battery charge. If I get a dropped call, I do not question the clever people like you and your understanding of radiative physics. I wonder if a cell tower is not working well, or if something is interfering with my signal.
In over 18 years of daily use of my cell phone, I have never questioned if the physics were either being violated or if the rules had changed.
In a lifetime of fascination with weather, it has never ever crossed my mind that anythign in the weather violates the laws of physics. It is an odd question to ask, frankly.
What about the corollary statement: less CO2 will cool the planet. Is that true? I think I have come to have a good understanding on this blog of many of these ideas. The ‘greenhouse’ effect. Radiative heat transfer. Tiny increases in the amount of trace gas having an effect (thanks, nullius, for your ink analogy). All wonderful glass-tube-isolated-in-the-laboratory effects that may or may not work the way we think they do when they are part of a huge system of interlocking pieces. Place them on top of periodic effects that reinforce at odd intervals (not all of which we may understand or have identified yet) and what I think you get is: CO2 will warm the planet (except for when it doesn’t). Tiny increases in a trace gas will warm the planet (except when they don’t). Radiative heat transfer works as described (except when it doesn’t). I believe completely that these processes are understood in isolation (though they should nonetheless be continually re-examined), I simply do not accept that they are remotely well-understood in combination.
Chip:
Question: Tell me what you think of the cloud experiment.
3/2 count…. the wind up…. and heeere’s the pitch……it’s a fastball down the middle…. and….
Hi Steven.
I think it illustrates my point. Additional inputs, previously dismissed (or unknown), that in combination with other factors, influences climate in ways not completely understood.
Hi Steven. I would still like your opinion about whether reducing CO2 would cause the earth to cool.
Well, when temperatures go up, CO2 follows. Later, temperatures drop, so obviously, reducing CO2 would keep the temperature up rather than cause the earth to cool.
===================
At only 4000 ppm, another trace gas is water vapor. Does it rain where you live, or do you have clouds? Amazing what a trace gas can do, isn’t it?
… and by weight, water vapor in the atmosphere only exceeds CO2 by a factor of four.
Jim D,
I urge you to check your understanding of water vapor in the atmosphere.
And the phase changes, ooh, the phase changes.
=============
hunter, water vapor is a trace gas or not? Near the surface, even in the muggy tropics it is 2% by mass. In the upper atmosphere CO2 molecules outnumber water molecules.
kim, the radiative effects are important too, otherwise this would be an ice world.
I’m shocked, shocked, to find radiation going on here.
===============
Jim D,
Posting an average about water vapor is a very meaningless stat, as you seem to agree in your reply.
Water vapor varies drastically all over the globe.
CO2 tends to be well mixed and varies much less.
But to run with your average of 4%: that is 40,000 parts per million, on average.
Hmmmm…….~390ppm vs. 40,0000 ppm.
And water vapor in the atmospehre does a few other things. Do you know some of them?
hunter, no, 4000 ppm for the average in the whole atmosphere. It is mostly near the ground, and mostly responds to ocean temperature. In case you missed the point I was responding to, it was that CO2 as a trace gas can’t be important. This is an old meme that keeps coming around now and again. Since radiation only responds to CO2 and H2O, not the other 99% of the atmosphere, it turns out it is important.
I think you missed the point. I stated in my post that, based upon nullius’ wonderful explanation, I understand how tiny increases in CO2 can increase its effect, except when it doesn’t. It isn’t the actions of individual effects that I question, it is the understanding of what their effects are as part of an enormous system consisting of a huge number of interactions. I see water vapor as being no different – I simply do not think anyone has an adequate understanding of how it works in combiantion with all the other concurrent effects, both know and unknown.
Chip, the greenhouse effect at the surface of all GHGs together is 150 W/m2. So these gases are an important part of the balance. Doubling CO2 is equivalent to a 1% solar irradiance increase, which should be more noticeable than the much smaller changes associated with the LIA and MWP. It is just a matter of comparative scale.
steven mosher
Re: “more C02 will warm the planet.”
Thought experiment – replace all H2O with CO2.
Will that warm the planet?
It’s all to do with redistribution of heat carried by the currents in the North Atlantic. Heat flux below 40N is negative (downwards), above 40N positive (upwards). The ratio of two is dependant on strength of the N. Atlantic drift current.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SST-NAP.htm
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CDr.htm
Nothing to do with CO2 and even less with anthropogenic, unless you have in mind anthropogenic data corrections
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Data.htm
vucevic, you have put your finger on it. I have determined that there is no doubt that Arctic warning is a result of warm Atlantic currents reaching the Arctic Ocean and not some imaginary greenhouse effect aided by Arctic amplification. It started suddenly at the beginning of the twentieth century, most likely as a result of a rearrangement of the North Atlantic current system. It paused in mid-century for thirty years, then resumed, and is still going strong. The first to report this were Kaufman et al. in 2008 who had just determined a two thousand year history of the Arctic. For most of this time there was nothing but a slow cooling. It was terminated suddenly by an abrupt warming at the start of the twentieth century, making the temperature curve look like a hockey stick, only more so. There were observations of the early twentieth century warming but the most conclusive is that by Spielhagen et al. (28 January Science). They went on an Arctic cruise, measured the water temperature directly, and took a foraminiferal core near Svalbard. This gave them a two thousand year temperature history of the Arctic, the same as Kaufman et al. According to them, temperature of warm Atlantic currents now reaching the Arctic is higher than anything their record shows for the last two thousand years. It is interesting to note that despite their own observations both Kaufman and Spielhagen still cling to the concept ob Arctic amplification to explain that warming. That is just an accelerated form of greenhouse warming, and greenhouse warming could not possibly have started the observed warming because the amount of carbon dioxide in the air did not increase at the start of the twentieth century. Read “What Warming?” for further details. I would very much like to see further research done on the influence of currents by those who have the means to do it.
kim;
doesn’t seem to be working well for the “It’s settled, believe us!” crowd. Their style seems to be deteriorating from its original low level at eye-watering speed.
No such crowd exists, Brian. It’s ridiculous to claim otherwise.
Vaughan,
There is a crowd that exists to protect the theories at all costs due to the careers and expert status given them.
They spout off references rather than debate for their own protection when confronted with evidence and facts.
And yes, they are have been given tenor of professor status.
Now Vaughn has sore arms from waving them so much.
I’m a skeptic. If Stooksury got ousted for not being skeptical enough, that is just as wrong as guys who are ousted for showing a little skepticism. Isn’t freedom of thought a valued part of science ?
PS. The Stooks link didn’t work for me.
Judith,
Something to wrap your head around.
We actually have two equators. A solid one on this planet that is in rotation and one that is the atmosphere that shifts with the tilting of the planet. Also too in rotation but not solidly attached to the planets surface, just attached by pressure, forward momentum motion, centrifugal force motion and atmospheric/ magnetic field interaction with the sun.
Inertia of planets is the Achilles heel of physics and science theories.
Wow, the hypocrisy!
Meanwhile back in Georgia, they are saying …
1) Its getting cooler.
2) Maybe coal burning will save us from the non-existent warming.
China has found a cake they can make and eat, too. They will continue building coal fired plants at a fabulous rate while selling us green devices and probably taking a carbon allowance for doing it.
Actually, we are a net exporter of solar components.
Although I’m sure, as with every other area of manufacturing, China will sell us a lot of stuff as time goes on.
It’s not as if it is sinister or hypocritical to be expanding solar technology and fossil fuel plants at the same time — America’s doing the same thing. Both countries need to get serious about shrinking fossil fuel use, not just sprinkling a little green power on top. Perhaps they could get serious at the same time, via some sort of treaty to cut emissions by 90% — like the one supported by 65% of Americans.
They are taking a carbon allowance for building supercritical coal fired plants.
Judith:
“This is really exciting, too bad I don’t speak spanish.”
The whole thing sounds utterly patronising to me – let’s try to communicate with the stupid people by using stories.
“The drama role models actions communities can take to adapt to the rising sea levels, stronger storms and loss of biodiversity associated with climate change, to secure a sustainable future for the islands they call home.”
(That’s a pretty tricky sentence to read, until you realise they are using ‘role model’ as a verb!) What does the science say are the current problems in the Caribbean with respect to “rising sea levels, stronger storms and loss of biodiversity”? Are these actual problems, or anecdotal ones?
And I don’t think you’d need Spanish. Looks like it’s broadcasting to the English speaking Caribbean. “Including Tobago, Callaloo will also broadcast in Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, British Virgin Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.”
have you ever watched a telenovella? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telenovela
the Carribbean has substantial problems with deforestation, hurricanes, and vulnerability to drought.
Judith:
“have you ever watched a telenovella? ”
Thankfully, no. They sound awful.
“My Island – My Community is rooted in the principles of Entertainment-Education, which incorporates vital information into entertaining media programs to simultaneously educate and amuse audiences.”
You really don’t think that sounds patronising? Where I come from, trying to educate people is generally done with education. Trying to influence people with sexy plot-lines is pretty appalling if you ask me. The sort of thing that an elite would think was a good idea when talking to the plebs.
You say:
“the Carribbean has substantial problems with deforestation, hurricanes, and vulnerability to drought.”
What about the “rising sea levels, stronger storms and loss of biodiversity associated with climate change”? I know we’re all supposed to be deeply concerned about the awful things that might victimise people, but we surely need to agree on the list of things that we need to be touchingly empathetic about.
We watch them frequently. They are more fun than soaps. I love when they dub into different Spanish dialects or from Portugese into Spanish.
The original version of “Ugly Betty” was “Betty le Fea”, a Colombian novella (no one uses “telenovella”, by the way), that was amazingly popular throughout the Spanish speaking world.
The great thing is they are not designed to run forever. They are literally novels, with a start, plot complications and a conclusion.
Two developments caught my eye. I will do them on seperate posts. First the connection between a Forbush Decrease (FD) and climate.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/11/new-paper-links-cosmic-rays-clouds-and-temperature/#more-46950
This study shows a connection between FD and Diurnal Temperature Range (DTR). The theory is that more clouds tend to produce cooler temperatures during the day, and warmer temperatures at night. So, if Svensmark is right, then one might expect to see a correlation between the loss of GCRs during FDs, and DTRs. Such a correlation is found.
Presumably the timings of all FDs is known, so other people can confirm, or otherwise, these findings from other met. data.
Read that whole thread.
I went to the source of the best data in the US. the climate reference network, as suggested by Anthony.
I selected the date of a FD per the post.
I wrote software to download the hourly data of insolation from 206 pristine stations. Stations even skeptics approve of and hold out as a symbol of how things should be done.
Then I asked people to come up with a testable hypothesis for that data. If GCR cause more clouds, and FDs cause less GCRs, then FD should result in fewer clouds. This should be visible in the insolation data.
That hypothesis was not supported by the data. Call me unconvinced by the “link” between FD and cloudiness.
Simply, the link between FD and cloudiness found by others was not found in the best climate station data. It might take some more sophisticated methods to hunt down that needle, but if the effect were large it would be apparent. It wasnt apparent, so color me skeptical of that science.
Steven Mosher wrtes “I selected the date of a FD per the post.”
I do not pretend to understand all that is happening. I put the post up, in part to be educated. I understand that different FDs cause a different amount as how much the GCR flux is reduced. The Serbian data showed very low correlation if all FDs were considered. High correlation only occurred for those FDs where the drop in GCR flux was substantial; IIRC over 12 %.
For the FD you selected, what was the reduction in GCR rate?
I should have had the sense to go back to the original paper before posting the above. From the abstract of the Serbian paper “The effect
of Forbush decrease on DTR is statistically significant only
if the analysis is restricted to high amplitude FDs (above the
threshold value of 7% with the respect to undisturbed CR intensity).”
So again my question. Waht was the reduction in GCR amplitude for the FD you selected?
see the post on WUWT for the event. I’m currently writing software to make this easier so I’ll get back to writing about it when the software is done and I’ll test more events. Looking at a change in DTR is problematic, since I can look directly at insolation that should be a more powerful test.
However, BEFORE I do any test I am going to demand that who ever believes in this effect, put their beliefs on the line. They have to define the test and be willing to change their mind publicly before I’ll run the code. I’m not about to play step and fetch it for people who are not willing to change their beliefs.
The second comment relates to the ongoing controversy between Roy Spencer on one side, and Dessler/Trenberth on the other.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/16/trenberth-gets-a-rebuttal-to-spencer-and-braswell-published-turnaround-1-day/#more-47411
This is all very confusing. From what I can make out, SB11 produced a rebuttal from Dessler in GRL. This, presumably, was peer reviewed. However, before it was published, and Dessler had the galley proofs, their content came to Spencer’s attention. Spencer looked at them for a day, and said that, when published, he would publish a rebuttal.
Then things get murky. Dessler contacted Spencer, and they had some form of scientific exchange, and Dessler agreed to make changes via the galley proofs. How this fits in with the peer review process is unclear. As is the status of the Dessler rebuttlal.
The Trenberth published some comments on Remote Sensing. These appeared very rapidly. They were accepted the same day they were received, and published a week later. There seems to be very little scientific content in these, Trenberth, comments.
So what precisely is happening between Spencer and Dessler/Trenberth is unclear to me. Presumably the “universe is unfolding as it should”.
Trenberths comments are a “commentary”. The first such for the journal.
One can assume that the editors gave him an apology and his own soap box
The story about the Georgia State Climatologist should surprise no one. Because science has become politicized, scientists now have to live like politicians. Way to go scientists, brilliant move! Now the days of actually doing science are forever in the past.
Read it again, Theo. If some scientists are not sufficiently political, they may lose their job. This news is a sign of things continuing to go in the wrong direction in some states even after the Bush administration’s muzzling has gone.
Let me try to make my point again. If you are a scientist, and you choose to live by politics, as climate scientists have, then you have chosen to die by politics. Now, to move out of poetry into observable fact, it should come as no surprise to anyone that scientists are hired and fired for their political views. That, of course, is a disaster for scientists and all who might benefit from science.
Lyndon Johnson was famous for his assertion that he wanted “one armed scientists who would never say ‘on the other hand’.” Someone replied that Lyndon wanted “Left handed scientists.”
This particular scientist was doing nothing political except to say something about the new temperature records that have been observed. This is an observation, not even a scientific view, and for that, it is speculated, he got canned. Information is being censored by politics, if this is what has actually happened.
I doubt that he got canned for reporting new high temperature records. However, such records are contentious. My local newspaper loves to report new high temperatures. When I explain to the reporter that reporting new high temperatures amounts to the same thing as reporting the latest “hot numbers in Bingo,” he hangs up. When I explain that if they are going to report new high temperatures then they should also report new low high temperatures, he hangs up. Get the picture.
They would report record low minimum temperatures, but those seem to be less frequent these days.
“If some scientists are not sufficiently political, they may lose their job.”
Did you just fall off the turnip truck, Jim D?
Andrew
Read what I said to Theo above. A state climatologist should point out observations of warming when he sees them. For this, he appears to have paid with his job. If he did not, he would haven been negligent in his job. This is about censorship of data.
“Like most climate scientists, Stooksbury agrees that the main cause of the current warming trend is GHG’s from human activity.”
Bruce’s quote below.
I’d fire his sorry conformist behind on the spot, if I was in charge, and replace him with a scientist.
Andrew
Would you fire him for pointing out to farmers that the state is warming? This is what is alleged to have happened.
Jim D,
I just told you what I would fire him for. Read for comprehension.
Andrew
So you disagree with firing him for talking about new temperature records. On that we can agree. It would be censorship of the consequential kind, because all useful information for farmers should be pointed out by state climatologists to allow them to account for its effects properly.
“So you disagree with firing him for talking about new temperature records.”
Not necessarily, if his talk is perceived as propagandizing about AGW, I’d fire him instantaneously for doing that, too.
Andrew
It doesn’t sound like he is the kind of person who would have done that. He was just providing useful information. Perhaps even information is embarrassing for some viewpoints.
“It doesn’t sound like he is the kind of person who would have done that.”
This is a character judgement of a person you do not know. Mere opinion, Jim D.
Andrew
There should be nothing surprising about more record highs than lows. Most on both sides agree that it is warmer now than it was 150 years ago. More record highs than lows is simply a result of a normal distribution around a higher mean.
That’s a myth. Most deniers deny that the world is warming.
Robert,
Your link doesn’t work and I have no idea how you can believe what you say. I have been following this debate for years and most skeptics who have examined the data and theories believe the earth has warmed since the LIA.
Sorry about that. Try here:
http://theidiottracker.blogspot.com/2011/07/minor-myths-most-deniers-accept-that.html
That would be why I put the link in there.
If you’re right, that would mean most skeptics have not examined the data. Your logic, not mine.
In all seriousness, you have a sampling bias. You are basing your impression of “skeptics” according to those you have met personally or interacted with online. The people who have that level of engagement (which includes both you and me) are very unusual, not to say aberrant. They don’t give a very good indication of what the broader society thinks. Take a look at the poll. It’s eye-opening.
Robert,
Fair points, but I mostly ignore the musing of anyone on either side of the issue who hasn’t bothered to determine what the scientific debate is about. Keep in mind that just because you believe the earth has warmed it doesn’t mean you have looked at the data. It may simply be an indication of “where you go to get your brain washed”.
There is nothing in personal experience that can answer the question of “Has the earth warmed?” for us. A one degree change in the last 150 years can’t provide any reliable indication of warming in our personal experiences when we are exposed to the mostly uncorrelated regional and local temperature anomalies. To understand the scientific debate you have to look at the data and theories.
I also agree with others who point to the dangers of question framing in any poll.
Rather a classic post.
So – if an anti-AGW zealot sees a talk as propaganda, he should be fired.
It doesn’t matter what the actual content of his talk is, what matters is how a zealot might respond.
Any “state climatologist” who propagandizes about any political positon should be fired. Let’s keep the science and the politics separate, Joshua. I know it’s hard for you to conceptualize, but it can be done.
Andrew
Andrew –
How do you define propagandizing? The evidence provided shows that he expressed a view that warming is taking place and that the warming is anthropogenically influenced. Does that meet your definition of “propaganda?” What if someone in a government funded job stated that they think that warming isn’t taking place, or that warming that is taking place isn’t anthropogenically influenced. Should they also be fired for propagandizing?
How to you keep politics out of any state climatologist’s job, Andrew? You’ve got some ‘splainin’ to do. How do you keep politics out of government-funded science, Andrew? Answer: You can’t.
“How to you keep politics out of any state climatologist’s job, Andrew? You’ve got some ‘splainin’ to do. How do you keep politics out of government-funded science, Andrew?”
Easy jim2. The state climatologist gathers and reports data. If he starts making public statements that go anywhere beyond that (like endorsing popular speculations), or hides his data and methods, he gets fired or resigns (if he has any ethics).
You can (in theory) keep politics out of government-funded science if you have honest scientists and honest politicians. Today I agree we have neither.
Andrew
Robert links to a missing page to prove a point.
precious
Re. Stooksbury
Judy Curry has a very short memory, to the point of a blackout, apparently. “To her knowledge…” Is that a joke?
Like most climate scientists, Stooksbury agrees that the main cause of the current warming trend is GHG’s from human activity. Anyone who knows how to use Google can look at his citations and his public comments. He was especially connected to the agricultural community and growers, who relied on him for important information.
And here are Stooksbury and Curry discussing things in the media:
http://www.13wmaz.com/archive/article/115691/260/Wednesday-February-23-Eyewitness-News-at-6-
http://www.covnews.com/archives/2585/
Climate change deniers are cheering his dismissal. Farmers and residents of coastal communities are not.
The situation is made worse, not better, when the public’s ability and willingness to be informed by the most current science and to accept the overall agreement of climate scientists that the main cause of the current warming is GHG’s from human activity, is reduced by your actions. Curry should ask herself, ‘How’s this blog working for the people of the state’? Here’s how I think it’s working: this blog, and the governor, have both in their own way helped to claim another victim and left the public without needed information, support or preparation. Congratulations.
Bill Murphey (Georgia Tech/EPD) will replace him. There is no mystery: the governor publicly states that the decision involved consolidation of EPD. It’s transparently political because the role has now been made directly accountable to the governor and his denialist politics rather than tied to the university, the research community and the realities of dealing with AGW.
Dr. Curry is exploring the claim that climate science has been politicized. Her report on this situation in Georgia furthers that effort. Your statement presumes that climate science has not been politicized but suffers from the wrongs of “Deniers.” Given your starting points, it is not likely that you and Dr. Curry can avoid basic disagreement on this topic.
It is good to hear that the new guy is from Tech. Georgia Tech remains one of the few hardcore engineering schools in the country. One of my nephews just graduated as a “Rollin’ Wreck.” My informed guess is that a Warmista at Tech would be extremely lonely.
Volt’s may be ‘Rollin’ Wrecks’, but I just got passed by a little Nash Rambler.
Toot, toot!
=================
“Like most climate scientists, Stooksbury agrees that the main cause of the current warming trend is GHG’s from human activity.”
So when it cools for 10 years and plateaus for 13, he should be fired and replaced by someone who believes in science and is not a member of a strange cult that changes its name when it stops warming and starting cooling.
Purging government of those who deny it is cooling is a good step.
I’ve been a Stooks watcher ever since I’ve been in Georgia. In 2008 I invited him to participate in the Georgia Climate Summit, which was mostly about possible global warming impacts in Georgia and some clean energy solutions. Stooks stuck to the climatology of Georgia, saying that Georgia had shown no warming trend over the past century (which is correct). You found what may be Stooks’ only two public statements on global warming, which were direct responses to a reporter’s question. He said he didn’t pay much attention to the IPCC. He also said human contribution is somewhere between 30 and 70% (definitely not consistent with the IPCC). On his state climatologist web page, there is no mention of global warming. In this business, it doesn’t get much more neutral than that.
Recall, Stooks was a Ph.D. student of Pat Michaels. Of course, academic genealogy has weak genes (e.g. John Christy’s Ph.D. advisor was Trenberth).
So going after Stooks as a ‘warmist’ or ‘alarmist’ is seriously misguided.
Maybe he wasn’t alarmist enough?
Thanks for the news from Tech and Georgia. So, it now seems that he expressed no alarmist views and was not fired for being an alarmist. I am confused. Why is his firing relevant to debates about climate science?
I think he was perceived to be a “alarrmist”, when he is not
I understand. Thanks.
uh, yeah right Martha, the top things on farmers minds are who their state climatologist is.
Martha,
If Stooks was indeed a committed vocal warmest it would be completely understandable and appropriate that he was fired by an administration that did not share this view. No political boss should be required to keep a vocal critic on payroll that disagrees on a policy issue.
Dr. Jane Lubchenco, an Eco zealot and former vice chairperson of the Environmental Defense Fund, was appointed administrator of NOAA by President Obama. Maybe Dr. David Stooksbury did not get the Memo.
Ocean Change Making Winter More Volatile
January 20, 2000
http://nyti.ms/qaxUxx
….
La Nina and El Nino typically last a year or two, but there is also a longer-term natural oscillation going on in the Pacific, this one involving a flip-flop in sea-temperature patterns on a scale of decades.
When the ocean flips from one of these states to another, Dr. Patzert said, ”it resets the stage for the climate system; it provides a new background on which smaller events like El Nino and La Nina can occur.”
In one of these alternating states of what is called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, sea-surface temperatures are higher in the eastern equatorial Pacific but lower throughout much of the rest of the Pacific basin. That pattern predominated from the mid-1970’s through most of the 1990’s. It was also a period of more frequent and stronger editions of El Nino.
Now, for the last two years, the opposite pattern has appeared: cooler water in the eastern tropical Pacific but warmer elsewhere. That pattern last predominated from the mid-1940’s to the mid-1970’s.
While Dr. Patzert and other scientists said they believed that a flip from one phase of the oscillation to another had occurred, they also said it was too soon to tell whether it represented a true shift from one multidecadal regime to the other.
”There simply has not been enough time” since the shift took place, said Wayne Higgins, a senior meteorologist at the government’s Climate Prediction Center at Camp Springs, Md.
Five to 10 additional years of data may be required, Mr. Higgins said.
It is now near the end of 2011.
Assuming the remaining months have the same monthly global mean temperature (GMT) as last year, the annual GMT for 2011 will be approximately 0.37 deg C. (http://bit.ly/gWkyz5)
For 11 years, instead of global warming there was slight cooling (GMT for 1998 was 0.53 deg C).
Dr Patzert and Mr Higgins, you have now the “Five to 10 additional years of data”. Has the “flip from one phase of the oscillation to another” occurred?
Isn’t is obvious to everyone in the USA that we are in for a record setting winter along the lines of 1976-79? St. Louis had two weeks of May in late August and now has October in late summer. The same holds for all of the Midwest north of St. Louis.
That’s not the St Louis I’m living in.
This summer has been ridiculously hot.
The high currently may be like October, but the lows are at least 10 F warmer than normal October.
St Louis has been quite average for September, which is a relief.
http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/morning_call/2011/09/deal-removes-state-climatologist-after.html
“Deal said it makes more sense to locate the office within state government at the Environmental Protection Division. The office has been at UGA for several decades.”
“The office was once funded by the federal government, but is now funded on the state level, the newspaper reported.”
This is quite funny:
Judith’s “denizens” arguing in favor of centralizing resources more tightly under governmental control – and under the Environmental Protection Division, no less.
Sometimes you have to choose the least bad option. Universities tend to be very left wing.
If a wamenizer is recommending which crops to plant based on his cults beliefs in perpetual climbing temperatures that would be bad. He should have been paying attention to what is happening and what has happened before, not what Al Gore predicts.
Were the SUN to wink today we all would be different in every way thereafter ’til the end.
Yes, and it is reassuring to know that:
A flea has as much control over the elephant on which it rides, as
World leaders, Al Gore, and the UN’s IPCC have over the SUN.
I’m sorry, how is 8.6 million views “tepid”? What were your expectations for it?
Robert: There are 6.8 billion people on the planet. Gore wanted impact and it’s hard to see how 1 person per 790 viewing some portion of his presentation will result in political leverage or even water cooler conversations at work.
Gore made his point with his first film. Now he returns to say “climate change is really, really true.” It’s hard for me to say how that changes anything.
Perhaps you can make an argument that the response has been more than tepid.
Are you kidding with this? Do you seriously think that’s a relevant comparison? Get real.
Robert: OK. Let’s reduce it to the ~1.5 billion in the US, Canada, Europe and elites elsewhere. Then the proportion becomes 1 person out of 175 people.
Please explain how Gore’s outreach becomes significant.
Get real.
“Get real.”
huxley,
Keep your expectations low. You are talking to “Robert.”
Andrew
So no ability to cope with reality, then? Not even a tiny effort to come up with a relevant comparison?
Sad but predictable.
Rob:
Perhaps you should enlighten us with your “relevant comparison”.
Roy Weiler
I’ll let you know when and if you discover one. You want to compare 8.6 million viewers to something — find a number that’s relevant.
Rob:
“I’ll let you know when and if you discover one. You want to compare 8.6 million viewers to something — find a number that’s relevant.”
You cannot even make up your own relevant comparison? Really? Just wow! Wow! LOL
Reply when you have something of substance. LOL
Roy Weiler
Less than tepid according to Google Trends.
http://www.google.com/trends?q=al+gore%2C+miss+universe&ctab=0&geo=all&date=ytd&sort=0
My expectation is that he would not have a ms usa contestant field questions his scientist should have been able to answer…
My expectation was that he would not use pictures from Tsunami to tell a climate story and hand the other side a baseball bat.
My expectation was that he would change one mind.
I think he failed and wonder how much carbon was emitted to generate all those views..
I’ve looked around the net and agree with Judith that response to the Gore show has been tepid. I’d be curious to hear from the climate orthodox here what they thought of it and what they believe the climate change movement’s best strategy is.
Leaving aside the scientific debate and the public debate, I would say that the climate change movement is no longer moving forward, but it has lost traction and is now losing ground.
Given the global economic problems and the entitlements overhang, I don’t see people willing to spend large amounts of money to combat climate change. Furthermore in the US there has been a huge backlash to the progressive politics of the Obama administration. The Republicans coming to power will not fund ambitious climate change schemes, and, after the Solyndra scandal and the green jobs debacle, nor will they fund big solar and wind energy projects.
I haven’t spent much time lately with the climate change debate because practically speaking the matter looks settled. Barring remarkable advances in the science or rapid deterioration of the climate, the struggle is over. The climate change debate will continue to percolate in the background, but otherwise the climate change movement has lost.
Well, that’s your problem right there: judging the event by the response of the climate blogosphere. We aren’t the target audience. The beliefs and concerns of the general public are very different from the highly engaged minority of which we are both a part.
Gore’s communication strategy is to appeal to the disengaged middle and isolate the hardcore deniers. In other words, just as Dr. Curry accused him of, he is trying to “polarize the debate” — in order to win it. And it’s working.
Robert –
Those poll results are stunning: The results show that only 10% of the respondents who identify as Tea Party members think that “Most scientists think global warming is happening?”
Not even anthrophogenically influenced global warming, but just global warming?
Here’s what’s funny about that – day after day I read Judith and her “denizens” telling me that most skeptics believe that the Earth is warming, but they only question how much and to what degree it is anthropogenically influenced. Apparently, as I said the other day, it appears that Judy and her denizens not only have some trouble when listening to what “warmists” say, they also have some trouble when listening to what “sketpics” say.
Between Tea Partiers and Republicans, some 40% don’t think that “Most scientists think global warming is happening.”
Not 90%. Not 80%. Not 70%. And not even “….AGW is happening” – just GW.
Wow!
Joshua, in the general public the term global warming means anthro global warming. GW is the reason we are supposed to feel guilty about driving, etc. Don’t confuse the politics with the science. The debate has its own language at each level of knowledge. The arguments are the same however.
I think it is reasonable to speculate about that, David – but you will note also that many polls have shown that there are significantly different results for questions about AGW as distinguished from GW. So maybe there aren’t as many confused about the difference as you think? But anyway, your statement is categorical: Do you have some data on which to base such a categorical statement?
Do you have any data that lend insight on what % of the American public, when asked whether they think that “most” scientists think that the globe is warming, assume that the question is specifically focused on their views on whether “most” scientists think that the globe is warming due to anthropogenic causes?
Further – you will note that it is Gary’s contention that Tea Partiers, and (I assume) “skeptics” in general that are “more-informed” about the science of climate change. Wouldn’t it stand to reason, then, that poll respondents who fall into those categories would be less likely to conflate GW and AGW?
Regardless – the poll shows that some 40% of Tea Partiers and Republicans think that “most” scientists don’t think that the globe is warming. Even if some (unspecified) % of those Tea Partiers and Republicans were conflating GW and AGW as you claim, don’t you think that their impression as to the beliefs about “most” scientists is incorrect?
Do you think, as Gary has suggested, that when asked about “scientists,” the respondents didn’t think the question was related to scientists with expertise in climate science, but scientists in general? Perhaps. But although that seems rather unlikely to be an explanation for the survey results to me, even still, what would your general estimate be?
Assuming that 100% of the Republican and Tea Party respondents were confused, and conflated GW and AGW, and assuming that when asked about “scientists,” the Republican and Tea Party respondents thought the question referred to sociologists, botanists, archeologists, demographers, political scientists, gemologists, and polymer chemists, etc. as well as climate scientists, do you think that the 40% who answered that “most” scientists don’t think that the globe is warming have made an accurate assessment?
Or, in contrast, do you think they have an inaccurate perception about what “most” scientists think about global warming?
Oh, and David – from the poll:
Majorities of Democrats (78%), Independents (71%) and Republicans (53%) believe that global warming is happening. By contrast, only 34 percent of Tea Party members believe global warming is happening, while 53 percent say it is not happening.
While 62 percent of Democrats say that global warming is caused mostly by human activities, most Tea Party members say it is either naturally caused (50%) or isn’t happening at all (21%).
In other words, the speculation that the respondents weren’t distinguishing between GW and AGW is not borne out by the data in the poll.
Also:
So, there we can see, clearly, that respondents were distinguishing between GW and AGW – as: (1) the questions themselves made that distinction and, (2) the Republicans and Tea Partiers responded to so distinguished questions in significantly different ways.
And, this is beautiful:
If you want to know how people feel about global warming, you might as well just ask them what political tribe they belong to. </
Joshua, it means the same in Orwelian language. I hope you see now why it’s confusing and deceiving.
Edim –
Does it “mean the same” to you? I am told over and over that almost no “skeptics” doubt that the globe is warming, although they doubt whether the warming is affected anthropogenically (supposedly, again, a tiny minority although I see evidence otherwise) or doubt the degree to which warming is anthrogenically affected.
Wouldn’t that then mean that the vast majority of “skeptics” are, in fact, making a distinction between GW and AGW.
So on the one hand, I am told that Republicans and Tea Partiers conflate GW and AGW (because those evil “warmists” have tricked them, no doubt, and they have been easy prey to the underhanded tactics of the cabal), but on the other hand I’m told that the vast majority of “skeptics’ take great pains to distinguish between GW and AGW.
The only conclusion that I can see that would logically fit together those two conditions is that the vast majority of “skeptics” have a different view on global warming than some 40% of Republicans and Tea Partiers, at least. Or perhaps more probably, judging from what you’ve said, more than only 40% of Tea Partiers and Republicans conflate GW and AGW – which would then mean that the vast majority of “skeptics” have a very different on global warming than probably the majority of Republicans and Tea Partiers.
That seems unlikely to me.
Perhaps you can point out where my limited reasoning skills have failed me here?
It doesn’t mean the same to me. I think all sceptics make a disinction between GW and AGW. But sometimes they just don’t bother. Orwelian language is confusing to all. Sometimes it’s hard not to conflate. You can’t change the questions in a poll.
Joshua, global warming is NOT happening over the last 13 years.
You and you ilk are the deniers about that.
Robert – do you have a link to crosstabs on the Reuters poll?
Sorry – that should be do you have a link to the crosstabs for the George Mason (not Madison as written in the blog post you linked) survey?
Sure — good catch on the typo, thx:
Link to the full poll is here: http://environment.yale.edu/climate/news/PoliticsGlobalWarming2011/
And the earlier “Six Americas” survey by the same folks: http://environment.yale.edu/climate/publications/SixAmericasMay2011
Also added the full links to the post and corrected the name, thx again.
Here’s the poll. It’s not as helpful for the progressive cause as Robert seems to think.
http://www.climatechangecommunication.org/images/files/PoliticsGlobalWarming2011.pdf
First, this is how the poll defined “global warming” for the subsequent questions.
“Global warming refers to the idea that the world’s average temperature has been increasing over the past 150 years, may be increasing more in the future, and that the world’s climate may change as a result.”
Quite a fuzzy definition.
Second:
“Democrats are more likely to agree that the record heat waves of the summer of 2010 (not 2011) strengthened their belief that global warming is occurring, while Republicans and Tea Party members are more likely to disagree.”
Nothing like relying on unatttributable anecdotal evidence to re-enforce your existing belief.
Third:
“A majority of Democrats oppose building more nuclear power plants (65%), while majorities of Independents (52%), Republicans (62%) and Tea Party members (67%) support building them.
However, only a majority of Tea Party members (52%) would support building a nuclear power plant in their own local area. All other groups would be opposed.”
All those enviro conscious greens prattling on about alternative energy, except the one form that has been proven to be safe and efficient. Also note that those terrible, horrible tear partiers are then only ones who are not flat out NIMBYs. All those science loving progressives want no nuclear power plants, and especially not near them.
And my favorite take from the poll:
“Tea Party members are far more likely to have heard about the “climategate” email controversy (45%) than Republicans (20%), Independents (27%), or Democrats (16%).”
All of 16% of Democrats know about the manipulation of data and the peer review process by the consensus community. No wonder why the are so trusting of “consensus” climate scientists. They have no clue of what the hell is going on.
You’ve tried selling this lie for a while now. The poll says you’re not gaining traction with it, at all. Even among your natural allies, the far right Tea Party, half of them have no idea what your fabricated “scandal” is.
Let’s not get caught up in how it is helpful to how people perceive the “cause” of others.
What do you think about the data that show that some 40% of Tea Partiers and Republicans do not think that most scientists believe that global warming is happening? Not that AGW is happening. GW without the A.. Not 90% of scientists. Not 80%. Not 70%. Most.
Interesting, isn’t it?
Would you agree that if the survey results are accurate, a significant % of Tea Partiers and Republicans have no clue as to how “most” scientists view global warming (let alone AGW)?
Just going with the unsupported assertion today, are we?
In point of fact, there are things that are encouraging about the survey results, and others which are not (I’m interested in what’s actually going on, not in the standard denier rhetorical tactic of proclaiming victory on flimsy pretexts, as above ). I covered some of the depressing findings:
And it’s working.
Robert: Get back to me when you show that your side is converting Gore’s preaching to the choir to political results. I don’t see it.
Your link is the usual dishonest logrolling that conflates agreement that the climate is warming with the rest of the climate change agenda.
If that’s the life raft you wish to cling to, fine. But it does not mean that Americans are on board with your approach.
It is stunning, and what’s even more striking is that 50% of the people who identify as Tea Party members believe that global warming is happening themselves. In fact, every group survey had more people who believed climate change was happening than believed that most climate scientists thought so. That to me suggests that people aren’t just rationalizating their own beliefs: they truly don’t understand the scientific consensus.
That’s an opportunity. Most people not understanding the strength of the scientific consensus means that most people — the majority of the voting public — people who trust climate scientists by a margin of three to one — haven’t factored the scientific consensus into their thinking. When they do, the numbers are going to shift towards mitigation.
I found a link to the survey.
This relates to something that I’ve been arguing here at Climate Etc. for a while now.
Judith has stated as a matter of fact there has been a “crisis” in the public perception of climate scientists caused> by “Climategate.” – ostensibly based on poll results on public views on climate change.
I have suggested to her that her reasoning is facile, and asked her to indicate the evidence and/or data on which she concludes that there is a causal link.
I have pointed out to her that in fact, polls show that most Americans have relatively high confidence in climate scientists as a source of information on climate change, and that the #’s of people who think that AGW isn’t happening is at least partially explained by a lack of knowledge among those who reject AGW of what how most scientists view AGW
And here we see – assuming that the George Mason University survey is somewhere close to an accurate picture of public opinion – that only 40% of Republicans and Tea Partiers think that “most” scientists believe that the globe is warming, let alone that anthropogenic global warming is taking place.
And so we see that it is very likely that in fact, a very large % of those who don’t think that GW, let alone AGW is taking place do not know how most scientists view the subject of global warming.
And in addition – we see that contrary to what Judith and many of her denizens have told me over and over, a significant # of skeptics do not merely question whether, let alone to what degree global warming is anthorpogenic, but many in fact believe that global warming is not even taking place.
According to that survey, 53% of Republicans believe that GW is taking place. That would mean that some 47% of Republicans don’t believe that GW is taking place. Assuming that a significant % of “skeptcs” are Republicans, we can see easily that contrary to what I’ve been told, in fact, a significant % of skeptics do not merely question the fact or degree of anthropogenic influence, they question whether warming itself is taking place.
How could so many “skeptics” have been so wrong so often?
You might want to read the poll’s definition of “global warming.” Combine that convoluted definition with the fact that “global warming” was for over a decade the progressive media’s label for CAGW, and the fact that those who identify as tea partiers are far more likely to know about the manipulation of data and peer review than any other segment of society, and the results don’t surprise me at all.
The level of ignorance on the progressive side correlates very well with their acceptance of appeals to authority like “the science is settled.”
Duck, duck, goose, eh Gary?
Let’s try again:
The fact remains that the poll indicates that some 40% of Republicans and Tea Partiers have an inaccurate perception about how most scientists view the issue of global warming.
Even if, as you are speculating, some 40% of the Tea Partiers and Republicans surveyed were so confused by the poll that they couldn’t distinguish between GW and AGW (and what does that tell you about them, anyway?), what do you think about the data that show that they are misinformed?
The way the poll defines “global warming” is not AGW. AGW alone has no future component. And my other point is that the progressives who lead your beloved “consensus’ went to great time and expense over years to inculcate “global warming” into the public consciousness as CAGW, not just AGW.
You may have noticed that the current poll tested, focused grouped name for CAGW is “climate change.” Most conservatives (there is no real national Tea Party), are aware of the manipulation of language by progressives. If you asked them now if “climate change” is happening now, you would get a large “no” response, because they kjnow how the term is being used. They also know how poll results will be used by progressive politicians.
The polls you love to cite all demonstrate (as this George Mason poll does) that conservatives are better informed about climate issues than the rest of the electorate. You try to explain their lack of belief in CAGW as something other than rational. But you simply have no evidence to support that.
Keep ducking Gary.
I’ll ask again. Who knows, maybe you’ll get tired of ducking and just settle in to answer.
Even if the Republicans and Tea Partiers were confused about the difference between GW and AGW, that doesn’t change the data that show they were misnformed.
“Better informed” is a somewhat subjective criterion. But what’s interesting is that on the one hand, you’re telling me that Tea Partiers and Republicans are “better informed,” and yet you’re also telling me that some 40% are confused as to the difference between GW and AGW?
Can you reconcile that for me? After you’ve stopped ducking, that is.
I also wonder why the poll asked about what “most scientists” think.about global warming.
If you asked me what percentage of “climate scientists” believe in CAGW (or AGW), I would answer the number ois very high. But knowing what I do about conservatives hiding their true beliefs in other fields to avoid job loss, I would suspect that it is significantly lower than the oft reported 97%.
If you ask me what percentage of “scientists” believe in CAGW, or AGW as defined by the poll, to include an apparent likelihood of future CAGW/AGW, I wouldn’t have a clue. I don’t know that a poll has ever been conducted of all scientists.
Ok. How about 80%? 70%? 60%?
Well – maybe you wouldn’t, but 11% and 7% of Republicans and Tea Partiers answered, respectively, “Don’t know enough to say” in response to the question.
So I guess that you think that they are expressing opinions, even though they aren’t well-informed on the topic? How do you reconcile that with your other claims that they are more well–informed?
And contrast that with the 19% of Democrats who would have responded in the same way as you to the question. That’s also interesting, don’t you think – that you’re more in agreement there with the Demz and the Repubz and Tea Partiers?
Sorry….
“….more in agreement with the Demz than the Repubz and Tea Partiers….”
Conservatives and “tea parties” are not confused about the differences among CAGW, AGW, global warming or climate change. The confusion in this instance is in the broad definition used by the pollsters, to include future warming as a component. I also suspect that when conservatives hear “global warming,” they hear the term as the left used it for over a decade, before the adoption of climate change or whatever new iteration they come up with next.
But the overall “confusion” regarding terminology in the climate debate is an intentional tactic of progressives. Why precisely do you think all the progressive CAGW activists at the same time switched from “global warming” to “climate change?” Why do you think the word “catastrophe” became the verbal equivalent of persona non grata in the “consensus” community? Why the constant attempts to preclude the use of CAGW or any other intelligible identifier of progressive climate activists? Why the rapid spread of the use of the word “denier?”
The left tries to control a debate by controlling the terms of the debate. Identify your opponents as “deniers,” and attempt to prevent any identifier for yourself. Make your position sound as harmless as possible (climate change mitigation) rather than let people know what you are really proposing – decarbonization of the world economy. Don’t be too surprised if the better informed of the public (you know – conservatives) don’t follow progressives’ constant attempts to redefine the terms of the debate.
I think GaryM’s point is that even if you asked a simple science question like “Has the world been warming?”, right-wing people see it through a political lens and not as a science question, so they make the calculation that “no” is their answer. Their world-view is tainted/distorted by politics, unfortunately.
Seriously, Gary – that’s a classic post. So they aren’t confused, but they’re confused because when they hear one term, they think it means something else, but they aren’t confused.
And another question for you, Gary…’
After exchanging these many posts with me, are you later going to blame me for “hijacking” the post – as you did just yesterday?
Will I be held responsible for whether you choose to engage in a debate with me?
If you do make the charge again, would that be yet another example of “personal responsibility” from a “conservative?”
Gary,
From Joshua’s frenetic drivel, you are doing good.
Every time Joshua does this more people become skeptics.
Keep up the good work.
No, you haven’t thread jacked this line…yet. But you have many times in the past, yesterday’s multiple, repetitive comments on whether All Gore invented the internet being just the latest example.
No, on this thread you are just asking the same question over and over again because you don’t like the answer you are getting. Since you aren’t apparently capable of engaging responses on their merits, you try to re-phrase your initial question, over and over. That is not thread jacking, yet. Just pedantic and boring.
Re: Climategate as opinion-shaper, you don’t mention the most directly falsifying evidence from the survey:
Q253a. Have you heard anything in the news about controversial emails between climate scientists in England and the US? Some news organizations have called the release of these emails “Climategate.”
National average:
Yes: 23%
No: 60%
Don’t know: 17%
Three-quarters of the public have never heard of climategate and don’t don’t what it is.
And what % of the remaining 25% already had fixed views or very strong leanings prior to “climategate?” My guess would be a strong majority.
What say you, Judith? Enough to get you to stop making a facile causal linkage?
Do you have data that support your conclusions as opposed to these data which make them highly questionable?
I suspect Dr. Curry is referring to a specific level of understanding, where Climategate made a big impression, including on her. The public, as you refer to it, does not exist. We need a poll that asks first, were you moved by Climategate? Second, of those who say yes, how? That and only that is impact assessment.
For somebody who argues psychology you seem not so good at the science.
Now David – i know that you have a habit of casting aspersions on my intelligence, my integrity, and my thinking ability – but perhaps we can exchange viewpoints without reducing it to that level?
Well, let’s examine that a bit more. Here is a direct quote from Judith:
How do you know what “public” she is referring to there, and that it is distinct from the public I am thinking she meant, and that the public I am thinking she meant “doesn’t exist?”
Do you have some evidence for your conclusion?
And as I recall, she has made numerous other statements indicating that she thinks that climategate has had a very significant impact on public opinion about climate scientists and on climate change more generally. Certainly, I have seen many statements by her “denizens” that indicate that “climategate” has “driven the final nail in the coffin” of AGW – or something to that effect.
All I’m asking for here are some data on which to evaluate the impact of “climategate.” My assertion has been, in the past, that public views on global warming can at least to some extent be explained by a lack of knowledge about how most scientists view the debate about AGW – and that the variable of public knowledge about what most people understand about the viewpoint of scientists, or climate scientists, has not been controlled for in facile conclusions about the impact of climategate.
I’m not sure that impugning my understanding of science is going to quantify that variable. But maybe that’s because I just don’t understand science very well, eh?
To some degree – no doubt. It would be interesting to know what might happen if that $40% of Republcans and Tea Partiers had a more accurate picture of what “most” scientists think about GW and AGW – but my guess is that groups is pretty hardcore anyway. They likely are mistaken about the “consensus” because they live in an echo chamber. Perhaps accurate information could penetrate their bubble – but I suspect for most of them it would just bounce off, be rejected (one might say “denied”).
You know the drill.
They aren’t the only ones who have it wrong. Look at what the other groups think:
Q30. To the best of your knowledge, what proportion of climate scientists think that global warming is happening?
Survey says:
National Average
a) 81 to 100% (14%)
b) 61 to 80% (20%)
c) 41 to 60% (24%)
d) 21 to 40% (14%)
e) 0 to 20% (3%)
f) Don’t know enough to say (26%)
Presumably most people here — even the so-called “skeptics” — know that the correct answer is “a” (whether or not they think the scientists have it right.) But only 14% of the public knows that. Only 18% of Democrats know that. Only 18% of independent know that (the figure for Republicans is 10%, Tea Party 1%).
Cognitive dissonance alone cannot explain this. Even people who believe strongly in the reality of global warming and the danger from it grossly understate the strength of scientific consensus. That’s a true knowledge deficit, and that’s why efforts like Gore’s to calm reiterate the facts of global warming and the strong scientific consensus on the issue — however much they sound flat to our jaded ears — are the correct strategy to build majority support for effective mitigation.
That’s another excellent point.
Increased information might not make a difference in the view of those at the extreme ends of the spectrum, but it could make a difference to those who are less ideologically-driven and thereby fixed in their orientation to the debate.
“Q30. To the best of your knowledge, what proportion of climate scientists think that global warming is happening?”
This is evidence of the AGW dogma in science. That such Orwelian question can be asked is a travesty.
“Orwelian”
I do not think that word means what you think it means. ;)
Also, you misspelled it.
Thanks, Orwellian of course. I know very well what it means. The question is meaningless without the time scale, magnitude and significance.
The more I read that George Mason poll, the more I like it.
72% of Democrats think that “protecting the environment” Improves economic growth and provides new jobs.”
So all those people who have never heard of climategate (or hide the decline, or glaciergate, or Amazongate, etc., etc.) also have never heard of the collapse of the Spanish green dream, Solyndra, the “cost per job” created by the so called stimulus….
Ignorance and acceptance of “global warming,” including the progressive hype about “green jobs,” seem to go hand in hand.
If you want to try and sell that propaganda to the public, feel free. Obviously you haven’t been getting much traction up to now.
The trouble you are going to run into is that your hatred of everybody to the left of you — which is the vast majority of people — drips and oozes from every line that you write.
You won’t appeal to the middle by castigating them as ignorant and berating them for ignoring your astroturf “scandals.”
A real conservative doesn’t try to “appeal to the middle.” A real conservative joins in the effort to educate the middle. As for my personally getting traction, I’m just commenting on a blog. I don’t share your and Joshua’s delusions of grandeur about impacting the climate debate.
But thanks for implying hatred in what I have written, I love seeing examples of progressive projection.
As for conservative traction in general, the treads of the conservative vehicle seemed to catch rather well in 2010. We shall.see how they perform in 2012, but I for one am optimistic. I suspect that the increasing vitriol from the left is a sign that you all have, shall we say, diminished expectations.
There is nothing “conservative” about today’s right-wingers, but I agree with you, your efforts to reach out to the middle have failed dismally.
Your attempts to reeducate the public based on your conspiracy-laden pseudohistory just aren’t getting traction. It’s sad to watch your spin your wheels trying to explain it.
Robert,
It will be so much fun to watch conservative traction in action on November 12, 2012. I can’t wait. How about you?
We don’t have to wait that long:
The public has seen the denier front line for 2012 . . . and the more they see of them, the more convinced they are that the science of global warming beats the feverish denial of the right-wing noise machine.
GaryM,
It is interesting how ‘ignorance of current events and history’ correlates with ‘lefty political leaning’.
The renewable energy policies of various governments raise the price of electricity while reducing its economic utility. Reasonable people can disagree whether the environmental benefits of some of these proposed policies justify the economic costs, but it is economically illiterate to argue that the economic costs justify the economic benefits.
While the Josh and Robert show strains mightily at a gnat or two, the “wisdom crowds” is the matter of import. Whatever the imperfections of its expression, in detail, the essential insight has been achieved by the “little” people on this one–scam is the bottom line of the CAGW intrique. No greater example of the “wisdom of crowds.”
And one must expect some confusion, on the part of the “little” people, when denier clowns like Professor Phil Jones say things like there’s no statistically significant warming since 1995. Unfortunately, that’s the sort of thing that sticks in people’s minds.
Thanks for reading, Mike.
It’s nice to know that I can count on you.
I’m so glad mike is ready to support abinding international treaty for 90% cut in greenhouse gas emissions (for that is what the “wisdom of crowds” wants):
Q174. Sign an international treaty that requires the United States to cut its emissions of carbon dioxide 90% by the year 2050.
Support (strongly + somewhat): 65%
All hail the “wisdom of crowds”!
Robert,
If you read the wiki entry for “wisdom of crowds”, you’ll see that there are “dumb” crowds and “smart” crowds. it’s the “smart” crowd that detected the CAGW scam. That’s why they’re called “cool dudes”.
It’s true, the denier straw man of “CAGW” — invented when your denial of AGW ended in humiliating defeat at the hands of the facts — is a scam, and not one that has caught on outside the right-wing fringe.
Clinging to groupthink — my fellow deniers believe in this malarkey, therefore we’re a “smart crowd” — really underscores your authoritarian and anti-individualist leanings.
Meanwhile the real “smart crowd” — the climate scientists — are still where the public is looking for answers on climate change.
Humiliating defeats like the collapse of Copenhagen, the failure of cap and trade in the U.S., the EPA backing off of not just coal regulations, but CO2 this past week, the 2010 elections….
I am not sure the left can take much more of this kind of success over the impotent conservatives.
“impotent conservatives”
Well, a little bit of reality crept in there at the end. Good job!
Sorry, Robert, the BS-detector of thinking individuals has prevailed. CAGW? Nice hustle, while it lasted.
But I am really concerned about the next ice age. Now that would be a real catastrophe–Canada, Northern Eurasia, 1/3 United States, under ice sheets a mile or more thick. So when do the climate models predict the next ice age to occurr and how much anthropogenic warming do we have to produce between then and now to stave off that icy catastrophe?
Why should I be sorry that your bullshit is being picked up by the detectors of thinking people?
As, I said, I’m glad that your scam — selling the fake “CAGW” straw man once you had been humiliatingly defeated in your efforts to deny the reality of AGW — has failed.
Why should I be sorry that your BS is being picked up by the detectors of thinking people?
As I said, I’m glad that your scam — selling the fake “CAGW” straw man once you had been humiliatingly defeated in your efforts to deny the reality of AGW — has failed.
So, Robert, I asked you a simple and compelling question. When do the “climate scientists” and their models predict the next ice age will occur and what anthropogenic warming do we need to produce between then and now if we are to fend off that icy doom?
I guess you over-looked that question. Also curious that you are now only asserting “the reality” of AGW. Does this mean CAGW is out? And, if so, does this mean you need to get a life, Robert? Wait! Don’t bother to answer the last since we all know the answer. Just concentrate on your answer to the ice age question–if you would be so kind.
So you’ve carefully — and objectively, no doubt — evaluated your question and decided it was “compelling.”
Unfortunately, you didn’t ask a compelling question at any point. To review:
* You admitted the denier straw man of “CAGW” has failed to catch on with the public.
* You praised the “wisdom of crowds,” and thereby directly declaring your support for a binding international treaty for 90% cut in greenhouse gas emissions.
It’s a good day’s work in admitting your prior mistakes.
Then you said something about your prediction of an imminent new ice age. Is that what you Scientologists believe? I have an open mind. Go ahead and make your case.
Robert, I’m not predicting any ice age, except to say such things have happened in the past and so I’m concerned there might be another in
the future. Fortunately, we have climate models, constructed by real climate scientists, that enjoy your greatest confidence, that forecast the climate.
You’re the guy in the know, Robert. When do those whiz-bang models you are so familiar with predict our next ice-age will occur? Or maybe they predict there’ll be no more ice ages? And, again, what do the “climate scientists” in whom you’ve placed your every confidence advise, in terms of the amount of anthropogenic warming we must produce between now and the next ice age if we are to avoid becoming like so many extinct woolly mammoths, preserved in the the perma-frost of South Florida? Assuming, of course, the models predict a future ice age.
And surely, you would not place any confidence in a climate model that
can’t even predict a hum-dinger event like the next ice-age. Or, alternatively, can’t cogently explain away ice-ages as a phenomenon we’ll never see again. Right?
mike, don’t worry about another ice age. Even the Milankovitch cycles don’t support another one for tens of thousands of years. I advise getting the book, “The Long Thaw” by David Archer about his idea on what increased CO2 will do to prevent future ice ages. Even Greenland’s ice cap not stable in current CO2 levels, and it will be gone as a result, which will be a sure sign that the northern hemisphere is out of the ice ages until that returns.
“such things have happened in the past and so I’m concerned there might be another in the future.”
And I’m asking you why you’re concerned. What is your reasoning? Based on what facts?
I have an open mind. Convince me that I should share your concern.
So, Robert, you still haven’t answered my ice-age question. Gonna get around to that?
How bout this as a deal? You answer my ice-age question and I’ll give your loser blog a page-view. And if you provide an intelligent answer to my ice-age question, I’ll even drop off a comment.
Win-win deal–no?
Again, you haven’t explained why you’re predicting an ice age or when you expect it, what your evidence is.
When you make your case, I’ll be happy to give you a reaction.
Robert, I’ve asked you what the climate science models predict–those, of course, which you’ve determined to have the best predictive merit. Remember you’re the guy with climate scientist pals with the models. What do they predict, in terms of the next ice age?
And you really can’t foresee how a new ice age could have any adverse impact on human life? C’mon, Robert. I mean, there’s “playing dumb” and then there’s “playing stupid-head.”
You know, Robert, your showing on this blog has done nothing to enhance the reputation of your loser blog. Gotta sharpen up guy if you want to be a player in the blogosphere–the competition is brutal.
Robert, Joshua
Building castles ‘gainst the tide.
The way climate heals.
==========
Pull the curtain aside and there’s nothing to see but an unclothed Oz Gore hammering knobs.
. . . said the flying monkey.
You know to keep Jo Nova away from water, right?
Repeating what I said earlier and received no response.
“I haven’t spent much time lately with the climate change debate because practically speaking the matter looks settled. Barring remarkable advances in the science or rapid deterioration of the climate, the struggle is over. The climate change debate will continue to percolate in the background, but otherwise the climate change movement has lost.”
Show me the political will in the US or Europe or anywhere else that will combat climate change.
Copenhagen and Cancun failed. The Obama administration is on the ropes. The European Union is collapsing. Russia, China and Africa have their own agendas.
Where is the climate change movement succeeding?
“Repeating what I said earlier and received no response.”
The denier media strategy in a nutshell!
Robert: No substantive response. Not even the barest attempt.
I’m not talking science, just political reality. If you had something to say, you would, but you don’t, so you don’t.
You really are a troll, aren’t you?
You did not answer the question:
Where is the climate change movement succeeding?
It should be easy to provide specific examples, as huxley has done to support his position.
Roy Weiler
“You did not answer the question”
Non sequiturs do not require or deserve a response.
Neither you or huxley has dealt with the facts from multiple large surveys of public opinion as presented at length above, preferring to live in a fantasy world in which denier propaganda is succeeding.
When you’re ready to deal with the facts, then there will be a reason for others to deal with you.
Otherwise, the only response you can expect from the reality-based community is quiet smiles. Here you go:
:)
Rob:
It is not a non sequitur, it is a question.
I am not interested in the results of polls. Anyone who has studied them know they come with serious problems with respect to leading questions, and interpreting results.
I am interested in your answer to:
Where is the climate change movement succeeding?
Have a go at it.
Roy Weiler
Robert: Yes, you are a troll.
You don’t cite facts; you gesture grandly and vaguely at “multiple large surveys of public opinion.”
In the meantime, the Markey-Waxman bill is deader than dead. Even Obama is wobbling on EPA ozone standards. I predict you will see more such backpedaling.
I ask again, where is the climate change movement succeeding? The answer is nowhere.
Maybe it should and maybe it shouldn’t, but the reality is the climate change movement is dead in the water politically for now and for several years to come.
If you disagree, support your claims with facts and reason. Otherwise, you are a troll.
Sorry, it’s a non sequitur.
As I’ve said, when you’re ready to cope with the facts, and ask questions based in reality and not fantasy, then there’s a reason to expect a response.
So far you’re making no effort to deal with the reality of those polls.
So here you go:
:)
Rob:
What part of I am not interested in discussing your poll du jour do you not get? If I was interested in discussing a poll, I would have joined the discussion higher up the thread.
The question of relevance to this portion of the thread is, wait for it!
Where is the climate change movement succeeding?
Roy Weiler
I don’t recall asking for your opinion on the matter, but thanks.
I take it by your regression to childish insults that you’ve given up dealing with the facts above? Want to have a flame war instead?
Sorry, can’t help you. My response to that:
:)
“What part of I am not interested in discussing your poll du jour do you not get?”
I understand you’re in denial about the failure of your propaganda with the public.
When you’re ready to deal with the facts, then there will be a reason for others to deal with you.
Until then:
:)
Rob:
Your response has nothing to do with what I articulated and requested of you. Namely your opinion of where is the climate change movement succeeding? If your poll is so important to your position, it should be very easy to offer evidence of this astounding success.
As to my “propaganda with the public”, I have none. I am looking for evidence to support your claim that this poll is somehow revealing in someway. If all these people believe what you interpret them to believe, then where is the evidence of this? Where are the bills and regulations being passed in favor of climate change? What country has the political wherewithal to move your proposed agenda forward?
Roy Weiler
What you “articulated” was:
* You are afraid of the evidence being discussed in this thread, and refuse to face up to it.
* I am a troll, because I keep directing you back to the facts you trying to evade.
My response:
:)
Robert’s new name is “Baghdad Bob”.
LOL
The bloviator Yergin has apparently written another book, vying for a second Pulitzer Prize.
There Will Be Oil — NY Times read it before the firewall closes it down.
Amazing the number of wrong interpretations the guy can make in a single article.
Do you have a Cliff’s Notes-type link that explains the errors in his viewpoint? Or maybe just a short list of his “wrong interpretations?”
Just to be clear – I don’t have a firm opinion one way or the other here. I’d just like to know what data there are that allow you to dismiss his article so categorically.
Well, Yergin wrote a political book on the topic and I preempted him by writing a technical book on oil depletion. http://TheOilConundrum.com
Unfortunately that is not a Cliff’s Notes as I have 750 pages in two volumes.
This is a fristing of his points in the NY Times article:
The missing point that Yergin won’t mention is that crude oil has definitely peaked. The other oil that is starting to be counted is called “all liquids”. This can include natural gas liquids, biofuels, etc. Those have effectively made up the difference. There is no doubt that crude oil peaked in the 2005 to 2008 time frame. One has to just look at the accounting.
The peak is plateauing right now. All those other liquid products are valiantly trying to maintain a peak
The warnings have been continuous. On the scale of human existence, tens of years is not a long time.
Choosing the years 2007 to 2009 is cherry picking and badly torturing the data. A couple of years this may have happened, but global discoveries peaked in the 1960s. Discoveries are very erratic and are fat-tailed phenomena so a few large discoveries every once in a while will create unwarranted optimism.
Hubbert was mainly an empiricist when it came to oil depletion estimates and his math was not actually very rigorous and he was renowned for not showing his work. He was more rigorous in his other research. What I tried to do was add rigor to his oil depletion work which was highly intuitive.
To be fair, it wasn’t really a theory as much as a heuristic.
Yergin has no clue what statistics means in this context. Hubbert didn’t use a statistical approach, and this is obvious from the way he calculated his curve, as it was a deterministic heuristic. I am not a follower of Hubbert and a few other analysts are using a true stochastic approach to estimate the tails of oil depletion.
This occurred because Hubbert didn’t do the stochastics correctly. Peak oil is actually a fat-tail effect that pushes the perfectly symmetric Logistic curve into an asymmetric curve. The fat-tail occurs because of dispersion in rates of discovery and in the variations regions of area explored. This gets back to the idea that oil does not exist in “one giant oil field”. Yergin should not be pounding on Hubbert anymore and he should realize this.
It is a constantly moving target because information only comes out slowly. Only a few countries like the UK and Norway require accurate bookkeeping of oil production. In these places we can predict the decline very accurately. I have trends from a few years ago that I continue to track and they are still spot on for UK and Norway.
Yergin likely only has the slightest concept of Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROEI). The tar sands and other places use huge amounts of energy. The innovation is there but it is innovation on how to use energy to get back meager returns.
The average “shut-in” reservoir was left with 60%-65% of the oil left behind. So what he said is true and the amount of energy it will take to scrape that out of the pores is the real issue.
This is why the discoveries are all in the past. The new technologies have been in place. Part of my stochastic model incorporates an accelerating technology to take into account search over a finite volume, and this still will not bring up the declining tail.
This is called the law of diminishing returns. The fat-tail is real but it doesn’t reverse the course.
I debunked the USGS reserve growth work in my book. This is really a bookkeeping problem, and this does not happen in other parts of the world, where the initial estimates are spot on. The reason that the initial estimates are underestimated in the USA is because of financial regulations to avoid fraudulent claims, therefore companies essentially only report what their wildcat wells report. It is now a moot point in the USA because discoveries peaked in the USA in the 1940’s, and all these numbers have been continuously backdated.
This is a fat-tail effect. The issue is now on how fast we can extract the oil, and thus peak oil has become a throughput or flow problem.
Watch how much of this is the alternative “all liquids” category, what he calls related liquids. Yergin is a cagey political crony.
This is the “drill, baby, drill” argument in a nutshell. No one really believes this but it is the only thing one can say to avoid an open revolt.
In the worst cases this is like extracting oil from the asphalt in a parking lot, and in the best cases, like Bakken, these fields have very short lifetimes and are flow limited. Take a look at how many small rigs and multiple processing centers are planned around North Dakota.
I did a recent study of this and the increase is largely due to a few large Gulf rigs coming online and the fat-tail is being maintained by many stripper wells and a little from Bakken. The USA is definitely in decline.
Unconventional sources of oil are not petroleum. In summary what Yergin has written is very predictable because you can find it in any of the industry projections. I included a chapter on the cornucopian views in the book and you can see how in detail how they are debunked point by point.
A couple of edits, that was a Wall Street Journal article and not a a NY Times, sorry for the confusion. I also missed this big groaner he made:
I looked this up and at the end of November 2010, the International Energy Agency reported the world production of all liquids was 87 million barrels per day. Yergin’s book has been in the planning for a long time and I bet he took one of his old projections and assumed it would be correct, but it came out 5% short. If cheap, plentiful, and convenient energy sources equates to industrial productivity, that is 5% lower productivity that the world’s economy didn’t have access to.
Thanks for all that information.
You are very welcome. I think Climate Science will eventually evolve into a science of systems. The whole forcing chain will have to be taken into account to make sense of the data. It doesn’t help that an entire industry of lobbyists, pundits, and consultants push out information that only tells one side of the story.
Yergin may be a Pulitzer Prize winner but his consulting company CERA is part of IHS (Information Handling Services) which sells fossil fuel consumption information to companies, and then the seemingly neutral IEA (International Energy Agency) and EIA (Energy Information Agency, the DOE’s service) incorporates these records into the global updates. And this information is expensive! It cost thousands of dollars to get a subscription to the IHS services. The info from the agencies are merely roll-ups. So it is comical that Yergin can’t even get the numbers correct., putting down 92 instead of 87 for consumption in 2010.
If anyone wants to know about “hiding data”, the energy industry are masters at this.
Web:
Can you enlighten me as to one of these “wrong interpretations”?
Roy Weiler
I have a point-by-point list above. If I were to make a blanket statement, the cornucopian vision of energy industry analysts such as Daniel Yergin and Michael Lynch is an incorrect interpretation because it exists simply to support business-as-usual (BAU) philosophy. Businesses will pay a lot of money for information that is in-line with what they want to hear, instead of getting negative info. Same thing with the general public unfortunately.
Seconded. I always felt “peak oil” was a fallacy, in practical terms.
The explosive growth in unconventional oil and gas fracking reinforces that.
The peak that “peak oil” will lead to chaos and economic disruption is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the supply/demand curve.
They are a plethora of good reasons to stop burning fossil fuels, but the threat of “peak oil” is not one of them.
Good of you to mention this, because I purposely avoid talking about “doomer” topics on my blog, and really tried to avoid it in the book. The only places I do bring up the potential consequences is in the occasional quoted reference.
Certainly supply/demand curves will have an effect but all I wanted to work through is the math behind oil depletion, since as far as I can tell, no one has gone through much more than an empirical and heuristic analysis.
That is why I find climate science interesting, separated from all the political discussions. Sure I have opinions, but the slant is really toward the technical analytic foundation, and that is really needed if someone wants to policy based on oil depletion projections.
Thanks for your Yergin comments. What is the name of your book?
The book is called “The Oil ConunDRUM” as a play on words because I spent lots of time on The Oil Drum blog with posts and comments when I was writing it. I have it hosted on Google Docs right now, with a link through
http://TheOilConundrum.com
Web,
You are just bitter that yet another Malthus/Ehrlich doom is biting the dust.
It was expected by us who actually follow the topic.
I look forward to hearing him here in the capital of the evil empire, where I am certain he will be presenting it soon. And getting him to autograph his latest, to join its predecessor on my shelf.
Oh, and sorry you are missing out on this.
As for Stooks, when one serves at the pleasure of an elected official, you will get fired when their pleasure changes.
He should take it no more personally than any of the more skeptical climatologists who have been fired by AGW believer governors.
The position has little connection to state policy or services. If I was advising a governor, I would have the governor avoid the position completely and name a state meteorologist instead.
That could be practical and useful. Getting dragged into the briar patch of AGW offers little benefit and much wasteful risk. Having someone help with planning for weather events makes sense.
Planning for a predicted climate in 100 years is a waste of time.
And when the predictions are dubious, of little to zero practical use and of completely subjective net present value guesstimates, why bother?
The weather we have dealt with for the past 200+ years of US history ahs been more than enough.
Again, where is the climate change movement succeeding?
What bills are working their way through the US Congress or other nations? Where is more money being spent to combat climate change?
Who expects this to change as money gets tighter? Who expects the US to become more supportive of climate change issues in 2012?
If you support the climate change movement, what do you think should be done?
At this point I don’t expect answers from the climate change orthodox, just complaints, non-sequiturs and ad hominems.
Again, you’ve admitted that you can’t face the reality of the denialist movement’s failure to sell their story to the public.
You don’t want to talk about that. You have nothing to say about that.
Then, having refused to address your failure with the public, you ask “How are we not succeeding?” It’s a classic non sequitur. Deny the facts, change the subject. “But other than that, Mrs Lincoln, how was the play?”
Until you are ready to face the facts, repeating your non sequiturs over and over will only get you this:
:)
:)
Robert: I asked several questions. If you had answers or otherwise substantive responses, I assume you would have posted them. But you have not, so I conclude you have no answers or responses.
Instead you complain that I’m not willing face facts — yet you have supplied none.
Where is the climate change movement succeeding?
It’s not a loaded question. It’s not a “Have you stopped beating your wife” question. It’s a straightforward question that could be answered and should be answered, even if one is a partisan for the climate change movement.
It does require intellectual honesty. I would respect that. I understand that the world is complicated and informed people disagree.
I would like to understand how the climate change orthodox see things and what they are trying to do. But so far, you seem to be an out-and-out propagandist who posts only to push an agenda or obfuscate when that isn’t possible.
It has succeeded in obtaining support from major scientific societies, forward-looking private industry (Google, Apple, Microsoft), and in many national and local governments taking action on carbon mitigation and alternative energy research.
Jim D: Good. That’s accurate. But how does it compare with the pushback from the right?
There are enough government entities where the right has insignificant sway, luckily for them, so they can make progress without the deadlocks we see elsewhere.
The Climate Change Movement™ sure hasn’t prevented the Global Average Temperature Anomaly*™ from increasing since the beginning of the Industrial Age, which is supposed to be the point of the whole thing. It has been a dismal failure, but who cares about that. I sure don’t.
Andrew
Not being a member of the “orthodox,” I’m not sure if you’re interested in my answer.
I think that it is too simplistic to say that it is “succeeding” or “failing.” I’m not sure that the question even makes sense. What does “succeeding” mean in this context? it’s like asking whether or not Demz wanted the U.S. to “lose” the war in Iraq when they advocated for pulling out troops.
That said, I think that there are clearly initiatives that haven’t worked, just as we could probably find areas where we might say that it has worked: for example a causal relationship between the rapid growth in the solar energy industry and the “climate change movement” (which, in itself, is a rather ambiguous term).
Are you suggesting that we should have a binary viewpoint on the “success” or “failure” of the “climate change movement?” Wouldn’t that require a static assessment of a very dynamic phenomenon?
Or are you simply looking for examples of success? If so, what would be the point? Do you doubt that there are any?
Joshua: I wish to understand how the climate change orthodox — I include you — see the situation practically and politically.
I am saying that, as I see things, the climate change movement has lost momentum, traction and essentially the struggle to significantly retard increases of atmospheric CO2 in the near term, as we were told was necessary to change in order to prevent various dire consequences.
I am speaking practically and politically, not about the seesaw of debate or polls, unless those can be leveraged to real changes in CO2.
I think that I answered your questions below:
http://judithcurry.com/2011/09/16/week-in-review-91711/#comment-113153
Just curious, by what metric do you put me in the “climate change orthodox?” I have done fairly little on this blog that makes my views on climate change apparent. Despite claims by some that they know what I believe, in fact they don’t.
My focus on this blog is to highlight what I see as logical inconsistencies among “skeptics” – inconsistencies borne out of ideological/political biases. Does that, in itself, place me in the climate change orthodox – completely independent on how I view the science related to climate change?
Joshua,
It makes you partisan if you only criticize “skeptics” and not “warmers” too.
Andrew
Andrew –
I never said, let alone suggested, that I’m not a partisan.
In fact, I have said over and over that I am a partisan.
What I find endlessly curious is that my Climate Etc. buddies continuously read my posts, continuously read into my posts things I’ve never said, continuously insult me, continuously, say that they know what I believe when they don’t, continuously respond to my posts and then continuously call me a “troll” who is “hi-jacking” threads because my intent is to “distract” already-committed partisans from having their all important gabfest in an echo-chamber, so that they can by making comments on a blog defeat the massive AGW cabal.
And btw, Andrew, I have criticized “warmists” many times. If you don’t know what I do and don’t do, you could ask me, or you could read my posts more carefully.
For example, in the post about Gore I criticized him quite a bit, yet was accused of being a Gore “supporter” – when I freakin’ said that his input was counterproductive and even said he was a blowhard and that I didn’t vote for him.
I have criticized tribalism on both sides, more or less constantly. I’ve even criticized Robert for his rhetoric at times.
So why is it that my views are so frequently mischaracterized – to the point where people have stated over and over that they know what my views are about climate science.
I love it. A partisan earnestly criticizing partisanship. Yep, that’s important, the earnest part.
==================
Joshua, remember the demz said we had already lost that particular war.
A new, favorite part of the poll Robert linked:
I mean, seriously, that is just beautiful.
They know that they are “more informed,” because more information isn’t necessary to inform their viewpoint.
I wonder if Judith has a notion that there is a “vast asymmetry” in how people on the different sides of the climate debate view uncertainty.
The survey results on this question indicated that Tea Party folks are much more certain in their views about the state of the science. And there I thought it was the “warmists” that were overstating certainty.
So, is the climate change movement succeeding?
Climate change has established a consensus in academia, science, Hollywood and much of the mainstream media. The UK has passed substantial carbon legislation. There has been a lot of climate change initiatives that nibble at the edges of the problem.
But in terms of differences that make a difference, I don’t see much happening, and given the economic pressures, I can’t imagine any further big ticket carbon bills passing in the US, Europe or anywhere.
It looks to me like the climate change movement is stalled and losing ground in terms of doing something about the problem as the climate change movement sees it.
If you disagree, why and how specifically?
They key countries are the US, China and later India as the century progresses. Science has established the kind of warming that will take place, and I am not expecting that to be avoided as CO2 rises to near 1000 ppm by 2100. So, if we warm the expected 3 C between 2000 and 2100, science will have succeeded in predicting it, which would be small consolation. Most likely, as effects become more obvious in some local areas, local actions will be taken to mitigate them, but I currently expect no international agreements involving these three countries.
Jim D: However, my question concerns the goals of the climate change movement — not whether the science will be vindicated or not.
You expect no international agreements between the US, China, or India to prevent the increases of atmospheric CO2. Fine. Neither do I.
That was my point. Thank you.
To me, the “climate change movement” is an awareness movement, not one that supports any particular political action, just multiple actions. To that extent they have already succeeded. People, including some governments, are now aware.
But if that awareness leads to no substantive legislative actions that retard or reduce carbon emissions, it has failed in its ultimate aim.
That would be the politician’s failure in those countries that succumb to effects that could have been prevented, not the climate movement’s. How would you force politicians to be more forward thinking than the next election?
Jim D: My questions are about the end result, not about assigning responsibility. If the climate change movement can’t pressure politicians in democratic countries to reduce carbon for the sake of climate change, I say they have failed.
If you don’t agree, fine, but it still nets to a failure to fix the climate according to the climate change movement’s prescription, and that’s what I’m talking about.
As I said, they have succeeded in many countries and some states and in public awareness. Nowadays politicians ignoring or denying them look stupid.
Jim D: Try to engage the material from outside your box.
Politicians who are ignoring or denying, as you put it, climate change look stupid to people within the orthodoxy, but not to those of us outside the orthodoxy. And there are currently enough of us to prevent your side from successful political legislation such as the Waxman-Markey bill.
Assuming you accept democracy, this is a problem for your side and the reason the climate change movement has lost traction and is unable to turn things around and reduce carbon emissions.
That’s how it nets out. If you want to frame this such that those on your side are the beautiful losers who were aced out by the crude, evil, greedy, stupid people on my side, that’s fine, but you lost.
The bottom line remains — your side has failed, for now. And if you are going to change that, I ask how will you do it?
huxley, I am on the side of science, and I only think of politicians from that point of view. If they have done their homework, it is very clear and they stand out, and, yes, there are some on those committees who do impress with actual sensible questions of the experts, while others just look like fossil fuel lobbier’s puppets saying stupid things like Mars is going through global warming too (huh?). Now, obviously you people elect these types, so it is clear that the public has not put global climate at the top of its agenda yet, and won’t unless bad climate things start happening in their country. It is only not an issue yet because it is still too abstract compared to what people are elected for (jobs, economy, health care), and they are not getting much accomplished there either at the moment. I don’t think we can blame the climate change movement for this paralysis.
Jim D
You are far too pessimistic with your assumptions.
You estimate that CO2 will rise “to near 1000 ppm by 2100” and that temperature will rise by 3°C.
IPCC has a “business as usual” case with no climate initiatives and the compounded annual growth rate of atmospheric CO2 continuing the past and most recent rate of 0.43% per year and arriving at around 580 ppmv by year 2100 (scenario and storyline B1).
This appears to me to be the most realistic “business as usual” case, if a bit on the high side. It assumes a continuation of the current exponential rate of increase of CO2 levels despite the fact that population growth rates are assumed to slow down to around one-fourth of the rates seen over the past 50 years, with population itself peaking in mid-century.
IPCC has forecast a temperature increase of 1.8°C for this case (as compared to 0.6°C increase if CO2 concentrations remained constant at year 2000 levels). This tells me that if we shut down the world economy completely today, we would only reduce global warming in 2100 by 1.2°C, but that’s another story.
Like you, I would “expect no international agreements [on carbon reduction] involving these three countries” [India, China, USA], and I expect most of the growth will come from China and India, as these giant economies continue to develop. I also expect that, as they do, they will increase their carbon efficiencies (GDP per ton CO2) to approach the same levels as the industrially developed world (EU, USA, Japan, etc.) has today, with the industrially developed world continuing a slow increase of their own carbon efficiencies as fossil fuels become more expensive.
1000 ppm is approaching the sort of level one could imagine our planet reaching asymptotically as existing fossil fuel resources are used up some time 200-300 years from now. The World Energy Council issued a 2010 report listing proven coal, oil, gas reserves plus inferred possible total resources in place. Using “inferred possible” numbers, there is just enough carbon to arrive at slightly over 1000 ppmv concentration, so that’s the absolute upper limit – not the level one could imagine for year 2100, as you have estimated.
Anything over 1000 ppmv is a pipe dream.
Max
Anyone who thinks there is achance of CO2 rising to 1000 ppm by 210 0 is drinking something very strong.
Or perhaps they are listening to Baghdad Bob too much?
In AR5 the RCP 8.5 corresponds to CO2 and equivalents well over 1300 by 2100, but most regard it as unrealistic because it requires rapid development of new fossil fuel sources even in the face of dramatic global warming. I might call it the extreme stupidity scenario.
I think that was to me?
No, I don’t disagree with your assessment. I just think it is too simplistic to wrap it up in a binary conclusion of success or failure. Relatively few policies have thus far been implemented that will have a significant impact – but it is hard to measure the ultimate impact that current debate, or current focus on alternative technologies, will have on CO2 mitigation long-term.
For those in the “climate change movement” who were looking for specific, discrete measures that would have immediate impact, success has stalled. Does that mean the movement is “losing ground” in the long term? I don’t think that is possible to say at this point. I think that answer will only come within a larger time frame. If ultimately the climate changes enough that the power of “skeptical” views is significantly diminished, then current day developments can be seen as successful in the sense that a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.
On the other hand, when I see proclamations that this or that or the other is the “final nail in the AGW coffin,” I believe that people are confusing their hopes or ideological proclivities with objective analysis of a very complex and dynamic social/scientific/political phenomenon.
So, I’m just not sure were binary conclusions about success or failure of the “climate change community” have any real meaning other than to advance bravado and false claims, one way or the other, within skirmishes between partisans.
No, I don’t disagree with your assessment. I just think it is too simplistic to wrap it up in a binary conclusion of success or failure.
Joshua: OK. Yeah, life’s complicated but I’m taking a binary approach to highlight an important point: the climate change movement has indeed stalled and barring surprises it doesn’t look that will change in the next several years.
So far, no one here has managed to dent that conclusion.
I’m not making claims about the long term. I am making this argument to see if I am missing something and to check if the climate change orthodox are able to see their position clearly.
How are you ever going to answer that question when, as you’ve admitted, you refuse to deal with the uncomfortable facts of the matter re: the public’s rejection of denialism?
You want to argue that “Climate change has established a consensus in academia, science, Hollywood and much of the mainstream media.” Much like the theory of relativity and the theory of evolution, that’s probably the case. But you refuse to face the evidence of what the public thinks — that’s a huge hole in any analysis.
You should feel free to make your argument as to whether or not the climate change “movement” is succeeding. I’m happy to hear you out. But unless you are able to deal honestly with all the facts, you’re not going to be very persuasive.
Robert: Again, and get it this time, I am not arguing about what should or should not be.
I am saying that politically and practically speaking the climate change movement has failed in its program to reduce CO2 and I don’t see that changing in this decade.
So that’s your thesis. What evidence do you have to support it?
Bobbie,
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A.gif
Andrew
That the Waxman-Markey bill failed, that 2010 elections in the US wiped out Democratic advantages in Congress, that the worldwide economic crisis has made money tighter everywhere, that the Obama administration is in trouble and may not be re-elected, that no significant carbon legislation and agreements have been passed since Copenhagen.
I said these things already. Your turn.
“that the worldwide economic crisis has made money tighter everywhere”
So you think that money being tighter everywhere means that deniers are winning the argument? How does that follow? Does the success of the deniers cause money to be scarce?
“that 2010 elections in the US wiped out Democratic advantages in Congress”
Right . . . the party in the Oval Office lost seats in the midterm elections. And that’s only happened in sixteen out of eighteen midterm elections since 1936. So how does something happening that has happened 88% of the time for the last seventy-four years mean that deniers are winning the argument?
How does any of this help you make your case?
Robert: Well, we can argue about the degree but tight money and less progressive politics make it harder to spend money for climate and pass climate legislation. That’s obvious; an honest interlocutor would agree.
So your turn. How is the climate change movement succeeding in controlling carbon emission and therefore, according to your brief, climate change?
Specifically. I’m done answering questions for a while. Your turn.
Then I have to say, regretfully, that you haven’t made your case. When you’re feeling up to it, we can continue our discussion.
Consider this: capital may be short because of all the money thrown down the green hole. What a huge, catastrophic waste.
=======================
I agree with Robert. This fight is far from over. Skeptics who think it is somehow over are fools. It is a draw, which is a win politically. But the draw has to be maintained. Much work lies ahead.
This haunts me. It seems that truth can only emerge with prolonged cooling, and attendant social catastrophe.
===============
Robert,
Your Baghdad Bob impersonation is really great. Please keep it up.
Thanks and all,
This is how a hoax dies.
WordPress has a new thingy, “Top commenters”. Not sure what the time frame is, but here is the current list:
Joshua 82
Robert 41
manacker 38
hunter 34
Fred Moolten 31
Pekka Pirilä 28
WebHubTelescope 28
Jim D 27
Chief Hydrologist 26
Alexander Harvey 26
Wagathon 24
I assume that is just for this thread, or is it for the day?
Comment 25: ‘Week in review…,’ right?
I think it covers a few days on all threads, but probably not as much as a week.
I wonder how ‘likely’ that it is, the number of those commenting using an odd-number of paragraphs on every other even numbered day beginning in 1979?
You missed the sorce science meeting .Seems the solar problems are worse then we thought ie instrument.
http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/news/2011ScienceMeeting/agenda.html
Sunworshippers unite. We’ve nothing to lose but our aura.
=============
It seems to involve mainly recent comments. I think it’s inflated for me, for Alexander Harvey, and probably for Pekka because of our many comments on the Probabilistic Estimates of Transient Climate Sensitivity thread dealing with a potentially important paper by Padilla et al.
It might be of interest to some to compare the above list of “Top commenters” on Climate Etc. with the “Top commenters” on a competitor climate blog–Robert’s very own “Idiot Tracker” blog.
Based on 7 posts between Monday and Saturday of this week, Idiot Tracker’s “Top commenters” (and only commenters) are:
The “idiot” himself 5
frflyer 2
Louise 1
Jon 1
Pangolin 1
Kirkpatrick 1
Yep, Climate etc’s very own Robert–everyone’s favorite compulsive motor-mouth–also tops the list for his own loser blog. Why am I not surprised?
So you lost the argument on this blog, and you want to change the subject to my blog? That’s kind of sad.
Feel free to come on over and redress the balance with some comments of your own, if you like. Sadly, I’ve found most deniers don’t have the guts to participate in debate without a friendly admin to shield them from reality-based rebuttals. But all are welcome.
Robert,
Your great, and only, strength in debate is your astonishing gift for outta-nowhere, zits-for-brains non-sequiturs. A small, recent example:
“So you lost the argument on this blog…”
Huh? Moi? Loose an argument? To toi?! Might we timorously inquire as to just which argument it was I lost? You can’t mean that Al Gore is not fat, can you? Or that your loser blog is not a loser blog that no one reads? Or that your carefully cultivated watermelon patch is not in the trash-compacter of history? Or that your “idiot tracker” beeps every time you enter the room?
And Robert, just for your edification, I’ve had the “guts” to enter the lists of some of the nastiest, nerd-crunch lefty blogs that the Greenshirt-Volk have to offer. Indeed, I’ve been banned, pre-emptively censored, deleted, dis-emvowelled, and ghetto-ized by most of the herbivore blogs that count (i. e., actually have a readership). And in each and every case it was them and not me that blinked.
Your blog, Robert? Sorry, I don’t do loser blogs. Besides, if I want to poke at your blabbermouth propensities with a stick, I can always find you here–I mean even you don’t waste hardly any time on that loser blog of yours.
Uh oh. I see, Robert, my last needs a correction: last line, second paragraph–should read, “So your “idiot tracker” doesn’t beep everytime you enter the room?” And, I might add, if your “idiot tracker” doesn’t beep whenever you enter the room, it is patently dysfunctional.
Maybe you should learn how to use English correctly (I don’t think you mean “loose”) before you branch out into foreign languages. Jus’ saying. ;)
Let’s take a lot at why you lost, to refresh your memory. Your best argument:
You write and think like a petulant child, and that’s why you got schooled. Since you’re too much of a coward to take your criticisms of my blog and discuss them there, I guess that’s the end of it.
À plus tard
Let’s see now. I get a little-Mr-smartypants “schooling” from the ol’ Geek-ball, himself; a confirmation that “zits-for-brains” hits a real nerve with Robert (may I guess we’re dealing with some childhood trauma involving your school-mates?); some French with with a real, live accent grave, no less (you are the “compleat” zits-for-brains, aren’t you, Robert?); and a bold, swaggering, manly (and self-serving–see next para) “choosing me out” as a “coward” (Hey, Robert! aren’t I supposed to get a white feather or something with this?–and please, name your seconds!); then, Zip!, there goes, Robert. Robert, ol’ buddy, you’re not fooling anyone and, let me add, you’re a zits-for-brains joke.
You want to chit-chat with me, Robert, ol’ pal, I’m right here. But if you want someone to hang out with you on your lonely, loser blog–I regret to inform you that you’re just going to have to play with yourself, as the expression goes. Look at it this way, Robert, if I were to comment on your sorry blog your page-view count and comment count would explode. And you just don’t deserve such a wind-fall.
On your blog, I see you use the pseudonym “Tracker”, Robert. Well, Tracker, let’s see just how good you are–TRACK THIS…!
Very well spoken, mike. I went into those dens too.
“banned, pre-emptively censored, deleted, dis-emvowelled, and ghetto-ized by most of the herbivore blogs that count ”
It was fun though. The best lesson for me was the insulting treatment I received from the true believers as opposed to the freedom of dissent at Climate Etc. and Climate Audit.
So mike has formally admitted to being too much of a coward to talk about my blog on my blog.
Instead he wants to analyze it over here. He’s actually spent time lurking over there, digging into informatics I’ve never bothered to look up myself — but he’s too scared to comment there!
What a riot. I guess strength of character, like scientific literacy is just too much work for mike. Too bad.
Jeez, Robert, I was saving a little something for your expected response, but it looks like you really have pulled a “Bug-Out Bob” number on me. So I guess I’ll just have to use up my double-whopper zinger without your response (and don’t pretend you’ve not reading this comment, Robert).
This is delicious, Robert. In your last comment you “schooled” me as follows:
“Maybe you should learn to use English correctly (I don’t think you mean “loose”) before you branch out into foreign languages. Jus’ saying.”
Don’t you think, Robert, that when you launch a snark-booger, like the above, you should take care, yourself, NOT TO MAKE EXACTLY THE SAME SORT OF MISTAKE? Don’t you think that would be a good idea, Robert?
But what do we find in your zits-for-brains response?
“Let’s take a lot at why you lost…”
Let’s take a “LOT” at why you lost!–I think you just might mean “Let’s take a “LOOK” at why you lost. Right, Robert?–am I right, Robert? You screwed up, didn’t you, Robert? And I mean a big-time zits-for-brains screw-up.
Again, this is too delicious: You admonish me to learn English before I branch out into foreign languages. And then you, you Robert, screw up your own “big-moment”, pompous-ass admonition in exactly the same manner! And then you, too, branch out into a foreign language, to the point that you even employ a frou-frou French doo-hickey (accent grave). So let me quote, with a modest adjustment, the wise words of a famous American with a loser blog and direct those words at you, Robert:
“Maybe you should learn English (I don’t think you mean “lot”) before you branch out into foreign languages. Jus’ saying. ”
I want you to know, Robert, I really enjoyed writing his comment–I hope you enjoy it as much.
I’m sorry, poor scared little mike, are you still talking?
Still making the same grade-school mistakes in spelling and grammar?
Still begging for attention?
:)
Egutistic.
======
Well, Robert, looks like my above comment was a bit pre-mature in declaring you to be in a “Bug-Out Bob” status. You’re still a zits-for-brains, though. And anything you got to say to me, I’m here, Robert. Anyone from your blog who wants to join the discussion here is free to do so. And, of course, by commenting on this blog, any page-views and comments our little civil discourse might produce stays with Climate, etc.
Neutral terrain, free-wheeling discussions, light moderation, interesting posts, distinguished contributors–so what’s not to like about this prestigious blog vice your Greenshirt, zits-for-brains, loser blog that no one reads?
Robert, you’re trying too hard to get that idiot blog of yours off the ground–and it shows.
mike, I’m sorry this is so hard for you.
You got whipped. You got embarrassed in a big way. Now it’s over, you’ve fessed up to your cowardice, and you’re just repeating the same mistake-ridden unintentionally funny drivel over and over.
The problem is that you are just not in my weight class. You’re not raising any interesting points. Your insults make you sound weak and pathetic, not clever.
That’s just the way it is.
Robert,
Except for your outlandish and creative non-sequiturs–that I’ve previously complimented–your comments are nothing but pig-headed, zits-for-brains, tedious stupidity. I mean STOOPID!
And I say this as a friend.
On the Spencer & Braswell: Part III thread, I left this comment:
“I was really, really bored a while ago, and wanted to see if I was overreacting in thinking this thread was simply being hijacked like so many others. So I blew a few minutes and came up with the totals: the three most prolific CAGW antagonists posted 126 of 465 comments at the time I checked. Over a quarter of all posts, out of 465, by three progressive cranks.”
That was 126 comments by Joshua, Robert (and I think SkepticalScience) in one day, on one thread.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNYKxiRJ2LA
I think it’s their theme song.
Woo Hoo!!
I’m #1.
My life is now complete.
And I just want to say, I couldn’t have done it without the support of my buddies here at Climate Etc. Without responses to my posts from “denizens” like Gary and hunter, I could not have achieved this milestone.
I feel like I’m accepting this honor on behalf of all of them as well.
Joshua, I fear you are confusing quantity with quality.
You are a troubled sad individual
Judith
Looks about right for a longer time frame (past 30 days?).
OK. Joshua and Robert are the “communication stars”, but I’m enjoying myself along with Fred, Pekka and hunter (not to mention the Chief, JimD, WHT, Alexander Harvey and Wagathon).
Without getting into a quality/quantity audit, it looks like you have a fair balance between hard-core “majority” believers, lukewarmers and skeptics in the top denizens.
Keep bringing interesting topics and we’ll continue commenting.
Max
In the next decade we will know whether global warming is man made or not.
http://bit.ly/oI8dws
If the global mean temperature data lies in the red region, IPCC would be correct and global warming is man made. If the GMT data lies below the red region and follows its pattern of last 130 years, IPCC would be wrong and global warming is natural.
The line without a forcing change should be horizontal, unless you are claiming that the sun is still getting brighter, even though that stopped around 1950. When you make it horizontal, it becomes very obvious that Hansen was right in 1981 when he said GW would show up by 2000 above the natural variability.
Jim D
The line is only 0.06 deg C per decade warming, not about 0.2 deg C per decade of the IPCC.
Are you worried about 0.6 deg C warming in a century?
Did you notice how the CO2 line slope is increasing with time? It will be 3 degrees between 2000 and 2100. Fitting straight lines doesn’t work for the way CO2 is increasing.
“In the next decade we will know whether global warming is man made or not.”
I don’t know. I think temperature will continue to rise (ie 2010-2020 is about 0.2C warmer than 2000-2010) but skeptics will not accept it’s man made. They’ll even probably revise history and claim they expected it to warm and it’s natural. No idea what reasons they will give – the Sun will be out, so will the PDO, but presumably they’ll rustle up some reason.
Let’s try this again. This is about current practical political realities — not about which side is right or wrong.
According to the climate orthodoxy (IPCC etc.) humanity is steadily increasing atmospheric CO2 and this will result in serious consequences eventually.
According to the orthodoxy, continuing the status quo will not bring carbon emissions down to necessary levels.
Therefore, we must reduce our yearly carbon emissions over time which will require conscious intervention.
Therefore, we need substantial laws, agreements, contracts, whatever, to reduce carbon emissions.
However, no such substantial laws, agreements, contracts, whatever, are in the pipeline anywhere, sufficient to bring carbon emissions to desired levels.
Furthermore, there is a global economic crisis that has reduced the amount of money the government and individuals have to pay for climate change measures.
Furthermore, the US — the most powerful nation and the one most looked to for leadership — has gone to the Right and apparently will go further to the Right, and thus will not be receptive to the climate change agenda and may indeed roll back existing climate change legislation.
Conclusion: The climate change movement has failed for now and likely for the next decade to control carbon emissions as necessary to prevent the consequence the IPPC et al. predict.
***
I don’t see any way to dispute these points, other than to nitpick, gainsay and refuse to engage as Robert does.
Huxley, it was very kind of you to highlight the … uh … good qualities evident in Robert’s “contributions” (which, from where I’m sitting, are indistinguishable from those of Joshua) to informed, civil discussions here. ;-)
It took actual loss in the ozone layer and visible effects of acid rain for other international actions to be passed, so I think it will take some severe climate impacts before anything collaborative is done on this front, or perhaps one or two more warming decades like the last three.
The trouble say with acid rain is it mitigates CH4 ie you create a problem by solving another viz a viz Le Chatelier eg Gauchi 2008
Findings from field-scale manipulation experiments have demonstrated the existence of an additional chemical control on emissions. The chronic deposition of SO2/4 from acid rain, can dramatically reduce the output of CH4 from natural CH4-emitting wetlands [Dise and Verry, 2001;
Granberg et al., 2001; Gauci et al., 2002]. Methane production and fluxes have been found to be low in a variety of anaerobic soils and sediments that share the common feature of high SO2/4 concentrations,
last three:
1981-1990: warming
1991-2000: warming
2001-2010: no warming (Trenberth’s “travesty”)
next two:
2011-2020: ?????
2021-2030: ?????
The first decade of he millennium fell far short of the IPCC projection of 0.2C warming per decade.
Let’s see what the next decades show. Nobody knows.
Max
I keep having to point out that 2000-2010 was 0.15 C warmer than 1990-2000. It warmed in line with previous decade on decade trends.
Jim D
Forget the phony “smoke and mirrors” comparison, Jim.
Of course it warmed by more over 1991-2000 than it cooled from 2001-2010, so the “average” temperature over the 1990s was lower than that over the 2000s. Duh!
But that does not mean that it did not cool over the 2000s (as the record shows).
It’s the trend that counts, Jim, not the absolute value.
Max
Jim D: Yes, as I mentioned earlier yesterday @ 12:35 pm, if the climate markedly deteriorates or the science becomes far more certain, those could motivate progress in passing climate change agreements.
Otherwise, I see no way for the climate change movement to break the current deadlock and pass substantive climate change agreements.
In the US it’s likely that the climate agenda will backslide as Democrats lose more power in the 2012 elections, especially if a Republican candidate like Rick Perry becomes president.
I doubt very much that the guy who called Social Security “immoral” and a Ponzi scheme” is going to be elected president, but feel free to fantasize.
…talking about disasters (your last sentence).
Anyway, if other countries act, and the US does go for less fossil fuel independence (for energy security if nothing else), more automobile efficiency (ambitious limits have been set now), it is a start in the right direction, but I think it will become an adaptation problem ultimately.
oops, dependence.
Jim D: If, if, if… If my grandmother had wheels, she would be a motorcar.
I’m asking if there are any hard agreements in place or close to it anywhere that will substantially reduce carbon emissions to hit IPCC targets.
Kyoto is old and ineffective. There has been no success in extending it, though the climate change movement has been trying since 2007. How likely are they to succeed in four more years?
California has mandated ambitious electric car goals, only to repeatedly slash them to lower numbers.
Rhetoric isn’t going to do it. More climate change bashes like Copenhagen and Cancun won’t do it. Certainly Republican leaders won’t do it. What will specifically?
Why ask me for a political solution to something no one has solved yet? Maybe you have something in mind?
I would prefer a carbon tax. It is simple, and can be phased in slowly, and it can make the transition to nuclear and alternative energy profitable by subsidizing them instead of fossil fuels, it can help research into better energy storage, and fuel rebates can be given out to help with home energy costs, while people will transition to the new more efficient vehicles to save commuting costs. But I don’t see that happening in the US, even if Australia and Japan and a few other countries go that route.
Jim D: Again, I’m talking practically about political will. There are plenty of obvious ways to reduce carbon emissions, but they don’t matter if they are not put in place.
I don’t mean to put you on the spot. I am saying, though, that if the climate change movement cannot mobilize political will to make changes, the changes won’t happen.
For the time being, the climate change movement is tapped out when it comes to political will. If Waxman-Markey, a kind of carbon tax, couldn’t be passed when Obama was at the peak of his powers and the Democrats controlled the Senate and House, it’s not going to be passed any time soon, and no bill with similar powers either.
huxley, I think we agree that the political will won’t be there until there are some tangible negative effects. I can’t predict what the first of those will be or when, maybe a dust bowl, more fires, or water, food or energy supply shortages, it could come from anywhere, and in a sense by then it will be too late. Then the blame game will begin, and the politicians will say there was never enough certainty expressed (despite the climate being within the IPCC error bars), and in this way climate change movement will be blamed for not trying hard enough to warn people.
Adaptation to climate change has been, is, and always will be, a regional issue. It was absurd to try to combat it centrally, almost as absurd as basing so much certainty in politics on so much uncertainty in the science.
=================
kim,
That point about the fallacy of basing so much political certainty on so much scientific uncertainty is really very good.
Hansen shoulda known when they had to open the windows in Washington in 1988 to make his point. He even claimed regional skill for his model then, something the models still have not attained.
============
kim, I might say mitigation, which I take to mean planning against harm, would be regional, but adaptation to harm would be too expensive to be regional.
I would say, JD, that you have it all cattywompus. Mitigation, if anthroCO2 were catastrophic, might have to be central, but adaptation is always regional. In fact, central control of adaptation would be more expensive than regional control.
==============
JimD,
In climatology, mitigation means to reduce CO2.
Not one mitigation policy treaty or law offered by the AGW community has worked.
Adaptation to the climate is the only thing that has ever worked, and it is very likely to be the only thing that ever will work.
And mitigation of CO2, if it’s not actually harmful, is an expensive chimera to pursue.
Oh, yeah, the highs, the power, the glory and the gold, all feel wonderful.
But it’s Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down.
===========
Mitigation isn’t only CO2 reduction, it is dam building to preserve water, levee and sea-wall building to prevent flooding, and these are best taken care of locally where the issues are known. Adaptation is rehousing people who have been displaced by floods or droughts and rebuilding cities, which might be more of a national task, and may not have a local expertise or workforce to do it, as it would be something new by definition.
My father repeatedly said that all argument is a matter of definition.
==============
Jim D,
Where are you getting your definition of climate mitigation?
It is different from any I am aware of, since dams and levees are considered adaptations by most people.
Also, I am unaware of the part of the Kyoto, or any other AGW pushed agreement, that calls for more dams or levees or other flood control.
If I am incorrect on this, I will be happy to know it.
For mitigation I use the dictionary definition rather than the IPCC one.
“The action of reducing the severity, seriousness, or painfulness of something”. To me, this includes appropriate planning, while I count adaptation as after the fact.
Jim D,
But we are not talking about dictionaries.
We are talking about AGW’s use of the term.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_mitigation
That means reducing CO2.
We are talking about sequestration; conversion from a grid powered by dependable power to one intermittently powered by wind and solar; massive reductions in liquid fuel transportation; huge operating subsidies;
I would bet that if you take the time to see what the AGW community wants us to pursue with a critical eye you would be very surprised.
hunter, yes, that is why I gave my definition, I would say it would be very unwise to put all their eggs in that basket. Preparation for warming is needed, but this also needs acceptance of the risks for it to start, and I believe at a local level, some are seeing this and doing things other than fossil fuel reduction.
Hey, welcome back. Hope the break was restorative.
Your thesis: “The climate change movement has failed for now and likely for the next decade to control carbon emissions as necessary to prevent the consequence the IPPC et al. predict.”
“Failed” sounds very final. When we get into the details of what you are actually describing — a global recession and the 2010 midterm elections in the US — it sounds like you are describing short-term shifts in the political winds.
Where is the argument that these conditions will persist for a decade? Are you expecting us to be in a recession for the next decade? Are you expecting the next five elections to all look like 2010?
You wasted a lot of time refusing to state your thesis, which you have now stated clearly. You wasted more time refusing to provide evidence for that thesis, instead demanding that others prove it wrong. Far from refusing to engage with you, I engaged with you repeatedly, holding your feet to the fire until you said what you were arguing and why you believed it.
I’d say my “nitpicking” is the primary reason you have developed your argument as much as you have.
We are cooling, Robert; for how long even kim doesn’t know.
============
Robert: I consider you a troll. I will not interact with you any further.
huxley –
I don’t know if you consider me to be a troll also, but I did respond to your questions and posed a few questions to you – and I”d be curious to read a response.
Joshua: You post a lot and not very concisely. I must admit my eyes glaze over when I see your ID. What would you like me to respond to?
lol. No doubt:
http://judithcurry.com/2011/09/16/week-in-review-91711/#comment-113161
http://judithcurry.com/2011/09/16/week-in-review-91711/#comment-113153
Joshua, you asked hux to respond and hux asked you what you wanted him to respond to and you did not answer. Instead you ducked his question, by responding to his statement.
David –
I don’t understand what you’re saying here. As I see it, I responded to his question and asked him some in return – one of which he answered and others of which he didn’t. I posted links to the comments where I posed the questions.,
What question did I “duck” in your opinion?
That’s up to you, of course. You instigated the conversation in the first place, and clearly you know when you’re licked.
I will feel free to comment on anything of yours I find interesting, of course, but I won’t be offended by your lack of response.
All together now from 0:58:
Joshua, Joshua,
My, what a pain you really are
Round and round you go
Like a brain on blow
Joshua, Joshua,
Your OCD’s gone much too far
Oh! What tosh you waah
Joshu-osh-ua
http://thewoundedbird.blogspot.com/2010/04/joshu-ah.html
So much talk about politics … in a science blog. Generally speaking, when science wobbles into politics it does so clumsily, and it gets burned in the end. For the AGW side to complain about the political dice rolling against them is too much the pot calling the kettle black at this point. Taking the high road means calling out your own when they cross the line, which unfortunately has happened too little and too late if at all, and there have been plenty of opportunities. As polarization of the climate community increasingly mirrors polarization of the political community, don’t expect better outcomes than what you see in the latter.
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/
Expect GMTA of less than 0.4 deg C for 2011.
If this trend continues, how are they going to sustain AGW?
for huxley,
Quite the contrary, it is possible to dispute your points. What’s more, it is important to dispute your points because you are not examining things very deeply.
Look under the carpet. The U.S. has been a passive actor on climate change and that is not about being powerful in the current world order: that is about failing to redefine itself in light of changing global relations.
Maybe the relative strength of the country, and its leadership, is still being defined by previous economic dominance and unprecedented militarism: but this overlooks the evolving globalization process and especially the resistance of countries that have been previously forced to remain undeveloped in order to serve the economic interests of other economies. Not surprisingly, as things have evolved, they increasingly do not share American definitions of their interests.
Since the U.N./IPCC is just one international framework for the kind of policymaking that is facing countries as a result of globalization and common interests such as climate change, human rights, and water rights, the issue for the U.S. is how to adapt itself to the slow but sure evolution of world relations. It is now arguably quite behind on its negotiation and collaboration skills on the world stage and is instead being forced to rely on the reach and irrationalism of its militarism to induce co-operation and the support of public opinion, especially in relation to human rights.
It is not at all clear that this will continue, for another decade.
cheers
Thanks, again, Martha for pointing out how the EU is miles ahead of the rest of the world neighborhood in ‘world relations’ and thanks, again, for not providing one scintilla of evidence to back up your assertion.
Martha: You did not dispute any of my points. You took issue with an apposite phrase describing the US as ” the most powerful nation and the one most looked to for leadership.” Then you lectured on what place you believe the US should have within the global framework.
As far as I can tell the US is still the most powerful nation, though China is coming on fast, and the US is still the nation most looked to for leadership with no other nation in sight for that position. I make no claims that these things should be true, just that they are currently true.
However, if America’s primacy is a distraction from the points I’ve made, I will amend that phrase to “one of the most powerful nations and one of the nations most looked to for leadership.”
I look forward to your further disputation. Otherwise my conclusion stands.
“Otherwise my conclusion stands.”
Your “conclusion” is unpersuasive without different, and better arguments.
Hi huxley
Well I have to admit that I am a bit perplexed by your perceptions of what you have said, and what I said to you.
Your propositions –all of them – are factually and logically challenged. I am not going through them point by point.
Good thinkers do not assume their propositions are indisputable.
Effective thinking requires self-reflection, in which you familiarize yourself with your own conceptual assumptions or frameworks for making sense of things.
I suggested why your conclusion may be unsupportable: it rests on a key premise that is highly debatable, namely, the assumption that the U.S. can continue with inaction for another decade despite a milieu of internationalism. I outlined why that is probably a wrong assumption. It has flown completely over your head, which tells me that you need to hone your understanding of theoretical thinking
Maybe you have no real interest in discussion. In that case, don’t let me interfere with the joys and challenges of your vigorous engagement with yourself. ;-)
Seriously, informal theorizing like this is a great activity to build up your skills but I strongly recommend that you start by asking basic questions about what you think you already know. That kind of reflection would lay a more solid foundation for understanding what I have said to you.
Good luck with your work.
cheers
Martha,
For you to make such silly statements so often one might conlude you are an academic in some sort of soft area of study that struggles to pose as a real discipline.
Martha, most of what you wrote could have been written in the 1960s. The US influence may change due to other countries picking themselves up, so what?
Another bit of news during the week was Pielke Sr’s attempt to engage Skeptical Science (sic) in a conversation. SS is not interested.
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2011/09/17/my-interactions-with-skeptical-science-a-failed-attempt-so-far-for-constructive-dialog/
Don B – that’s quite a distorted position. Skeptical Science folk frequently asked Dr Pielke Sr to stick to the topic of the thread on that specific thread but also encouraged him to debate the science on the relevant science thread. To say that they were ‘not interested’ is so far from the truth as to warrant the label ‘lie’.
“We are very happy for you to discuss the science with us here at SkS, however please do so on the appropriate thread. SkS is organised this way in order to keep the discussion focussed. As we are unable to comment on the article on your blog it seems reasonable to have an article here devoted to the issue of your accusation of ad-hominems, so on this thread, please restrict your comments to that topic and that topic only. If our reporting of the science is incorrect then I strongly and sincerely encourage you to join the discussion on the relevant threads, your contribution will be greatly valued.”
http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?p=3&t=152&&n=1000#62759
Heh, they didn’t even put up a fight. I want my money back.
===================
Re: news this week
1. I thought this was an interesting analysis of the problems with the US electrical grid: http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2011/09/reliability-grid
The article doesn’t offer any easy solutions, but it seems to me that a comprehensive upgrade to the national grid could be a mitigation/adaptation twofer: increased efficiency (less emissions) and increased resilience (greater ability to cope with disruptions).
2. The Clathrate Gun hypothesis is still alive: http://www.clim-past-discuss.net/7/1139/2011/cpd-7-1139-2011.pdf. Dickens (2011) reviews the evidence for and against and concludes that decay of methyl hydrates is still the most plausible explanation for the C13 negative excursion at the PETM. I’ll be blogging on this later in the week and would welcome other impressions.
3. Serendipity has a striking graph of the new AR5 models’ projected warming, with high-emission scenarios mapped out to 2300 for the first time.
Link for #3: http://www.easterbrook.ca/steve/wp-content/CCSM4-RCPs.jpg
well the big question is are these results at all convincing, especially given the poor job that the CCSM4 model has done simulating the latter half of the 20th century, see the link to figure 1 in my uncertainty monster post http://judithcurry.com/2011/09/10/uncertainty-monster-paper-in-press/
The CCSM4 simulated temperature in 2005 is 0.4C too high.
Of course, your ability to evaluate these models on their technical merits far outstrips mine, but I will say it seems like we are making progress in understanding why estimated climate sensitivity varies so much and is so difficult to constrain. The model runs to 2300, like other recent studies, seem to suggest that the short-term response (a couple decades) is +2-3C/doubling, with an additional +2-3/doubling over a few centuries. That explains why paleoclimate estimates of 5-6C do not match up well with estimates of present-day transient climate sensitivity.
Lucia has done a lot of work around the idea that we’re seeing about 20% less warming than the models project. My reaction — which seems to annoy her not a little bit, but which is entirely sincere — is “That’s interesting. Maybe we’ll see about 20% less warming over the next century than the models predict. We’ll have a much better idea in a few decades. In the meantime, it has no practical importance — unless you want to argue that +4C (in a range of, say, +3C to +5C) is dangerous but +3.2C (in a range of, say, 2.2C to 4.2C) is not.”
Maybe the exact rate of warming would be relevant to the cost/benefit analysis of a $300/ton carbon tax vs a $500/ton carbon tax. But with regards to the relatively humble measures now under discussion, the exact speed at which we are approaching temperatures not seen for millions of years — fifty years off, or a hundred? — is the definition of an academic exercise, in my view. YMMV.
Zowie! A consistent order of magnitude too high. Your need for internal self-stimulation must be very great.
Robert you can even get Tom Fuller’s name correct. Your arguments get blasted out of the water every time you come to Lucia’s so you think its safe here.
track yoursef
The paleoclimate estimate may not agree if they are wrong. Let’s stretch it out to 3000 so the models are totally useless. Ever think that of Hansen or Manabe, one might be right? Physics does require statistics, but it doesn’t require averaging opinions.
That’s true – and I’m not referring to Robert’s post here but to how you statement relates to the larger arguments advocated by some in the debate, (not necessarily yours as I’m not sure what your arguments are), but at some point it is relevant, although not dispositive, to how those not comprehensively versed in the technical nuances of the debate (and perhaps even at some level to those who are and who have a sense of their own fallibility ) can evaluate the different arguments being presented.
As an example, when I view the statistical results of stock analysis, I do consider “averaging opinions” as a means of deciding how to invest. It is not necessarily required, and again it is not dispositive (all we need to do is look at the highly flawed algorithms many financial experts relied on to evaluate the risks involved in massive leveraging to massively invest in credit default swaps to see that it isn’t dispositive), but at some point it does become prudent – as long as their is also an effort made to evaluate what self-interested biases might be influencing various stock market analyses.
Averaging opinions in the stock market makes perfect sense, it is opinion driven. However, skepticism or contarism is required to use that information wisely. So in a scientific debate based on averaged opinions, I feel quite comfortable with my skepticism.
Skepticism is entirely appropriate I(while not dispositive) in either case. As is “averaging opinions” in how the statistics and physics are interpreted (with the skeptical recognition that it shouldn’t be considered dispositive).
All the world is divided into two classes: those who don’t know what the average opinion is and those who don’t know that they don’t know what the average opinion is.
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Thanks for the vote of confidence, but what on earth are you talking about?
A claim you keep repeating, ever since you got badly whipped in our last few exchanges. Why not start a new discussion instead of trying to rewrite history?
Hey, Robert, remember discussing Livingston and Penn @ lucia’s? Haven’t seen carroteater since.
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Robert. I cannot believe how dense you are.
track yourself. look at your blog. look for how you cant even get Tom Fuller’s name right when you pull quotes from an article he wrote.
then, contemplate the fact that I remember what you wrote far better than you do. I rarely forget a word I’ve written or read. dreaded capability.
I believe you called him Steve Fuller. or perhaps it was Steven. and you pulled quotes from a piece he did on Watts ( it has schzophrenic in the title).. your piece has an interesting word in the title as I recall.. Overton
You cant remember what you wrote much less how you faired in arguments about the law, science or math.
So why strain and plead for my attention? Why follow me around like a lost puppy?
That’s not quite what you said before:
So have you changed your mind? Or must we conclude that you can’t even get your accusations of mistakes correct? Kind of ironic that you screwed up in an attempt to draw attention to someone else’s mistake, isn’t it?
And even after changing course, you post is still full of grade-school mistakes in punctuation and grammar. If you want to go on a crusade for accuracy, you might want to start by proofreading your own pleas for correctness.
Read it three times, Robert. In his haste and in his wont, moshe left out an ‘t.
Number 1. Why didn’t you notice?
Number 2. Whether you noticed or not, your response is virtually nonsensical.
How come?
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“….you post is still full of grade-school mistakes in punctuation and grammar.”
Yes Robert, some fine grammar on your part as well. See if ‘you’ can spot it. I’m sure it was a typo… but never mind that, I can see why you would try to change the subject.
The difference, John, would be that I’m not the one trolling through blog posts from 2010 searching for typos . . . if you’re going to do that, I think it will work better for you if you don’t screw up the very sentence in which you complain about a typo in an old blog post.
Just a little protip for you. YMMV.
Touring, once, I got a flat tire and ran out of gas. The games we play!
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kim,
Think of how Baghdad Bob must feel when he is talking up the glory of the CO2 apocalypse only to have it fall apart behind him in view of the camera.
I worry about what he finds behind the curtain at his job.
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I guess Robert kinda toured off the ranch on that one. Or it just proves Moshers observation earlier… that Robert can’t remember what he writes, let alone follow the thread and look a few posts above mine at his own words. Perhaps he doesn’t see his mistake. 2010 Robert?… ok sure.
The rest of the world no longer cares what the witchdoctors of Western academia fear most. They are no longer listening to what the Leftists are demanding.
Even those who hate America — comprising a UN majority — know that if Western Leftists will stab fellow citizens then they certainly cannot to be honorable. “Climate science is incredibly more complex than [developed countries] negotiators make it out to be… Climate science should not be driven by the West. We should not always be dependent on outside reports.” ~ Jairam Ramesh (India)
It was a highly amusing Kabuki Karaoki @ Copenhagen. The off script words were from some whack westerner trying to pull a neo-colonialist trick on the Chinese and the Indians.
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Dr Curry,
Maybe you should also have highlighted and commented, in this “week in review” thread, the recent resignation of Dr Ivar Giaever (Nobel Prize 1973) from the American Physical Society. His resignation seems to be motivated by his disagreement with APS official claim (2007) that AGW was not disputable.
Sorry – my response wound up in the wrong nest. You can find it here:
http://judithcurry.com/2011/09/16/week-in-review-91711/#comment-113359
I’ll add here that the APS statement is that AGW is “likely.”
“The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring.” is the actual APS statement. It is about the observations, not AGW.
Context again, Jim D. Read the paragraph right before that sentence (again). We’ve already talked about it, and you seem to not understand it.
Andrew
So what do you think is the incontrovertible part? The sentence above is quite tame. It says emitted greenhouse gases are changing the climate. Only the “dragonslayers” would disagree with that sentence, and they didn’t say how much, or that all of global warming was due to it.
Jim D, there is no ‘incontravertible’ part. That’s why the statement is scientifically bogus, and no honest scientist would endorse it. It’s entirely a political statement.
Andrew
They clarify the use of the word “incontrovertible” in their detailed commentary following the statement. They mean that the 0.74 C increase since the late 19th century (from a NOAA reference) means that global warming is incontrovertible. You might not think that there has been global warming since the late 19th century and that even the LIA didn’t exist, but I think that would be an undefendable position.
Plus, Global Warming is not occuring when the Squiggly Line goes down, which everyone sees that it does a lot.
Andrew
Apparently you are in that tiny minority of those “skeptics” who doubt that the globe is warming.
You should introduce yourself to Judith, because IIRC, she has said that she hasn’t met any “skeptics” who hold an opinion like yours.
We are cooling, Joshua; for how long even kim doesn’t know.
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Joshua, when the line goes down, that is supposed to indicate cooling. Do you have some other interpretation of what the line going down means?
Andrew
Andrew –
I am not well-versed in the science. I see some argue that short term trends are dispositive for determining longer-term trends, and I see others arguing that short-term trends are not dispositive for determining longer-term trends. I think that the debate is interesting, and put some weight behind the “average of opinions” in that regard (although I don’t view the averaging as dispositive).
But the point that I’m making is that there seems to be much confusion in the “skeptical” blogosphere about what “skeptics” do an don’t believe, and how many of them hold various beliefs.
Judith, and many of her denizens, have told me that most “skeptics” don’t question whether the global climate is warming – but only question the degree of warming or the degree to which it is attributable to anthropogenic CO2 emissions.
Those characterizations of what %’s of “skeptics” do and don’t say and believe seems to be at odds with what “skeptics” actually say about what they believe.
So I’m wondering about why such inaccurate characterizations are being made.
“Judith, and many of her denizens, have told me…”
If you think Dr. Curry is an authority on what “skeptics” think, you need to go back to the beginning and start over with this whole thing. Just wipe the whole slate clean. And I’m trying to be honestly helpful here, Joshua.
Andrew
Hint, Joshua. ‘Dispositive’ is almost as silly a word as ‘robust’.
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Indeed Kim. Dispositive means it dissolves in water, right? Good for the septic. Robust means you probably ate too much.
Have you even read any of my posts? No, I don’t think that Dr. Curry is an authority on what “skeptics” think. That is my point. I think that her view of what “skeptics” think is inaccurate – and I am interested in exploring what has caused her analysis to be flawed.
And the view of quite a few other skeptics both at Climate Etc. and at WUWT – who have told me that only a tiny % of “skeptics” doubt that the globe is warming – also appears to be inaccurate, so I’m interested in exploring what has caused their analyses to be flawed also.
Robust rhymes with consensus.
Despite your distaste for my wording, I assume that you know what I mean (btw, I do think that “robust” is over-used in a lot of expository writing). If you don’t, I could explain. If you do, then you (David as well) might consider responding on point rather than just criticizing my wording.
Joshua, once again, it depends on which most skeptics you are referring to. How big is your net? Many most skeptics know only one thing: there is this thing called global warming and it is a hoax. This is the biggest bunch of most skeptics. Other most skeptics accept that it is probably warming but it is natural. Other most skeptics accept that it is warming but….
The demography of belief in a complex issue is even more complex than the issue itself. Who believes precisely what about climate change is a scientific question, about which we know far less than we know about climate change.
Climate change research has been plagued since the days of hysterical fears of imminent cooling in the 1970s by design problems, misuse of research data (both positive and negative with adjustments to raw data without explanation, and adjustments made to the adjustments–all without any justification whatsoever–and, the substitution of data without any disclosure of the questionable gimmicks being employed, together with the knowing corruption and outright loss of raw data without accountability of any kind), poor statistics, small samples, unverifiable computer models constructed using questionable time-invariant climate parameters and reductionist mathematics, and a sycophantic culture of interrelated, self-reinforcing, self-serving, self-appointed gurus–elevated far above their competence for ideological reasons–who idolize and memorialize superstitious preconceptions, indulge in flawed conclusions and hucksterism, and who proselytize their politically-correct voodoo pathological climate science (likened by some outside Western academia to the science of ancient astrology), all while self-righteously opposing with cannonades of denigration the accomplishments and observations of serious scientific skeptics and an ever-growing number of global warming heretics of self-defeating AGW theory and eco-terrorism.
Yes, we have no bananas.
We have no bananas today.
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Skeptical Science took this myth apart some time ago: http://www.skepticalscience.com/What-1970s-science-said-about-global-cooling.html
Hysterical invocations of discredited fictions do not a compelling argument make.
Hint, Robert. ‘Skeptical Science’ isn’t.
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The lesson of the ‘Skeptical Science’ is the Left is that there will always be those who will continue to enjoy their little tea parties and when there isn’t anymore tea and they will poke the productive in the eye just to get one last nibble of the Golden Goose before it isn’t anymore.
Your fear of the facts tells us a lot about you.
Your inability to make reality agreed with your extremist right-wing ideology does not make the whole wide reality-based community “the Left.”
Don’t be scared of a little data. The worst that could happen in that you’d have to change your mind. Would that be so bad?
Nuts–the West is quickly turning into the fruitcake no one wants let alone pay for. Facts are facts: there will be no one to bail out America.
Robert rhymes with robust. Sorry, but I am feeling Kimish today. Or is it Kimmish?
Discredited hysterical fictions do a compelling argument make.
Compelling hysteria is not an argument.
This is hysterical.
Help, I can’t stop.
We’re proliferating. There’s another ‘kim’ on the loose, so look out, everyone’s going the wrong way.
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er, H/t Spengler on that one.
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The best is always the best, and I am not that, nor even it.
Kim is the way out of here (cf: Dylan, Watchtower). There is no other, known or knowable.
When a logician looks deep into himself he finds….(swallowing sounds).
Me, I’m waiting for Godot. At the bus stop.
I’ve always hoped this would all end in ridicule, and not in anger, in hatred, and in recriminations. But Peter Bocking explained to me long ago that too many have died already.
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Happily Bocking is wrong. You are the bus. I am on.
The APS statement does not say that AGW is not disputable – but that warming is indisputable. Despite often made claims by “skeptics” that only a tiny percentage of them think that global warming is disputable, it is interesting that many of them make erroneous statements such as yours.
Ever, Joshua, ever in your life, have you wondered where the 90% confidence in anthropogenic cause came from?
Oh, will you wonder when warming is disputed.
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Absolutely. IMO, that is a topic well-worthy of skepticism and debate. Climate Etc. is a good place to view the debate.
But how does that directly related to questions about whether or not some “skeptics” are confused about what other “skeptics” do and don’t say or believe, or what “warmists” do and don’t say and believe?
So, the wheat from the chaff: Warming is disputed now, and the cause of recent past warming is disputed.
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Joshua, I think you are the one confused about what some skeptics say or do not say or believe. More importantly, I think you are confused about what ALL skeptics do or do not say or believe. You are, after all, talking about a billion or more people. The very notion of ‘what they believe’ is elusive at best, if not just silly. We are many.
Resistance is futile Joshua.
That may be true, Dallas: but I’m “skeptical” about that.
Try to understand the science, Joshua; you’ve the skills. Note the curiosity.
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Dr Curry,
As a French citizen I can testify that current summer in France is the rainiest one of the past decade. Especially in the northern and north-eastern part of the country, where Champagne region is located! And the 2 previous summers were not much better. Therefore I sincerely doubt that improvement of Champagne production (at least for the past decade) has much to do with warmer and drier summers.
Such a claim is probably well founded for the 80’s and 90’s where drier climate has been observed, compared to the previous decades. But, as for the rest of the globe, there is no significant climate change in France since the beginning of the new millennium. The recent improvement of Champagne production, if any, has probably much more to do with the improvement of wine-growing technics!
Let’s at least find some common ground. Surely all Leftists would agree that, for example, in the situation of the 3 litle pigs and lone ‘big bad wolf’ at their door: surely that was a clear opportunity for those on opposite sides of the door to work together, right?
I propose the following: how about the Left simply admit that global warming is a hoax and a scare tactic in exchange for allowing America to be hollowed out by the growing secular, socio-political ritual bleeding of the productive?
Perhaps a productive bleeding of the ritual would be better.
Not-Kim, not yet.
I caught ’em sacrificing my virgins for their superstitions.
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If trees should have the right to vote, shouldn’t a fetus?
I quote: “[Europe’s warmer summers] are a good thing for us,” said Pierre Cheval, independent producer of the Gatinois Champagne. “They mean the grapes mature when the days are longer and it reduces the risks of diseases linked to humidity. Also, it’s much nicer for us to harvest at the end of August than in late September. I remember harvesting once under the early snows of October. That was not fun!” Quite so. We did have a warming spell that started with the 1998 super El Nino and in four years raised global temperature by a third of a degree. A third of a degree is half of what has been allotted to the entire twentieth century. This step warming was of oceanic origin and is responsible for the very warm first decade of our century. The first half of twentieth century warming took place between the years of 1910 and 1940. There was no warming between these two warm spells. And there is no evidence to connect either of them them to the greenhouse effect..
Arno,
You missed the lesson from up thread that it is all radiative physics and that nothign else can matter.
;^)
Don’t forget the mystical powers of CO2 that are not observable in the real world but nonetheless exist in the world of the Global Warming True Believer; CO2 is the One and only One. Even scientists must bow down to their new CO2-God and as forseen by the Prophet Al Gore, it is a travesty if you do not believe that and you should be shunned as a denier… or, worse.
This fight is far from over. Skeptics who think it is somehow over are fools. It is a draw, which is a win politically. But the draw has to be maintained. Much work lies ahead.
David Wojick | September 18, 2011 at 8:40 pm
David: To be sure, but I didn’t say the fight was over. I said that for now and the next several years, the CC movement is stalled and unable to progress. So far, the only counter is Jim D’s that if the climate markedly deteriorates, then society revisits and recalculates climate issues.
I agree, but until and unless the climate turns, the CC movement is stuck repeating their previous strategies louder, harder, and more often — like the Gore-a-thon. To me that sounds like a currently circulating definition of insanity.
Furthermore, the standoff works against the CC folks because they claim that there’s a time clock running down before it becomes too late to prevent or ameliorate the dire consequences of climate change. Thereafter the only option is mitigation of the effects.
I am curious how the climate change movement will respond. However, since the CC movement has so far been markedly self-righteous and inflexible, I suspect we will only see more of the same — which so far hasn’t made the difference to make the difference.
Back at Jim Cripwell | September 17, 2011 at 8:53 am, I started a piece on the interaction of Forbush Decreases and weather/climate; a subject I know very little about. I hoped someone would respond, and Steve Mosher was kind enough to do so. I thought his comments were very pertinent, but I could not completely understand what he was saying. So I, put what I thought was a straightforward question, for clarification.
I have waited 24 hours, and no response from Steve, though he has posted on another thread. Judith seems to want to enourage a dialogue between the two sides of the CAGW debate, and I am trying to help with this, But it is diffcult, just when the discussion is getting interesting, the person you are talking to, just seems to disappear.
Under 7. Any takers?
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sorry jim.
I visit over a dozen sites a day and multiple threads on those sites, that’s on my breaks from coding. so which site? I’ll go look
Here’s Nature’s response to the Goreathon: http://blogs.nature.com/news/2011/09/invited_guests_weigh_in_on_al_1.html
Nature is not enthusiastic. The article cites several opinions and the first starts with this sentence, “Overall, I don’t think this initiative will do much good.” The last response says, “In our opinion, Al Gore’s telethon is a legitimate political campaign.”
Hardly ringing endorsements. Judith’s “tepid” is as good a summation as any.
Times taken to task;
http://spectator.org/archives/2011/09/19/the-carbon-cults-price-signal
Carbon is the devil. The prince of darkness (or opacity). It’s got to be exorcised.
Dunno if anyone might be looking for clients to offer their climate expertise on Risk to, however…
http://www.reuters.com/video/2011/09/01/climate-change-catches-insurers-flat-foo?videoId=219116889
As central planning fails in the West, social entrepreneurship will be driven down to the level of the individual exemplified by such things as bartering goods and services at the local level to avoid transaction taxes and an increased demand for things like friendship bread baked over a wood fire (or the heat of burning books in areas whre wood is not plentiful).
Initially when i first heard which Medical professional. Dre was first publishing his or her own collection of headset, I am skeptical. I could truthfully not really assume that anything from level of quality would be discharged and i also thought an entire notion was just an email marketing con (fixing a world famous company name for a kind of earbuds to help them distribute). I have nowadays come to believe one other.
Thank you for the auspicious writeup. It actually used to be a enjoyment account it. Glance complicated to more added agreeable from you! By the way, how can we keep in touch?
Speak gobbledegook often?
If we didn’t have recent comments, Judy, I’d have missed this.
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