by Judith Curry
A few things that caught my eye this past week.
Congressional testimony follow up
Rep. Lamar Smith writes a WJS op-ed based on recent Hearing (where I testified: “When assessing climate change, we should focus on good science, not politically correct science.” [link]. On Friday, I was working with Rep. Smith’s staff who had been contacted by factcheck.org, will be interesting to see what they come up with.
The Australian has an article by Graham Lloyd: Judith Curry and other eco-realists say climate change action can wait.
Daily Caller: Skeptical climate scientist dismantles dem lawmakers’s alarm
Interesting comment from Andy Lacis about the Hearing, reproduced over at the Rabett’s place [link], which was apparently posted at CE but I can’t spot it.
U.S. politics
Vox: Obama’s Catch-22 on climate change [link]
Why Obama linked climate change to his daughter’s asthma [link]
Interview with EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy: “Climate Change Is Personal” [link]
Obama turns up heat on climate change debate in Florida.Could Obama’s use of Everglades as climate-politics backdrop could harm bipartisan conservation push [link] …
Republican Presidential candidate Jeb Bush Gets A Bit Heated Up By Carbon Dioxide; endorses UN Climate Treaty Process [link]
Policy analysis
I’m continuing to think about the Ecomodernism Manifesto, hope to do full post on this sometime in next few weeks. In the meantime, they have posted a whole series of responses to their Manifesto. Blair King introduces the concept of ‘Mannsplaining’; this is really funny.
“The Social Cost of Atmospheric Release (SCAR)” by Drew Shindell [link]
An easy way to make a quick dent #ClimateChange – Study Finds Low Cost in Reducing Methane Emissions [link]
It is time to re-think the fragile, imperfect international humanitarian system, [link]
Islands: Climate Victims or Champions of Resilience? [link]
WorldBank: Mobilizing the Billions and Trillions for Climate Finance [link]
Scientists set out eight ‘essential elements’ for UN climate deal [link]
Resilience, the ultimate sustainability: Lessons from failing to develop a stronger and safer build environment. [link] [link]
Excellent survey of climate change documentaries and dramas: Narrative of Climate Change Films | The New Republic [link]
International
Meeting of the Leaders Representatives at Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate [link]
India’s role in global #climate negotiations: moving beyond the rhetoric. [link]
Can Japan’s climate policy get back on track after Fukushima? [link]
Pope Francis forces the issue on climate change [link]
Climate Skeptics Descend on Vatican – Seek to Influence Pope on ‘Global Warming’ [link]
Energy
DOE’s proposed furnace efficiency rule will place prohibitive costs on low-income households. [link]
Obama wants billions to ‘modernize’ energy infrastructure [link]
Troubling Interdependency of #Water & Power [link]
New balance of power [link]
Head of the Most influential think tank, Agora Admits #Energiewende has Failed [link]
China Adds Solar Power the Size of France in First Quarter [link]
Benny Peiser’s GWPF (Global Warming Policy Foundation) has launched an investigation into the surface temperature adjustments: http://www.thegwpf.org/inquiry-launched-into-global-temperature-data-integrity/. Submissions are solicited. Y’all come.
My conjecture is that homogenization is a “majority rules” algorithm, which biases the adjusted temperatures in the warming direction simply because the majority happen to show warming. Given the concentration of stations in a few locations it does not follow that there actually is this much warming overall.
Well, I don’t have a stake in this.
But having observed beltway bandits for a while, government science returns what was requested by the RFP.
So the real solution is to put together a team to reproduce the NCDC adjustments who don’t believe in global warming, have a conservative outlook, and request they remove all traces of UHI from the record (because UHI isn’t “real” warming). If the NCDC adjustments are science they will get the same result. If the NCDC adjustments are just opinion our deniers will get something different.
If our intrepid adjusters happen to correlate with the satellite/radiosonde trend, we should fire the current government adjustment staffs and replace them with our new more competent alternative.
The mean of all monthly adjustments is 0.001
“The mean of all monthly adjustments is 0.001”
…but we do them anyway, because…
Andrew
If the adjustments are not significant why do them?
Non sequitur.
The goes Mosher being MEAN again.
Mosher: The graphic on the GWPF website suggests that the net adjustments are quite large, especially for recent decades. This seems inconsistent with such a tiny monthly mean. Can you explain this?
These guys should look at BEST first. The code and data are supposed to be open, although I’ve run into broken links in the past. Haven’t tried lately.
From the article:
…
London, 26 April 2015 – The London-based think-tank the Global Warming Policy Foundation is today launching a major inquiry into the integrity of the official global surface temperature records.
An international team of eminent climatologists, physicists and statisticians has been assembled under the chairmanship of Professor Terence Kealey, the former vice-chancellor of the University of Buckingham. Questions have been raised about the reliability of the surface temperature data and the extent to which apparent warming trends may be artefacts of adjustments made after the data are collected. The inquiry will review the technical challenges in accurately measuring surface temperature, and will assess the extent of adjustments to the data, their integrity and whether they tend to increase or decrease the warming trend.
…
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/04/26/inquiry-launched-into-global-temperature-data-integrity/
“If the adjustments are not significant why do them?”
1. Skeptics had a hypothesis that adjustments were fraud.
to test this we created a data driven adjustment process.
hypothesis busted. Many people such as yourself gave suggested
that we somehow hide this result. People were wrong about
fraud charges. that needs to be published.
2. while the mean is zero, the distribution of adjustments
over time and space leads to periods where the record is
cooled or warmed. To Stress test models against observations
to want to make sure that you look at spatial variation.
3. Offer people a choice: they can use our raw data or adjusted.
Freedom of choice is a good thing.
“Mosher: The graphic on the GWPF website suggests that the net adjustments are quite large, especially for recent decades. This seems inconsistent with such a tiny monthly mean. Can you explain this?”
why do you assume its inconsistent?
The simple fact is that adjustment codes ( at least ours ) tend to have mean adjustments that are very close to zero. So, the charges of fraud
are kinda laughable, but skeptics refuse to look at the data.
HOWEVER, the adjustments are not distributed evenly over space and time. Some places and times warm, some cool. The net effect isnt material to the larger questions of climate change. People dont get that the land is 30% of the total and further skeptics refuse to look at the fact that SST adjustments cool the record.
So, 70% of the record is cooled by adjustments and 30% is warmed a small amount. Of course you know which one has received 99% of the press. skeptics refuse to object to adjustments that cool the record and only want to look at those specific places and times when the land record is warmed. so much for objectivity. Now the GPWF has funded some scientific review. Their groupthink has them focusing on the wrong end of the stick. or better they should look at all of it, and not leave out satellite records which are adjusted by GCMs!
“skeptics refuse to object to adjustments that cool the record”
Complete fabrication.
Andrew
The mean of all monthly adjustments is 0.001
by definition and practice.
Let’s do the maths
70% of the record is cooled by adjustments and 30% is warmed a small amount
So the 0.1 degree estimated cooling of the oceans, and it is a pretty weak estimate if you go back even 3 decades but yes you do go back there.
Balances the 30% land warming?
But the land warming is up to 1 degree?
Hm, I would have thought that1/2 of 0.1 degree would be warming of 0.05 degrees for the land.
Wait, the algorithms must factor in a weighting of x20 because the sea has a greater heat uptake capacitance?
That 20 times fudge factor is worth it’s weight in gold
“skeptics refuse to object to adjustments that cool the record”
I do not think skeptics or warmists would notice 0.1 degree of cooling in the record as significant as to whether they step into the shower or not
The mean of all monthly adjustments is 0.001
Yes, we know , you have explained it +++.
But we are not talking about adjustments that balance using virtually imaginary ocean SST to that of the recorded land surface temperatures.
You admit that the land temperatures are adjusted upwards away from the raw data.
You cannot show that your need for balance exists. You have a data base of raw temperatures with lots of historical backup which show the temperatures were quite warm 50 and 100 years ago but you insist on knocking them out with a contrived “balance system”.
Worse you are unable to admit the facts or even talk about them.
You cannot say, in print,
Land Temperatures by BEST are a degree higher than raw 70 years ago.
You know it is true.
But you cannot say it.
“A small downwards adjustment to the land temperatures”
is your mumbled verbiage.
Well? spit it out.
Say “Land Temperatures by BEST are a degree higher than raw 70 years ago.”
and then add, “but I don’t care.” *
[* Simply as it is true but not relevant in your eyes]
I do not know what it means that the mean of all monthly adjustments is a thousanth of a degree, but given that we are talking about a period that is well over a thousand months long it sounds like the cumulative adjustments could be well over a degree in magnitude, which is roughly the total change in estimated temperature over the period.
My understanding is that BEST is unique among the area averaging surface statistical models in that it creates a continuous temperature field from the station data. Thus mathematically the number of interpolations is essentially infinite. The question is how much adjustment and homogenization does the field generating algorithm do?
“The mean of all monthly adjustments is 0.001.”
This is a content free statement. The mean of the adjustments tells you nothing. It just tells you that the adjustments average out over the whole series (if the figure is accurate).
I have no idea what the stats are, I just know to be careful when reading such a statement from the Climate, Etc. obscurantist-in-chief.
If you decrease the mean by 1 degree prior to 1940 and increase it by one degree after 1940, and the number of adjustments in the two periods are the same, you get a mean adjustment of zero. It all depends on the time and number of the adjustments. That way you get a mean adjustment of temps of roughly zero, while cooling the past and warming the present significantly.
You could adjust just a few temperatures over a century, and have a marked effect on the decadal average. You would just have to be careful that the number of adjustments + and – are roughly equal if you want a very small mean.
You could even use bigger adjustments of actual stations, then treat the krigged (faux) stations as unadjusted, but include them in determining the mean. There are all kinds of ways Mosher’s statement could be trivially true and still, shall we say, obscure the truth.
“This is a content free statement. The mean of the adjustments tells you nothing. It just tells you that the adjustments average out over the whole series (if the figure is accurate).”
1. It tells you that the underlying process is not skewed in any material
way.
2. The charges made by skeptics were the following
A) adjustments warmed the record
B) only warming adjustments were made
C) the bias toward warming adjustments was INTENTIONAL
and deliberate.
D) if it wasnt deliberate it was incompetent.
There are many stats you can look at, but getting some of the wild stupid charges made by cement headed conservatives and conspiracy “theorists” is important. Do yourself a favor and start policing the wack jobs in your community. Its simple, I i can stand up and call out mann and jones for their behavior, the least you can do is police some of the crap from your nut jobs.
There are two ways of looking at this.
1. It doesn’t matter. The CO2 driven warming is 0.24°C total so all the additional warming should be counted as non-GHG.
The non-GHG warming is 3 times the GHG warming. So there isn’t any reason to take any action on GHG.
The 0.23°C of CGAGW I count as “natural” warming”. It makes natural warming 3 times GHG warming instead of 2 times the GHG warming. The warmunists want the CGAGW counted as AGW. Too bad – they need to learn to live with disappointment.
2. It is fraud and there should be some firings.
The trend from 1900 to 2010 including the 1940s has been TOBed and homogenized and pasteurized for years.
So if I diff the trend for 1900 to 2010 next year and 1940 is lower or the trend is higher, that is fraud. No one went back in time to take more measurements.
If this year in year out trend shifting is challenged they say {insert random excuse here}. This problem is easy to solve. Appoint a commission to annually diff the data and if the 1900 to 2010 trend changes fire the people involved. It is dead data not a moving target.
The TOB and other changes can kind of be justified on a one time basis. However they can’t use IPCC parameterized GCMs as the basis for adjustment. However the slow mutation of the data year by year is different. It shouldn’t happen at all and it is easy to stop by law. The justification is their algorithm whatever whatever – it is software they can do it differently.
Mosher says:
1. It tells you that the underlying process is not skewed in any material
way.
Which is patently false. As Gary stated, one could deliberately adjust some years up and some years down a me still get this result. Note I’m not saying this was done, just pointing out that Mosher’s original statement is indeedcontent free. As is his follow up.
PA.
you simply don’t understand why the “past” data “changes”
1. we continue to ADD data that has been recovered. So for example
there was one month when 2000 different stations became available
this is OLD data of the PAST, that was formerly only on paper or
recording strips.
2. All global records ESTIMATE the past based on
A) past data
B) current data
So when you add new “old data” and add new “current data” both of those can work to influence the estimate of the past.
I will give you a simple example.
you have 3 stations in an area. Those stations are compared to see what kind of adjustments are warranted. Perhaps, one of them gets cooled a bit. Next month, somebody digitizes a old record and you have 4 stations
in that place. Well, since adjustments take notice of ALL the data, the adjustments to the past will change.
People dont understand this because they think that you average data to get a global average.
You DONT average temperatures to get an average temperature.
that is 101.
Mosher what you describe is exactly why I (and I suspect many others) find the concept of GMT so absurd. So tell me, what is the validation process for the temperature adjustments? Which measurements are considered the gold standards by which others are calibrated? What metrics are used to show that new additions to the data add precision or accuracy rather than removing? Where is the control data? When will the past be cast in stone? What is the physical meaning of the BEST output? It is clearly NOT a global average temperature series, correct?
Another question: what if one uses only temperature series that have continuous data back to 1900? Throw everything else away. What are the trends in each of these series? At least these have a physical meaning.
Steven
Unless I missed it, the question that Gary and Ken asked you were not answered with your A B C D answers. Gary’s intent was to know if the record prior to 1940 was cooled and the record after 1940 warmed. Your answers did not explicitly rule that out. You ruled out a lot of other possibilities but not that one. It requires a simple denial. No the past was not cooled and the newer records were not warmed. Easy peasey
“Which is patently false. As Gary stated, one could deliberately adjust some years up and some years down a me still get this result. Note I’m not saying this was done, just pointing out that Mosher’s original statement is indeedcontent free. As is his follow up.”
Once again the conspiracy nuts are let loose,
Have a look at our code. THERE IS NOTHING IN IT THAT CHANGES ADJUSTMENTS AS A FUNCTION OF TIME.
same goes for NCDC code.
when you know that the code cant and doesnt do this, then noting that the mean is zero tells you something.
Thankfully Roman M will be on the panel and hopefully he will
totally DESTROY once and for all the nut job right conspiracy driven GaryM wing of the skeptics.
The cool thing is that I have Roman Ms code for doing temperature series
hehe..
I’ve always thought that BEST was doomed for wingers because of its name. With a name like BEST, it was doomed to be a whole bunch like GISS. So I’m hoping they actually make a new series called WORST.
Then we will have the BEST and the WORST. But now I learn Roman may prevent them from actually producing the worst one, so it might not live up to its name.
“I’ve always thought that BEST was doomed for wingers because of its name. ”
JCH witches a profound connection. You should use some ideas like this to invest in the stock market. Bet you could retire in a month or two.
Me: “I have no idea what the stats are, I just know to be careful when reading such a statement from the Climate, Etc. obscurantist-in-chief.”
Ken Denison: “Note I’m not saying this was done, just pointing out that Mosher’s original statement is indeedcontent free. As is his follow up.”
Mosher: “Once again the conspiracy nuts are let loose.”
Once again Mosher diverts to avoid responding to the actual objection made. He can’t rebut what I wrote, because it is simple mathematics. So for pointing out the obvious, that a mean of adjustments tells you absolutely nothing about the accuracy of those adjustments or the motivations of those who made them. those who question his one sentence, laughably false defense, become conspiracy theorists.
Mosher makes the claim (implicit in his first comment) that “It tells you that the underlying process is not skewed in any material way.” I am glad he came right out and said this nonsense. Because that was my point.
No it doesn’t no matter how many time MNosher says it does, or how many other issues he raises, or how many typical ad hominems he engages in.,
But I do want to thank his for demonstrating again why he has earned the rank of Climate, Etc., obscurantist-in-chief. I can’t imagine anyone else expending so much energy defending a dumb, flatly false statement.
Oh wait, this is ‘climate science’, so it happens all the time. Never mind.
Steven
I made it incredibly easy for you to deny that the past was cooled and the recent records were warmed. I gave you a template answer to deny it. What did you do? You go off on a wild rant. Do you want a third try to answer this very simple question?
Repeat after me. Or just whack the conspiracy nuts again and demonstrate you don’t want to answer the question.
Don’t forget, some of these are the same folks that were absolutely convinced that the pollsters “skewed” the polling data prior to the 2012 presidential election.
Wow, heaven forbid one point out an error or ask a question. Guess I’ll just go check my conspiracy theories again.
Projection much Mosher?
Just can’t get any traction with those denials of adjustments on the instrument record making a significant difference, huh?
The problem, Steve, is that if the adjustments don’t matter then why do them? You continue to dodge the fundamental question raised by your knee jerk defense of instrument record adjustments.
Again, if the adjustments don’t make an significant difference then why bother with them? Non sequitur, buddy. It doesn’t follow. No one with a lick of sense would undertake the adjustments if they have an insignificant effect especially given the hit to credibility therein when raw data is pencil-whipped, The inevitable conclusion is that you are not viewed as a trustworthy reporter when it comes to ground instrument temperature record.
Here’s an overview of my submission to the Temperature Data Review Project.
I did a study of 2013 records from the CRN top rated US surface stations. It was published Aug. 20, 2014 at No Tricks Zone. Most remarkable about these records is the extensive local climate diversity that appears when station sites are relatively free of urban heat sources. 35% (8 of 23) of the stations reported cooling over the century. Indeed, if we remove the 8 warmest records, the rate flips from +0.16°C to -0.14°C. In order to respect the intrinsic quality of temperatures, I calculated monthly slopes for each station, and averaged them for station trends.
Recently I updated that study with 2014 data and compared adjusted to unadjusted records. The analysis shows the effect of GHCN adjustments on each of the 23 stations in the sample. The average station was warmed by +0.58 C/Century, from +.18 to +.76, comparing adjusted to unadjusted records. 19 station records were warmed, 6 of them by more than +1 C/century. 4 stations were cooled, most of the total cooling coming at one station, Tallahassee. So for this set of stations, the chance of adjustments producing warming is 19/23 or 83%.
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2015/04/26/temperature-data-review-project-my-submission/
Re the UN effort on a more resilient built environment – probably more important is the publication tomorrow of NIST’s Draft Community Resilience Planning Guide. NIST has done a nice job of listening to all of the stakeholders as they put together a framework that will guide their work in making the built environment more resilient. It will be open for further comment for 60 days.
Thanks John, do you have a web link for this?
NIST to Launch Review of Resilience Planning Guide at Houston Workshop, April 27, 2015
Release of Draft Community Resilience Planning Guide for Public Comment
Community Resilience Planning Guide
thanks for these links
Pingback: Week in review – policy and politics edition | Enjeux énergies et environnement
This was Andy Lacis’s comment at CE. Few noticed because his handle was alacisgiss.
http://judithcurry.com/2015/04/19/week-in-review-politics-and-policy-edition-2/#comment-695448
In 2006 Phil Jones admitted he had substantially underestimated natural variability when looking at the extremely warm decade of 1730 which came to a halt in the brutal winter of .1740.I suggest that Andy has also done the same.
Tonyb
According to the Patrick Brown paper posted yesterday, current estimates of natural millennial variability including the sun and volcanoes is +/-0.2 C in the 95% range. 1940 was already at the top of this range and we added more than 0.5 C since that on top of that. It doesn’t look natural at all at this stage.
Jim D | April 26, 2015 at 11:42 am | Reply
This was Andy Lacis’s comment at CE. Few noticed because his handle was alacisgiss.
http://judithcurry.com/2015/04/19/week-in-review-politics-and-policy-edition-2/#comment-695448
I have always contended CO2 causes some warming. Looking at surface EM from a queuing standpoint makes that obvious.
Global warming has two factual weaknesses:
1. The real forcing is 1/3 the IPCC expected level. The forcing levels set by the IPCC and used by models have no effect on the actual planet. Earth seems unaffected by IPCC decisions on TSR and ECS..
2. The CO2 level will likely top out under 500 PPM.
Claiming that skeptics deny CO2 causes warming or that CAGW is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on humanity etc. are red, grey, speckled, blue, purple or some other color of herring.
CAGW is a lousy hoax, incompetently presented, without a solid basis in fact.
In reading Andy Lacis’s article, I have a layman’s question. Is there a modern history of the oceans’ temperature that most climate scientists generally accept? Here at CE we seem to focus only on modern land temps.
Here are previous posts on SST datasets:
http://judithcurry.com/2011/06/29/critique-of-the-hadsst3-uncertainty-analysis/
http://judithcurry.com/2012/03/15/on-the-adjustments-to-the-hadsst3-data-set-2/
http://judithcurry.com/2011/06/27/unknown-and-uncertain-sea-surface-temperatures/
http://judithcurry.com/2013/11/13/uncertainty-in-sst-measurements-and-data-sets/
HadSST is generally regarded as ‘best’
However there are vast regions of Pacific and Southern Ocean where the SSTs are unreliable prior to 1980’s, and these regions have almost no data prior to 1920’s
Stephen
Tony, on a previous post, IMO, convincingly answered this in a previous post. Sea levels are dependent on many factors that vary from shore to shore; there can be no accurate measurement for a global sea level rise.
Richard
Stephen
Sorry. Although correct, I gave the wrong answer. However Tony has also commented previously on the inadequacy of SST measurements prior to about 1980.
Richard
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/HadSST2_bar.png
Well, the confidence interval claimed for the sea surface temperature isn’t what I would expect.
Whole ocean 0.1°C accuracy? I’m not very sciency – but it doesn’t look right….
“Interesting” is not the word I would have chosen.
Along with the usual swipes at politicians and experts who disagree with him concerning the likelihood of catastrophic near-term impacts of global warming, Lacis makes the equally predictable references to Sandy and Katrina.
I’ve yet to see objective evidence that tropical storm/weak hurricane Sandy had anything to do with global warming. The time (full moon/Spring tide) and place (New York Bight) greatly enhanced the storm surge of Sandy. The estimated increase in sea level due to human-induced warming was essentially irrelevant. Landfill areas of New York City and shoreline communities in New Jersey that had bulldozed their protective dunes were hardest hit. There may be lessons to learn from Sandy, but they have nothing to do with global warming.
Similarly, Katrina and the flooding of New Orleans had nothing to do with global warming. The reasons for levee system failures included improper design, poor maintenance, construction atop sand, etc. Coupled with regional subsidence and manmade canals opening channels to storm surges, spending more money might not have hurt, but there is no guarantee it would have helped.
After his misleading references to Sandy and Katrina, Lacis rhetorically asks:
This argument reminds me of the doomsday images employed by war hawks in the pre-Iraq invasion Bush administration. If this is the sort of thinking that typifies NASA GISS, perhaps we should redirect its funding toward building more levees.
Well the main issue wrt sea level rise is how much of this is actually attributed to warming (whether or not the warming is natural or human caused.) I doubt that much sea level rise can be prevented by current plans to reduce fossil fuel emissions. In many locations, land use and geological processes substantially dominate the local sea level rise. Personally I’m in favor of the garbage solution http://judithcurry.com/2012/12/20/20th-century-mean-global-sea-level-rise/, should work well esp for New York City.
Gavin said this in the infamous non-debate on John Stossel’s show. (at about 3 minutes in)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V96k4BO2sBw
“We have built a society, an agricultural system, and cities and everything we do based on assumptions that basically, the climate is not going to change. The fact that we have so much infrastructure right near the shore is because we didn’t expect the sea level to rise. The damage that we had from hurricane Sandy was increased because sea level has increased by 10 -12 inches in this area.”
Aside from the fact that Gavin has no apparent expertise in a scientific discipline which would be useful in answering the question, why do humans build really big cities right next to the water. He gets it completely wrong. The reason we build cities by the ocean is the huge benefits the oceans offer. And we endure the relentless battering of the sea because it is worth it. And who assumed that the climate is not going to change
These are the kinds of ridiculous notions that get hidden behind the facts of climate change. Sure CO2 is a greenhouse gas but this whole societal view is silly. And when he goes with 10-12 inches, how much is attributed to humans?
“We have built a society, an agricultural system, and cities and everything we do based on assumptions that basically, the climate is not going to change. The fact that we have so much infrastructure right near the shore is because we didn’t expect the sea level to rise.” That would be under the category of personal responsibility. That CO2 emissions should be reduced to protect people who took risks locating where they did is subsidizing risk. If someone wants less risk, they should pay for it or adapt. My office is on a small 140 acre lake within a 1000 acre sub watershed. It all exits though a roughly 2 x 3 foot culvert. I believe the watershed district employee said they observed a maximum flow of 14 cubic feet per second last year after some heavy rains. I watch the ditch and culvert entrance and keep them clean. With extreme rainfall, it’s possible my parking lot would wash out as my lake attempts to get to Lake Minnetonka. That’s a risk I am comfortable with. The situation is complicated by the fact that I don’t own the lake or the outflow ditch arguably increasing my risk.
The storm surge level on Manhattan was 13.88 ft during Sandy. The Tidal gauge at NYC Battery Park, on the southern tip of Manhattan, shows a sea level trend since 1856 of 2.88 mm/yr. So the sea level has risen at the rate of 11 inches a century for the last 160 years at this location and AGW is to blame for the damage? Regardless of attribution, the 13.88 ft storm surge dwarfs the baseline level of the water. If you want to go halfzies and say 5.5 inches for the last century comes from AGW, the logic becomes even more bizarre.
When are the protagonists going to catch on that they destroy their credibility when such ridiculous arguments are put forth.
Ragnaar –
==> “That CO2 emissions should be reduced to protect people who took risks locating where they did is subsidizing risk. ”
What would you suggest as the alternative, at this point in time? Just go ahead and let those risks play out as they will? Arguing about whether we can effectively mitigate those risks is one thing. Saying that the larger society is going to somehow be exempt from the fallout of poor risk assessment of individuals who made bad decisions – on some principle of not subsidizing risk – is another. We’re talking about the potential of impact on a massive scale.
Do you suggest policy along the lines of saying to the residents of Miami: “Hey, you shouldn’t have made assumptions of stable sea levels in the first place and you had time to move or adapt anyway, so you’re on your own.”
Would that be comparatively more beneficial to the larger society than evaluating whether the risk might be mitigated on a more collective basis?
Consider Nepal, where reports are now that an earthquake of this magnitude was predicted and that while efforts in preparation were made in some cases, in many cases nothing was done. Is Nepal better off now for not having made short-term sacrifices to mitigate long-term risks? Is it relevant to look at the changes in wealth disparity over the past decades in Nepal and to consider what might have happened if more poor Nepalese were put to work building infrastructure, and hence “subsidizing risk?”
What exactly are the “current plans” that you are referring to? What I see happening is individual countries to committing to a certain amount of emissions reductions and then implementing their own “plan” to achieve those reductions.
What is funny about sea level rise is that people with money built structures that cost a lot of money to replace. Prior to that most folks built fish camps aka a shack or two or beach cottages aka a shack or two. Most of the third world does the the same “camp” and “cottage” thing but now they are considered slums or some such by the people with money that build the soon to be junk in floodplains and have their hands out to the government when their soon to be junk becomes junk.
Down here in Florida a million dollar “home” can be a shack with a view. 90% of the value is in the land and view but the guys with money want the shack owner to insure the total value of the property not just the shack. So the shack owners get run out by regulations and construction codes that require building more expensive but still soon to be junk.
http://porkysbaysidebbq.com/photos/night.jpg
That is a now multimillion dollar shack. It was never built to any reasonable construction code and most of it was never permitted because it was built before permits were required. The total cost to remove and rebuild that structure to its original condition sans carpenter ant damage would be about 20k. That place was under about 6 foot of water during Wilma btw and took about ten days to get back into business. I believe it has survived about two dozen cat 2 and 3 hurricanes and been flooded about five times.
A cat five should produce about a 20 foot storm surge which would reduce the removal cost quite a bit :)
+1
Of course, I wonder why beach front property is so expensive if it is so threatened by AGW induced sea level rise.
To see the sort of reclaimed land/landfill that has taken place in the New York City area, you can view things like the Viele Map of Manhatten (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egbert_Ludovicus_Viele#Viele_Map) or the 1912 map of Fresh Kills at the NYC Parks website. (http://www.nycgovparks.org/park-features/freshkills-park/about-the-site)
When compared to something like the CoreLogic map of storm surge risk in the larger area, you can see a remarkable overlap of storm risk and reclaimed/landfill areas around the region. (http://gpsworld.com/corelogic-analysis-shows-top-25-zip-codes-in-new-york-city-area-at-risk-of-property-damage-from-hurricane-sandy-storm-surge/ )
Obama and his new BFF Bill Nye
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/obama-bill-nye-climate-deniers
I feel like I need a shower every time I see Nye.
jim2, does this mean you are a deNyer?
YES! I love it!
It was a tough choice to figure out who the official public spokesperson on climate science would be, but when the professor from Gilligan’s island died last year, they decided to go with their second choice Bill Nye.
If not for the courage of the fearless crew, the minnow would be lost…
Yessiree, back in the day professors could actually do stuff.
It was an excellent example of how we could easily live without fossil fuels. No phone, no lights, no motor cars not a single luxury…
A comment regarding the house bill to revamp US research policy:
The bill was passed by the house committee on 4/22 and now goes to the full house. IMO it will pass the house and the research aspect will be overshadowed by the 2/3 cut in renewable energy expenditures. I believe the cut of that magnitude involves a political strategy; when the bill gets to the Senate there will be a negotiation, the cut will be reduced, and both sides can claim victory.
From North Dakota to Texas is windmill alley, and red dominates. It will be interesting.
Why Obama linked climate change to his daughter’s asthma [link]
The GRIST article by Nick Stockton reflects the type of reporting, the deliberate leaving out of the most relevant information, that leads me to disbelieve anything he may say. He speaks of environmental fine particulates (<2.5 microns) which can emanate from coal fired electrical plants without scrubbers, diesel engines, and cement factories. The trouble is, Illinois, where his family lived and played until Obama's Presidency, generates most of its electrical power from nuclear; i.e., no fine particulates. At least one half the source of fine particulates are "natural": sea spray. This piece by Stockton. What a deliberate piece of….Hmmm, calm down now.
What is relevant, President Obama was/is a self proclaimed cigarette smoker, at least until told by his doctor to stop cigarette smoking around 2010. The time before his public declaration of stopping smoking co-incides with his wife's pregnancy, Malia's newborn and early life and more likely than not, really 40% increased risk to developed asthma from her father's cigarette smoking.
From Mayo Clinic: "Secondhand smoke poses additional risks for children, who are especially vulnerable to the effects of secondhand smoke. Problems include:
Low birth weight. Exposure to secondhand smoke during pregnancy increases the risk of low birth weight.
Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).
Secondhand smoke increases the risk of SIDS.
Asthma and respiratory illness. Secondhand smoke increases the risk — and severity — of childhood asthma.
Secondhand smoke also causes chronic coughing, phlegm and wheezing.
Infections. Children who live with people who smoke are more likely to develop bronchitis and pneumonia."
Reading from the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (AAAAI) web site hand-out material: "Asthma is a life long condition." So Malia hasn't outgrown her asthma and her school asthma attack is nothing out of the ordinary.) Laughing and playing can precipitate an asthma attack.
I don't know if Obama is guilt ridden by his likely participation in Malia's developing asthma; however, deliberately blaming other less likely causes to the exclusion of his own culpability is really deliberate disinformation.
I think I have been on this soap box before and now again, so I should probably step down, at least for a while.
WorldBank: Mobilizing the Billions and Trillions for Climate Finance [link]
They must have not heard of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Still, it is good to read that an authoritative source using “trillions” in the plural.
The comment (really a lecture) by Andy Lacis has a lot of words and takes a lot of space and seems to conclude that we need to really understand what is going on with climate and human emitted CO2’s contribution before we make hard decisions.
No argument from me on that.
Postpone the Paris meeting for about 10 years.
This is amusing. The consensus meme has worked so well for the climate alarmists that it is being adopted by the desperate gun control clowns. News on the gun scientist consensus:
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-hemenway-guns-20150423-story.html
“One of the reporters I complained to said that he had covered climate change for many years. He explained that journalists were able to stop their “balanced” reporting of that issue only when objective findings indicated that the overwhelming majority of scientists thought climate change was indeed happening, and that it was caused by humans.”
I didn’t know we had gun scientists. Of course, there is a big consensus gap between the gun scientists and the public. They are having a hard time convincing the man in the street that places where anti-gun laws are strictest are safer. My theory is that reality is what’s causing the gap between the gun scientists and the public. The man who is actually in the street sees it and the gun scientists don’t get out much.
Gun Control . . . Again.
Thanks for the article. It represents a new political attempt at gun control by a person claiming to have science on his side. He does not. There is little work truly scientific on gun control, but there many academics pretending to be scientists funded by control advocates.
I give an example of the material that passes for peer reviewed science and my comments at: http://www.mcrkba.org/JHU_Study.pdf (‘Analysis of the Johns Hopkins University Study Entitled Effects of Maryland’s Law Banning “Saturday Night Special” Handguns on Homicides’, Philip F. Lee, 3/10/02). Among the many “mistakes” made by the JHU authors was the fundamental one of using the wrong data for their analysis. In the years since being directly informed of his paper’s errors, I’ve seen no correction by lead author Daniel W. Webster.
Gun study science does not exist for the most part — it is mostly corrupted by money from control advocates with a political agenda.
Business/government buggers the rest of us. Alinsky anyone?
From the article:
…
In 2012, the Center for Technology Innovation at Brookings hosted a forum on STEM education and immigration reforms, where fabricating a crisis was discussed as a strategy to succeed with Microsoft’s agenda after earlier lobbying attempts by Bill Gates and Microsoft had failed. “So, Brad [Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith],” asked the Brookings Institution’s Darrell West at the event, “you’re the only [one] who mentioned this topic of making the problem bigger. So, we galvanize action by really producing a crisis, I take it?” “Yeah,” Smith replied (video). And, with the help of nonprofit organizations like Code.org and FWD.us that were founded shortly thereafter, a national K-12 CS and tech immigration crisis was indeed
…
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/15/04/25/2219209/think-tanks-how-a-bill-gates-agenda-becomes-a-law
Don’t forget the departure for Rome of the Heartland Institute’s Pilgrimage of Grace
Somebody’s got to do it.
From the article:
…
“Eight Great Myths of Recycling” exposes the errors and
falsehoods underlying much of the rhetoric in support of man-
datory recycling. Daniel K. Benjamin points out that recycling
has always been one way of dealing with waste products, but
that Americans have lost their perspective on waste disposal.
The goals of reduce, reuse and—especially—recycle have
become the only acceptable ways of disposing of trash.
Benjamin’s essay show why this view is based on misconcep-
tions of mythic proportions.
Benjamin is professor of economics at Clemson Univer-
sity and a senior associate of PERC—the Center for Free Mar-
ket Environmentalism. He heads PERC’s graduate fellows pro-
gram and is a regular contributor to PERC Reports with his
column “Tangents—Where Research and Policy Meet.”
Benjamin’s most recent book is The Economics of Public Is-
sues (2003), written with Roger Leroy Miller and Douglass C.
North.
This essay was stimulated by a popular series of lectures
given by Benjamin at teachers’ workshops sponsored by
PERC and the Foundation for Teaching Economics. It is part
of the PERC Policy Series, which includes short, readable
papers on environmental topics. The papers are edited by
Jane S. Shaw and produced by Dianna Rienhart. Mandy-Scott
Bachelier is in charge of design. This and other papers in the
series are available from PERC on its Web site, wwww.perc.org.
…
http://www.perc.org/sites/default/files/ps28.pdf
Saw that. Partly agree and partly disagree. Aluminum can recycling, no issue. 95% stored electricity. Steel scrap recycling generally, sure. (Steel cans, more dubious because of the tin content, but probably.) Glass depends on energy prices. Only about 25% the energy to recycle cullet compared to making new glass. But glass is not a uniform thing. Colors alone are a problem. So ups major sorting cost. And ups trans costs since glass is hollow until crushed after sorting. Plastic, depends on the price of oil and gas precursors. There are six basic plastic types. Maybe two make sense recycling at $100/bbl equivalent. (Polar fleece is made from recycled milk jugs.) Paper, after deinking cost, hardly ever makes sense. Nice biofuel, though. Maybe we can sell it to UK’s Drax?
OBama’s Everglades appearance was ironically symbolic. I live about 10 miles from its eastern edge. And that symbolizes the real problems. dyking lake Okeechobee to prevent another hurrican induce flood disaster that killed thousands in Belle Glades, a city that should never have been built where it was. It was because laborers were needed for the vast sugar cane farms immediately to Okeechobee’s south, drained by canals to the sea, because folks erroneously thought the Everglades was a swamp and not a wide, shallow river flowing south from Orlando. Stupidity piled on stupidity.
Just like CAGW.
And, neither the US government nor Florida has come up with the money to buy back enough sugar cane land to re-establish the natural flow corridors that Crist negotiated and the sugar companies agreed to. THAT should have been the text of his Earth Day speech. That it wasn’t tells you everything you need to know.
Interview with EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy: “Climate Change Is Personal”
Our leaders are clueless zealots, corrupt hypocrites, and vapid morons. How does a country destroy itself. Gradually at first, then suddenly. (Thanks to E. H. and The Sun Also Rises.)
I fear the suddenly phase is looming. If the corrupt Clintons manage to sleaze their way back into the White House again, that just might do it
Originally, the States were to elect Senators. That should have never changed.
EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy: “Climate Change Is Personal”
No, it isn’t.
But, statements like this aren’t surprising, cluelessness seems to be a contagious disease at the EPA.
Unfortunately it seems you can’t get them to pull their head out. Only a RIF (reduction in force) to remove the infected and a limited rehire action (they have too many people now) will solve the problem. But cutting the EPA budget would be helpful.
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03281/eia_shale_3281462a.PNG
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/11563761/US-to-launch-blitz-of-gas-exports-eyes-global-energy-dominance.html
The science is clear:
Our President is a cool dude.
Even cooler:
Don’t know when the cut-off is for posting all these links, but here is a late entry from April 26 about an evaluation of temperature discrepancies commissioned by the Global Warming Policy Foundation:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/11561629/Top-scientists-start-to-examine-fiddled-global-warming-figures.html (News article)
http://www.tempdatareview.org/ (Foundation project detail)
My personal and professional view is that that a preliminary or a final report will appear a month before the Paris climate treaty meeting later this year.
George Devries Klein, PhD, PG, FGSA
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/23/business/energy-environment/new-balance-of-power.html?ref=energy-environment&_r=0
Was 2008 the year George Bush finished his term as US President? The USA and the whole world owes an enormous vote of thanks to George Bush and Dick Cheney for this. What a pity so many on the Left want to avoid acknowledging their role in making this possible – with policies that are the direct opposite of those advocated by Democrats.
If the Democrats had not blocked drilling offshore and in a number of other places this would have happened a lot sooner.
What is really galling is Obama taking credit for low gas prices that he and the other Hypocrats were trying to drive skyward. Can’t have cheap energy – that would make uncompetitive renewables look like the stupid investment that they are..
JC has posted some interesting links this week.
> Was 2008 the year George Bush finished his term as US President?
Twas also the year the Detroit Red Wings win the Stanley Cup.
Another remarkable thing happened:
Op. Cit.
Not sure if it’s more relevant than the Red Wings or W.
I’d attribute the Red Wings win to the excellent polices of the Bush Administration too :)
Another quote :
Is that the result of W’s policies too?
Willard,
That’s the market operating as it should. Did you read the post. I think what has happened is excellent for the world, and I am surprised that a wise guy like you can’t acknowledge it.
BTW, my answer to your question in your previous comment is emphatically ‘YES’.
Bush and Cheney gave the industry confidence they could invest in the RD&D and they would not be continually jerekd around by policiticans, and bureaucrats thinking they knew bewteer than the industry waht was needed to develop the industry – unlike waht Obama’s Administration has done repeatedly. Bush and Cheney had a long background in the oil industry. They understood what the industry needed – i.e confidence they would not be jerked around. they needed confidence there would be no surprises on them once they’d statrted investing. they needed stability of regulations and removal and freeing up of regulations where appropriate.
Bush and Cheney understood what was needed – it was confidence, stability and appropriate deregulation, not more regulation.
Contrast Bush’s oilfield with Obama’s Middle East. Obama’s legacy rolls a bloody trail on the beaches there.
It was bound to fail as rationalists have been advising for the past 25 years of more.
Denmark and Germany have the highest proportion of wind and solar in EU. They also have the highest electricity prices and near the highest CO2 emissions intensity of electricity in EU. Go figure!.
I’d suggest reading the article more carefully.
The article – basically an interview of Graichen – is a blockbuster.
Specifically – it notes that the Energiewende was created to replace coal power plants with renewables, but the actual effect is to force out natural gas plants. The mechanism is that the coal plants are cheaper as well as more costly to start/stop, so it is overall more profitable/less expensive for the operators to keep the coal plants running and shut down the natural gas plants due to the effects of renewables completely screwing up the open market for electricity via massive price and supply changes.
He also notes that not only is this happening in Germany, but that the interconnectedness of the European power systems mean that German oversupply of renewables will do the same to neighboring countries.
Or in other words: the cheap cost of coal fired electricity plus the legal mandate of nuclear power shutdown plus the electricity spot market effects of renewables pushes natural gas out of the mix completely!
Some other blockbuster data points: 71 hours last year in negative electricity prices with possibility of this increasing to 1000 (!) hours a year.
I’d note that this particular scenario is not what anyone (except possible Planning Engineer) foresaw.
Graichen also explicitly calls out the renewables lobby as being no less powerful and self-interested as the nuclear lobby.
I am impressed by this even-handed slaying of sacred cows – it displays an intellectual integrity which is rarer and rarer these days.
The fact is that renewables have totally failed to achieve the proimises. germany has the near the highes electricity proces in EU and near the highest CO2 emissions intensity. In contrast, the countries with a high proportion of nuclear have the lowest prices and lowest emissions intensity.
Furthermore, Germany has recognised it’s in deep trouble and is building ten new large coal fired power stations. It’s emissions are increasing.
Thems are simply the facts. That’s what honest analysis and reporting, without spin, would tell you with no frills.
Look at slides 10 and 14 here: http://canadianenergyissues.com/2014/01/29/how-much-does-it-cost-to-reduce-carbon-emissions-a-primer-on-electricity-infrastructure-planning-in-the-age-of-climate-change/
> The fact is that renewables have totally failed to achieve the proimises.
Yet Greichen still believes in them:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-24/solar-track-becoming-cheapest-energy-source-agora-energiewende/6251322
The new Lomborg Collective Consensus Center may provide the lacking concept soon enough.
Stay tuned.
This is kind of interesting:
http://www.agora-energiewende.org/topics/the-energiewende/detail-view/article/trendwende-in-der-energiewende/
This is also kind of interesting:
http://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/sharp-drop-german-emissions-sign-energiewende-turnaround-think-tank
Joshua, “This is also kind of interesting”
Right, they are starting to get a handle on emissions with close to 40 cents per kwh paid by residential customers while corporations get a healthy discount. Understand?
They can get a better handle on the situation by letting the coal plants run at maximum efficiency by giving corporation excess energy, say by having a concrete or steel manufacturer adjust production to load balance.
No problem, in the US we just have you and your fellow residential electric customers pay four times as much so Walmart and Georgia Pacific get free electric. We can do the same thing for transportation fuels. Make fuel out of sea water for $5 bucks a gallon, charge commuters $10 bucks a gallon and subsidize UPS and other freight companies.
Oh wait, that would require eliminating the current income tax structure, replacing it with a VAT system and adding a 20% import fee on everything also made in the US. Then downsizing the US by getting rid of all of the less productive states.
Wait, doesn’t the US have a number of states that can do their own thing based on their own needs and resources provided they stay within the limits of the the clean air act? All we need to do is get the EPA to emulate Germany’s coal use standards.
Cap’n –
What is the per capita expenditure on residential energy in Germany? What are the factors that go into determining that number?
What is your opinion of the head of the leading think tank saying that:
Also, do take a look at the publication dates in the different articles.
My point of interest is how smart people use information, selectively, in ways that confirm their biases and simplify complex dynamics . I mean smart, knowledgeable people, who in many cases know very well how to approach the complicated process of understanding causation in with very complex mechanisms. It gets even more interesting when those folks self-identify as “skeptics.”
Know what I mean?
Joshua, “My point of interest is how smart people use information, selectively, in ways that confirm their biases and simplify complex dynamics ”
As it should be, now try some introspection.
The trolls try to right the sinking ship, sadly, the article they quote also notes that overall energy consumption is the lowest since 1990, and electricity consumption dropped 3.6 percent year on year.
Thus the lower carbon emissions had nothing to do with the cleanliness of renewable electricity and everything to do with the outrageous prices resulting from it.
It would have been cheaper, however, to just institute a 100% tax on all energy rather than go through the rigmarole of pretend alt-e efficiency.
Joshua | April 27, 2015 at 11:29 am |
Cap’n –
What is the per capita expenditure on residential energy in Germany? What are the factors that go into determining that number?
…
My point of interest is how smart people use information, selectively, in ways that confirm their biases and simplify complex dynamics . I mean smart, knowledgeable people, who in many cases know very well how to approach the complicated process of understanding causation in with very complex mechanisms. It gets even more interesting when those folks self-identify as “skeptics.”
Know what I mean?
It is one of those things. Sensible people realize that we need to deploy nuclear and research clean cheap renewable technologies. Unfortunately AGWers aren’t sensible.
The AGW crowd make the dishonest claim that a plant nutrient is dangerous (more plant growth is bad for some reason). They use this flawed and dishonest claim to justify deploying “early adopter quality” expensive and dirty renewables.
Without the pseudo-justification of AGW, German’s energy policy looks crazy.
Notice the selective interest in Graichen’s views. Their value as authoritative seems to ebb and flow.
When I first read the article that Judith linked, I thought it was interesting. It added perspective. And it looked pretty important w/r/t evaluating the costs and bennies of Germany’s energy policies. Pretty devastating when looked at in a particular light. I also thought that the piece looked a little simplistic. Maybe there was more there than what met the eye? It looked kind of slanted in one direction. Not particularly comprehensive. But I didn’t think a whole lot about it. I thought that there’s probably more to the story, I thought that I knew nothing of the dude whose opinion was being presented as authoritative. I thought I knew nothing more on the context with his think tank. And I thought well, time will tell. I’ll get more info over time.
So then I found some of my much beloved “skeptics” weighing in on the article. Despite self-describing as “skeptics,” they seemed to be taking that article and running with it without looking around to ground the dude’s opinions expressed in the article in full context. So then I took the very simple step of using the Google with the guy’s name, and sure enough, I found that there was, indeed, more relevant context that smart and knowledgeable people who weighed in managed to not discuss.
And, of course, I find that I’m attacked for suggesting that perhaps, the issues and causalities are complex.
Sameosameo. Such is the life of a troll who’s only here to divert my buddies from saving starving children in Africa.
Joshua | April 27, 2015 at 12:08 pm |
Notice the selective interest in Graichen’s views. Their value as authoritative seems to ebb and flow.
Well, gee, mild winter, more lignite.
We’ll see. Cold winter powered by lignite is going to be a different situation.
Germany’s power costs about 2x what it used to. If the Green’s are right the cost per kw-h will drop. If it stays at the same level the Green’s are less right or perhaps even wrong.
This Graichen guy says that they are over the CO2 hump.. Time will tell.
It is nice that Germany and some European countries have decided to be guinea pigs for green energy policy. We should observe their experiment closely. It is always cheaper and less painful to learn from someone else’s experience.
It seems as if Obama (advised by John Holdren, a life long wind and solar advocate and anti-nuke demonstrator and protestor) want to back USA catch-down to Germany, Spain and the other countries that have followed the economically disastrous renewables dream.
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2015/04/scientists-set-out-eight-essential-elements-for-un-climate-deal/
I got that far and gave up. Advocacy by scientists for economically irrational, ideologically driven solutions.
From Rabett run ? from A Lacis
“It would seem more appropriate to assign “wickedness” to problems that are more specifically related to witches. The climate problem, while clearly complex and complicated, is not incomprehensible. Current climate models do a very credible job in simulating current climate variability and seasonal changes. Present-day weather models make credible weather forecasts – and there is a close relationship.”
I interpret this comment as a misogynist attack on Judith in the vein of Tamino et al in the past.
There is nothing directly in the term wickedness to associate with witches.
It reminds me of the witchhunt against Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard.
Andy Lacis getting in a free kick at Judith in such a snide manner should be called to account.
Of course one could agree with his views on “Current climate models do a very credible job” Jim D and Joshua.
“It reminds me of the witchhunt against Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard.” Funny, I missed that. I did see Gillard making transparently false claims of misogyny when attacked for her desperate incompetence, bad policies and abandoning promises; just as her male predecessor was attacked for similar reasons.
True on both counts ie “missed that” and what you said.
not a Gillard fan but did notice misogyny and false misogyny when they occurred.
I know, it’s not fair to compare progressive predictions of disaster against reality, but let’s, anyway.
http://thefederalist.com/2015/04/24/seven-big-failed-environmentalist-predictions/
Gary, great article, I’ve Facebooked it.
Pat Michaels on the coming climate change ‘conference’ being held by Pope Francis.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/417520/if-pope-wants-have-truly-moral-climate-change-debate-here-are-few-ideas-patrick-j
Gary, the Nigel Lawson essay below Michaels’ piece is the best article I’ve read on the alleged CAGW topic.
Here is something that appears unconnected, but possibly is. When you poll Republicans on Obamacare they don’t realize that more people are covered now than were before. It seems to be part of an Obamacare failure meme they get taught by their media and politicians. If they are so wrong about this, could not the same counterfactual beliefs apply to climate change which is also pushed by the Republican politicians and right-wing media? The bottom-line quote from this is “That would mean these self-identified Republicans aren’t denying reality so much as refusing to even think about it.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/27/obamacare-poll-repeal_n_7153216.html
Judith –
FYI – since you’ve expressed how favorably your view Limbaugh’s rhetoric on AGW:
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/04/24/duke-researcher-denounces-rush-limbaughs-ridicu/203410