by Judith Curry
A few things that caught my eye this past week.
Policy/politics
Barack Obama: Time to weigh in—who deserves the #ChampionDenier title? [link]
“We need to put a price on denial in politics.” @algore [link]
Senator McConnell Urges States to Help Thwart Obma’s ‘War on Coal’ [link]
States Can “Just Say No” to the EPA’s Carbon Rule, Expert Says [link]
FEMA to States: No Climate Planning, No Money [link]
Obama Orders 40 Percent Cut in Government Emissions [link] …
Obama Quietly Pushes To Sign Global Climate Treaty This Year [link]
U.S. Budget 2015: Key climate and energy announcements [link]
Republicans seek to push climate change off national security agenda [link]
A Reagan approach to climate change – by George Schulz [link]
Scientific American: What impact will #CyclonePam have on Paris? [link]
The UN’s new disaster deal offers practical advice on dealing with climate impacts [link]
World Bank: Natural disasters destroy lives, hurt economies & increase poverty. It’s why we work on risk reduction: [link]
How do you recover from (natural) disasters? Read about experience of vulnerable countries [link]
What Indian govt can learn from China’s air cleanup campaign: [link]
Climate politics in the Arctic [link]
Energy, water, food
Rupert Darwall: Central planning with market features – how renewable subsidies destroyed the UK electricity market [link]
The global economy grew in 2014. Carbon emissions didn’t. Will that last? [link]
A note of caution on #IEA CO2 estimate. China revised 2013 coal use up 8%, so expect changes to 2014 [link]
“Green Energy Causes Record Spike In Electricity Prices” [link]
Improving #energy intensity is key to the #climate fight. But how much control do policymakers have over trends? [link]
Unsung heroes of the fight against climate change are entrepreneurs and politicians changing our energy consumption [link]
Foreign Policy: Dirty Pretty Rock (coal) [link]
Pumping CO2 underground can help fight climate change. Why is it stuck in second gear? [link]
Why is no one talking about sustainable cooling? [link]
Analysts examine energy security in sub-Saharan Africa [link]
Rare note of sanity amidst the hysteria: The Economics of California’s Drought – Alex Tabarrok (Prof Economics, GMU) [link]
Could water markets help solve the American West’s water woes? [link]
Forget about the drought — Americans are wasting a trillion gallons of water per year on leaks [link]
The Southwestern Water Wars [link]
Ensia: Gulp. New view of global groundwater shows urgent need to reverse depletion [link]
Your shower is wasting huge amounts of energy and water. Here’s what you can do about it. [link]
Ensia: Grounded: Why soil matters to the health of the planet and us [link]
Climate-adaptation techniques in Kenyan farms fights food-poverty [link]
Science/research
New paper in Nature: An atmospheric origin of the multi-decadal bipolar seesaw [link]
“Measuring the pulse of planet Earth to reveal hidden patterns of climate change — ScienceDaily” [link]
New paper finds California drought is “mainly the result of (natural) variability in precipitation” [link]
Arctic sea ice hit a record low this winter. Here’s why it matters: [link]
Kirk Englehardt: Trust in science problem not quite solved. [link]
New study asks whether climate change is implicated in the 2013–2014 California drought? [link]
Sea Level Rise Added $2 Billion to Sandy’s Toll in New York City [link]
NSF unveils public access plan – all funded papers to be #oa after 12 months: [link]
Reto Knutti: Mysterious Models and Enigmatic Ensembles [link]
Nature: A clean, green science machine: Do we really need to travel to conferences? [link]
Chris Mooney: Just because Antarctic sea ice is growing doesn’t mean we should worry any less about that vast ice sheet [link]
Cyclone Pam: Untangling the complex science on tropical storms & climate change [link]
Polar lows: What fuels Arctic hurricanes? Excellent blog on the fundamentals of polar mesoscale cyclones @meteodenny [link]
When does evidence-based policy turn into policy-based evidence? [link]
Climate and science wars
Climate expert John Christy on funding: ‘No one is paying me to have my view’. [link]
U. of Delaware Refuses to Disclose Funding Sources of Its Climate Contrarian [link]
Koch Industries refuses to comply with US senators’ climate investigation [link]
Roger Pielke Jr: “The pressures on academics to conform (or not deviate) is very high.” [link]
Double Standard: Warmist climate scientist fails to disclose conflict of interest funds from green billionaire [link]
97% consensus paper: Cook admits, with a two year delay, that interrater reliability is low [link]
The race for the next IPCC chair is hotting up [link]
Jan Pascal Van Ypersele: Climate Politics: Does the IPCC Have a Future? [link]
How Much Did Greenpeace Pay van Ypersele? (candidate for IPCC Chair) [link]
.@algore ‘s tangled web of un-green investments [link]
Pachauri’s TERI: Not a Safe Place for Women [link]
Michael Kelly, FRS, in the Daily Mail: Why the Royal Society is wrong on climate change [link]
Climate Scientists Launch Personal Campaign About Why they Do What they Do [link]
Yes, we are seeing more attacks on academic freedom: guest post by @AliceDreger [link]
Essay by physicist Philip Moriarty: “I didn’t become an academic in order to be led. Nor did I become an academic to lead others” [link]
Dieticians in turmoil over conflicts of interest [link]
History of climate science: Tom Wigley – the skepticism and loyalty of CRU’s second director [link]
When it Comes To Science, Conservatives Are No More Biased About Science Than Liberals Are [link]
Good summary of evidence about how conservatives (and liberals) reach biased conclusions [link]
Humor
Is hell exothermic or endothermic? [link]
Hamlet grant review: “Excellent consideration of null and alternative hypotheses in proposed soliloquy of Act III.” [link]
Submissions to the Australian Senate Select Committee on Wind Turbines close on Monday (Easter Daylight Australia time, GMT-9h).
Submit here: http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Wind_Turbines
My submission should save the world – if people take note ! :).
Not posted yet (still getting reviews) (I’ll post it on Monday)
Best of luck to you. The US congress should hold hearings, commission an assessment report or whatever it is that they do in such matters.
Obama’s “Champion Denier Game” is compelling proof that pot smoking arrests emotional development.
I mean seriously, that out of the office of the leader of the free world?
Amazing.
It’s stultifyingly abhorrent….They are not even my representatives and I’m miffed.
New paper in Nature: An atmospheric origin of the multi-decadal bipolar seesaw…
“When AMOC strengthens, northward oceanic heat flux increases, warming the Northern Hemisphere (NH) but cooling the Southern Hemisphere”
It appears that there are low AMOC events during negative NAO/AO episodes. And increased negative NAO is associated with a warm AMO and Arctic.
http://www.rapid.ac.uk/
On the Republicans defunding Pentagon and CIA work related to climate, this is a form of denial. They say “The Pentagon is concerned, for example, that sea level rise could flood its largest naval bases, such as the massive installations in Norfolk, Virginia, and make it more challenging to operate in already hot and dry places that could become more expensive to operate in, like the American Southwest.” The Republicans are effectively saying none of this is going to happen, don’t even think about it.
It is equally a form of denial to continue to fund research into programs which are unable to improve even the error bars over a 30 year span, and which continues to agitate for totalitarian political actions.
Missing the point. These are adaptation studies, not climate research. The Republicans are even against adaptation which follows naturally from their denial of continuing climate change.
I know of no Republican who believes climate does not change. In fact, I believe they passed a resolution stating that they DO believe climate in fact changes.
More leftist propaganda from JimD, I’m afraid.
You can read what they want to cut from the Pentagon and CIA budgets and infer what they really think from that rather than from a face-saving vote.
No, they’re adaptation studies.
Or in other words – preludes to plans for contingencies. If sea level rise is really a problem, the rise is so slow that there is plenty of time to devise means of adaptation before the problems truly become acute.
How many years before Norfolk is “under water”? 100? 200?
Many many decades of sea level rise can be mitigated with a 3 deep layer of sandbags? Or a sea wall?
Really, your hammer sees nail view is really stretching here.
Or innovative architecture.
http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s–8iKnRoCg–/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636/aou0jo44vc0ppwqucnux.jpg
“and make it more challenging to operate in already hot and dry places”
Or … “make it easier to operate in already cold and wet places”.
The first line without the second is propaganda.
Do they have to study that too? Would you not consider that a waste?
Climate Change has no upside, sunshine.
Hey Jim D, let’s suppose sea level rise impacts Norfolk. Over what time period do you think it would have a significant impact? Perhaps we could just deal with it in real time versus spending $s trying to predict it, eh?
They are just trying to figure out what to adapt to and how, when the sea-level rise rate is already accelerating and they are planning infrastructure to last for decades. It makes sense to let them rather than defund just that part because it mentions climate change.
So in other words, Jim D, you have no idea the time period in which there would be significant impacts. Put your deflections were entertaining.
I support climate research. I also support lots of data acquisition. Lots and lots. But I don’t see a need for the Pentagon to be getting involved in “climate research”. If they are that worried they can have the base operating design basis reviewed. That shouldn’t be a big deal for the US Corps of engineers to perform.
So you hope that the Republicans will continue to fund the US Corps of Engineers to look at climate change effects on infrastructure. I would not put it past them to nix that too. Let’s hope sense prevails in this case.
Rising sea level flooding naval bases is one of a great many low risk disasters that could happen. There are higher risks events to plan for so I agree with defunding highly exaggerated risks. The pause killed that cause and with sea level rising at 3mm/yr there’s no rush to do anything.
Suddenly progressives are supporting military spending. Precious.
Aren’t most naval bases pretty well flooded already? And aren’t navies in the best position to respond? They have lots of boats and other floating stuff.
We’ve just experienced 6 months of looking at the bottom of the tidal rivers here in Norfolk -the mudflats. The flooding is a wee bit overplayed.
The fact that Chris Mooney’s Washington Post output is in /news/ and not acknowledged editorial is a complete disgrace to journalism. It is entirely dishonest to allow an activist to disseminate hyper-partisan ideology under a banner of hard news.
He’s all excited about Google building a truth machine:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/03/12/why-some-people-are-so-terrified-of-a-google-truth-machine/
typo
It is interesting that a larger pattern with the heteroskedasticity—so evident in the February plot—is evident over an entire year.
Even a casual glance at the February plot raises instant questions about the appropriateness of the regression and quality of the data over time. However, these type of questions’ importance come to the fore when formal inferences are made. NSIDC seems to tread cautiously in that regard, although their version of the figure does indicate a 5% +/- 3.9% increase per decade. This is a slippery/incomplete approach in that they do not discuss the uncertainty–at least on the page where the figure is found. Thus an unwary reader can jump to a presumed inference. I do not know off-hand how approaches other than SLR would fair by comparison. Of course Mooney is an other matter…. So it goes.
For the month of February for sea ice around Antarctica – when it is mostly melted back to the continent?
JCH
Here I only am thinking of statistical inference and not broad implications of the particular month. That said, your comment lead me to look at the anomaly trend plots for the other months. They can be seen in the figure/link at the end of this reply. It is interesting that a larger pattern with the heteroskedasticity—so evident in the February plot is evident over an entire year. I would suspect that this has been noted and considered elsewhere though more likely in the context of non-statistical drivers. (Here I refer to what is observed in regard to variance in the sequence. There clearly is a seasonal effect both the the magnitude of variances and in heteroskedasticity.)
http://s1285.photobucket.com/user/mwgrant1/media/Monthly%20Sea%20Ice–Jan-Dec–latest_zpsu2cf4hrw.png.html?sort=3&o=0
typo
It is interesting that a larger pattern with the heteroskedasticity—so evident in the February plot–is evident over an entire year.
If eyesight is to be believed, it appears the trend is lower in the part of the year where one would expect it to be higher. I can reproduce your graphs on Wood for Trees, but I can’t get it to reproduce the trend line.
I would like to see a warm months versus cold months comparison. I’m in the camp that thinks expanding Antarctic sea ice extent has little to do with temperature, but now I’m starting to think it may be caused by IT’S WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT WARMING!!!!!
JCH
If eyesight is to be believed, it appears the trend is lower in the part of the year where one would expect it to be higher. I can reproduce your graphs on Wood for Trees, but I can’t get it to reproduce the trend line.
The details of the NSIDC calculations are at the following link. If you have not already looked at them they might be of help in sorting through your wood for trees calculations:
http://nsidc.org/data/docs/noaa/g02135_seaice_index/#monthly_graphs_format
Like you I have not precisely reproduced the numbers in the figures yet, but I have not really rolled peeled back the onion very much since my interest is more in the the appropriateness of the regressions for some of the months. I had just cranked the February data in R and only made a visual check. I suspect more robust methods would lead to some loss of statistical power swapping one problem for another.
The ftp for the data is
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/
I’m in the camp that thinks expanding Antarctic sea ice extent has little to do with temperature, but now I’m starting to think it may be caused by IT’S WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT WARMING!!!!!
Looking at the images together is–shall we say–interesting. However, I try to move on attribution cautiously. Risks–a melding of possible mechanisms at play and their impacts down the road–are another thing.
BTW mea culpa: from the README.txt at the site I sheepishly quote :OP
We recommend that you read the complete documentation in detail before working with the data.
As soon as I get my second house sold, I’m hiring a student from TCU to show me the basics on R. Wood for Trees is just barely keeping up. RSS GISS are the only temperature series that are currently updating.
more of the trend appears to be from summer months than winters months
JCH – this course is pretty good.
https://www.edx.org/course/explore-statistics-r-kix-kiexplorx#.VQ3Rpl2Xky8
Jim2 – thanks. I’ll try that tonight.
I wonder how many skeptics will want to talk or even read about the record low Arctic sea ice max that just happened this year. Recovery, it is not. Hopes dashed. They must feel crushed by this news, and possibly starting to finally see the reality of what the Arctic is doing long-term that most of the rest of us knew since 2007.
Jim D,
I certainly won’t bother because it’s irrelevant to policy analysis. So why waste your time on such trivia? Why not focus your time on issues that are relevant to affecting rational policy analysis and through that influencing more rational policy decisions?
There are equally rapidly changing shipping, natural resource and security issues going along with this. It should matter to anyone who plans in those areas. Not the Republicans apparently who bury their heads rather than allow planning based on climate change factors (see other article on that).
Jim D,
It’s all totally irrelevant to policy analysis unless you can quantify the effects, consequences and estimate the costs and benefits, or provide the values to allow costs and benefits to be estimated.
You can do a cost-benefit of shorter shipping routes for one, or miss the boat on potential savings and just keep planning for your old routes. Or you can do exploration in the hopes of a longer open Arctic that would permit drilling. Skeptical oil companies, of course, would not do this because they know that the Arctic will just close up again soon if they are planning according to their own think tanks. It would be a dilemma to go after the oil or believe your climate skeptics. However, I don’t think it will even be close. Watch what they do, not what they say.
Jim D,
Well do it then and post your analysis here. Then we’ll have great fun showing how you don;t understand and how you continually prattle on about irrelevancies.
Thank you, Peter! “Why not focus your time on issues that are relevant to affecting rational policy analysis and through that influencing more rational policy decisions?” Thank you.
Not that I’d suggest that “skeptics” as a group are big on logical consistency, but I did just read that a low max doesn’t predict a low min.
Yes, but a record low max should be as significant as a record low min. They are both telling us the same thing.
For the lasts 17 years going on 26 we’ve had nothing but Global McWarming…
http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs28/i/2008/132/3/2/Global_Warming___McWarming_by_strawferryst.jpg?w=600
Jim am I correct in saying that longer term trends (e.g 30) years are generally more reliable than short term trends(e.g.15 years)?
joseph, yes, if the two conflict with each other I would take the longer trend as having more significance.
Duly noted re Arctic ice, and rightly so. Have you noted this, duly and rightly?
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/S_timeseries.png
Is it a record too?
Seems 2015 minimum only runs fourth highest in the record, with 2008 still holding the record for most Antarctic ice at minimum (a post-1979 sat record, as one should always specify – rather than try to get juice from that word “record”).
As for the record Antarctic maximum, that was indeed in 2014:
http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/antarctic-sea-ice-reaches-new-record-maximum/
Not noted…duly and rightly?
It’s two standard deviations which has a return time of 40 years, while the Arctic is probably around three standard deviations below normal, statistically a much more significant deviation.
I knew there’d be something. Statistically and probably.
I’ll bet those Arctic openings in the early 1800s and from the 1920s on were just a measly couple of standard deviations. Statistically. Probably.
JIm D: “Is it a record?”
So silly. In any case, until you can prove causation you’re clapping with one hand.
OK, how would you prove causation?
I can’t. Neither could Banks and the RS and the whalers in the early 1800s. Neither could the Norwegian authorities in the 1920s. But they had eyes.
Are you just saying anything now?
==> “…, until you can prove causation you’re clapping with one hand.”
So here a “skeptic” says that data are useless unless causation is proven.
Should we generalize from this comment to characterize all “skeptics?”
mosomoso, exactly. It is a common request to prove causation, but when the question is turned on the skeptics to say what they would accept as proof, they come up blank. These things are evidence of climate change in a particular and expected direction. Do we have to prove the climate is changing in that direction or just observe it?
With regard to “proof.” From the article:
…
The width of confidence intervals is thought to index the precision of an estimate; the parameter values contained within a CI are thought to be more plausible than those outside the interval; and the confidence coefficient of the interval (typically 95%) is thought to index the plausibility that the true parameter is included in the interval. We show in a number of examples that CIs do not necessarily have any of these properties, and generally lead to incoherent inferences. For this reason, we recommend against the use of the method of CIs for inference.
…
http://andrewgelman.com/2014/12/11/fallacy-placing-confidence-confidence-intervals/
No-one has to prove to me that the climate is changing in some direction. I cannot conceive of a Holocene without constant fluctuations of the sort we now observe. Moreover, until very recently the notion of a formerly stable or pre-Anthropocene climate would have been laughable.
Coming up with causation is the job of those pretending to know or of those capable of finding out. I recommend the latter group only. It may take a while, since the money and cred have been frittered on politicised dogma and assumption (and white elephants, of course). Also, the subject may be a little on the vast side.
Just to recap, this started with the statement:
“I wonder how many skeptics will want to talk or even read about the record low Arctic sea ice max that just happened this year.”
Sic, immediately on the heels of 2014’s record HIGH Antarctic sea ice max, which came on the heels of the previous record HIGH: that of 2013. (Highest minima were in 2008, 2013 and 2003.)
It is, as with the Arctic, a “record” which began in 1979, so it is not only superficial but also short. Poor, shabby stuff, which I would not try to make a hessian bag from, let alone a silk purse.
“So here a “skeptic” says that data are useless unless causation is proven.”
Joshua,
You’re smarter than this sloppy response would indicate. President Obama, John Kerry, what’s her name head of the EPA, important people from the standpoint of policy making are all insisting the debate is over. And yet in fact it’s only just begun.
There’s no real question that Co2 does all things being equal have a warming effect. The question as you well know, is how much and to what effect. I’m open. So far the data is increasingly showing a lower, safer atmospheric sensitivity. That’s a good thing, is it not?
What great news. Maybe now Sir Martin Frobisher will now have his North West Passage ice free.
JimD, are you sure it’s the max? The Arctic has fooled us more than once in the past… funny you mention 2007, as the current ‘max’ is higher than in 2006….
>. They must feel crushed by this news, and possibly starting to finally see the reality of what the Arctic is doing long-term that most of the rest of us knew since 2007.
But the Antarctic, JimD, but the Antarctic:
https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2015/03/14/matt-ridley-on-fossil-fuels/
The Arctic leaves the Lord a bit coal, I mean cold.
The Northern sea ice loss is from areas well outside the Arctic Ocean, likely from the same variability of jet stream leading to Boston’s snowiness. This is likely to revert to the mean. But it also raises another interesting aspect to sea ice area. If sea ice is being lost to export, the process of export effectively increases the area ( in winter ). To some extent, low sea ice area is a sign that ice is not being lost to lower latitudes. We can see this in:
1.) the increase in Arctic sea ice thickness and volume:
http://psc.apl.uw.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/schweiger/ice_volume/BPIOMASIceVolumeAnomalyCurrentV2.1_CY.png
and 2.) the increase in multi-year Arctic ice ( for about eight years now ):
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/files/2014/04/Figure5.png
Not sure it is significant. Arctic sea ice was really high this time of year in 2012 and went on for the lowest minimum ever.
There are two important things to remember. 1. Those graphs are of ice extent of 15% or more. So they can change by a large amount due to wind but less so this time a year (only at the edges). I like the one the Danish have of 30% better. 2. This is area only and does not reflect thickness. The ice the last few years has gotten thicker. Will be interesting to see if this trend continues another 5 years or is just a fluke.
But about the stupidest thing one can do is to look only at the ice on Sept. 22 at its minimum and act like that is the complete story when for 9 months of the year it is -10 to -30 C.
Maximum ice extent tends to be smaller following a higher minimum, and greater following a lower minimum.
Now we are past sunspot maximum, negative NAO episodes will pick up strongly through the next ten years and cause much melt again, likely more than 2007 and 2012 in some seasons. Weaker solar activity causes reductions in sea ice by increasing negative NAO.
As many as the number of true CO2 Climate Catastrophe believers who will admit that the nearly 2 decade long hiatus is a stake in the heart of their cherished belief system.
I know where the cold went. Northeast United States. Ask them if they had a warm winter. LOL
The Arctic Ice has rebounded a bit. And it may not be a record. It is only day 79 and the latest a max has occurred is day 90.
It will certainly be interesting to see what happens in the “climate-o-sphere” if a higher max does occur…
Suddenly, there will be people on one side arguing that the max is important and people on the other side arguing that it isn’t – only the associated groups making arguments will be reversed from where they are now, respectively.
plus ça change…
Jim D:
How long is the record? How significant is that length in terms of climate?
Answers: ~34 years and 0% significance.
How many standard deviations below the mean? Maybe three?Significant.
Standard deviation in the context of a record of a tiny slice of time is ridiculous. We all have seen the many reports of an “ice free” Arctic in multiple periods in the 20th century – we also know about the Norse settlements on Greenland now buried in ice.
The failure to address these precedents means the use of Arctic ice as some form of proxy for anthropogenic CO2 caused warming is without credibility, much as the failure of the ensemble of climate models to project temperature behavior in nearly 2 decades equally destroys the credibility of doom-monger calls for action.
You can tell that to the Antarctic sea-ice people. They only have two standard deviations.
Is that below the mean over 34 years? Wow, call me unimpressed Jim D.
JimD, I found that ice area report to be very worrying. I had to take two aspirin and see if I could find a positive spin. Lucky for me I found the ice was a bit less extensive, but it was thicker. This made me sigh with relief. Now I can write the ice mass is not doing that bad.
Cold comfort.
Yin and Yang. Antarctic sea ice is increasing apace so global sea ice remains essentially unchanged since record keeping began.
https://nsidc.org/sites/nsidc.org/files/images//arc_antarc_1979_2012.png
Goodie. Ice is nasty cold barren stuff, fit only for a few vicious polar bears. We’re better off without it.
I am always relieved when dietitians are recommending trashy and popular foods. When so engaged there is less chance of them leading neurotics to expensive self-torment.
Think what a wonderful world this would be if everyone were as enlightened as you!
The comments from the dietitians which showed how important money is. One who was distraught by the sponsorship from coca cola and Kraft cheese singles suggested self funding that might cost dietitians $1,500 each and another dietician responded that they hated Kraft cheese, but not $1,500 worth.
Here in Spain that yellow Anerican cheese is quite rare. The debate revolves around the advantages of goat cheese over mozzarella and Emental.
Fernando – you have three relatively good cheese choices. What countries have good cheese, good beer and wine and make wise environmental and energy choices?
I don’t know, but I just can’t wait for Fernando to supply the answer!
A Guardian article on the Koch brothers (my heroes!) is always a hoot. But don’t you just love the pic of earnest Alan Rusbridger sitting on a hard chair in the middle of a field? The Guardian’s editor didn’t invent pretension and silliness, but he keeps the flame burning bright.
Pity about the decline of newsprint. Alas for the broadsheet. The biggest tree munchers always make the biggest tree huggers.
On a serious and moralistic note, we should question why green merchandise shamelessly advertised and promoted in the Guardian is so useless, fetishistic, expensive and such a vast waste of production/transport costs.
Divest from the Guardian.
They don’t call it the Grauniad for nothin’.
Oh noes… cutting back at a time we know global warming caused the fall of Syria and the rise of ISIS. Where are our priorities. How are school teachers going to save the world from America without more funding?
We have to waste money in order to save it. According to “Pelosi’s Law”, we have to pass the budget to find out what’s in it.
From the Nisbett & Garrett article:
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121283/when-it-comes-science-conservatives-are-no-more-biased-libera
The authors refer to chapter 10 of Dunlap & McCright.
The merchant of doubt’s meme seems alive and kicking.
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The NSF public access plan is just the latest of many, as Public Access is a government-wide program. See the agency listing at http://www.arl.org/focus-areas/public-access-policies/federally-funded-research/2696-white-house-directive-on-public-access-to-federally-funded-research-and-data#agency-policies.
I publish a weekly (subscription) newsletter tracking this program at http://insidepublicaccess.com/. Happy to answer questions here at Climate.Etc. Public Access is a massive change in scientific communication. The Federal government funds $2.5 billion per year in climate research. Eventually all of the resulting journal articles will be available free after 12 months. A lot of these articles are relatively skeptical by the way. In particular the models are being criticized and for good reason.
David, that’s great news.
From the article:
…
EXCLUSIVE: UNION OFFICIAL SAYS ‘CORPORATE GREED’ BEHIND PUSH FOR H-1B VISAS
…
AP Photo/Nick UtAP Photo/Nick Ut
by ADELLE NAZARIAN16 Mar 2015Los Angeles, CA3550
…
A so-called “war on the American worker” has intensified in the Golden State.
Massive layoffs are being spearheaded by the multi-billion dollar Southern California Edison utilities company, which is terminating scores of American IT workers and replacing them with immigrant IT workers, from a slew of foreign counties, who are willing to work for far less compensation. These immigrants are in the U.S. on an H-1B visa program.
“We don’t need foreign workers. We have plenty of Americans who are fully capable and equipped to carry out these jobs. It’s an absolute issue of corporate greed; nothing more nothing less,” former Edison employee and Marine Pat Lavin told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview late last week.
…
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/03/16/exclusive-union-official-says-corporate-greed-behind-push-for-h-1b-visas/
Corporations are not greedy; they’re efficient. Who has ever seen a corporation ever do something inefficiently? The union workers are greedy. Hip hip hooray for on shoring. Immigrant engineers! More immigrant engineers. Let’s start an entry-level salary for immigrant engineers. Say $12,000 per year for the first 10 years. What? They’re good at math. That’s a dime a dozen in India.
I’m not sure what to make of your comment.
I want to replace you with a lower-middle-class math wizard from a mud hut in the 3rd world. Gotsta have my dividend income.
Companies already do that without importing them. Actually, automation and robots will eventually replace just about everyone, including the alleged math geniuses of which you speak.
Let’s start with CEOs. How could we ever build greedy algorithms?
Don’t worry, Willard. The rich will hire enough cheap math geniuses to figure it out.
Wal-Mart employs 2.1 million persons. Amazon employs 120,000 persons. If current growth rates for both companies continue, in a few years their revenues will be very close.
For all the whining by liberals about Wal-Mart, at least they will still be employing a lot more workers than Amazon. Get used to the new business model. For some with vision, this trend was obvious 20 years ago. For the Liberal economists, until recently, they were beating the tired drums for more 80 year old Keynesian non-solutions.
A blast from more than a year ago, Kid:
http://www.salon.com/2014/02/23/worse_than_wal_mart_amazons_sick_brutality_and_secret_history_of_ruthlessly_intimidating_workers/
When will we have “fulfilment” blogging, do you think?
“When his highness sends a ship to Egypt, does he trouble his head whether the mice on board are at their ease or not?”
― Voltaire, Candide
==> “For some with vision, this trend was obvious 20 years ago.
Which trend are you speaking of? The one of increased corporate profitability along with flat or declining wages? The one where corporate execs make decisions based on short-term return to themselves and share-holders as opposed to the long term health of their corporation?
Joshua
Catch up. Since when were CEOs not doing that. You really think that was just a couple of decades. Of course real family median income is still double what it was in the 1950s and 1960s. Those “good old days” when the Liberals tell us how wonderful it was for the middle class when the top marginal tax rate was 91%. And because of that high marginal rate there was “massive income redistribution” per Bill Maher. Of course there was no massive redistribution since the budget for Social programs in the mid 1950s adjusted for inflation would be only $120 Billion vs the actual FY 2015 amount of $2.8 Trillion. And of course since there were only 201 tax payers making over $1 million in 1954, those evil millionaires were only contributing .5% (half a percent) toward total Federal Revenue. Hard to have massive redistribution with only that amount. And don’t forget how much the median family income went to groceries. In 1950. It was 30% vs 7% today. How does paying $12 for a dozen eggs or $16 for a gallon of milk sound. Comparing costs then vs incomes that is what they were paying in today’s dollars. Ahhh the good old days.
Those were the good old days only to those who never lived through that time or never bothered looking up the data. Which, by the way comes from the IRS archives, Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
> When his highness sends a ship to Egypt, does he trouble his head whether the mice on board are at their ease or not?
Whining about German mice may be tougher than illegal ones:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-business/cultural-clash-brings-amazon-holiday-strife-in-germany/article22182777/
kid –
==> “Catch up. Since when were CEOs not doing that. You really think that was just a couple of decades.”
I think that there has been a significant trend, in recent decades, towards “financial engineering.” It has been, to a large degree, a product of a fairly new segment of the finance industry, pushed by business schools and the like. There is no doubt that there’s been exponential growth in the financial industry relative to other market sectors.
==> “Of course real family median income is still double what it was in the 1950s and 1960s.”
http://www.itulip.com/images/disposableincome.gif
http://www.itulip.com/images/savingvsdebt.gif
http://www.itulip.com/images/realdisposable.gif
And none of those charts falsify my statement. Go tell the Census Bureau.
Don’t confuse Josh with facts. He will become depressed.
kid –
Do you have any data on trends in # of hours worked per household to meet basic expenses?
kid –
==> “And none of those charts falsify my statement.”
I wasn’t suggesting that they “falsify” your statement – but that they contextualize your statement.
For example, let’s add some context to this statement, shall we?
==> “Of course real family median income is still double what it was in the 1950s and 1960s. ”
To gain some context – let’s disaggregate the numbers a tad, as you have considered all families as if they’re the middle class.
http://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/charts/census/household-incomes-growth-real-since-1980.gif
kid –
==> “And don’t forget how much the median family income went to groceries. In 1950. It was 30% vs 7% today.”
Since you have that number, you must have some data on %’s of income that goes to meet all basic expenses, weighed against # of household hours worked (with consideration of child care expenses as is relevant).
‘Cause you certainly wouldn’t want to cherry-pick, being a “skeptic” and all.
I don’t know where to access the data. Do you have some?
Of course I have that number. I would not have cited it unless I had it. But I did a lot of research to get it, if I gave it to you then I would be doing your work. Since I am concerned about your personal development and how you learn to handle adversity and challenges, you can look it up yourself. Hint: Census Bureau.
kid –
In case you’re looking for more data to put this statement
==> “Of course real family median income is still double what it was in the 1950s and 1960s. ”
in context…let’s compare and contrast shall we?
First, let’s look at this graph:
http://cdn.billmoyers.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Motherjones1.png
And then let’s look at this graph:
http://cdn.billmoyers.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Motherjones2.png
Joshua does not like to look for facts. No, he likes to find cases of double-standards, hypocrisy, and activism; and finds them normally where they don’t really exist. Useful chap, that Josh.
kid –
==> “if I gave it to you then I would be doing your work.”
I have to say, that seems odd to me. What does this have to do with giving me an assignment of work to do? I’m not your child, or your student.
Just give the number. I’m curious to know whether the number for % of income spent on food might give an impression that is in contrast to the overall picture of change over time in % of household income needed to meet basic expenses – especially in the context of overall household hours worked and with consideration of childcare expenses.
Why provide only one slice of data rather than provide more to give a more informative picture?
Corporations bad, workers good. The usual ignorant pseudo-populist claptrap. Corporations making too much profit, except in France, Spain, Greece, Italy, Argentina etc., where even if the evil greedy profit seekers wanted to they couldn’t hire and pay good wages to the noble workers. If you pseudo-populist jokers had any awareness of the realities in the competitive business world, you would know that the more profitable/successful companies hire a lot of people and pay them well. Real wages have not fallen for the workers who are educated and have marketable skills.
> If you pseudo-populist jokers had any awareness of the realities in the competitive business world, you would know that the more profitable/successful companies hire a lot of people and pay them well.
Citation needed, Don Don.
Meanwhile, in the real world, US corporations stash more money than Germany’s GDP:
http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/business/Reuters_Companies_Cash.jpeg
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/07/the-5-trillion-stash-us-corporations-money-hoard-is-bigger-than-the-gdp-of-germany/260006/
Let’s blame German unions.
Willard, if you had any awareness of the business world you wouldn’t be asking for citations.
You wouldn’t be expected to know the reasons why U.S. companies are sitting on large cash stashes. Do you think it’s a conspiracy? Maybe they are doing it because Obama is of the wrong race and they don’t want him to succeed. Consult you left-wing sources on pseudo-economics and get back to us.
Blame German unions for what? I don’t think the unions that represent the highly skilled and hardworking German workers are responsible for the fact that German GDP is less than the cash holdings of U.S. corporations. I don’t even know why anyone would make such a dumb and irrelevant comparison. Can you explain what tf you are talking about?
I’m for a change in inmigration policy. We should only allow lawyers, politicians, and individuals with the qualifications to be CEOs, bankers, and business consultants. I’m sure we can find a few hundred thousand bangladeshis and indians to do that kind of work.
I will help you Willard. Here is a more complete and realistic perspective on corporate cash holdings, without the left-wing bias:
http://dupress.com/articles/excess-cash-growth-strategies/
> Willard, if you had any awareness of the business world you wouldn’t be asking for citations.
What’s on the table shows that “the more profitable/successful companies hire a lot of people and pay them well” is empty and mostly irrelevant, Don Don, which is unsurprising since you’re just using it as a reactionary slogan.
Here’s some more for you, since Denizens know how much you like minimum wage:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/20/opinion/traitors-to-their-class.html
Joshua
Read and comprehend with precision. I said double since 1950s and 1960s. Your chart starts at 1970. Secondly, I said Family income. You show household income.
We have undergone vast demographic changes over the last 50 years. The number of households with a single person has doubled. The number of single mothers households has greatly increased.
The median family income of a husband & wife with 2 incomes is $92,000. The median income of single mothers is $28,00p.
I will repeat. The real median family income is double what it was in the 1950s and 1960s.
==> “Willard, if you had any awareness of the business world you wouldn’t be asking for citations.
Another “skeptic” who belongs to the I am against appeals to authority unless I’m appealing to my own authority school of argument construction.
kid –
==> “I will repeat. The real median family income is double what it was in the 1950s and 1960s.”
I’m not sure why you’re repeating it, as I didn’t dispute it even though you apparently mistakenly thought that I was.
Again, I’ve asked you for data on relevant context. I have given you data that helps to provide context. Apparently you think that I was arguing that those data were conclusive in some way. I wasn’t.
So you’re zero for two so far.
Again, to really understand the information that you’ve supplied, and how it informs us about the relative status of the middle class in the 50s and 60s compared to today, it is useful to look deeper beyond your simplistic statement and your pointing to the cost of food in isolation from other basic expenses.
Now I find this stuff kind of interesting. Perhaps you are entirely correct, and the middle class is better off or at least no worse off than they were in the past. The problem is that you have provided insufficient information for making that evaluation. I’ve looked for other information and what I’ve found is far from comprehensive, but what it does indicate is that the sweeping generalizations you were making may well be in accurate.
I’ll point out again that pointing to the numbers of mean family income are not on point w/r/t the middle class – because the mean could very well be skewed enormously by vastly greater gains among the upper class. That seems like very basic logic to me. If you have related information, I’d appreciate it. The limited data that I found show that indeed, it would be misleading to focus on aggregated mean data.
I’ll point out again that pointing to the lower % of income spent on food could also, very well be misleading if there were relatively greater increases in costs for things like housing or energy needs.
I’ll point out also, that other changes such as increased #’s of families that have two parents working, or that have to deal with the added costs of child care, or that are working longer hours per family, are all relevant factors w/r/t your sweeping generalizations.
I spent some time looking for the relevant data. Couldn’t really find enough to really be very comprehensive. I assume that you, being a “skeptic” and all, must have those data to make such sweeping generalizations, so I asked you for those data. For some reason, you apparently think that something would be lost if you provided me with those data. I don’t understand why you feel that way, but I’m willing to accept that for what it is, particularly with the knowledge that I can’t do anything to change what you do or don’t do.
At any rate, if you change your mind and you’d like to add more information to the discussion, I’d like to see it.
kid –
Just to point out something that I particularly love about “skeptics.” Look at this statement you made, and give it some thought. See if you can suss out what, in particular, I love about it. (Here’s a hint, it shows an unskeptical approach to the discussion.)
==> “Read and comprehend with precision. I said double since 1950s and 1960s. Your chart starts at 1970”
I’m guessing that you won’t figure it out, but perhaps I’m wrong. Let’s see. I’ll post more on it later.
As if Josh consistently sussed out inconsistency.
jim2 –
As always, thanks for reading bro’ I can’t tell you what it means to me.
What caused you to change you rmind?
Now you are willy, again. I don’t really feel a need to prove to you that successful and highly profitable corporations employ a lot of people and pay them well. The S&P 500 would be a good place to start, if you were willing to open your little mind and inform yourself.
Little evidence demander joshie blithely utters:
“Joshua | March 21, 2015 at 11:33 am |
==> “For some with vision, this trend was obvious 20 years ago.
Which trend are you speaking of? The one of increased corporate profitability along with flat or declining wages? The one where corporate execs make decisions based on short-term return to themselves and share-holders as opposed to the long term health of their corporation?”
Can you provide evidence that increased corporate profitability is responsible for flat or declining wages? Perhaps some evidence that corporations that have not experienced growing profitability have paid their employees more than their more successful competitors. Please also factor into your econometric analysis those unprofitable companies that have gone out of business and employ nobody. Is it increased corporate profitability that’s a problem, or is it the opposite? As Reverend Ike says, “Money is not the root of all evil. The lack of money is the root of all evil.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgtU9Y1YN1k
If you want to dispel the general and well justified opinion that you are hypocrite, please supply substantive evidence (preferably not from huffpo or some similar tribe of lefty hacks) that there has been a trend of corporate execs making decisions based on short-term return to themselves and share-holders as opposed to the long term health of their corporation? Name names, if you got em. My expectations for your willingness and ability to back up your BS are very low. Try to keep your disingenuous reply under 4000 words, this time.
Hi Don –
==> “Can you provide evidence that increased corporate profitability is responsible for flat or declining wages?
Like kid – you seem to think that I’m making a causal argument that I haven’t made.
> I don’t really feel a need to prove to you that successful and highly profitable corporations employ a lot of people and pay them well.
Come on, Don Don.
First, you need to quantify your claim. Are you saying that highly profitable corporations pay well all the people it employs? I doubt it. If not, then what’s the ratio? Does it follow Pareto’s formula, i.e. that 20% of the employees rake up 80% of the salaries? Speaking of salaries, is it only “salary” or any kind of income flowing from the company?
Second, you need to show how this is relevant to what I’m saying. What does it contradict exactly? What point do you want to make? What the hell are you talking about?
I don’t think your reactionary slogan is meant to be clear at all.
==> “If you want to dispel the general and well justified opinion that you are hypocrite, please supply substantive evidence (preferably not from huffpo or some similar tribe of lefty hacks) that there has been a trend of corporate execs making decisions based on short-term return to themselves and share-holders as opposed to the long term health of their corporation? ”
There’s quite a bit that’s been written about these trends related to the growth in “financial engineering.”
Google around a bit about the impact of financial engineering. For example, here’s the 2nd hit in my first search:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1991216
Here’s a nice video. Listen to what Kahneman has to say about the different time scale between corporate decision-makers orientation and that of the long term benefits to corporations.
Thanks for keeping your disingenuous reply under 4000 words, joshie.
“The one of increased corporate profitability along with flat or declining wages?”
Please excuse me for incorrectly inferring that you were implying causation. It’s the mention of the two things in the same sentence and the coupling of the two with the phrase “along with” that threw me off. What tf did you mean? You described “increased corporate profitability along with flat or declining wages” as “one” trend. That implies some kind of relationship. Do you really think you are fooling anybody with this pathetic BS?
And thank you too, willy. You are just as bad as joshie.
Nothing ever changes here. WordPress is not solving the problem with the spambabies. Carry on without me.
Before you go, Don Don, just for you:
Willard
In Britain, low paid workers have their salaries topped up by the govt in the form of tax credits, housing benefits and such things as reduced costs for prescriptions.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/low-wages-force-britain-to-spend-900m-more-on-tax-credits-than-planned-9919035.html
In effect the taxpayer is subsidising the low wage policies of various corporations of which retail, and most notably supermarkets, are the worst offenders. The additional profit goes back to the supermarket and their shareholders. Seems unfair to me.
Tonyb
OMG! How did I know that wee willy would pick Walmart. Willy, it could be said that the low skilled low paid workers that Walmart provides jobs for would be an even bigger burden on the taxpayers, if they were unemployed. Still, I think it is grossly unfair and inhumane for low price/low cost Walmart or any other retailer to pay workers less than the national average for retail jobs. It should be a law that everybody gets at least the national average.
If I were a Walmart employee I would go to work for Nieman Marcus or Tiffany. Better yet, a nice soft gubmint job. Willy, can you explain why millions of people would choose to work at Walmart? Are they masochists? Dim? WTF?
My counterexample to your disingenuous cherrypicking of Walmart is Apple Corp.
Why did I think Don Don would go for Apple Corp:
http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/03/17/apple-watch-faces-yield-issues-as-apple-taps-foxconn-to-build-samsung-to-provide-oleds—report
By chance we have bleeding hears Californian techno-communists to think about all these Foxconn employees who would otherwise die.
Why do so many people work for Walmart, Apple etc., willy? Are they crazy? Altruistic? Simpleminded? Don’t they know they can work for the gubmint and get overpaid with iron clad job security, early retirement, gold plated pensions, Cadillac healthcare and other budget busting fringe benefits made possible through the connivance of public employee union apparatchiks and Democrat pols? Give us the answer, willy. If you know.
cerescokid – inflation adjusted prices – eggs are cherry picking, durable goods are way more expensive today
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_otfwl2zc6Qc/SLPGMQj7g3I/AAAAAAAAFgM/bscbPROHsH0/s400/eggs.bmp
http://www.mybudget360.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/inflation-and-actual-prices.png
Joshua
I don’t know who decided it was my turn in the barrel today, but thanks a lot.
I didn’t use “mean” income. I used median for exactly that reason, mean does skew the data.
In 1950, 30% of median family income was used for “non-necessities”, the Census Bureau term. Their latest numbers are 50%.
To put things in perspective. Gallup did a poll in 1963 which found that 95% of the respondents believed they were in the “middle class”. Since the poverty rate was about 20%, then obviously that can’t be the case as normally defined. Middle class then was having food, a roof over your head, a car and clothes on your back. The Census Bureau breakout of spending includes this for 1950: Housing 27% vs 33% today. So it costs 6% more but in 1950 the median sq ft for new houses was 1,000. Today it is 2,200 sq ft.
Transportation 1950:13.4% vs 19% today. But not only is the average number of cars per family higher today but look at the type of vehicle with the infinite options vs the average car then of the most basic transportation.
Apparel 1950: 11.5% vs 4% today. Thanks to all the imports from China I am sure.
The variety of consumer goods is infinitely larger than it was then. Many did not have credit cards and used the layaway method of buying things. They saved for weeks to buy things that today are purchased as a whim.
There are so many differences between those days and now it would take a book to explain. People did not take cruises then as they do now. They did not fly overseas for vacations as they do now. They did not go out to eat as frequently as they do now. Spending on just that has tripled in 20 years. The Theme parks in the US had 120 million visitors. That is not just the 1% going.
In the mid 1950s there were 3 million families making the equivalent of $100,000 in today’s dollars. There are 22 million making that amount now.
Which trend are you speaking of? The one of increased corporate profitability along with flat or declining wages? The one where corporate execs make decisions based on short-term return to themselves and share-holders as opposed to the long term health of their corporation?
I would expect someone serious about the discussion to provide references to support those assertions. Or, rather, you would, since you consistently criticize others for making exactly the same kinds of assertions without citations.
I’d recommend someday trying to see yourself the way the rest of the world does through your posts. You might find yourself surprised that you don’t come off nearly as clever as you think you do.
I just noticed this, Tony:
“In effect the taxpayer is subsidising the low wage policies of various corporations of which retail, and most notably supermarkets, are the worst offenders. The additional profit goes back to the supermarket and their shareholders. Seems unfair to me.”
Why do you suppose that retailers, particularly supermarkets, appear to you to be the worst low wage “offenders”? Do you think that retailers/supermarkets make outsized profits compared with other businesses? Is there a lot of money to be made in retail sales of turnips, ketchup and toilet paper? Why would anybody work in a supermarket? Food for thought.
Joshua is pushing bogus point about savings being down. Home equity is not considered savings but favorable tax treatment has made it the primary means of savings for most people. Home mortgage interest is deductable and profit from sale of primary residence owned at least 5 years is tax-free for first $250,000 ($500,000 for married). So middle class young and middle aged married-with-children get into largest home they can afford then downsize when the kids are grown up keeping most if not all the profit tax free.
Home mortgage interest deduction did not exist prior to tax reform act of 1986 which is the exact year when savings as percentage of personal income began taking a nosedive according to the very chart which Joshua used to make his mistaken point:
http://www.itulip.com/images/disposableincome.gif
Nice own goal, Joshua. You know as much about economics you do about science and by that I mean illiterate in both.
You’re also supposed to be in moderation and you’re cheating your way out of that too continuing to pollute this blog with your typical uninformed dreck at a rate exceeding anyone else here.
How about some moderation here, Curry. Moderate by name not by IP address to prevent cheating. At least that way the cheating is easily spotted as Joshua will have to switch to a different name to avoid it.
I don’t have a lot of time to waste these days, so when I look in here and see that the spammers, like joshie and jimmy dee, are bombarding with comments I usually move on. Judith needs to limit the spammers.
I count 34 comments by jim2 on that thread, 21 by Joshua, and 16 by Jim D, Don Don.
Well, jimmy dee and joshie are just two of the most annoying spammers. Did you count your comments?
Jim2 is an anti-spammer, willy. Don’t reply! Judith is about to put you in moderation with little joshie. I would hate to see that happen to a distinguished gentleman like yourself.
Yep, Joshua sports tribalism, hypocrisy, double standards, and activism – then turns around and accuses everyone else of the same.
From the article:
…
While we have always stood in favor of cleaner air, the proposal to lower the current ozone standard of 75 parts per billion (ppb) could be the most expensive regulation in history and place undue burden on counties still working to comply with existing obligations, as well as impose costly regulations on new communities. EPA has proposed to set the standard between 65 and 70ppb and is taking comment on 60ppb. Should the standard be lowered to 60ppb, nearly the entire nation could be out of ozone compliance (or in “nonattainment”) for the first time ever.
…
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102509494
Do people from Los Angeles know anything about air pollution?
:
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-ozone-20150316-story.html
Is the entire country Los Angeles? How about CA and LA handle it and leave the rest of us alone?
“Do people from Los Angeles know anything about air pollution?”
Figures a town full of Democrats would make the most pollution.
Andrew
They’re Reagan people.
“They’re Reagan people.”
Still?
Andrew
Mexican illegals are “Reagan people?” I’ve have to make note of that.
Ronnie their amnesty Grandpa.
From the article:
…
These Reagan and Bush 41 executive actions were obviously different than what Obama is doing now. They were trying to implement a complicated amnesty that Congress had already passed. Congress’ action was a form of immigration relief that obviously fit within our constitutional system. Moreover, Congress left a gap when it came to immediate family members, including minor children, of individuals who qualified for the amnesty. Presidents Reagan and Bush 41 forbore from deporting people in that select group.
Obama is clearly contravening both ordinary practice and the wishes of Congress—as expressed in statute—by declaring an amnesty himself. This is nothing like Reagan’s or Bush’s attempts to implement Congress’ amnesty.
Obama, in contrast to Reagan and Bush 41, is not trying to implement a lawfully created amnesty. There has been no congressional amnesty. In fact, there has been no immigration action from Congress in the past few years except the post-9/11 REAL ID Act of 2005, which made it harder, not easier, for aliens to qualify for immigration relief. More than that, Congress declined to pass a legalization of the type Obama is issuing during both Obama’s term and in a hotly-contested bill during President Bush 43’s term.
Thus, Obama is clearly contravening both ordinary practice and the wishes of Congress—as expressed in statute—by declaring an amnesty himself. This is nothing like Reagan’s or Bush’s attempts to implement Congress’ amnesty. The progressive media’s claims otherwise are blatant lies, relying on their readers’ ignorance of events in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Such attempts should be rejected wherever they are found.
…
http://thefederalist.com/2014/11/20/no-reagan-did-not-offer-an-amnesty-by-lawless-executive-order/
Excuses excuses excuses. They know their Grandpa.
Coal does have one major good point: It is easy to transport and store.
The Northwest sure experienced what that means during the Polar Vortex, when natural gas prices spiked to ridiculous levels due to prolonged demand.
From the article:
…
coal still holds an advantageous position due to its wide availability and lower cost compared to other fossil fuels and renewable sources of energy.
…
there is enough coal to last nearly 112 years at current rates of production. In comparison to this, proven oil and gas reserves are equivalent to around 46 and 54 years, respectively, at current production levels. Proven reserves are considered economically recoverable at any given time, taking into account available mining technology and costs.
…
the current availability of coal even outpaces the combined proven reserves of oil and gas.
…
Coal Dominates U.S. Power Generation: Coal as a major source of generating fuel dominates the utility industry. Coal is used to generate near about 40% of the electricity consumed in the U.S. Electricity generation absorbs about 93% of the total U.S. coal consumption. The reason is simple: coal is by far the least expensive and most abundant fossil fuel in the country.
…
Electricity generation is just one use of coal in the U.S. Manufacturing plants and industries use coal to make chemicals, cement, paper, ceramics and metal products, to name a few. Methanol and ethylene, which can be made from coal gas, are used to make products such as plastics, medicines, fertilizers and tar.
…
Certain industries consume large amounts of coal. For example, concrete and paper companies burn coal, and the steel industry uses coke and coal by-products to make steel for bridges, buildings and automobiles.
…
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/zacks-industry-outlook-highlights-westmoreland-133001811.html
From the article:
…
Cisco will ship boxes to vacant addresses in a bid to foil the NSA, security chief John Stewart says. The dead drop shipments help to foil a Snowden-revealed operation whereby the NSA would intercept networking kit and install backdoors before boxen reached customers. The interception campaign was revealed last May. Speaking at a Cisco Live press panel in Melbourne today, Stewart says the Borg will ship to fake identities for its most sensitive customers, in the hope that the NSA’s interceptions are targeted. ‘We ship [boxes] to an address that has nothing to do with the customer, and then you have no idea who, ultimately, it is going to,’ Stewart says.
…
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/15/03/19/1453212/to-avoid-nsa-interception-cisco-will-ship-to-decoy-addresses
“If this is the best of possible worlds, what then are the others?”
― Voltaire, Candide
The articles on water in CA and the west are very interesting.
I agree bill1984, in light of being so different from what is commonly heard about water fears but it’s been “known” for a long time. In 1984 I worked for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and understood the situation then to be as described in the one article lots of cheap water guaranteed to farmers (who sometimes could sell for public consumption). Sometimes the more things change the more they stay the same.
Crazy politics. Our CEO in the late 80s was hounded out of his job. by the Mayor because he had said there was no water shortage. The Mayor needed water rationing and did not want to admit it, due to poor sewage infrasctructure (which worked better with less waste water). I was glad to leave behind the BS regulations that prevented me from putting a half gallon of water in a plastic splash pool even once a month for my 1 and 3 year olds to enjoy on a sunny day. All water was cheap but some uses just wee not not allowed, but some were allocated sufficient amounts for their pools and lush lawns
Politicians eclipse the rich when it comes to power and money (and corruption.)
From the article:
…
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) told POLITICO on Friday that foreign contributions to the Clinton Foundation are “thinly veiled bribes,” and said Hillary Clinton should return any donations from Saudi Arabia or other countries that abuse the rights of women.
“The normal Clinton response is to cover up, deny, refuse to acknowledge,” Paul said in a telephone interview as he was being driven through New Hampshire. “But the question is whether the country will rise up and respond to the unseemly nature of accepting foreign donations. “
…
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/rand-paul-hillary-clinton-saudi-arabia-116269.html
Gotta luv it …
From the “Central Planning with Market Features …” link:
Good intentions in the form of a desire to save the planet have led to our impoverishment.
Test
Scott
Metaphysically speaking, fealty to the deity underlying the religion of reductionism — upon which all global warming science is based — is like honoring the celebration your birthday more than observing Christmas.
With that long list of political links, I think I would have included something on Florida governor Rick Scott. Not all stupid things that are said and done come from the CAGW alarmists:
http://climatecrocks.com/2015/03/21/florida-state-employee-speaks-up-after-being-ordered-to-get-psych-exam-for-saying-climate-change/
==> “Not all stupid things that are said and done come from the CAGW alarmists:
Interesting comment – in that it appeals for non-double standards even as it suggests that we should generalize the discussion based on outliers.
This may come as a shock, but there is nothing wrong with double-standards per se. It really depends on what tribe you are on. Sometimes you have to approve of a tactic that improves your tribe’s cause, but disapprove of the same tactic when practiced by the other side. Your entire logical edifice is built upon a false premise.
Example from WWII from an Englishman: I am in favor of bombing Germany, but not in favor of Germany bombing England.
To me, this is perfectly acceptable.
I just like to see all significant stories addressed.
jim2 –
==> “This may come as a shock, but there is nothing wrong with double-standards per se.”
Yes, if you distort the standard in question to achieve a desired outcome, then you can justify the use of a double-standard.
In your example, if the standard you were using was whether to bomb to prevent a holocaust and world domination from a fascist regime, would you say “yes” if it were to bomb German fascists and “no” to bomb British fascists?
In the case at hand, the standard was stupid statements. And in that context, we certainly can see that you have no problem employing double standards, now can’t we? :-)
> This may come as a shock, but there is nothing wrong with double-standards per se. It really depends on what tribe you are on.
Exactly:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor%27s_justice
American exceptionalism is not that exceptional.
Life is unfair.
> Life is unfair.
Not yet. Deaths and taxes are the great equalizers.
But then:
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/04/09/opinion/mccaffery-zuckerberg-taxes/
All we need is the advent of the Singularity and life will definitely be unfair.
Our Venn diagrams overlap more than you perceive.
Words of wisdom, Jim, words of wisdom.
Typo (-ish): There are two links to the Mao et al. paper on CA drought.
From the article:
…
Carolyn Johnson reports in the Boston Globe that in recent years, the position of postdoctoral researcher has become less a stepping stone and more of a holding tank. Postdocs are caught up in an all-but-invisible crisis, mired in an underclass as federal funding for research has leveled off, leaving the supply of well-trained scientists outstripping demand. “It’s sunk in that it’s by no means guaranteed — for anyone, really — that an academic position is possible,” says Gary McDowell, a 29-year old biologist doing his second postdoc. “There’s this huge labor force here to do the bench work, the grunt work of science. But then there’s nowhere for them to go; this massive pool of postdocs that accumulates and keeps growing.” The problem is that any researcher running a lab today is training far more people than there will ever be labs to run. Often these supremely well-educated trainees are simply cheap laborers, not learning skills for the careers where they are more likely to find jobs. This wasn’t such an issue decades ago, but universities have expanded the number of PhD students they train from about 30,000 biomedical graduate students in 1979 to 56,800 in 2009, flooding the system with trainees and drawing out the training period.
…
http://news.slashdot.org/story/14/10/07/2146258/glut-of-postdoc-researchers-stirs-quiet-crisis-in-science
Harvard Law constitutional scholar Larry Tribe’s brief on the EPA CPP is well worth a read, especially part three outlining multiple constitutional issues. Available via the ‘States can just say no link.’ Coming from Tribe, this is a real damnation of Obama’s unconstitutional over reach.
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Arctic_and_Antarctic.pdf
The real reason for below average Arctic Sea Ice values.
The article about the added costs of damage from Sandy due to sea level rise seems to be a bit of a stretch.
“To those who think that climate change is an abstract concept, one that might possibly affect their grandchildren in the far-off future, scientists at Climate Central have a ready response. They have calculated that sea level rise over the 20th century caused more than $2 billion in additional damage during Hurricane Sandy in New York City alone.
That additional damage can be attributed to largely human-induced climate change that has already occurred, says Scott Kulp of Climate Central.”
Further they say that 8 inches of sea level rise since 1900 is largely due to climate change.
Yet Jevrejeva et al 2008, showed sea levels began to rise in the late 1700s. Since some of that 8 inches since 1900 seems to have already been cooked into the cake with the rates pre-1900 and given the often repeated date of 1950 for the beginning of CO2 effects, a more logical calculation would be apportioning that 8 inches between CO2 induced and natural causes. And since some work has shown up to 25% of sea level rise can be attributed to groundwater abstraction, the actual damage from CO2 appears to be inflated over what the facts support.
WTI oil bounced up a bit this week on the weaker US dollar. The year-out contango is still around $10, putting downward pressure on prices. Inventories continue to build, the weekly build surpassing the expectations of analysts on a regular basis. Upside risks include instability in the oil producing countries of Venezuela and Brazil, hostilities in the Middle East, and OPEC.
11/27/14
OIL________68.92
BRENT______72.49
NAT GAS_____4.22
RBOB GAS____1.91
1/16/15
OIL_______48.69
BRENT_____49.90
NAT GAS____3.127
RBOB GAS___1.3588
1/30/15
OIL_______45.68
BRENT_____50.11
NAT GAS____2.684
RBOB GAS___1.3641
2/13/15
OIL_______53.17
BRENT_____61.53
NAT GAS____2.686
RBOB GAS___1.6192
3/7/15
OIL______49.61
BRENT____59.86
NAT GAS___2.839
RBOB GAS__1.8819
3/13/15
OIL______44.84
BRENT____54.60
NAT GAS___2.727
RBOB GAS__1.7623
3/20/15
OIL______46.57
BRENT____55.22
NAT GAS___2.786
RBOB GAS__1.7978
Barack Obama, speaking through his Organizing for Action website, says this:
There is something more than a little bit disingenuous about this plea from President Obama for help in fighting the Republicans over climate change issues.
Barack Obama manages the Executive Branch. The Environmental Protection Agency is part of the Executive Branch. The EPA has full authority under the Clean Air Act and the 2009 Endangerment Finding for carbon dioxide to legally regulate America’s emissions of greenhouse gases, and to enforce reductions in the emissions of those GHG’s which are sufficient to adequately mitigate the dangers to public health and the environment which are described in the Endangerment Finding.
By law, the EPA is the lead agency of government charged with determining what pollution reduction measures are appropriate for mitigating the dangers listed in the finding. The EPA is also responsible for developing and implementing the regulatory framework needed to enforce the necessary pollution abatement actions.
So far, President Obama and the EPA haven’t gone nearly as far as the law allows them to go in forcing significant reductions in America’s carbon emissions. The ball is in President Obama’s court to move forward on climate change, but he is not moving the ball with anything like the speed and determination necessary to achieve the levels of carbon emission reduction he claims are required.
The Obama Administration and the EPA have had five years in which to take aggressive actions in reducing America’s GHG emissions, actions which are much more aggressive than the ones the Administration actually chose to take.
Just what was it specifically the Republicans had done over those previous five years to prevent President Obama and the EPA from carrying out their assigned responsibilities under the Clean Air Act and the 2009 Endangerment Finding? What is it the Republicans could do now to prevent President Obama and the EPA from carrying out their assigned responsibilities, given that the President has veto power over any pro-carbon legislation the Congress might pass?
Pumping CO2 underground can help fight climate change. Why is it stuck in second gear?
There is no actual data that proves that CO2 causes any harm, only theory and Model output.
There is plenty of data that proves more CO2 does a lot of good for green things that grow. Don’t waste our CO2, let it help us.
It would be a waste of time and money to pump CO2 underground. If we ever succeed in reducing CO2 it will cause green things to not grow as well and it will require them to use more water. It will reduce the food supply for everything that depends on green things that grow. Mainly, because reducing CO2 is a stupid thing to do.
The petroleum industry pumps CO2 underground already.
New paper in Nature: An atmospheric origin of the multi-decadal bipolar seesaw
More good work from China.
New paper finds California drought is “mainly the result of (natural) variability in precipitation”
Another Chinese senior author. An instance of “cultural differencs”?
Given the fact that CO2 comprises only 1% of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere of this, the best of all possible worlds, doubling it will have no consequence whatever.
Jim percentages do not matter, potency of effects does. Please do not over egg your skepticism otherwise you risk egg on all skeptics faces
Water vapor is just as “potent” as you put it as carbon dioxide. From what universe does you physics originate? Certainly not this one.
Read the article:
http://klimaatgek.nl/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/broeikasgassen.jpg
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=nl&u=http://klimaatgek.nl/wordpress/2013/01/12/broeikastheorie/&prev=search
Even they acknowledge 1 C per doubling, but don’t say anything about what 1 C does to the water vapor content, which is the important part due to its prevalence as a GHG. By thermodynamics, water vapor increases about 6% per degree warming. This has an added greenhouse effect that this long article forgot about completely when talking about how important H2O is.
The increase in water vapor is a hypothesis, not a fact. In fact, the tropospheric hot spot hasn’t been spotted.
Looking at AR5, the global warming potential (GWP) isn’t calculated for water. The reason given is that water doesn’t have a life time in the atmosphere, so it isn’t listed in the GWP table of greenhouse gases. And as you point out, the role of water vapor is emphasized.
The omission of water vapor as a greenhouse gas from the list of greenhouse gases (as in the GWP table and the pie chart presented earlier), and the emphasis on water vapor as a feedback shifts focus from the fact that water is a powerful greenhouse gas at a concentration higher than carbon dioxide in most of the troposphere. When it is included in the mix of greenhouse gases, CO2 becomes only about 1% of the total of greenhouse gases. Of course, this will vary depending on local conditions, but on average, it is a mere 1% of the total.
Likewise, a doubling of CO2 will in no way double the IR energy down-welling from the troposphere.
The lack of discussion of water as a greenhouse gas and its contribution to the total greenhouse absorption/emission tends to over-inflate the effect of CO2 on climate.
“And as you point out, the role of water vapor is emphasized.” should have been “And as you point out, the role of water vapor as a feedback is emphasized.”
jim2, we are agreeing that water vapor is highly important in its greenhouse effect. Thermodynamics says that warmer water also leads to more water vapor, and we see that effect geographically with the amount of water vapor over tropical oceans compared to colder areas. Even a 1 degree increase leads to 6% more water vapor, which as a global average would be 250 ppm H2O from doubling (280 ppm extra) CO2. This is an important consideration that can’t just be ignored or denied.
I would rephrase that to say thermodynamics suggests that warmer water leads to more water vapor in the climate system.
For it is climate we are discussing and the phenomenon suggested by thermo is merely one part of the entire system. The system will respond to the extra energy in way other than an increase in water vapor. Specifically, the extra water vapor will form more clouds, which more quickly will transport that energy to space, which will in turn mute the effect of that extra water vapor.
You have to consider the entire system, not just bits and pieces like the doubling of CO2 will increase back radiation or higher temps lead to more water vapor.
The greenhouse gases are not just a small component of the climate system. They are a major driver with variations in GHG forcing now exceeding solar and volcanic variations which were the only main drivers of the global temperature before.
I said CO2 is a minor component of greenhouse gases, not that greenhouse gases didn’t affect climate.
It’s the changes. The changes in CO2 and other non-H2O GHGs have added a forcing near 2 W/m2 already, possibly on the way to 6 W/m2 unless something is done. These are not small forcing changes, and that is what counts. This can’t be belittled.
But like a governor on a steam engine, they can be mitigated by other mechanisms.
And, water vapor adds about 200 w\m2, so again the contribution from CO2 is washed out by that of water vapor.
jim2: Given the fact that CO2 comprises only 1% of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere of this, the best of all possible worlds, doubling it will have no consequence whatever.
What matters is the change in total CO2. Doubling CO2 concentration adds enough extra absorptive capacity to raise the global mean temperature, What is at issue is how much.
Jim D: By thermodynamics, water vapor increases about 6% per degree warming.
What increases 6% (Held and Soden say 7%) per degree is the water vapor pressure, and by extension the equilibrium specific humidity. What happens in the actual never-close-to-equilibrium atmosphere is only a matter of conjecture (based on models that are already known to be “running hot”). O’Gorman et al surveyed studies and found a range of estimates for the increase in rainfall rate, 2% – 7% per doubling, with the lower estimates from GCMs and the upper estimates from empirical studies. If the upper estimates prove to be accurate, then doubling the CO2 concentration from its present concentration will have little effect on surface temperature: much of the energy represented by the hypothetical surface increase will instead go into increasing the evapotranspirative transfer of heat to the upper troposphere.
How changes in non-radiative transfer of energy from surface to troposphere affect calculations of the change in surface temperature inducible by increased CO2 is mostly a neglected topic. A topic on which I have written a few notes here, at WUWT, and at RealClimate.
jim2: And, water vapor adds about 200 w\m2, so again the contribution from CO2 is washed out by that of water vapor.
Only if the water vapor changes in such a way that the effect of the water vapor change is to wash out the effect of the increased CO2. Warmists think that the change in water vapor will augment the effect of increased CO2. I think that the change in the hydrologic cycle will wash out most of the effect of increased CO2.
matthew. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that there will be no increase or decrease in water vapor with a doubling of CO2. So, the contribution of CO2 would move from 2 w/m2 to 4 w/m2, let’s say. The water already in the atmosphere, in the static scenario assumed, will STILL be ~ 200w/m2. The extra 2 w/m2 or even the entire 4 w/ms will be washed out by water vapor.
I know this is a stretch for some who haven’t considered water as simply a greenhouse gas, but there it is.
Matthew Marler, the hydrological cycle doesn’t prevent there being more water vapor over warmer water. It is just a more fueled cycle. It rains more heavily in the tropics and the air is moister there too. They go together, not compete.
Jim D: hydrological cycle doesn’t prevent there being more water vapor over warmer water.
So what? If the rainfall rate increases, that is an increase in the rate of transfer of energy from surface to upper troposphere. It constrains how much warming can be caused by increased CO2.
The increased warming of the troposphere by extra moisture is part of the negative lapse-rate feedback that is already accounted for. It only partially offsets the water vapor feedback and leads to the hot spot, if present. Some say it is not as strong as expected.
jim2: The extra 2 w/m2 or even the entire 4 w/ms will be washed out by water vapor.
Not so. The effects accumulate unless there is a change in the water vapor..
So matthew, you don’t believe 200 >> 4? If that isn’t the case, then I’m not following your argument. Please supply more detail.
JimD: The increased warming of the troposphere by extra moisture is part of the negative lapse-rate feedback that is already accounted for.
That is not true if the rainfall rate increases. The (approximate) lapse rate calculations depend on the counterfactual assumption that one equilibrium (which we do not have) will be replaced by another equilibrium (which will not happen).
The lapse-rate behavior quantifies the heating idea that you are trying to bring in. The tropical oceans generally have a moist adiabatic lapse rate anchored by the sea-surface temperature. If you are arguing that this CO2 change will change all of that too, you need to state it, because that is what everyone else is assuming.
JimD: If you are arguing that this CO2 change will change all of that too, you need to state it, because that is what everyone else is assuming.
First of all, I am asserting that the equilibrium calculations are not accurate for non-equilibrium conditions such as the wet and dry thermals that carry sensible and latent heat from the surface to the upper troposphere. When there is equilibrium, heat transfer ends.
What everyone else are you talking about? O’Gorman et al surveyed estimates that the rainfall rate will increase 2% – 7%. In addition to any equilibrium-based lapse rate estimate that “everyone” may be calculating, that can not occur without an increase in the rate of non-radiative energy transport to the upper troposphere. Such an increase in the non-radiative energy transport rate puts a bound on the surface warming to result from increased CO2.
If the downwelling LWIR increases by about 4 W/m^2, the surface temp will increase until the sum of all the upward energy transport processes equals 4 W/m^2. Those figures are aggregates over time and space divided by area; no equilibrium or steady-state is implied or assumed.
Matthew Marler, for the TOA energy budget it is not helped by having more lost by latent heat at the surface. The only way to reduce the TOA imbalance is to emit more at the TOA which is mostly achieved by a general rise in atmospheric temperature. Rainfall is a side issue because it does not help the TOA heat loss.
From “When it comes to science, conservatives are no more biased…” :
“Lessons for science communicators
We end with two important lessons for science communicators that come out of our study.
The first is that political journalism too often treats science like a political issue to be debated by non-experts in televised partisan theater. This type of media coverage about scientific issues often obscures the actual scientific evidence and consensus and unfortunately only deepens polarization by providing partisan cues for both conservatives and liberals.
Our study’s findings suggest that such intensive, polarizing media attention depresses the public‘s confidence in the scientific community for liberals and conservatives alike.
The second lesson is that that science communicators who target conservatives specifically as somehow uniquely deficient when it comes to understanding science turn the focus to a clash of ideologies and away from promoting communication that bridges ideological gaps about science issues—and yes we think such gaps can be bridged!
Demonizing a third of the population in science policy debates by claiming they have an insurmountable psychological deficit does nothing to promote a solution to the challenges of effective science communication—and unfortunately represents our human biases at work.”
We have to accept that everyone has multiple biases and that we are all susceptible to the same biases. Every educated person that wants to understand that should read Khaneman’s “Thinking Fast and Slow”. We need a shared vocabulary of bias to work together successfully.
Justin, wonder-ful
Speaking of Senator McConnell’s urging:
http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/02/25/0956797614563108.abstract
As we know, Obama has taken notice of Dr. Curry’s blog. One day, Obama notices (via the NSA) Joshua and Williard’s comments on double standards. Obama thinks he could use some help with his image on this topic and hires Josh and Willis as the Joint Czar on Double Standards.
… the Oval Office, the White House …
Obama: Come on in fella’s. I understand you have some recommendations for me.
J&W: Yes, your Majesty.
O: Please present your recommendations.
J&W: We note your, and the Democrat party’s, stance on gun control. This presents a problem for you because the Secret Service carries guns.
O: And?
J&W: It would look much better for you if the guns were replaced with pepper spray. This will make it very difficult for the NRA to argue against a gun ban.
O: Hmmmm … Well fellas, I appreciate your hard work. All I can think to say right now is that if you like your job, you can keep it. Thanks a lot. And oh by the way, throw me that pack of Marlboros and send in the Chief of Staff as you leave.
J&W: Yes, your Majesty.
[Jim & the Denizens] Please divert your course 15 degrees to the North to avoid a collision.
[The World Chorus] Recommend you divert YOUR course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision.
[Jim & the Denizens] This is the captain of a US Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course.
[The World Chorus] No, I say again, you divert YOUR course.
[Jim & the Denizens] THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN, THE SECOND LARGEST SHIP IN THE UNITED STATES’ ATLANTIC FLEET. WE ARE ACCOMPANIED BY THREE DESTROYERS, THREE CRUISERS AND NUMEROUS SUPPORT VESSELS. I DEMAND THAT YOU CHANGE YOUR COURSE 15 DEGREES NORTH. THAT’S ONE-FIVE DEGREES NORTH, OR COUNTER MEASURES WILL BE UNDERTAKEN TO ENSURE THE SAFETY OF THIS SHIP.
(AND WE OWN THE CONGRESS.)
[The World Chorus] This is a planet. Your call.
[Jim & the Denizens] Carbon Dioxide is a mere 1% of total “greenhouse” gases. So get the hell out of the way and STFU!
> Carbon Dioxide is a mere 1% of total “greenhouse” gases.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/CO2-trace-gas.htm
Wow, Willard. The material in the link doesn’t address my point at all. Tsk, tsk. You can do better … or … can you?
You had a point, jim2? I thought you simply threw a small number like a hasty gambler would.
Perhaps this, then:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/CO2-is-not-the-only-driver-of-climate-intermediate.htm
Ah, but that chart does not include tropospheric water vapor. That dog DOES bark!
One British MP has improved on RS observations:
https://rogerhelmermep.wordpress.com/2015/03/21/its-the-sun-wot-dun-it/
Re: Humor: Hamlet grant review: “Excellent consideration of null and alternative hypotheses in proposed soliloquy of Act III.”
LADY MACBETH. Yet here’s a spot. … damned spot! Out, I say!—One … OK, it’s time to do it now.—Hell is murky!—Nonsense, my lord …MACBETH. Act 5, Scene 1
A few things that caught my eye this past week.
Why do you not say?:
“A Lot of things caught my eye this past week or even before this past week and I did not get a chance to post it before now!”
This was, again, more than a few! Thank You!
But where’s Kim?
He had a really bad nightmare and practically froze to death.
Where is Robert Ellison?
Tonyb
For a while I thought maybe he taken a new name, but my #-1 suspect has been just way too polite for way too long to be the Chef Hydro.
Acting like the smartest guy in a room somewhere else would be my guess. Lucky us.
Alas! Alack1 Instead wall ter wall Willard,
arguments on the head f a pin. (
kim non-pareil where are yew?
beth
Do YOU understand what climate ball is? Sometimes I feel like I am stepping into a parallel universe when others assume that the slightest comment is some clever passage of play.
tonyb
tony,
serfs think THIS is climate ball. It’s not about science,
it’s about changing the world and ceding control to the
great leader/ expert / trust us / no we don’t need ter
show u our workings.
Beth
Is this the Climate Ball?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rover_(The_Prisoner)
In discussing it, are we being very clever and advancing our position whilst pretending to know nothing of the game?
tonyb
Games are jest ‘games’ Tony. Nassim Taleb warns us not
ter fall fer the ludic fallacy.
http://newgenerationsociety.com/2008/01/23/the-ludic-fallacy/
The peak cherry blossom bloom date indicator shows that global warming is missing the Jefferson Memorial Tidal Basin. This year, like last year and the year before are all later than average. Does this mean anything? Who decides that Arctic sea Ice is meaningful but other indicators are not?
Oh, and when the Arctic sea ice rebuilds what will the climate alarmists say then? They do know this could happen, right?
Cherry blossom …like crop records. Is this weather data?
Nah. jest anecdote, models do it oh so much betta.
A question to Dr. Curry:
in the piece “Speaking From the Heart, Climate Scientists Launch Personal Campaign” they say that the warming might exacerbate extreme weather events – like hurricanes.
Do you think this is correct? Do we know that some warming (whether man made or natural) is bound to exacerbate hurricanes ?
See my previous hurricane post, I will do another one Aug 2015 (10 years post Katrina)
http://judithcurry.com/2010/09/13/hurricanes-and-global-warming-5-years-post-katrina/
Thanks
A record high is climate, just like a record storm, a record flood, and a record drought. A record low is just weather, like everything else.
Joshua has gone into moderation; almost 9% of last 1000 comments. Willard is getting close
Thank you. Keep it up, as the science dialog so valued here has distinctly deteriorated, thanks to them.
let them create and moderate their own blog, and let them develop content that attracts readers.
Thanks!
Good – the blog is improved.
Thanks. Check the volume of JimD if you would too.
I don’t understand what you have against JimD. I often read his comments and while I don’t often agree, he is almost always civil, doesn’t resort to ad hominem or augment by authority. Similarly Nick Stokes.
What do you want, people to agree with you all the time? It’s precisely because of their comments that people have to better argue and justify their positions and they actually serve the purpose creating a discussion that fleshes out and often makes more convincing the arguments of those they are disagreeing with.
If you don’t have people to test your arguments against, to check your assumptions, to force you to clarify and substantiate, you’re argument risks being weak and not fully thought through. I’m sure you would agree with that.
I think JimD helps to create those discussions although I do think at this stage the arguments seem a little stubborn and forced. That might be tiresome for regular lurkers and commentators but I much prefer them to be there than not.
It’s not so much the content it’s the number of responses. A great many is commonly called spamming. JimD is a spammer. It is tiresome sorting though them all. The low quality nature of the mostly baseless assertions makes it worse of course.
Curry has a rule of thumb no more than 5% of responses should come from any one individual. Rules are rules.
> Curry has a rule of thumb no more than 5% of responses should come from any one individual. Rules are rules.
Jim2 has 36 comments on this page.
What’s 36/236, Big Dave?
I track total responses of the most recent 1000. Jim2 and Danny Thomas are coming close to 5%. I am more likely to flag people that have many lengthy posts, and that people seem irritated by.
To Danny,
Read more. Comment less!
FYI JimD is at 3% of comments. He is always civil, generally knowledgable; less likely to raise hackles.
“I don’t understand what you have against JimD. I often read his comments and while I don’t often agree, he is almost always civil, doesn’t resort to ad hominem or augment by authority. Similarly Nick Stokes.”
We need stubborn alarmists to remind us of how weak most of their arguments are. I value their participation.
Mixed reviews for me. I’ll take it.
IMO, you tend to focus more on science issues than personal attacks. And you don’t focus on hypocrisy,double standards, and the like; the legitimacy of which depend strongly on minute details that most of us don’t want to have to research. So, such accusations tend to stand unchallenged by fact.
The http://judithcurry.com/2015/03/20/week-in-review-49/#comment-685771 comment was directed toward Jim D.
> IMO, you [Jim D] tend to focus more on science issues
A few hours ago:
http://judithcurry.com/2015/03/20/week-in-review-49/#comment-685557
David Springer wants you moderated. Because he can’t deal with it. You’re easily one of the least-deserving-of-moderation commencers here. Reasonable people know that.
JCH & JimD,
Not sure if I qualify under the “reasonable” category, but I appreciate your view points.
You are exceptionally reasonable, Danny.
Unfortunately, all your base are belong to us.
JCH,
I said “view” points, not data points! :)
http://www.chroniclebulletin.com/politics/california-very-first-to-feel-hydro-power-crunch-of-drought-h6248.html
“We need to put a price on denial in politics.” @algore
A Democrat redefining democracy.
Curios, why not for a change not go from the specific the general. And just criticize Al the hypocrite for what he says, instead of indicting all Democrats. I am not one, but if I was not a rabid follower I woul cringe. Sort of like I cringe when prominent people, whom Inconsider “mostly on my side” say useless things
Al Gore is undoubtedly a Democrat. Technically he is only redefining a free speech – but that is an essential element of democracy. I agree with you that Democrats should be angry – with him, not with me. I am only a messenger.
Back in 2013, the UN Foundation hired 3 PR firms and former Al Gore spokesperson Kalee Kreider for a 2-year “climate change initiative” to tackle the “challenge” of climate science skepticism.
http://www.holmesreport.com/latest/article/un-foundation-calls-in-pr-firms-and-ex-gore-aide-for-global-climate-change-project
Their most recent project was March 20, when they brought some 1200 middle school kids to the UN to celebrate the UN’s International Day of Happiness by listening to hip hop singer and producer Pharrell Williams lecture them about climate change. “Protecting our planet is fundamental to the pursuit of human happiness,” Williams said. “…we have to transition from climate change to climate action.”
Get ’em while they’re young.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/pharrell-brings-happy-message-on-climate-change-to-u-n/
One of the ingredients missing in many advocacy positions, especially climate change and in the dietary link, dietary recommendations, are: facts. The much maligned Kraft cheese slice.
“Ingredients: milk, whey, milk protein concentrate, milkfat, sodium citrate, contains less than 2% of calcium phosphate, whey protein concentrate, salt, lactic acid, sorbic acid as a preservative, cheese culture, annatto and paprika extract (color), enzymes, vitamin d3. Contains: milk.”
I am really hard pressed to not see this packaged food as anything but food.
I think I hear the Crunchy Granola Crowd in the audience hooting and hollering claiming false advertisement and undo influence on dietitians. No wonder dietitians are confused. A maligned food is not food?
Welcome to the Green agenda game. Nothing but government certified natural ingredients and certified organic food labels will do. Of course this agenda is for those whose Whole Paycheck can be guided towards perceptions of better Health, attaining Utopia, and for those into Marijuana, “better things for better living through chemistry.
Makes a great grilled cheese.
Pingback: Sunday Jog Through The Climate Blogosphere | The Lukewarmer's Way
Dr. C, going through your list, it occurs to me that there seems to be too much effort on trying to explain individual weather occurrences, while we cannot even do a good enough job at the climate level. It’s as if we do not even have something like a Maxwell Boltzman concept nailed down and we are charting the trajectories of individual molecules
On any reasonable spamminess scale, Jim D doesn’t even get off the ground.
At fight club, we only talk about people we don’t like.
This one:
Sea Level Rise Added $2 Billion to Sandy’s Toll in New York City [link]
is junk science. Ignores subsidence, counts RSL rise from 1900, etc.
I did a little essay on this at WUWT — http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/19/from-the-scientific-urban-legend-department-agw-sea-level-rise-made-sandy-more-destructive/
Kip
Thank you for your excellent, in depth analysis.
I did a back of the envelope review of the article above.
I also threw in groundwater abstraction/impoundnents which have had a negative then positive influence on SLR per Wada and others.
Like many such articles, it seems the real intent is not to inform with facts and a balanced evaluation, but rather just to promote a scare tactic.
You made a nice reply to Frank on WWUT.
California’s Governor Brown on climate change and Republican skeptics such as Cruz today. This is just a clip, but from the full interview he is a climate realist, and expressed the mainstream view in a well informed way. Climate change is one of his priorities.
http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/california-governor-ted-cruz-unfit-be-running-n328046
Please keep jimmy dee around. He’s tedious and staunchly dogmatic in his obsessive defense of the cause, but an easy target. And if you like to entertain yourself by checking in on the left-looney shenanigans at huffpo occasionally, you can count on jimmy to drop their link for you, every hour or so. And compared with little joshie, jimmy dee ain’t so bad. JMVHO.
This talk (video)
Reto Knutti: Mysterious Models and Enigmatic Ensembles [ http://www.rotman.uwo.ca/reto-knutti-mysterious-models-and-enigmatic-ensembles/ ]
was fabulous — at just over an hour in length, I never would have seen it but for the coincidence of being confined to light duty for a few days after minor surgery.
Almost nothing important happens visually — you can listen to it while exercising – popping over to look at a slide once in a while.
Breaking news: Steve Goddard’s twitter account has been shut down by twitter.
https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2015/03/23/shock-news-eco-fascists-try-to-silence-skeptic/
Interesting. But I couldn’t really see a concrete reason for it. Was it his anti green views? His stridency? He can be very robust but that alone shouldn’t be a reason to do this.
Come on Willard, you are good at unravelling this sort of thing.
tonyb
I haven’t previously heard of twitter suspending anyone; maybe violence or pornography, but someone tweeting about temperature data? Really bizarre.
I’ve contacted Twitter a couple times because I saw him harassing people. In one case, he told a person blocking him wouldn’t matter because he would just create more and more Twitter accounts to flood the guy’s stream.
There is nothing bizarre about this. The reality is Steven Goddard behaves in horrible ways, and sometimes companies aren’t going to allow him to do so on their networks.
interesting, how does twitter thwart creation of new twitter acts by Goddard?
> [Y]ou are good at unravelling this sort of thing.
This kind of comment blows off your candid persona, TonyB.
There’s really no way Judith. There are some things they can do to try to stop him, such as IP bans and monitoring for similar activity, but there’s really no way to stop a person from signing up for an account with a service like Twitter.
The best Twitter can do is (maybe) take some steps to make it harder for him to sign up a new account then watch and see if similar problems arise in the future.
By the way, I forgot to mention a rather important detail about the time I remember him threatening to make multiple accounts to flood a guy. The tweets he was sending to the guy were all asking him if he suffered from certain medical/psychological disorders. Things like (paraphrased):
With “schizophrenic” replaced by something different in each tweet. I cannot believe people are actually defending this guy.
I hope his Twitter account gets un-suspended just so we can go back and look at all the tweets which prove he should be banned.
Breaking news! The guy I contacted Twitter about multiple times for harassing people had his Twitter account suspended! Because he harasses people! And openly states he will harass them! And taunts them about the fact he will harass them!
Breaking news! Twitter did something good but will now be smeared as censoring people because they stopped a vile bully from harassing people!