by Judith Curry
The Paris Agreement and, more generally, climate change policy, almost perfectly illustrate the contradictions of the post-modern industrialized world risk society, characterized by perceived threats confirmed by politicized science and governed by sub-politics beyond democratic control. – Lucas Bergkamp
The Journal of Environmental Risk has a special issue related the Paris Agreement [link]. There are two articles by Lucas Bergkamp, which are highlighted here.
The Paris Agreement on Climate Change: A Risk Regulation Perspective. Excerpts:
The Paris Agreement on Climate Change, which was concluded at COP-21 in December 2015, . . . has been called the ‘world’s greatest diplomatic success’ and a ‘historic achievement,’ but also an ‘epic failure’ and even a ‘fraud’ and ‘worthless words.’ Disappointed with the Paris Agreement, a group of eleven climate scientists signed a declaration stating that it suffers from “deadly flaws” and gives “false hope;” they argue that the time for “wishful thinking and blind optimism” is over, and “the full spectrum of geoengineering” should be considered.
The broad disagreement over the outcome of COP-21 in Paris (in particular, over its binding effect) illustrates not only the diverging expectations of interest groups, but also the antagonisms that arise in all areas of policy-making between the dogmatic and the pragmatic, the idealistic and the realistic, and the internationalists and nationalists.
Objectively viewed, the Paris Agreement would appear to be not much more than a procedural framework for future, flexible “bottoms-up” climate policy- making by the parties to it, dressed up with some non-binding language that emphasizes ambition and progression. To meet the US government’s desire to avoid Senate approval, the agreement does not impose any binding substantive obligations, but it does set forth the ambitious objective of limiting the global average temperature increase to well below 2 °C or even 1.5 °C. Put differently, the text that came out of Paris represents yet another example of a target- or performance-based voluntary agreement, the results of which are hard to predict.
The essay’smain thesis goes beyond a rejection of the claimthat the ‘science is settled,’which is a contradiction in terms in any event. They posit a ‘scientistic’ tendency in climate science, by which they mean a belief that the entire climate can be explained and controlled by reference to one single parameter. Such a scientistic tendency manifests itself in the climate models, which make all policies dependent on computational projections, rather than available empirical knowledge. Although the authors acknowledge that models are an accepted and useful method in many areas of science, the key issue with climate models is whether they meet either the ‘hard’ test of their predictions’ (orprojections’) conformity to observations, or the ‘softer’ test of fitness for purpose.
Even if climate models are useful for purposes of research, that does not mean they should be used for policy applications. Despite the models’ inherent limitations, they are deemed to fully capture the future of the Earth’s climate. The Paris Agreement implicitly legitimizes the scientistic thinking underlying the use ofmodels in climate policy- making. More critically, it contributes to the further codification of the putative causal relations between anthropogenic emissions and global temperature increase, between temperature increase and climate change, and between climate change and adverse impacts. No matter what climate science will show, the policy direction for this century has been set. In our post-modern world, climate science is not powerful because it is true: it is true because it is powerful.
The Paris Agreement and, more generally, climate change policy, almost perfectly illustrate the contradictions of the post-modern industrialized world risk society, characterized by perceived threats confirmed by politicized science and governed by sub-politics beyond democratic control. Climate change is the ultimate precautionary, distributive justice issue. There is a tendency to subsume all policy issues in the climate change movement, so climate justice can be pursued as holistic, global, social justice. Indeed, climate change is deemed to penetrate all areas of social policy- making, from energy to agriculture, and fromimmigration to personal choices, such as how to travel and what to eat. After Paris, climate change will remain ‘hot’. It is where the money is and will be; pursuant to the COP-21 Decision, developed nations should collectively contribute at least USD 100 billion a year from 2020 to help poorer nations dealwith climate change.
The ‘Best Available Science’ and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. Excerpts:
Recognising the importance of science to climate policies, the ParisAgreement on Climate Change stipulates that ‘an effective and progressive response to the urgent threat of climate change’ should be based on ‘the best available scientific knowledge.’ The terms ‘best available scientific knowledge’ or ‘best available science’ are used in several places throughout the agreement. The parties should undertake emission reductions and achieve carbon-neutrality (zero net emissions) in the second half of this century in accordance with ‘best available science’, which seems to accommodate scientific progress. Despite these references to science, the relation between the ‘best available science’ and the Agreement is ambiguous at best and calamitous at worst.
In the area of climate policymaking, there are four interlocking issues that imperil policies’ scientific basis. First, the definitions of ‘climate change’ that circulate within the Paris Agreement’s policy and science sphere are inconsistent and apocryphal, which impedes the scientific enterprise of climate research. Second, the predictive ability of climate science is driven by modelling, making all policies reliant on computational projections rather than available empirical knowledge. Third, as a result of these deficiencies, climate science is policy-led instead of climate policy being science-led, as the Paris Agreement seems to require. Finally, under these circumstances, the concept of ‘best available science’ allows the pursuit of politically convenient policies that interact with the computational projections.
From the Conclusions:
Although the ParisAgreement entertains the concept of science-based policy-making, its ability to ensure that policies are accurately informed by science is severely hampered. The Agreement’s unspecified concept of ‘best available science’ allows policy-makers to pursue politically expedient policies supported by climate model projections to their liking.
In an early stage, an activist policy community, operating under the weak democratic controls of the international policy-making system and outside national structures for policy-making and judicial review, has set the objective that climate science ‘had to’ support. Their thinking was driven by the precautionary principle and the reversal of the burden of proof. By implied agreement, the default assumption has been that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions cause dangerous climate change, and that the safety of such emissions would have to be proven. Through the use of these default assumptions and predictive models, climate science is able to supply ‘helpful’ information to policy-makers. Consequently, rather than the policy being science-based, the science has become policy-based.
As the issue of the global temperature ‘hiatus’ illustrates, the ability of climate science to self-correct and properly inform policy-making is hampered by an inability to reexamine the fundamental assumptions driving the scientific enterprise and its relation to policy-making. Given climate policy’s objectives, funding agencies, scientists, and scientific advisors, in turn, are encouraged to provide ‘policy-relevant’ science supporting the policies pursued by the politicians.
Rather than attempting to reverse this trend, the Paris Agreement aggravates the current problems by reinforcing the scientistic thinking underlying climate policy-making: it codifies the putative causal relations between anthropogenic emissions and global temperature increase, between temperature increase and climate change, and between climate change and adverse impacts. It even intensifies and extends this thinking to make the temperature increase limitation goal more ambitious and to require net zero emissions by the second half of this century.
With the Paris Agreement, the relation between climate policy-making and science has become even more strained and entrenched. As Kuhn observed, the scientist is ‘a solver of puzzles, and the puzzles upon which he concentrates are just those which he believes can be both stated and solved within the existing scientific tradition.’ Unfortunately, at this juncture, the revolution that is necessary to change the state of affairs requires not only a scientific, but also a political and policy paradigm shift.While the former is already difficult enough to achieve, the Paris Agreement made the latter even harder by increasing the stakes through coupling very substantial financial streams with the dominant hypothesis of human-induced climate change.
None of this will matter, if innovative science comes up with new sources of energy-conversion technologies that will render the issue of human induced climate change moot. Thus, despite the debacle in Paris, there is hope.
JC reflections
In these two essays, Lucas Bergkamp has provided some remarkable insights into the utter disfunction an the interface between climate science and policy.
I have no idea how to push the ‘reset button’ here and salvage climate science. As for energy policy, one can only hope for technological breakthroughs in energy generation, storage and transmission that make all this a moot issue.
Precisely.
Large-scale public programs inherently offer greater opportunity for large-scale waste and diversion toward private gains. That truism helps motivate many proponents for immediate “global” action.
The most noble goals and aspirations (hope for technological breakthroughs) cannot be achieved by dishonest science.
Below is a pdf file of the message sent to the UN Secretary General, Presidents of the US National Academy of Sciences and the UK’s Royal Society, and the Editor of Nature earlier today:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10640850/Ethics_and_Human_Rights_in_the_Scientific_Revolution.pdf
The intent is to remove any doubt about the intentions of these holders of high offices and bring the AGW debate to conclusion.
I suspect the passage of the next decade will help resolve the issue one way or the other, regardless of the technological change.
This is entertaining
https://youtu.be/HkOqoSMuIys
==> Objectively viewed, the Paris Agreement would appear…
Well, that’s interesting
“Objectively viewed,” that statement would appear to be a confusion of objectivity and subjectivity.
==> The essay’smain thesis goes beyond a rejection of the claim that the ‘science is settled..
Perhaps without specifying who made the claim and more probably and most importantly, what the claim means and how such a claim applies to the context of uncertainty around climate change. Does it mean that aCO2 affects the climate and poses a risk?
.==> …,’which is a contradiction in terms in any event…
Depending on who said it and what was meant by the claim.
==> They posit a ‘scientistic’ tendency in climate science, by which they mean a belief that the entire climate can be explained and controlled by reference to one single parameter.
The entire climate? Who believes that the entire climate can be explained and controlled by reference to one single paramter?
==> Such a scientistic tendency manifests itself in the climate models, which make all policies dependent on computational projections, rather than available empirical knowledge.
(1) False dichotomy? Is this an either/or? Either computational projections or available empirical knowledge?
(2) How do climate models “make” policies dependent? The outcomes of climate models are used in policy-making processes.
==> Although the authors acknowledge that models are an accepted and useful method in many areas of science, the key issue with climate models is whether they meet either the ‘hard’ test of their predictions’ (orprojections’) conformity to observations, or the ‘softer’ test of fitness for purpose.
Which seems like a legitimate discussion….but given the shopping list of fallacies that precede that comment, my Magic 8-Ball says “Outlook not good.”
yup. you pretty much nailed it
“(2) How do climate models “make” policies dependent?”
From the perspective of a scientist this is nonsensical; from the perspective of politics it makes perfect sense. If a politicians goal is to implement certain policies (such as a redistribution of global assets) and sees science as a potential tool as a means to an ends then empirical knowledge is irrelevant. Perception is the only thing relevant to leverage policy with. Lies, obfuscation and distortion for a politician are like spoons, forks and ladles to a chef; or anyone else trying to cook up something.
jungle –
==> If a politicians goal is to implement certain policies (such as a redistribution of global assets) ..
Ok. That makes sense, logically. However, it is contingent on conspiratorial ideation, something that I’m not particularly inclined towards. I tend to question whether the authors would sign on to your conspiracy theory, but perhaps they would.
There’s like a trio (or more) of you guys.
Deny, divert confuse. Sucks up so much effort but then again that’s the beauty of the strategy, no ?
Not sure what Dr J has in mind for this blog of hers. Doesn’t seem to go anywhere. Eh, I’m sure it’s me as I don’t want to get back on the carousel of nowhereness. I expected something … more.
There’s an occasional kernel but man o man you have to sift thru alot to get there.
Could be time to move on.
Joshua, if you have a hard time believing that politicians will lie, obfuscate or distort, then there’s no sense to be made from it. If you do then the next question is do you believe scientists themselves can be motivated by their own world view to help policy along?
Politicians of course are representatives of an electorate that align with their thinking mostly; is there a temptation and motivation as a citizen if one has the power to help the process of aligned thinking along in the effort to inch towards common goals? Is the practice of proactively lobbying for policy relegated solely to politicians? No, we know industry and individuals of means either lobby or influence peddle by other means for their own self interests, so why wouldn’t some scientists act similarly in a way that’s innate to humans who are motivated by their own political self interests?
Is it really all that conspiratorial or is it human nature to fudge, exaggerate or turn the other cheek to get your way if you want or believe in something bad enough? One doesn’t even have to have poor ethics in this regard; climate is complex enough that ones integrity isn’t impinged upon by nodding.
Joshua, could not resist a comment here. You say JungleTrunks relies on conspiracy ideation. Nope.
I would refer you to Christina Figuero’s UNfCCC public statements. Many. No ideation. No conspiracy. Overtly stated UNFCCC goals.
As confirmation, check out (UAE) Mike Hulme’s book, Why We Disagree About Climate Change: (excerpted from the longer version in the climate chapter of Arts of Truth): “We need to see how we take the idea of climate change…to rethink how we take forward our political, social, economic, and personal projects…” Nuff said. You are just wrong. QED.
@knutesea | March 28, 2016 at 6:06 pm |
I’m kind of with you on this. The Presidential nominee threads have been fun for the most part.
But real climate science, as its study, moves at a glacial pace. I know CO2 is IR-active and I believe from the various lines of evidence that the Earth is warming as it has been for hundreds of years since the LIA, recent LIA denier papers notwithstanding.
Other than the odd CAGWer paper that gets proven wrong from time to time, there isn’t much new to consider. It’s getting boring.
Knutesea seems aware that the climate debate is getting stale, with the same stuff being posted regardless of the topic of the threads. This is something that has disturbed me for some time now and the gridlock grinds on, with ever shining examples of bias to illuminate the way forward.
Climate science is a basket case and there seems nothing that will redeem it except for climate studies to be accorded lower priority to that of meteorolgy and for such study of the trajectory of climate to be placed on the same theoretical footing as studies of the trajectory of the universe in general: interesting but academic in nature and of no practical use for mankind.
“ever shining examples of bias to illuminate the way forward”
Yes, the disingenuous nature of the strategy is similar to trying to hit a moving target at a carnival. Eventually, you move on.
I didn’t see it as stale until you noted that emotion. I think that’s not going to work out in the long run for CAGW in terms of building public support. People like clarity. Lack of clarity exhausts them and so they move on.
Being stale is boring esp being stale about catastrophes that never come.
As is much in life, the odds of something unexpected redirecting interest to a completely different topic will likely occur.
jungle –
==> Joshua, if you have a hard time believing that politicians will lie, obfuscate or distort, then there’s no sense to be made from it.
I don’t have the slightest difficulty in believing that. As such, I would think that for me to respond, perhaps you need to reconsider the entirety of the rest of your comment.
knutsea –
This is beautiful:
==> There’s like a trio (or more) of you guys.
Deny, divert confuse. Sucks up so much effort but then again that’s the beauty of the strategy, no ?…Not sure what Dr J has in mind for this blog of hers. Doesn’t seem to go anywhere.
So the character of the debate in not going anywhere is the responsibility of the like, trio (or more)? and not the vast majority of the participants who have a different ideological orientation (and which of course, just happens to be in agreement with yours*)?
Perhaps, you might reconsider, and think about whether the character of not going anywhere comes about, rather precisely, because of the identity-aggression and identity-defense that was made apparent in your comment?
* ‘prolly just a coincidence, of course. :-)
Frothy. Still, I think I’m bored with the merry go round. The tactics are repetitive and are meant to grind down the energy of the opposition. Wiggle worm (trademark Flynn) is a wonderful description.
What is interesting about the presidential and free speech threads is that similar techniques of deny/divert/confuse are used there as well. There is definitely a commonality to them. I’ve also seen the same technique used in other social justice forums. I’m glad reading all these forums has given me a chance to see it repeated often.
I’ll know who to read when I need a reminder.
Thanks
“The entire climate? Who believes that the entire climate can be explained and controlled by reference to one single parameter?”
http://www.realclimate.org/images/attribution.jpg
Anthropogenic causes. One single parameter? Okay it’s a stretch but is it a misleading one? CO2 is compared to the world temperature index. All the trendline plots. CO2 the Control Knob. Interesting paper.
Ragnaar –
Do surface temperatures, let alone surface temperate trends, equal the “entire climate?”
“The entire climate? Who believes that the entire climate can be explained and controlled by reference to one single paramter?” – Joshua
Hanson comes pretty darn close. I suggest you read the notes from Hanson to the journal editor of his latest paper
http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/15/20059/2015/acpd-15-20059-2015-AR2.pdf
It is very interesting.
“We accept the instruction to minimize policy discussion. Therefore, after we present our conclusions about expected sea level changes, storms, fundamental changes in ocean circulation, and likelihood that, if fossil fuel emissions continue to increase, we will soon be handing young people a climate system that is out of their control, we end with just two sentences about policy: “We conclude that the message our climate science delivers to society, policymakers and the public alike is this: we have a global emergency. Fossil fuel CO2 emissions should be reduced as rapidly as practical.” To say less would seem to be science self-censorship.”
Yes, he did say ‘handing young people a climate system out of their control’. Because the one we had before has been totally in our control. Lol. But he makes it very clear there is a ‘global emergency’ and it is due to one variable, CO2. This response is under “Policy Discussion” no less.
“Our comments about the early Anthropocene (which do not take much space, and present a conclusion that differs from those of Ruddiman or his detractors) seem to be warranted because they follow naturally
after the CO2 control knob and paleoclimate discussion, and lead into the current global climate situation in which the human forcing has become very dominant.”
The ‘CO2 control knob’ as you know is nothing new. Lots of folks use it to reduce the climate down to one variable. Hanson uses it a lot. This just happens to be another example that was close at hand.
Any thoughts on this?
Should have been ‘Hansen’ :)
“Do surface temperatures, let alone surface temperate trends, equal the “entire climate?””
No.
“Earth’s 2015 surface temperatures were the warmest since modern record keeping began in 1880, according to independent analyses by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).”
“for me to respond, perhaps you need to reconsider…”
Joshua, I stated truisms about human nature. Your wall, lack of mental capacity to go there and acknowledge it is partly what defines you as a sycophant and zealot. I think you probably have greater capacity than being a servile follower.
I’m not sure there is a reset button powerful enough to save climate science. A large number of climate scientists have become willing tools of a wealth redistribution policy. They’ve piled preposterous ideas on preposterous ideas, all cloaked in the holy order of climate science. The idea that a made up 2°C is the tipping point for all life on earth and we know how to control the temperature is accepted as serious says everything. I guess some enjoy being revered as high priests.
It is climate science skepticism that needs to hit the reset button.
We skeptics frequently hit the reset button and then arrive at the same conclusions every time.
The consensus science is not any kind of science. CO2 is an important gas that causes more good when it increases and causes no harm.
They try to scare us so they can tax and control us, set up their new, all powerful, world government and limit population to less than current levels.
We skeptics have a really powerful force on our side. Mother Nature is on our side. She does not follow the Consensus Climate Model Output. Real data will settle this. They try to change the data to match Model output, but too many qualified scientists and engineers and others are watching and checking what they do. They got the hockey stick through the IPCC once, but could not repeat that travesty. It still worked in Paris, but real scientists were not allowed any say so in that non agreement.
Why, JCH? Septics are not having any effect on climate science or on policy. Every mistake uncovered by auditors has resulted in no change to any conclusions.
pope – from my amateur mechanic days as a kid, I would suggest detaching the wires from the repeat button and instead attaching them to the reset button.
Horst – sure, but Mosher wants the skeptics to up their game so they can defeat the evil greenies.
“Horst – sure, but Mosher wants the skeptics to up their game so they can defeat the evil greenies.”
I want them to up their game because it’s no fun shooting fish in a barrel
and when they use weak arguments, Guys like Joshua get to look smart
by shooting the fish first.
Jeez, you dont even have to know anything about the science to see the logical fallacies in these pieces.
come on Skeptics, up your game
I said Mosher lost the plot upthread.
“Guys like Joshua get to look smart”
He’s lost it downthread too.
Andrew
The sky is falling.. Climate science has been taken over by the consensus enforcement police with their groupthink policies, And now have we have a bunch of zombie climate scientist running around yelling about something that isn’t really a problem. It Orwellian all the way.. To me it’s sounds like a movie. We just need to find some group that control’s the police I think. We could have our hero be a climate “skeptic” who infiltrates the ruling group and takes down the bad guys.
She has too wear spandex, be a free speech warrior and see the future climate. Sketch it up and we can sell it to the British.
Maybe John Cleese would be interested.
popesclimatetheory March 28, 2016 at 10:56 am
“We skeptics have a really powerful force on our side. Mother Nature is on our side”
____
No, at your back, and kicking your butt.
Steven Mosher: Guys like Joshua get to look smart
by shooting the fish first.
What exactly did Joshua write that looked smart to you?
What “game” needs to be “upped”? CO2 increase since 1880, rainfall increase since 1880, and temperature increase since 1880 have enhanced vegetation growth, and other growth that depends on CO2 as input. Malaria incidence has declined instead of increased since the warnings that warming would increase it. Temperature forecasts by Hansen and others have been consistently too high. Attempts to “disappear” the Medieval Warm Period have mostly supported its existence. From AR4 to AR5 the evidence strengthened the lukewarm case, not the alarmist case. Studies of energy flux changes at the surface resulting from surface temperature change are in their infancy.
Bob: You need to look beyond the shallow “People Magazine” blogs. There are thousands of climate scientists publishing perfectly boring papers with lots of useful information. But that’s hard, so you don’t bother.
Horst
Unfortunately, even though many of us might want to read them they are often behind expensive pay-walls.
tonyb
there is no pay wall if you know where to go.
Mosher is correct for once. Google is your friend. Think harder. Don’t accept no for an answer.
Check out the week in science thread. Hagen cited a paywalled paper on non-linear effects of deep ocean responses to simulated warming up to 16-x CO2. Judge Judy said she wanted to do a post on it, so I took the bait. After about a minute, I found the final draft on the main author’s web page and put up the link. This works more often than not.
BTW, it’s an interesting paper and I look forward to Dr. Curry’s take on it.
But don’t stop there. Go through the citations and cherry-pick interesting titles and google them. Pretty soon, you will have your own library of climate science that is done quietly out of the limelight.
Then you can read more and post less. I guess Mosher has been right twice.
Horst
Yes, of course I can sometimes find pay walled articles elsewhere, but some remain resolutely pay walled no matter where you approach them from. Some publications seem Able to protect their property better than others.
Tonyb
Horst: Thank you for your condescending response. Which people’s magazine blogs, pray tell?
Up until recently I regularly read climate science publications. Some were dull, some were interesting and, over the years, a growing number were uproariously funny and seemed straight out of the Ministry of Truth.
For about 30 years I’ve heard so-called expert climate scientists make patently ridiculous statements such as only “{pick a number} of days left to save the planet.” You know, the one that comes up every COP. Hansen’s record of predictions are exceptionally poor.
I’m amazed that any reputable scientist would believe that there is only driver of climate. I’m more amazed that we are supposed to believe that, in the absence any model that can accurately forecast future temperatures, that even by averaging 70=105 wrongs (models) to get a right, we know precisely to control the global temperature within 1.5 to 2 degrees in the next 84 years. And we are going to do that by shutting down the industrialized west and letting developing counties play nice sometime later.
What I see is people demanding money from the industrialized nations to pay for our “climate sins.” The US budget for climate change is about $21-$25 billion/year. I doubt one doesn’t get one’s share from this trough if you don’t find climate change.
We are a long way from understanding all the climate drivers, much less having the knowledge and ability to control the climate a century out.
Bob: all the blogs are people magazine except Science of Doom. If you want to stay focused on popular climateball red meat, conspiracy ideation and negativity, I hope that works out for you.
Funny
I came to this party late and as a believer
I was shocked to find the “People Magazine” quality was most often on the pro global warming side
The more free discussions and less emotional fact based stuff was on the skeptics side
but that’s just me
I don’t think the world is ending because of climate change
apparently, that makes me a ‘negative’ person
Funny
Sci-hub.io is your friend
I read about this somewhere … hmmm maybe the Enquire (jk). What’s the relative safety of such a thing ? Is it illegal ?
Viva la free access if it’s on the up and up.
Thoughts ?
Bob Greene | March 28, 2016 at 4:13 pm |
“Hansen’s record of predictions are exceptionally poor.”
_____
Bob, you aren’t up to date. Global temperature has caught up with Hansen’s projections.
http://www.sciencealert.com/this-woman-has-illegally-uploaded-millions-of-journal-articles-in-an-attempt-to-open-up-science?utm_source=Article&utm_medium=Website&utm_campaign=InArticleReadMore
knutesea,
You asked –
“Thoughts?”
I’m glad you asked. I have lots. However, in all seriousness, I believe borrowing a copy of a journal made available at no cost online might be treated as a capital offence in the US. I believe that generally, science research is paid for by the taxpayers, and the intellectual property generated by publicly funded research then becomes the property of the journal publisher.
The publisher then demands quite extortionate payments from Universities, researchers, libraries and so on. Publishers claim they are helping spread scientific knowledge as a public duty. Sponging, bludging, hypocrisy are words that might also spring to mind.
One such publicly spirited publisher –
“For the past two decades, Elsevier has demonstrated the ability to grow even as the internet transforms publishers’ business models. Last year the company achieved revenues of £2bn and an operating profit margin of 34 per cent — almost four times the average profit margin of groups in the FTSE 100. That makes Elsevier the biggest and most profitable division of RELX, the London-listed Anglo-Dutch information group that has a market value of £25bn.”
Obviously, publishers try to restrict the free dissemination of publicly funded scientific knowledge, as it affects their profitability. Rather than institute civil proceedings which would cut into profits, and possibly annoy people, they support making attempts to freely distribute publicly funded knowledge illegal, and prosecuteable at public expense, rather than at the expense of the publisher.
My own approach is to download whatever I want wherever I can find it. If I’m not prepared to pay the fees demanded by a publisher, the publisher has lost nothing. If you, the researcher, are annoyed that I might read your publicly funded research without charge, don’t publish your results. Keeping them secret will fix people like me!
To each his own. As for me, I say “Arr! Arr! Splice the mainbrace, me ‘earties!”
I can, therefore I do.
Cheers.
After Elsevier wins its lawsuit against sci-hub, I wonder if they’ll go after individual downloaders? At least M*sher, et al., are subject to the court’s jurisdiction.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/12/science_journal_dump_lands_injunctions/
Who’d have guessed? From the Register –
“The petition protested against the high prices Elsevier charges for its journals, its practice of requiring subscribers to buy bundles of publications rather than individual subscriptions, and the company’s support for the Research Works Act (RWA) in the US Congress, which would close access to publicly-funded research.”
A US law closing public access to publicly-funded research? At the behest of a Dutch company? Grand.
Only in America! Maybe.
Cheers.
Mosher, I’d be careful. After Grokster there is secondary liability for copyright infringement. Unless you’re content to martyr yourself for the cause. Which is noble, and I applaud you for. But as your attorney I could not possibly advise you to do.
qbeamus,
You wrote –
“After Grokster there is secondary liability for copyright infringement. Unless you’re content to martyr yourself for the cause. Which is noble, and I applaud you for. But as your attorney I could not possibly advise you to do.”
I don’t know where you are an attorney, but it might assist if you can state the jurisdiction in which you operate and a reference to appropriate statute law regarding secondary liability for copyright infringement, so that people can make an informed opinion.
knutesea,
I have some knowledge of some forms of law in some countries. As you might be aware, the American legal system sometimes assumes power it simply does not possess.
For example, an American judge may award damages to a copyright holder, but if the infringer is resident in Russia, say, without any assets in the US, then the judgement is unenforceable.
Even the ability of the US Government to seize Internet domain names has (hopefully) very recently been removed. The US no longer controls the Internet, even behind the scenes.
In any case, as might be noted in the case of sites like The Pirate Bay, government attempts to censor, block, prosecute, or otherwise disrupt operations of such sites, eventually proven fruitless.
As far as I know, using an onion router (TOR stands for “The Onion Router”) will prevent the likes of the Female Body Inspectors, or the Completely Inept Agency from tracking your activities.
The TOR Project home page will instruct you how to avoid some of the really stupid things TOR users do, which totally negate the benefits of TOR. I don’t bother to use TOR, and have challenged Microsoft, for example, to sue me, if they believe they have a worthwhile case. Depending on the way you go about things, and what the copyright holder has done, you may that you can use copyrighted software, or listen to copyrighted music, or read copyrighted text without fear of civil suit or criminal prosecution.
This can be done even in a benighted country like the US, if you are of average intelligence. Ultimately, the decision is yours. I suggest care. Don’t boast too loudly or widely. Some organisations can be incredibly vindictive.
Arrh! Arrh!
Cheers.
Steven Mosher: there is no pay wall if you know where to go.
Where is that? I frequently find paywalled articles for which I can not find a free copy.
max10k: Global temperature has caught up with Hansen’s projections.
Which global temperature has caught up with which projection? I think you made that up, but I follow up on links to papers.
Matthew see opluso comment above. Mosher has already said to use Sci-hub but its legality is sus.
This is the dilemma for real environmentalists: Can the many benefits of the United Nations and the Environmental Movement be saved if the scientifically flawed “Standard Climate, Cosmology, Nuclear & Solar Models“ are corrected?
_a.) If so society, the UN and the Environmental Movement can survive.
_b.) If not, society, the UN and the Environmental Movement will fail.
The decision by Nature’s editor to publishor censor the manuscript on “Solar energy” (currently under review) will indicate the decision: a.) or b.)
Society, the UN and the Environmental Movement will all benefit if Nature arranges a fair review and speedy publication of measurements over the past seventy years that refute the Standard Climate, Cosmology, Nuclear and Solar Models (Nature’s tracking number NCLIM16030433).
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10640850/Solar_Energy.pdf
A great step towards salvaging Climate Science could be made by following the Scientific Method. Phenomena that can be described and studied through Repeatable Tests do not leave a great deal up to the imagination. Repeated Results erase the need for ‘credibility’ because Reality trumps credentials.
Climate Science as it stands today requires great leaps of faith and a sustained ignorance of contradictory findings to sustain belief. It requires an imagination that discounts natural phenomena and promotes conclusions without tests. Fear and punishment, not unlike what is used by many religions, is used to coerce behavior rather than a proven process that invites Adoption through logical and repeatable steps. Conjecture based upon conjecture has replaced experiments.
For instance, part of the Scientific Method is to look for known phenomena, theories, laws, et al that can explain what is being observed. The Milankovitch Cycle does a great job as compared to the thousands of pages of mish-mash that the IPCC et al have come up with. Sea Levels it seems reach 5-10m higher than today in the previous Interglacial periods. It seems perfectly plausible that they will reach the same during this interglacial without Human influence. Blaming it on humans is no different than blaming demons for a fever. Policy based on Climate Science is little different than drilling into one’s skull to bleed off the illness. If a little hole doesn’t work, just make it bigger, right? Problem is you hurt those you are attempting to help without ever knowing the root of the issue.
Climate Science is experiencing what the little boy who cried wolf did. He got everyone whipped up into a frenzy only to be a false alarm. After a few times, a sharp pain to the rear that sends a signal up to the brain turns out to be better policy and taking him off the watch is the result. He can cry Global Warming as much as he pleases, because no one will listen.
[ … ] climate models, [ … ] make all policies dependent on computational projections, rather than available empirical knowledge.
Computational models of the aerodynamics and structure of new aircraft have been demonstrated to be far more accurate and precise than climate models. Yet, nobody can buy a ticket on a new airplane until it has undergone years of testing.
“We have installed 12,000 sensors on the specimen.”
https://youtu.be/B74_w3Ar9nI
This is a perfectly ignorant comment. You are comparing the child-like simplicity of a tinker-toy to the man-sized complexity of something like the Large Hadron Collider. The degrees of freedom in aircraft design are not in the same Universe as the climate system. Then, we have scale effects because the circumference of an air foil is a million-times less than the circumference of the earth. Aircraft operate in the gas phase. Climate operates with liquid, vapor, solid, plasma, mixed flows. Aircraft do not deal with chemistry while climate is influenced by biochemistry.
Horst Graben (@Graben_Horst) wrote, “This is a perfectly ignorant comment.”
The ignorance is yours. We test well known and proven aircraft models having “the child-like simplicity of a tinker-toy”. We don’t test purely theoretical and unproven climate models of “man-sized complexity.”
People concerned about the climate are willing to spend billions or trillions of dollars based on unproven climate models but are unwilling to fly on an aircraft that hasn’t undergone years of physical testing.
roving broker
We are flying an untested plane.
We are dumping more c02 into the atmosphere without any idea of what it will do.
back of the envelop engineering says this will drive the temperature UP not down.
The people taking action without testing first are those who believe we can
emit c02 with impunity. The rest of us are saying, slow the plan down until you actually understand it better. And you all want to hit the after burner
One thing I learned in Advanced Design at Northrop Aircraft in 1985
was this: C02 will warm the planet. We used this science to build weapons that work. We fired engineers who didnt get it
As for aircraft modelling and test? Never seen a test that could predict
departures precisely. And dont even talk to me about the F-16 Deep Stall problems or the Structural issues with the F/A-18 vertical tails.
Steven, what is the first thing you worry about every morning?
“We are dumping more c02 into the atmosphere without any idea of what it will do.” = doesn’t know
Same comment:
“C02 will warm the planet.” = does know
Mosher has clearly lost the plot.
Andrew
Mosher- you again reach the wrong conclusions and summarize the situation poorly.
Mosher writes- “We are dumping more c02 into the atmosphere without any idea of what it will do.”
My response- Your point is ridiculous. People doing things that emit CO2 know that they are getting an immediate benefit as a by product of their action. Some wish these people to stop from releasing CO2 with no reliable evidence as to what the result of their action will be in the climate.
Mosher writes- “back of the envelop engineering says this will drive the temperature UP”
My response- So? Where is the reliable information to show where this will help vs. harm?
Steven Mosher wrote, “back of the envelop engineering says [dumping more c02 into the atmosphere] will drive the temperature UP not down.”
Are you advocating spending billions/trillions to slow climate change based on back of the envelope engineering? How many airplanes did Northrop Aircraft build based on back of the envelope engineering? Even the Wright Brothers used a wind tunnel.
Steven Mosher further wrote, “Never seen a test that could predict departures [from controlled flight?] precisely.” A flight test doesn’t predict, it measures. Models predict.
Rover and Mosher:
We are dumping more c02 into the atmosphere without any idea of what it will do.
I think we do have an idea, and that idea is:
this will drive the temperature UP not down.
Because motion is not predictable ( it’s in the equations ) we do not have any idea on how the circulation of the atmosphere will change in the future, and circulation can change temperatures some. But that’s true whether or not CO2 changes.
Now, since the forcing from CO2 is relatively smooth and uniform, there’s not a good reason to believe case that increased CO2 will cause circulation change anymore than the natural variation in a pre-industrial CO2 would.
So increased CO2 as a warming agent is reasonably demonstrable, theorectically. Warming, but not harmful climate change.
Arch.
No worries. Carpe diem
Bad Andrew.
We have a general idea that it will warm the planet. But specifics?? How much warmer exactly? You guys have no clue yet you fly that plane
Roving broker.
You missed the point.
We are already flying an untested plane by continuing to dump co2. We generally know the temperature will go up, and yet you continue to think we can pull back on the stick with impunity.
Don’t get me started on friends killed in flight test.
Steven Mosher,
It seems you are still missing your clue. Maybe it’s in the envelope, on the back of which you wrote your accumulated knowledge.
CO2 is positively beneficial, of that there can be no doubt whatsoever. Without a goodly amount in the atmosphere, we will all die.
You seem to be of the opinion that reducing atmospheric CO2 to some unspecified level will somehow make us better off in some unspecified and nebulous fashion.
So what level do you consider optimal, and what was so wonderful about living conditions at that time?
I apologise for even asking that question, but I had to allow for the faint possibility that you had found a clue, and were no longer clueless.
Cheers.
Steven Mosher,
You wrote –
“We are already flying an untested plane by continuing to dump co2. We generally know the temperature will go up, and yet you continue to think we can pull back on the stick with impunity.
Don’t get me started on friends killed in flight test.”
Another irrelevant and pointless Warmist analogy? Another attempt at emotional blackmail? Please do get started on your friends killed in flight tests. Who were they? Why did they die? Were your back of the envelope calculations faulty?
Maybe in the best Warmist traditions, you will claim that your friends died as a result of evil deniers failing to use the fine climatological principles which you promote so assiduously.
Maybe you have a large supply of envelopes on which to do the erroneous calculations which lead to the deaths of your friends. If you look inside each envelope, there might be a clue inside.
Or maybe not!
Cheers.
“We are flying an untested plane.”
More like: we are asserting that a bumble-bee can’t fly because the model says so.
The model is NOT wrong, merely incomplete – as is easily demonstrated from tests on aircraft.
Models are nice enough, but they are not reality. When your back of the envelope and the hugely complex model both give the wrong answer compared to reality, then you need to take a step back, not keep blindly believing the model MUST be right – it doesn’t have to be wrong to make bad predictions (see above)
And even if the cli. models ARE right, did you stop to consider the benefits achieved from use of fossil fuels, or did you just see the downsides?
“We have a general idea that it will warm the planet.”
Mr. Smart Guy has a general idea.
Whoopee do.
Andrew
Steven Mosher wrote, “We are already flying an untested plane by continuing to dump co2.”
And the other side advocates that we fly another untested plane by dumping billions/trillions of dollars into de-carbonizing the world economy.
Steven Mosher further wrote, “One thing I learned in Advanced Design at Northrop Aircraft in 1985 was this: C02 will warm the planet.”
What you didn’t learn at Northrop (or anywhere else because no one knows) is how much or how little and is that a bad thing.
“We are already flying an untested plane by continuing to dump co2. We generally know the temperature will go up …”
So, after the hottest February ever, what causes the cooling off after the El Nino heat spike, boosted by the human emissions of carbon (sic)?
Steven: The climate is not a GeeBee, it’s a Cessna 172, e.g. inherently stable unless you stall in a climbing turn and over do the rudder. Even then, letting go of the controls is the second best option. A little opposite rudder and gently pull back on the wheel to keep the blue side up.
Your new friends at ATTP-Skep-Sci want to switch those fuel tanks after takeoff in a Long-EZ, but because they are little napoleans, they have to completely turn around and mash the rudder in the process. Did you know that the water is so clear off of Lover’s Point in Monterey, you can see all the way to Denver.
Wishful thinking. There’s no way of knowing whether that’s true or not.
AK: There is no way for you to know that, I agree.
roving broker
“What you didn’t learn at Northrop (or anywhere else because no one knows) is how much or how little and is that a bad thing.”
Thank you for Progressing to The Higher levels of skepticism.
1. You Agree That C02 will cause warming ( all else being equal)
2. You Acknowledge That the real Questions are
A) How much warming
B) how bad it will be.
BUT.. You are still wrong. We have good constraints on how much warming 1.5C to 4.5C
As for damages.. That’s probably the harder question.
Given these uncertainties, it doesnt make any sense to continue to spew c02 with impunity. Much smarter to switch to nuclear and Natural gas to buy us time to figure out the details. Killing coal has two benefits
A) we can end deadly air pollution.
B) we can switch to NG and Nukes and buy some time to sort out
the details.
1. You Agree That C02 will cause warming ( all else being equal)
2. You Acknowledge That the real Questions are
A) How much warming
B) how bad it will be.
Objection! Leading the witness.
How good will it be?
No more questions at this time.
( all else being equal)
What is “all else” and when is it equal to what?
Andrew
Whereas you know because God told you?
(voice from down the hall:) “No I didn’t!“
Horst Graben (@Graben_Horst) wrote, “The climate is [ … ] inherently stable unless you stall in a climbing turn and over do the rudder. Even then, letting go of the controls is the second best option. A little opposite rudder and gently pull back on the wheel to keep the blue side up.”
You are describing entry to and recovery from a spin but you got it wrong. Again.
Power is first reduced to idle and the ailerons are neutralized. Then, full opposite rudder (that is, against the yaw) is added and held to counteract the spin rotation, and the elevator control is moved briskly forward to reduce the angle of attack below the critical angle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin_(aerodynamics)#Entry_and_recovery
Rover, you are correct about the power to idle, but the rest, I don’t know. I never did spins in a Wikipedia.
Mosher’s comment is disturbing. He seems to buy into the Alarmists’ argument that we should now apply the Precautionary Principle retroactively to energy production. Instead, I suggest we apply it to the proposed policies limiting energy production, i.e., looking at the proposed action. If we do that, we will see that the outcome is devastating for the developing world and for the lower middle classes in the developed world – those not poor enough to get subsidies but not rich enough to easily absorb the cost shock of proposed policies.
++++++++++++++++++
Very well said!
Indeed it is renarkable that the warmers selectively use the precautionary principle on CO2 emissions but not on all the other stuff such as the fossil fuel banning/demonizing or the useless “renewable” energy producers or the chemical waste filled Tesla’s.
Where is the precautionary measure against planet buster meteorites?
Where is the precautionary measure against Artificial Intelligence enslaving all us humans?
Where is the precautionary measure against alien lifeforms taking over earth?
The list is endless.
To quote Raj from Big Bang Theory: “What a bunch of crybabies. No guts no glory man.”
Straw man.
Centuries of war and waste over the nature of the Divinity, the Son, the Trinity. Proof coming behind dogma, the muscular horse of learning pushing the wobbly old cart of belief. Curiosity gone underground.
Back there again. Oh well.
Golf or A Holy One, time will tell the tale.
“In the area of climate policymaking, there are four interlocking issues that imperil policies’ scientific basis. First, the definitions of ‘climate change’ … [i.e., climate always changes no matter what we do] … Second, the predictive ability of climate science is driven by modelling, making all policies reliant on computational projections rather than available empirical knowledge [i.e., about as relevant to life as the ancient science of astrology]. Third, as a result of these deficiencies, climate science is policy-led instead of climate policy being science-led [i.e., it’s Left vs. right politics not science]… Finally, under these circumstances, the concept of ‘best available science’ allows the pursuit of politically convenient policies [science has become a racket].”
Other than developing one or more versions of gen4 nuclear, there will likely not be major energy breakthroughs. Not hydrogen, not methane hydrate, not bioengineering of photosynthesis for fuels, not batteries. All analyzed in Blowing Smoke essays. There are some lesser improvements on the horizon. Fracked natural gas extends economic supplies for many decades. Siluria Technologies OCM catalysts now proving viable at large pilot scale, combined with their ETF catalysts for a second step conversion to liquid fuels (works at large lab scale) could resolve eventual petroleum scarcity. Hybrid vehicles will continue to improve and become more economic.
Switched reluctance electric motors (Dyson vacuums) will lessen need for rare earths (which aren’t actually rare, just expensive). Aluminum in cars (Ford F150) and composites in aircraft (787) will improve fuel efficiency. Where nat gas is plentiful, CCGT will displace coal (as in US at present).
But these are normal incremental progress, not breakthroughs.
Thank God Bell Labs did not hire tools like you, we would still be using tin cans and string. I bet since the ignoramus Trump voters have crawled out of their caves, it has increased the sale of those ebooks you are forever hawking. You are a good example of what gentleman farmer glysophate exposure does to gray matter.
Horst Graben (@Graben_Horst) wrote, “Thank God Bell Labs did not hire tools like you, we would still be using tin cans and string.”
The telephone predated Bell Labs.
Horst Graben (@Graben_Horst) | March 28, 2016 at 11:32 am
“Thank God Bell Labs did not hire tools like you, we would still be using tin cans and string.”
____
Don’t be so hard on ristvan. He is no more stuck in the mud than other climate contrarians, and probably is smarter than many. As people get up in their years, there may be a tendency for them to think progress has stopped because there on progress has stopped. The “little engine that could” becomes the little engine that’s tired and doesn’t want to.
HG, how many issued patents do you have in energy storage materials? I have 4, and have been involved in three basic different flavors of energy storage at both R&D and operating business levels since 1992. My thesis was on nuclear power economics. Energy bears little resemblance to information technology and semiconductorss,
Don’t stoop to the presidential campaign gutter.
Just trying to help solve some energy storage problems related to grid reactive power/voltage sag, and hybrid vehicles of all sorts. Spotted an anomaly in the scientific literature, was able to reconceptualize where Helmholtz layer forms, reformulate into a new basic capacitance equation explaining all the discordant electrolyte data on gold/platinum, prove the reconceptualizarion in the lab, then patent all three (there are only three) ways better carbon supercap materials can be made.
I take it you are not familiar with any of the developments in the lead comment. Blind faith in ‘nick of time’ salvation via miraculous energy breakthroughs is not sound energy policy.
ristvan:
Getting a bit off-topic but given your expertise (the opinion of Horst Schist notwithstanding) what do you think of the potential of the Toyota-led research into solid state batteries using sulfide conductors? Still has a ways to go (seems like ALL storage technologies do) but struck me as a good direction for exploration.
I found a non-paywalled version of their paper thru the DOI link at the bottom of this Ars article.
http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/03/new-lithium-battery-ditches-solvents-reaches-supercapacitor-rates/
Opluso, Toyota has been barking at this since 2011. Elechtrochemistry is known and valid. There are two big problems. (I may not have th right Toyota battery permutation, as they are throwing everything atbthe wall to see what might stick.)
First, magnesium has a higher atomic number than lithium (check periodic table). That guarantees less power density ( stuff like regen braking and acceleration in Prius hybrids) since mostly a simple function of void tortuousity and Siemens conductivity. (Translation: lighter stuff moves faster under a given EM force, and straighter is shorter so faster.)
Second, the chemistry dissolves the sulfur cathode. So there is no (<50) cycle life. Useless for anything practical, especially cars with 10 year powertrain warranties like Volt. (dunno about Bolt).
Nobody can ever solve the first problem. Nobody has a clue how to solve the second, since seems inherent in the basic high school level physical chemistry of Mg/S. Remember Allessando Volta of Italy started electrochemical research about (IIRC) 1710 with slat water, paper, zinc, and copper. You can replicate this in your kitchen with zinc ( a scraped penny, since now Zink plated with copper) and copper ( an ordinary wire) stuck into a lemon. (The lemon pulp is an adequate separator). Wire up to an LED. Voila! A battery. Invent grid scale batteries from those modest beginnings. Maybe just more lemon trees frowing from increased CO2?
Does not mean Toyota researchers are not trying. But if I were their boss, they would either be doing something very different, or seeking employment elsewhere.
ristvan,
You are probably aware of this, but others may be interested –
“For over 170 years, the Oxford Electric Bell (also known as the Clarendon Dry Pile) has been chiming almost continuously, the composition of its power source uncertain. Currently located in the Clarendon Laboratory at the University of Oxford, the Bell is an experiment consisting of two brass bells each stationed beneath a dry pile battery, with a metal sphere (or ‘clapper’) swinging between them to produce a ring that has occurred on the order of 10 billion times.”
Only capable of powering a very, very, very, small vehicle. Still, 170 years is a pretty damn fine operating life. How many current devices (pun intended) will still be operating after 170 years, with no idea of when the bell will stop ringing?
Cheers.
Or perhaps apricot trees…
http://www.caranddriver.com/features/nygard-lund-has-the-future-of-the-car-in-his-hand-feature
“In these two essays, Lucas Bergkamp has provided some remarkable insights into the utter disfunction an the interface between climate science and policy.
I have no idea how to push the ‘reset button’ here and salvage climate science.”
Your confusion is caused by your misunderstanding of the goals of those running the progressive climate movement. They don’t give a damn what the “Global Average Temperature” will be in 2100. What they care about is power. Now.
Power comes in the form of political control, aw well as bureaucratic and “research” budgets. In that context, the “interface between climate science and policy” is working exactly as intended.
There is no disfunction here. This is how progressivism works. Schools are not for teaching children, they are for laundering tax money into Democrat campaign contributions, and funding get out the vote efforts by union drones.
Obamacare has nothing to do with health insurance, or health for that matter. It is about controlling one seventh of the economy. That is why it was perfectly logical for Nancy Pelosi to say Des had to pass the 3000+ page bill to find out what was in it.
And so too, dearbonization has nothing to do with global warming.
Stop listening to what people say, and start watching what they do. Then it all becomes simple and clear.
true.
Every single promise Obama made for Obamacare was a lie. Every one. Obviously, never an effort in good faith. Same thing for Dodd-Frank. And the purpose of the prosecutions of the Wall Street banks has been about the govt forcing them to give massive amounts to left-wing activist groups. All about power.
Look at the academic work cited for all the pet lefty causes — gender pay gap, sexual assault on campus, income inequality, minimum wage, etc — the studies are all crap, every bit as bad or worse than Monnet’s polar bear garbage, Mann’s hockey stick, Rahmstorf’s worse than we thought, or Briffa’s magic tree.
All part of the standard left-wing approach — crappy academic work that no one bothers to replicate used to justify lefty power politics. Never changes.
Don’t expect climate science to be saved. It is doing precisely what it is being funded to do — provide the veneer of ‘science’ to support power politics.
Excellent post. I like the way your expanded the cagw ruse to other social justice issue. Same style cuts thru.
Best available science is a cornerstone of daubert and also in just about every scientific integrity policy document in American government.
It’s not a coincidence that the perversion of daubert was the primary tool to corrupt peer review. The legal field is the most powerful lobby in government and the perversion of daubert rigs the system for them.
What a Crock ! Obamacare is the greatest thing since sliced bread.
I wonder what’s the worst thing since sliced bread ?
+1
+100. The dysfunction (note spelling) is due to an unholy (unscientific?) alliance between the political left, the scientific establishment, and government. In the ’50s, Eisenhower rightly warned us about the Military Industrial Complex, and the McCarthyism it encouraged. We need a new Eisenhower to warn of the New McCarthyism – based on a phony consensus – this alliance has spawned.
What he should have warned us about is the baby boom eventually resulting in a glut of geezers who can’t stop complaining about everything they think is wrong in the world while at the same time living high on the hog. Compared to previous generations of elderly Americans, aging boomers are more affluent, better educated, have better health care, and live longer. Why can’t they stop whining?
Max10k – thanks for proving my point, you young whippersnapper, you!
Thanks, Judith. “Policy-based science” is a perfect description of climate science. Sadly, it’s been that way right from the start.
Policy-based science is what we call science that leads to policies we don’t like. If we liked the policies it would be science as science should be.
No. IPCC follows a political process, not a scientific process:
http://www.eoearth.org/files/173201_173300/173280/reports_procedures.jpg
And the following reports shows that IPCC was heavily biased from the beginning:
Report of the second session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 28 June 1989
“In welcoming the delegates to the United Nation Environment Program (UNEP) Headquarters … The Executive Director of UNEP, hailed the fruitful alliance between World Metrological Organization and UNEP. The firm commitment of prof. Obasi, the Secretary-General of WMO, coupled with the determination of UNEP leadership, has resulted in a partnership which is helping to unify the scientific and policy-making communities of the world to lay the foundation for effective, realistic and equitable action on climate change.”
….
“The Executive director stated that the impacts of climate change and global warming would have serious consequences for humanity.”
….
“It should be born in mind that both the governing council of UNEP and the executive Council of WMO expected the first report of IPCC to form the basis for international negotiations on a global convention on climate change. The report can also play a valuable guiding role for the large number of conferences, meetings and symposia on climate change being held all over the world.”
…
“The panel´s continued work would be the only guarantee of the concerted response to the global threat of climate change”
…
“In his opening remarks , Prof. Bolin said that the primary objective of IPCC, in making its first assessment, is to produce a document which could provide guidelines for the formulation of global policy and which would enable the nations of the world to contribute to this task”
Can you imagine being the one asking critical questions in such an organization?
We live in a world where due to irrational adherence to unproven forces ( Daesh et. al. ) humans perform despicable acts toward one another and live in poverty and ignorance.
That even our Enlightened societies would accept and fearfully react to unproven harmful climate change doesn’t seem too bad if it were limited to wasteful subsidies and transfer payments to African dictators. Unfortunately, it represents the ease with which governments can abuse power by appealing to the emotions of the masses.
Climate change science is about like California Governor Brown’s $64-billion bullet train from Madera to Fresno — i.e., from nowhere to nowhere; and, verification is impossible!
Climate changes all the time so… why not the science of climate? The opportunity costs associated with this never-ending boondoggle are mind-boggling.
You lack vision. Probably never had any.
Build it and they will come.
Ad homs are no substitute for common sense.
waggie announces he has common sense.
I’m skeptical.
Max, how many riders a day do you predict will come?
We can get a handle on how many by referring to the government-funded study of shrimp on a treadmill.
Well, if waggie is correct about the cost (i.e., “$64-billion bullet train from Madera to Fresno”), riders will flock from all over the world to see trains made of gold rolling on sterling silver track.
But to give a serious answer to your question, I have no idea.
The latest estimate is $100 billion
And worth every penny. Brown’s popularity is largely attributable to his vision. If Japan, China, and European countries can have state-of-the-art high-speed rail, California can too. I’m not sure why opponents want to see America fall even further behind the rest of the modern world, but I suspect it’s because they hate Americans.
Sure, sure, all Americans should strive to be more like of those who are jealous of America’s success.
As for climate science, I don’t think the policy-based-science actually changes much. Governments do crazy things, but they always have and they’ve always enlisted sycophants to justify their goals. But that won’t stop the truly curious from examining data and theories. And they’ll do so with ever increasing access to computation and data.
Curiosity would salvage climate science but would leave it out of the mainstream, which seems to be an addiction at the moment.
In regards to ==> “I have no idea how to push the ‘reset button’ here and salvage climate science. As for energy policy, one can only hope for technological breakthroughs in energy generation, storage and transmission that make all this a moot issue.” — Judith Curry
CliSci is in a sinkhole of its own making, having dug itself into a deep hole of “findings to order”, findings that through the many forms of bias (cited here at Climate Etc repeatedly) have “forced” researchers down the path of increasingly certain doomsday predictions with which subsequent research is required to support — unlike psychology which is simply lost, wandering in a wasteland of false and misleading results (also of their own making).
It will take a miracle of stupendous proportions to bring the scientific field of Climate Sciences to its senses.
Marine Sciences, as a field, are fighting back with several recent papers [ http://icesjms.oxfordjournals.org/content/73/3/572 and mine http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/09/04/ocean-acidification-trying-to-get-the-science-right/ and http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/09/09/dr-christopher-cornwall-responds-to-ocean-acidification-trying-to-get-the-science-right/ ] and an entire issue of the ICES Journal of Marine Science [ http://icesjms.oxfordjournals.org/content/73/3.toc or as a .pdf at http://icesjms.oxfordjournals.org/content/73/3/529.2.full.pdf+html ] “Towards a Broader Perspective on Ocean Acidification Research, Volume 73 Issue 3 February/March 2016 “, which to me seems to be a positive effort by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) to fight against the unrelenting undertow of “policy driven science” regarding Ocean Acidification.
I’m with Judith (and Andy Revkin, btw) in placing my bets on “….technological breakthroughs in energy generation, storage and transmission that make all this a moot issue.”
“It will take a miracle of stupendous proportions to bring the scientific field of Climate Sciences to its senses.”
If youwant to keep science in general, and climate science in particular, intact, then yes, a miracle is required. Otherwise, reality will, as always, have the last word. The mob will not be pleased to find that things are not as they have been told with such certainty they are.
Something about walls and revolutions…
Essay: “The Evolution of International Cooperation in Climate Science”
The essay describes the success of IPCC through its history and evolution, yet it unwittingly reveals everything that’s wrong with the organization from the perspective of science.
From the essay:
As political scientist Clark Miller (2001, 171, passim) has explained, American foreign policy-makers believed the scientific enterprise was ‘intertwined with the pursuit of a free, stable, and prosperous world order.”
It was not just that gathering knowledge gave a handy excuse for creating international organizations. It’s goals from the onset were to reinforce the ideals and methods of democracy.
http://journal-iostudies.org/sites/journal-iostudies.org/files/JIOSfinal_5_0.pdf
Thanks for the link – I´m only one page into it and I love it. :)
As you say, it seem to “unwittingly reveals everything that’s wrong with the organization from the perspective of science”
A favorite so far:
“The IPCC, although exceptional in the scope of its mission and effort, is not unique in its methods and outcome. In particular, a requirement for consensus, and the procedures and norms that make it workable, are found in the decision-making of many other international regimes that employ scientific research to address environmental problems.”
Why change now, when it’s worked so well?
You’re welcome, SF. Amazingly the left don’t see the incongruities and the resulting dangers their philosophy fosters, the actual undermining of science through group think prejudices.
Exactly my thoughts too.
Except – I don´t think this is necessarily limited to “left wing” politics and I don´t think all left wing voters are ok with this kind of organization and administration within science.
“…intertwined with the pursuit of a free, stable, and prosperous world order.”
Superman comic political vision meets Jerry Lewis science!
Kind of goes with that photo of Al and Pachauri getting their Oslo Emmies in lieu of a real prize for actually knowing and doing stuff. Talk about cheesy and creepy.
What’s amazing is that it is the educated class which gobbles this tripe with a very big spoon. (Though a glance at any edition of Salon or the HuffPo indicates that “educated” has taken on a new meaning, more to do with snobbery and self-loathing than knowing.)
Sepp Blatter for next IPCC chairman! (Unless Berlusconi is available, of course.)
“What’s amazing is that it is the educated class which gobbles this tripe with a very big spoon.”
This essay is the typical fodder that serves as the basis for screeds typically found on Huffpost et al; nothing more than byproducts from the monolithic group think cookie cutters of higher education.
Interestingly this type of thinking results from lack of viewpoint diversity in higher education, the subject of the previous thread.
So now the elite left are comfortable with using the moniker of science to leverage their views of what a new world order should be. This is really all that the IPCC represents, the wedding of political science to science, and now we battle its offspring on this blog.
What do you think about this paragraph:
“All the organizational work for weather prediction did little to connect the scattered specialists in diverse fields who took an interest in climate change. A better chance came in the mid 1950s, when a small band of scientists got together to push international cooperation to a higher level in all areas of geophysics. They aimed to coordinate their data gathering and—no less important—to persuade their governments to spend an extra billion or so dollars on research. The result was the International Geophysical Year (IGY) of 1957–58.”
Now consider this; the “extra billion or so dollars on research” is in 1957 dollars, factor in inflation and multiply that number by the number of countries signed on as signatories to the concept; then further multiply this by about 50 years. And the left complains about the 10s of millions in fossil fuel influence; it would be hilarious if it weren’t so myopic, these people are tragically misinformed relative to governmental influence peddling using big money that could only a government could spend on that sort of scale, this synergistically leveraged with politics. What would the total of the amounts spent by global governments amount to to this date? I’d love to see some analysis on that, but only if I was close to a bar.
The next paragraph, it just keeps getting better:
“IGY with its unprecedented funding was energized by a mixture of altruistic hopes and hard practical goals. Scientists expected in the first place to advance their collective knowledge and their individual careers. The government officials, who supplied the money, while not indifferent to pure scientific discovery, expected the new knowledge would have civilian and military applications. The U.S. and Soviet governments further hoped to win practical advantages in their Cold War competition. It is a moot question whether, in a more tranquil world, governments would have spent so much to learn about seawater and air around the globe. For whatever motives, the result was a coordinated effort involving several thousand scientists from sixty-seven nations (Needell, 2000, ch. 11; Greenaway, 1996, ch. 12).”
And this one:
“A steady diet of fresh scientific perspectives helps to maintain regular doses of funding, helped in turn by an endless round of conferences”
I think the essay you linked to above, written by a proponent of IPCC, is essential reading for opponents to United Nations climate panel IPCC.
With the stock market crash of 1929 and the global depression that followed, there emerged a rhetoric of anti-capitalism and, at first a murmur, then a cacophony of logic and voices for collectivism and an orderly state, run by the few, in the name of the many. European Socialism co-opted and run amok.
Today, we have yet another anti-capitalistic movement spoken as a collective action on climate change. The rhetoric is the same as then only the dates have changed. The anti-capitalistic climate change movement has its academic and government spokes-persons advocating collective changes to the whole society for the utopian betterment of all human-kind. The social/political critic H.L. Mencken referenced such behavior: creating scary scenarios to goad the public into yielding their freedom by begging for government to control such hobgoblins.
Today as then, the brutality of collectivism and the persecution of dissenters hides a reality that became apparent only after decades of failure, suppression and mis-information. The Soviets eventually ran out of other peoples’ money and collapsed upon itself. Until a similar time of reckoning, when this anti-capitalistic climate change movement has run its political course, the public will be faced with woebegone renewable projects languishing in disrepair and ugliness, supplanted by energy and economic realities that should have made sense today, yet didn’t. There will of course be no rescuing bats whose lungs were exploded by wind turbines, or the birds who perished in the heat of the fire of the solar furnace. We’ll just soldier on I guess, picking up the wreckage of another social movement that already knows what is best for mankind.
Here we have 100% BS from someone who has a 50% understanding of capitalism and a 1% understanding of externalities.
On second thought, I saw no understanding of externalities at all.
max10k
You’ve kinda let me know how you feel, now perhaps you could be more specific as to what you believe is incorrect regarding my assertions?
As a practicing capitalist I know it’s not anti-capitalistic to recognize and deal with external costs. And I’m not alone. Warren Buffett, arguably the world’s most successful capitalist would agree.
BTW, the Soviet Union was the world’s worst polluting nation.
Funny coming from someone who has repeatedly demonstrated only a partial knowledge, at best, of what is involved with externalities.
And this one “I know it’s not anti-capitalistic to recognize and deal with external costs.” Another example of your dishonest style max. How about providing examples of people here making that claim? Nah, that would involve actual work, not to mention integrity.
The issue isn’t whether consideration of external costs is anti-capitalist. It isn’t even an issue of should they be factored into any cost assessment. The issue has always been how such costs are identified and accounted for, or along a similar vein, who does the identification and accounting.
Taking disposal costs of fly ash into account is likely a valid externality which most folks would agree on. Taking some number derived for future damage from “extreme weather” is the sort of externality that a large number of people would question. In other words max, people here do understand the concept of externalities and accept them as part of cost accounting and doing business. That they might object to your ideas on what is or isn’t an external cost simply shows good sense.
Sorry, timg56, but I think you are wrong. I don’t see externalities discussed much here, and when the subject is brought up, people try to hide their discomfort by saying silly things like who cares if costal cities are under sea water. But what the deniers and false skeptics think matters little anyway because the world’s nations are going ahead with plans to curb global warming.
You have no real measurement of what the external costs might be, just wild-guess estimates.
No matter what, the external benefits of fossil fuels far and away outweighs whatever the external costs might be. Everyone benefits from a robust economy enabled by cheap energy.
Now run to your handlers and ask what you should say.
Max10k
AFAIK, no one before or after Moses has been able to make the seas rise or fall. Even Cnut the Great, king of all Denmark, Norway & Sweden could not command the seas to behave as he wished. Now, we have those who believe that by a puff of their hot air, they will command as Moses did.
Hubris
max,
saying “you” don’t see much discussion on any topic here is just more of you dropping chicken pellets all over a thread.
Externalities here are usually brought up by people arguing for putting a price on CO2 emissions. And the usual responses are along the points I made above – the high degree of uncertainty in determining any particular cost and the high degree of subjectivity which comes into play. That the best you can do in terms of a response is to make up something as foolish as your claim of “who cares if costal cities are under sea water. ” simply reinforces our impression that you are a fool and a dishonest one at that. The fool part probably can’t be helped in your case, but dishonesty – in this case making something up and claiming others are the source – is a conscious choice.
The only hubris on display here is RiHo08’s. Heat seawater, it’s expands. Add water to a basin, the water level goes up. you folks are picking a fight with physics, and physics takes no prisoners.
JCH
Speaking of physics:
“http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v6/n7/full/ngeo1829.html”
And just in case you fail to open the site: sea level rise of 1.8 mm/year during the global temperature hiatus: 75% of which due to….glacier melt and the rest to decreased water density (thermal expansion) and a bit (0.3 mm added), for good measure, for isostatic glacier rebound.
Query: How much extra atmospheric heat is required to raise the oceans of the world by…one inch? A whole lot! So keep your eye on Antarctica as the predictor of ocean rise.
Oh, the drama on watching paint dry, ice melt, and climate scientists predicting the future.
Don’t you have anything better to do?
==> You have no real measurement of what the external costs might be,…No matter what, the external benefits of fossil fuels far and away outweighs whatever the external costs might be.
Said with not a hint of intentional irony. Another example of why I love this place.
I know it doesn’t support your favorite narrative Josh. I understand.
JCH,
You wrote –
“Heat seawater, it’s expands. Add water to a basin, the water level goes up.”
First, change the shape of the basin – what is the effect on the water level? Have you heard of plate tectonics – it’s a radical new discovery. Continents, sea basin bottoms, all move in three directions, ceaselessly and unpredictably. At present, the Australian continent is moving roughly 5 cm per annum in a more or less NNE direction.
What effect is this having on the basin in front? Will it speed up or slow down? Will it change direction? You don’t know, and neither does anyone else! Your simplistic Warmist denier physics doesn’t relate to the real world, does it?
As to your first silly misleading statement. Typical Warmist fare, glossy on the outside, riddled with decay and malodorous on the inside, contains little to no substance.
Here’s a small experiment for you to perform. You can calculate (roughly) the relative inputs, and steady state temperatures, but fluid dynamics is involved. You might even rediscover Lorenz’ work, but you’ll be a bit late!
Anyway, take your deepish pan of water, make sure it’s at least a few meters deep, put the bottom on a block of ice, and heat away, from the top, using the hottest, most ferocious heat source you can find. You can even get the surface boiling if you try hard enough. It doesn’t matter, though, the hot water stubbornly remains on top. The bottom water stays close to zero, as it should.
Now, how much expansion did you measure in the water? How much did the level rise? You’ll never know of course, because actual experimentation is anathema to Warmists.
Feel free to join the madly gyrating Conga line of bumbling bearded balding buffoons. Who knows where you might finish up?
Cheers.
If one takes Dr. Curry’s view on TCR and couples it with “Fast Mitigation” (which Dr. Curry speaks favorably about) — you have a very positive story.
Quote from Dr.’s Ramanathan and Molina (Nobel Prize): If we reduce our emissions of methane 50%, black carbon 90% and fully replace HFCs by 2030, then we’ll cut in half projected global warming over the next 35 years.
Begrkamp, a lawyer, seems to be under the illusion that the models are the only line of evidence. He doesn’t know that observations also show the importance of forcing in the measurements, and that paleoclimate shows large variations just from forcing changes. That forcing explains past climate is not known to him. That the rise of the ocean heat content shows an imbalance with warming trailing forcing would be new to him. That the land is warming twice as fast as the ocean, he is probably oblivious. That the earth owes 33 C of its temperature to GHGs he seems not to appreciate. Nor how the greenhouse effect works in the first place. He just, as an evident non-scientist, dismisses the models that explain all this, and people listen because of what expertise exactly? None on the subject he is talking about, for sure, as you can tell from this shallow essay.
Jim D,
You have definitely gasted my flabbers with this one. You have obviously not got Steven Mosher’s missing clue, nor anyone else’s, by the look of things.
Have you recently graduated from Deniers U, or are you still under the Svengali like influence of that almost nearly Nobel Peace Prize winning Michael Mann? I have looked at his picture, and can easily understand how anyone suffering from a mild to severe intellectual deficit might well find themselves under the spell of those piercing eyes, the lofty brow, the balding pate, even the carefully nurtured facial hair.
If so, I understand. You must obey.
Cheers.
MF, go through the reasons you believe Bergkamp so much. Start with past evidence he knows anything about what he is talking about or what you actually know about him from the past. He is just a random person giving an uninformed opinion, but go ahead.
Jim D, Bergkamp works for Hutton and Williams, the law firm that defended Philip Morris, and more recently worked for polluters fighting the EPA. So we know where he’s coming from.
Jim D,
Oftentimes, Warmists Without a Clue fall back on demanding that people perform pointless actions at the Warmist Whim. It seems you follow this practice.
I hope you don’t mind if I, at least, try stick to facts at least vaguely related to reality, unlike the Waffling Witless Warmist Wastrels who proclaim themselves to be climatologists, or their gullible drooling acolytes.
So no, I have no particular inclination to go through reasons for anything, just because you direct me to.
However, I can understand your thinking. At the merest suggestion from the nearest bumbling, bearded, balding, buffoon of the climatological variety, you will fall into a positive paroxysm of fawning servility. Evasion, misdirection, denial, extravagant nonsensical claims of CO2 control knobs, all will issue unceasingly from orifices best employed for other things.
I am made of stronger stuff, of course. I examine facts, or at least things I believe to be facts, and form an opinion based thereon. When new facts emerge, I will likely change my opinion. What would you do?
Cheers.
This is one of the lawyers that industries call when they have been caught red-handed polluting the environment, and he is on your side. Think what that means.
Steven Mosher | March 28, 2016 at 1:30 pm | wrote –
“I want (skeptics) to up their game because it’s no fun shooting fish in a barrel”
Mosh, this and other of your recent comments are giving me an impression that you are (a) tending to see skeptics as a united, coordinated group; (b) assuming that the bulk of skeptics have the same objective; and (c) that the participation of skeptics is necessary to change the present policy of the pro climate change authorities.
After years of participation and reading, I infer that skeptics are mostly lone workers, that their objectives vary widely and that the Establishment will fail to achieve its main ambition irrespective of sceptical input.
In the history of protest, there are some case histories whose basics are similar to the progress of this climate change issue. The most similar that I have seen is in the book “The Apocalyptics” by Edith Efron. This involved a sudden proposition in the early 1970s that the USA was about to see an epidemic of cancers caused by an increase in the number and use of man-made chemicals. Efron traces the progress of this movement in detail with many, many quotes from the originators, so her book appears credible. In the event, there was no epidemic.The basic hypothesis was wrong. The matter went away as more and more advocates changed course (but notably, a lot of law and regulation made for the scare remains on the USA books). Skeptic movements like those of today are not mentioned in the book. There were individual skeptics, often from outside USA.
I have long inferred from Efron’s work that the climate change issue will die away in due course, but some troublesome residues will remain. Skeptics have little part to play. They cannot contribute heavily in most cases, because for example they have no access to paid-for supercomputers to discount the main charge that computer models can be used to assist policy formation.
At best, individual skeptics can cause individual policy makers to think again and perhaps change. Sometimes there is a catch phrase that lawmakers like and adopt, like “The science is not settled”. Proving this is almost impossible for your average skeptic Joe.
This is predicated on knowing who are skeptics. It is plausible that there is a large, expensive, mostly unseen effort within free enterprise to protect assets and futures. (I used to work this way re anti uranium mining issues). There might even be several layers of skepticism more organised than one meets on blogs like Judith’s.
What can the individual skeptic do? Those who contribute to this and similar blogs can but keep on putting pressure on. But on to whom? Not many skeptics are reporting that they are causing policy makers to change policy.
My motivation is to try to stem the blood flow from proper Science caused by the post-normal, even intellectually challenged pseudo-scientists and their get-rich-quick friends in the climate change cuspidor that has been described in public to date.
Sadly, there is little hope that a lone skeptic can “do an Einstein” and come up with a completely new approach. However, skeptics can but try and should try, partly because of the satisfaction in later life of knowing that one gave it a good shot with the resources at hand.
Mosh, we agree that shooting fish in a barrel is a needless exercise. Can we agree that skeptics as we know them here are not a large, coordinated group being fed big money from BigCarbon?
Geoff.
Great Post!
Sometimes there is a catch phrase that lawmakers like and adopt, like “The science is not settled”.
I have a catch elevator speech that some lawmakers like and I hope some adopt.. “When the oceans are warm and wet, it snows more and that bounds the upper limits of temperature and sea level. When the oceans are cold and frozen, it snows less and that bounds the lower limits of temperature and sea level.
Another elevator speech> “About 2000 years ago, there was a Roman Warm Period and then it got cold. About 1000 years ago, there was a Medieval Warm Period and then it got cold. That was called the Little Ice Age. It is warm now because it is supposed to be warm now. It is a natural cycle and we did not cause it”.
And, “CO2 just makes green things grow better, while using less water.’
The Fed feels the same way…
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/central-banks-will-never-admit-theyve-run-out-of-ammunition-but-they-have-2016-03-30
but, their model suggested that they may be able to make rain by throwing money out of helicopters. It looks like their big model sucks instead. Proof would be nice but a ‘big bazooka’ will work better this time. We will all see.
I suspect the Fed has about reached the limit of how long they can operate profitably while keeping interest rates low. I suspect they will have to raise rates within a year regardless of what the economy looks like.
Many countries in Europe have negative interest rates. There’s not much limit to the stupidity. Japan implemented negative rates and inflation is still non-existent. It did no good whatsoever, and it appears to have done damage. It allows companies with a lot of debt to hang on. In a non-manipulated economy, these inefficient failures would fail and be cleared from the economy.
Geoff asks
“Can we agree that skeptics as we know them here are not a large, coordinated group being fed big money from BigCarbon?
__
If Mosher thinks climate skeptics are a large coordinated group financed by Big Carbon, he doesn’t show it. My impression is he thinks they just don’t have much to offer.
On the other hand, there is that side to it too. Sheldon Whitehouse has a go at them today.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sen-sheldon-whitehouse/more-nonsense-from-the-fo_b_9558322.html
While the climate skeptics here are not paid by Big Carbon, they are fellow travelers, and will try to please and defend Big Carbon.
I should qualify my statement. I do not know for a fact that Big Carbon never
gave money to any climate skeptic who posts here. A few may have received money.
Max: Rubbish.
Over the years many regular commenters here have said that they look forward to a world that is no longer dependent on fossil fuels, but that they do not want to see the world (particularly developing nations) forgo the economic benefits that fossil fuels bring, at least until alternatives are viable without needing huge subsidies to prop them up.
You’re responding to your own prejudices, not what the regular ‘denizens’ actually say.
Ha, max makes another ignorant adolescent brain speculative assertion lacking any evidence. I have this same absurd rationalization for years and is the major reason I have gone from a believer 25 years ago to a skeptic today. All the clones have been brainwashed in a way the North Koreans would have loved 65 years ago. There is no imagination on the warmer side. That is why their political ideology is all the same. More Federal funds. More Federal funds. The panacea to all problems. If they ever teach gerbils to speak and get them to speak, there won’t be a need for the Democratic party.
I have viewed the world from max’s position but he has yet to see it from my position. With a little more intellect and great new found observational skills, he may eventually get there. Good luck Maxieboy.
Big oil can’t be involved. If they are involved, it’s a gd’d low quality fiasco that they should be deeply ashamed of. They usually do much higher quality work.
The Cisco Kid said
“I have gone from a believer 25 years ago to a skeptic today.
________
I can believe it. Like tomatoes, brains go soft with age.
Why are you calling yourself a skeptic.
Skeptics don’t take positions. You are taking a position. Be accurate in describing yourself. I suggest contrarian or naysayer.
Jonathan –
==> …but that they do not want to see the world (particularly developing nations) forgo the economic benefits that fossil fuels bring, at least until alternatives are viable without needing huge subsidies to prop them up.
Which is rather interesting given that they can’t quantify the ratio of positive/negative externalities.
Skepticism or “skepticism?”
Re comment by Jonathan Abbott on March 29, 2016 at 5:10 am
_____
Abbot wants to gamble on the future of all mankind because he is concerned some of mankind isn’t modern enough. Unless Abbot has an extraordinary life span, he won’t be around to pay if his gamble loses.
Ceresco,
Regarding this: “I have viewed the world from max’s position ”
Bet it was a breath of fresh air when you pulled you head out.
From Josh
“Which is rather interesting given that they can’t quantify the ratio of positive/negative externalities.”
Says only you (and maybe numbnuts). Anyone seriously interested in discussing externalities admits at the start that there are significant uncertainties in identifying what they are (or should be) and how to account for them. Your comment tells us you are not among those wanting to engage in a serious discussion.
But then we already knew that.
Max wants to condemn hundreds of millions of the planets poorest to a continued life of unremitting and horrific poverty, while gambling this will mean our descendents will have to worry less about flood defences and storm damage.
But who cares about the plight of the Third World’s rural poor against the warm glow of knowing you’re saving the planet, right Max?
WRONG ! Unlike you, Johnathan, I am not an egotistical ethnocentric bore who wants to tell citizens of third-world countries that their cultures suck and if they had any sense they would be like Americans and burn vast quantities of fossil fuel. If you took your missionary zeal to a place that practices cannibalism, it wouldn’t surprise me if they cooked you for lunch.
Max: There you go again – speaking to the prejudices in your head. Who said anything about cultural superiority? I was talking about real, grinding poverty, that human beings (the same as you and me) in their hundreds of millions suffer every single day of their lives. But let’s just be flippant and superior about that, eh?
I’m not American, so why would I want other people to live like Americans? I don’t want to. But in your ignorant world of the excluded middle the only alternative to poverty is stupid fat Yanks in gas guzzlers, right?
Johnathan, I’m relieved to hear you are not American, because we don’t need any more experts on what’s good for the citizens of third-world nations. We are in enough trouble now as a result of messing around in the business of others.
If you want to tell people outside of your country how to do right, that’s none of my business. Just don’t be surprised if they fail to appreciate your good intentions.
Max: So telling them they shouldn’t use all means available to lift themselves out of grinding poverty is a bad thing. Glad we agree on that.
Jonathan, Max isn’t an American. He’s a troll here to make Americans look bad. Please don’t feed the trolls.
David, I know just what Max is. But sometimes it’s good to get things down on record, so anybody else dropping by can see both sides of the argument.
Geoff Sherrington,
Your comments are much more valuable than the continual yap of the foolish “progressives”.
Geoff, if you haven’t seen this paper, I think you will find it edifying.
http://kestencgreen.com/green%26armstrong-agw-analogies.pdf
The authors supply a host of examples of similar scares to CAGW, stretching back to a quaint little scare from the mid 1800s about the world running out of spar timber. All were accompanied by strident demands by the smug bien pensant gits of the day for drastic and costly action. All turned out to be “scientistic” rather than scientific, and hence wrong. Many left, as you note, a residue of wealth-destroying and (in the case of Eugenics) inhumane legislation which the SB-PGs were too cowardly and embarrassed to extirpate from the statute books. Some, like the DDT fatwa which preceded global warming in the vainglorious enthusiasms of Al Gore, must bear responsibility for millions of unnecessary deaths.
Tom
Interesting list but hundreds more could be added to it, for example;
‘In 1894, the Times of London estimated that by 1950 every street in the city would be buried nine feet deep in horse manure. One New York prognosticator of the 1890s concluded that by 1930 the horse droppings would rise to Manhattan’s third-story windows.’
tonyb
Tony,
They were partially correct. Wrong with regard to location, but the amount of horse manure (or in the case of little maxie, chicken manure) that shows up here argues they were not far off in their estimates of volume.
tonyb – yes, I’m sure many could be added to the list. And in 1894 the amount of manure on the streets of cities like London and New York was both staggering and rising. Your doomsayer got that bit right, but of course his scientistic model missed the motor car, long the principal scalp sought by the green blob. Let’s hear it for the car – keeping the sh*t off our streets and, it turns out, keeping us nice and warm, too!
“If excessive smoking actually plays a role in the production of lung cancer, it seems to be a minor one.” – -W.C. Heuper, National Cancer Institute, 1954
Sorry guys, this is you.
You’re up against a physical process, just like the poor idiot above was. You’re losing, and it’s really sad to watch.
“If excessive smoking actually plays a role in the production of lung cancer, it seems to be a minor one.” – -W.C. Heuper, National Cancer Institute, 1954</i.
Sorry guys, the above is you.
You’re up against a physical process, just like poor Heuper was. You’re losing, and it’s really sad to watch.
Yep. Poor losing Warmistas!
last 20 years: slope = 0.0171838 per year
Can it get worse for you pathetic losers? Just wait.
Smoking is an interesting case.
I’ve never smoked and having seen the suffering on a cancer ward, I never will.
But while not smoking is a wise individual choice, it’s funny how the crusade against tobacco in society may actually cause harm. Smokers due get cancer and other diseases. But because they die earlier, they have lower lifetime medical costs ( longer life means higher expense ). Smokers also collect lower amounts of old age benefits while paying a higher proportion of tax. On top of that, smokers I’ve known tend to be more creative and productive – maybe because they’re insane ( dunno if that includes the president ).
So, not smoking costs society.
Can it get worse for you pathetic losers? Just wait.
Sounds as if you have some issues.
I have issues with inane people who think a prediction about horse manure is relevant to physical science.
Some artillery shells are duds. They are duds because some aspect of their design was done wrong. Along come these losers trying to tell us not to duck because a perfectly good artillery shell is not going to blow up because defective ones sometimes do not.
JCH – That comment can go in the anus of sloppy analogies.
Sorry, that should have been annals.
JCH,
You wrote –
“Some artillery shells are duds. They are duds because some aspect of their design was done wrong. Along come these losers trying to tell us not to duck because a perfectly good artillery shell is not going to blow up because defective ones sometimes do not.”
Warmists just cannot help themselves. Irrelevant, pointless analogies pour forth. Tobacco, doctors, test pilots, aeroplanes, no analogy is too far-fetched to be employed by a Wildly Wandering Warmist unable to marshal facts to support his wild assertions about the future.
Climate is average weather. If you can figure out how to usefully predict weather, (better than I can – how hard can it be?), you will have made a great advance. Characterising people as losers based on something supposed to happen in the future, seems to be indicative of some mental deficiency.
I doubt if you could force a casino to pay you in advance as a winner. Crikey, I’ve used an analogy! Being a Warmist, I’m sure you’ll love it!
Cheers.
I’ve agonized over this for some time now. Paradoxically, I actually no longer have a problem with any of this. You will not like why.
In the final analysis it all boils down to whether or not you actually know when we all live. It is just that simple.
Either we live at the end of the most recent half-precessional old interglacial, or we do not.
And the risk? Oh my gosh is that simple! At 11,719 years old, the Holocene interglacial is now 219 years beyond half a precession cycle old. According to the warmistas we now live in the Anthropocene extension of Holocene interglacial warmth, and they demand that we end that.
I am now OK with that. Really. Go ahead, strip said climate security blanket from the late Holocene atmosphere. If you dare.
There have always been, but we are to assume this is now negated somehow, two climate states for gaia: the warm interglacial state, and the cold glacial state. In the warmista model, the cold interglacial state no longer exists.
Why? The scholarly literature provides the necessary answer. If it were not for our late Holocene industrial age GHG emissions we would most likely already be in the throes of glacial inception. But we are not.
If not for our anthropogenic GHG emissions, we would only be experiencing miniscule weather perturbations some 10 to nearly 100 times greater than anything yet predicted for anthropogenic GHGs. Why? Because that is what has always happened at the ends of all previous end extreme interglacials.
Obviously, and patently, untrue if you are unaware of what actually has happened at the ends of every interglacial that has achieved or exceeded our temps and sea levels prior to our advent on the scene.
Extreme weather events? Do they occur at the ends of all previous end extreme interglacials? Well, sort of. That is why the ends of the most recent interglacials have been called the climatic “madhouse”. So the trick is to distinguish and amplify the anthropogenic component of the climate madhouse we are presently due for.
MIS-19 ended naturally with 3 strong thermal pulses, the last of which saw the glacial inception. MIS-11 ended with three strong thermal pulses, the last one of which saw the glacial inception and the sea level highstand for the entire extended interglacial . MIS-5e ended with 2 strong thermal pulses, the last one saw the glacial inception and the sea level highstand for the entire half-precession cycle long interglacial. Therefore the matheMANNical chances of this ever happening, again, at the end of MIS-1 are ZERO.
Why are they ZERO? The answer is simplicity itself. Because we say so, now. Just because the ends of all known (meaning those that achieved even greater sea levels than MIS-1 are exposed, and evidence of all others are conveniently submerged, you know) interglacials exhibit extreme weather/climate events that obviate each and every claim of anthropogenic induced climate effects should, in no way, complicate our understanding of dramatically inferior anthropogenic induced climate events.
I will run through the matheMANNics for you, in the event that this is difficult for you to compute. MatheMANNically, the +0.6M of sea level rise attributable to anthropogenic effects (AR4), or the +0.8M of sea level rise attributable to anthropogenic effects (AR5), is demonstrably far greater than the +0.6 to +52M of sea level rise that occurred anyway at just the end of the most recent interglacial. This is matheMANNically obvious!
The risks associated with anthropogenic climate change are immediately obvious! Either we quell anthropogenic CO2 emissions, of we risk experiencing sea level rises somewhere between 1 to almost 2 orders of magnitude greater anyway, as have apparently always occurred, or we risk experiencing sea level rises somewhere between 1 to almost 2 orders of magnitude anyway. As have apparently always occurred.
Get it?
I ran these ALGOREithms through my databases and I do get it. Now.
I got a “hit” on my Mt. Toba eruption files. About 71kyrs ago, after the Mt. Toba eruption, hominid populations shrank to something like ~10k individulals, based on genetic analyses. Soon thereafter, evidence mounts as to the existence of human civilizations, the origination of cave art (first written non-text messages), in other words, a smarter hominid.
Incomprehensibly, I came to the scholastic literature corroborated conclusion that “the smart move” today, now, at the 11,719 year old Holocene, would be to remove the anthropogenic GHG roadblock to glacial inception.
Why?
Because the abrupt, dramatic, seemingly unavoidable effects of such climate changes builds a better hominid.
The alternative being that anthropogenic preservation of the Anthropocene version of Homo sapiens beyond the normal, natural glacial inception which might now be overdue, is not necessarily all that palatable. If you get my meaning.
Pretzel logic, plain and simple. If you are in any way obsessed, concerned, militantly opposed, whatever, to extending the Holocene interglacial into the Anthropocene, then go ahead, end it. The only known climate state left is the cold glacial state.
Which also happens to be the only known chlorine that has ever been added to the genus Homo gene pool.
The possibility exists (to which I have purposefully not provided quotes or links to) that the warmists have inadvertently stumbled upon the only known way of ridding the genus Homo of those that require substantiation of the current iteration of said genus.
Alternatively, perpetuation of the interglacial climate security blanket, GHGs, would also perpetuate the current iteration of the genus Homo, H. sapiens. I remain unconvinced that perpetuation of those that can come to the exact opposite conclusion to what climate actually means to our genus is the correct conclusion.
In terms of risk to spaceship earth I have “evolved” to the warmistas point of view. Annealing precisely to their point of view and agenda, I have come to the realization that if one is truly in it for gaia, then the most important consideration is to stop resisting her normal, natural inclination to glacial inception. Throughout our time, this has actually been the very chlorine that has purified our gene pool!
Which means that, diabolically, incomprehensibly, the warmistas, via pretzel logic that they probably cannot comprehend, have come to the exact correct solution.
“I recommend a new strategy R2, let the Wookie(s) win”
William McClenney,
Thank you. Have I got this right: If we stop GHG emissions we’ll cull the less smart Homo sapiens – those who call themselves progressives (but are actually the blockers of progress) – and be left with more rational and productive Homo sapiens?
That could certainly be a great benefit to (far) future generations. :)
Nay-chur’s precarious
and don’t you forget it.
Climate see-sawing,
inter to glacial may
take you unawares, like
poor Otzi, bronze-age-
traveller, snap-frozen in the
Tyrol ‘n swallowed by a glacier.
Those hungry glaciers swallowing
whole villages, churches even,
where praying congregations
seek insurance from the elements
to no avail. Nay-chur has its way.
beththeserf,
max1ok is no supporter of free speech, that much is evident. His version of freedom of speech seems to be that you have the freedom to say whatever max1ok and his puppetmaster decree as acceptable.
He has said it before, and will no doubt say it again, and again, and again, and . . .
If you ever find yourself in charge of a joke that is needful of a butt, or a village short of . . . , then I am sure max1ok will be more than happy to volunteer his services. I’d make one small suggestion. It’s probably best not to introduce him to anyone named Torquemada or McCarthy. He might get ideas above his station.
I believe max1ok is taking bumbling classes at Denier U, where he is simultaneously removing hair from his pate, and adding it to his face. Once he finally qualifies in buffoonery, he will no doubt declare himself a climatologist, and join the rest of the ragtag wannabe crew.
Good luck to him, I say!
You stay well Beth, and keep up the good work. Happy serfing!
Cheers.
And happy serfing ter u 2, Mike Flynn.
Proverbs 10:8
The wise of heart will receive commandments,
but a babbling fool will come to ruin.
You windbags better zip you lips or risk getting zapped by lightning bolts.
max1ok,
You wrote –
“You windbags better zip you lips or risk getting zapped by lightning bolts.”
I’ll take the risk. I assess the chance of getting zapped by lightning bolts as minimal, regardless of my lip zip state. Zap away. Go your hardest!
What’s wrong, max? Cat got your zapper? Or your zipper? Ouch!
Cheers.
I have said it before and I will say it again.
Blabbing at great length about whatever crosses your mind is an abuse of freedom of speech. William McClenney takes the abuse prize.
‘Omnis Vestri Substructio Es Servus Ad Nobis…’
thinks maxie.
Congrats max!
We are only a quarter of the way into the year, but this one is a good bet to garner top prize for most ironic (and most lacking in self awareness) comment of the year here at CE.
timg56, I hope the Navy is rewarding you with large disability payments for turning you into a neomort. Obviously, years of oxygen deprived submarine duty didn’t do your brain any good.
max,
what would you know about submarine duty?
Three out of the four previous interglacials have been as long or longer than the present one.
“I’ve agonized over this for some time now. Paradoxically, I actually no longer have a problem with any of this. You will not like why.”
I neither like nor dislike why because I didn’t bother reading that obnoxiously long screed.
Have I got this right If we stop GHG emissions w’e cull those who call them selves progressives (but are actually the blockers of progress) and be left with the more rational and productive Homo sapiens?
That could certainly be a great benefit to future generations.
Peter Lang,
You’re pretty close. If we stop those we don’t like, from emitting evil CO2 and evil H2O (not to mention more complex aromatics and other esters) by blocking the emitting orifices, then it is likely we will indeed encourage the survival of more rational and more productive members of Homo Sap.
Maybe we should be making a list, and checking it twice, we’ll have to find out who’s naughty, and nice – and then stop them emitting, with extreme prejudice. max1ok will no doubt support us – for a while, at least!
Cheers.
Trying to determine how much the average global temperature is changing using global climate models is a bit like trying to determine how fast a car is going by analyzing loses and what is going on in the combustion chambers. Its theoretically possible but not very accurate, especially if your model is faulty.
Objective analysis (not funded by government grants or energy companies) reveals that change to the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere (and thus burning fossil fuels) has no significant effect on climate.
A simple conservation of energy equation, employing the time-integral of sunspot number anomalies and an approximation of the net effect of all ocean cycles achieves a 97% match with measured average global temperatures since before 1900. Including the effects of CO2 improves the match by 0.1%. http://globalclimatedrivers.blogspot.com
Fascinating!
But very accurate.
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/03/29/hillary-clinton-cannot-win-us-election-economist.html
AGW is nothing to worry about this year.
There is no question that the sun drives the Earth’s climate. Therefore correlations, at some level, must exist. However, Mr. Pangburn has a divergence problem at the end of his data. Sunspot numbers down, global average temperature up.
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jfqZYgisPvM/Vsr_avT-w4I/AAAAAAAAAdc/asWCzl5uxn8/s1600/Slide6.JPG
On the contrary, JCH, the Pangburn model indicates that global warming is due to solar variability, which is on the input side. CO2 on the output side seems to have nothing to do with it. Have you read the paper?
Sounds like a recipe for fudge (factors).
Conversely, the high correlation suggests the fudge may be good.
Correlation is not causation. No matter how tasty the fudge.
http://i.imgur.com/4OkPvu4.jpg
http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations
Ocean cycles cannot create anything. it’s up, and then it’s down. If it’s not that, then it is not acting as a natural cycle. There has not been a down – as in, a butt kicking decline in the GMST – since the 19th century: mules; steam engines; kerosene lanterns.
JCH said
There has not been a down – as in, a butt kicking decline in the GMST – since the 19th century: mules; steam engines; kerosene lanterns….
and apparently global sea surface temperatures accurate to tenths of a degree.
tonyb
opluso, correlation is not causation, but this is a causal model. Correlation between model output and observation is evidence that the model may be correct. It is not as strong as a successful prediction, but it is evidence none the less.
JCH, my impression from scanning the paper is that the ocean cycles help account for some of the wiggles in the temperature, not the overall warming, which is solar in origin.
Oops. Posted reply one level above.
Saying it is solar in origin isn’t saying anything. For all intents and purposes, all energy at issue comes from the sun. Ocean cycles produce zippo energy. CO2 produces zippo energy. The energy arriving from the sun has to leave or this planet bakes in no time. How it leaves – the amount – is what is at issue. CO2 is a major player in how much leaves.
Yes, opluso, the sunspot problem is well known but Pangburn claims to have solved it.
JCH, the Pangburn model indicates that global warming is due to solar variability, which is on the input side. CO2 on the output side seems to have nothing to do with it. (Reposting in hopefully the right place)
As with others who assert the sun controls global temperature trends, we will have to wait a bit longer to conclusively determine the truth.
But, for now, it looks like his method might be susceptible to cherry picking end dates (note how his R^2 falls off without five year smoothing). If similar criticisms are valid against the consensus models, it would be inappropriate to ignore them simply because his model results align with one’s personal opinions.
If atmospheric CO2 has nothing to do with it, which sounds astoundingly and conveniently political, and you add energy from the input side, the system does what?
The Public has no interest in “uncertainty” and that is why respectable people with qualifications to say so need to reassure the public, constantly, that “AGW” is not a problem and it never will be.
“Science” has been hijacked for too long by a cabal of soi-disant “climatologists” burdened with egotism and a strong distaste for admitting error. It is high time to bring the curtain down.
Notice what’s happening in unrelated public discourse in America. The Trump phenom is awakening the masses to the deny/divert/confuse strategies common to the fallecious deceivers. This awakening will eventually be extended to CAGW and it will crush the deception.
Light is emerging.
WRONG ! The latest Gallup poll shows climate contrarians are disproportionately represented by two demographic groups: old people and less educated people. These groups overlap because the older a person is, the less educated he’s likely to be. As attrition takes it’s toll on today’s seniors, they will be replaced by more educated new seniors, who are not as likely to be climate contrarians. So expect the ranks of climate skeptics to shrink, and have less and less political influence as time passes.
No max, Gallup found the biggest difference between men and women. 66% men were skeptics and 60% women were believers. They put in a footnote on their report “real men”.
Post graduate was equal. College graduate 17% skeptic and 14% believer.
HS or less had more believers 37% to 35% skeptic.
Ages 30-64 had higher% as skeptics than over 65.
Other studies have shown no difference in income or education as to tendency toward skepticism. In fact one study showed a higher level of knowledge by skeptics about the issue.
Like Casey you struck out.
Did Mom wake you up from your nap? You seem all ginned up.
==> The Trump phenom is awakening the masses to the deny/divert/confuse strategies common to the fallecious deceivers. ..Light is emerging.
It’s always interesting to so often read that type of analysis and then read “skeptics” claiming that those who disagree with them about climate change are disproportionately influenced by a “noble cause” bias.
kid –
==> In fact one study showed a higher level of knowledge by skeptics about the issue.
Hmmm. I wonder if that’s the study which showed a relatively minor association between views on the risk of climate change with “scientific literacy” (in the direction you described) along with a very a strong association with ideological orientation.
I ask because it’s always so interesting to watch self-identified “skeptics” do such a blatant cherry-pick.
Would you mind linking to the study you’re speaking about? ‘Cause I’d hate to think that you’re cherry-picking.
Cisco, I hate to tell you this, but your numbers are not from the latest Gallup survey, which was conducted less than a month ago. I will quote from Gallups write- up:
“Younger adults (those 18 to 34) are also much more likely than older Americans (55 and older) to attribute the record warmth to human-caused climate change, 61% vs. 39%. There are also noticeable differences by education and race: College graduates are more likely than those with no college to choose human causation (56% vs. 42%) … “
Cisco, to save you further embarrassment I will stop here, but I will provide a link to the survey so you can get yourself straightened out.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/190319/americans-believe-2015-record-warm-split-why.aspx?g_source=climate&g_medium=search&g_campaign=tiles
Max you don’t even represent the poll correctly. My poll was about skeptics view of global warming.. Your poll was about a single episode. Anything coming from views about an episode is meaningless compared to views about the larger issue of AGW.
Cisco complains
“Max you don’t even represent the poll correctly.”
______________
I beg your pardon !
The subject is climate. I said it was the latest Gallup Poll, which it is, and I quoted Gallup, and provided a link to the study.
Apparently, you didn’t like the results of the latest Gallup Poll, and you want to refer to an earlier poll. That’s ok, but you should provide a link, so I know exactly which poll you have in mind.
Your accusation that I misrepresented the results of the latest Gallup Poll on climate change is outrageous.
Face it Valentine, the “climate skeptic movement” movement is mostly a bunch of ignorant curmudgeons who give science comic relief. I’m afraid mortality attrition is rapidly reducing the ranks of these geezer clowns, and I will miss the amusement they provide.
You can call me whatever you like, or whoever you identify as a “skeptic,” I don’t know of any of them who have ulterior motives or anything to hide.
Which is why we tend to identify anything we have to say with our authentic names.
Do you think it’s admirable or not, “Max”?
So what happened to that foot-stomping princess called “Max”?
Valentine sounds like a made-up name to me, but if my name really was Valentine, I would change it to something more masculine like Steel or Diesel.
You say “I don’t know of any of them who have ulterior motives or anything to hide.”
Well, silly, if it’s hidden, how would you know? Give that one more thought.
Oh, wait a minute. I get it. Climate skeptics aren’t clever enough to hide anything. Is that what you mean?
Max
Valentine has a long and interesting history and is associated with valour
http://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Valentine
I assume Brian is either English or can trace his ancestry here.
Tonyb
climatereason | March 29, 2016 at 4:41 pm
“Valentine has a long and interesting history and is associated with velour”
____
Tony, I’m sure you are right, but we are no longer in the 12th Century.
Yes thanks Tony an historian and genealogist named T W Valentine traced my family to a Richard Valentine from England to the US in about 1680
Anyway numerous persons a lot greater than I ever will be have had and continue to have that name
Max
Our current climate bears a remarkable resemblance to the 12 th century
Tonyb
Brian
Are they the Valentines from Lancashire who emigrated to new York?
http://boards.ancestry.co.uk/thread.aspx?mv=flat&m=172&p=surnames.valentine
It’s a great name
Tonyb
Tony, invokes the MWP.
I think that was around the time my ancestors invaded what’s now Yorkshire.
If it was as warm as you think, why didn’t they just stay home and grow grapes?
MWP or not, earth wasn’t inhabited with 7 million people back then, which means people had more choice about where to live. You could pollute a place until it was unfit to inhabit, and then move on to a new place. Sh*t in your nest, and then move West.
Max,
” Ignorant curmudgeons…geezer clowns” While I prefer those terms being applied to me rather than “aged” or “mature,” I’m pretty sure only “old farts” use those terms these days. The fact that you spend so much time pounding on your keyboard, in a fierce, but irrelevant battle to expose the truth to some anonymous reader (or three if it’s the weekend) tells me you are not dealing well with your own retirement.
Breathe deep, put your computer to sleep and go out and observe the awesome world we live in. Who knows, maybe your wildest CO2 fears will come true, and soon all there will be to experience is a fiery wasteland of blowing sand, or the ocean’s surface a hundred feet over your head; if you live by the coast like me. In that case particularly, badgering incorrigibly hidebound codgers is a poor substitute for a walk in the woods.
But before you do, could you send me contact info on the “climate skeptic movement?” I’d like to join. As a rebellious, idealistic young man, I festooned my car with “Question Authority” bumper stickers. In the fifty years since then, I have watched so many powerful scientific assertions in my fields and ones I’m interested in, evaporate in the face of new knowledge, that it’s one of the few youthful beliefs I think I was completely right about. Be skeptical, be very skeptical. Even of your own beliefs.
John, thank you for your comment. I think you are saying it takes one to know one. I will neither confirm or deny your suspicion. Believe whatever you like.
I’m sorry, but I have to question the wisdom of the following comment:
“In the fifty years since then, I have watched so many powerful scientific assertions in my fields and ones I’m interested in, evaporate in the face of new knowledge, that it’s one of the few youthful beliefs I think I was completely right about. Be skeptical, be very skeptical.”
OK, John, what percentage of “scientific assertions” that had consensus status in the last 50 years evaporated in the face of new knowledge. I can think of only one, the wrong consensus on the cause of gastric ulcers, and it didn’t take long for science to accept the new knowledge.
Climate skeptics, however, have doo doo to offer. If you prefer doo doo, I don’t know what to say.
max1ok,
You wrote –
“OK, John, what percentage of “scientific assertions” that had consensus status in the last 50 years evaporated in the face of new knowledge. I can think of only one, the wrong consensus on the cause of gastric ulcers, and it didn’t take long for science to accept the new knowledge.”
You asked a question incapable of realistic answer, relating to percentages. You then proceed to “think of only one”, which is of course, not a percentage, but a counting number.
What number would satisfy you? How would you determine “consensus”? For example, the British Phrenological Society was still extant in 1966, I believe. Do the members count as a consensus? If one or more had PhDs, would that help?
Can I go a little further back in time and mention that Lysenkoism was mainstream science in China until at least 1956, and was supported by the consensus later than that in several other countries.
Howeve, the whole question of consensus is nonsense. Obviously, self proclaimed climatologists are going to support the notion that climatology is science rather than Scientism. That consensus is both pointless and meaningless.
If you can provide some science to back up your assertions, people will no doubt pay attention. But trying to bludgeon people into believing by using sciencey words, threats of violence, or hurling epithets, probably won’t achieve much. Keep trying, it might provide amusement for others. There don’t appear to be any adverse side effects from laughter!
Cheers.
“Perhaps you want me to die of unrelieved boredom while you keep on talking.”
Martin Luther
The Bondage of the Will
What about everyone else who is not in this “cabal?” Are they just mindlessly going along with the cabal and unable to see the obvious truth, which only “skeptics” usually with no expertise can see?
yes
btw If the members of the “cabal” know that what they are saying about climate change is untrue and trying to fool people, then I call that sociopathic behavior.
Joseph,
You wrote –
“btw If the members of the “cabal” know that what they are saying about climate change is untrue and trying to fool people, then I call that sociopathic behavior.”
Indeed. That is fraud. Foolishness is different, they are just spouting nonsense. They cannot distinguish fact from wishful thinking. Most would fall into this category.
Then there are the delusion psychotics. This is an incurable condition, but often presents as quite normal, even high performing, behaviour, in the afflicted individual.
So dedicated Warmists are pretty much by definition, fools, frauds or mental cases.
Cheers.
So the members of the “cabal” are a group of sociopaths?
Unbelievers.
Joseph,
“Profile of the Sociopath
1.Glibness and Superficial Charm.
2.Manipulative and Conning. They never recognize the rights of others and see their self-serving behaviors as permissible. …
3.Grandiose Sense of Self. …
4.Pathological Lying. …
5.Lack of Remorse, Shame or Guilt. …”
If you feel like identifying any members of your self described cabal who possess these traits, then yes, they may well be sociopaths.
Are you claiming that no person claiming to be a climatologist has ever exhibited any of the above characteristics? None have ever had a publication retracted due to errors, unethical behaviour or other undesirable behaviour?
I don’t know whether all the members of your cabal are sociopaths, or suffer from any of a wide range of mental conditions. Any cabal members who can produce a recent certificate from an eminent psychiatrist attesting to their mental health, and freedom from sociopaths logical indications, are either not sociopaths, or very good at manipulating medical professionals.
So which cabal members do you assess as being perfectly free from character defects? You know who they are, so I will accept your list as a first step.
Cheers.
Hey I am not the one who brought up the “cabal.” I am as curious as you are to know who has joined the cabal and would like to see if your speculations about their psychological state can be confirmed.
Joseph,
I thought you were referring to climatologists in some conspiratorial and obscure Warmist fashion. I came to this possibly incorrect conclusion, as you did not ask for clarification, thereby giving the impression that you understood to whom the cabalist was referring.
I apologise if I have overestimated your intellect.
Rather than refer to members of a cabal, would you prefer that I refer to self proclaimed climatologists? Or maybe Warmists in general? Or people like yourself, if you identify with climatologists, Warmists, fools, frauds, sociopaths or delusional psychotics in general?
Please let me know what you wish. I’ll do my best to accommodate you.
Cheers.
You all need to condense your max responses to one of the following:
max, you’re an idi0t.
max, you’re a dumba$$.
max, go play on the freeway.
Or simply ignore the clown. By his own admission he is here to solicit responses and apparently thinks making ridiculous and outrageous comments is the way to do so. It appears he also thinks he is funny. But like with so many things, he’s not even close to being accurate.
That’s probably the weakest rejoinder I have encountered and requires no response
HA HA ! In other words, you are stumped.
Seriously, give some thought to changing your name to something less gay sounding.
Judith just loves trolling on her blog. She can’t get enough! We all do.
You are the troll. You started it with an outrageous comment that was intended to provoke. I’ll quote what you wrote:
“Science” has been hijacked for too long by a cabal of soi-disant “climatologists”
____
You should be ashamed of accusing me of doing what you did.
Vast right-wing conspiracy or simply more Langley talking points?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-03-28/top-german-journalist-admits-mainstream-media-completely-fake-we-all-lie-cia
We could just talk about the weather… but you are deaf and blind or you don’t watch TV anymore. So what’s the point?
Hmmm. Climate science may or may not have been hijacked by “soi-disant climatologists” but the focus on this thread seems to have shifted from the subject of the head post to that of personalities and primary school level name-calling and is in urgent need of moderation.
A few commenters are dominating the threads and this IMO is also detrimental for this blog, because there could be many visitors who may have something of value to contribute but are put off by the level of acrimony being displayed here and have no wish to be engaged.
Do you fish?
Max might be the most amusing troll I’ve seen. I kind of feel guilty laughing at him, but he seems happy so I guess it’s ok.
Absolutely irrefutable evidence solar panels do not stop extreme 97% Global Warming:
> FactCheck Q&A: is Australia the world leader in household solar power?
The Conversation is fact-checking claims made on Q&A, broadcast Mondays on the ABC at 9:35pm.
https://theconversation.com/factcheck-qanda-is-australia-the-world-leader-in-household-solar-power-56670
“It might also surprise you to know that nearly 15% of Australian households have solar panels on their roofs.
That’s the highest number of solar panels on people’s roofs per capita anywhere in the world.”
– Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg, speaking on Q&A on March 22, 2106.
Verdict: Josh Frydenberg was correct.
~ ~ ~
BoM Special Climate Statement: Prolonged March heatwave affects many parts of Australia
Issued 11 March 2016, updated 22 March 2016
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/statements/
. . .
Taxes, sunbeams & sea breeze collectors are the UN-IPCC ‘science’ response.
For believers in 97% Doomsday Global Warming here, not counting the rest of the planets contribution, how many solar panels & windmills would Australia need to stop “prolonged heatwaves’?
If the answer is ridiculous, how stupid is the question?
Max,
Like I said you need to get out more. Here’s a few abandoned consensus beliefs that come easily to mind that I was taught in college courses.
1) Man is the only tool-making species
2) Man is the only species using language
3) Man is the only species capable of abstract reasoning
4) Life started about 500 million years ago on our planet
5) The first Americans were AmerIndians about 14,000 years ago, coming across a land bridge between Asia and America
6) No higher species are capable of parthenogenesis
In the field of nutrition they are endless. Having been an extreme organic farmer I had even more consensus beliefs to drop or add caveats to than most. Here’s a couple of recent backtracks
7) Saturated fats…bad. Hydrogenated fats…Good
8) Cholesterol especially eggs..bad, Causes cardiac events)
9) Low levels of ionizing radiation raise the number of eventual cancer cases
10) Pluto is a planet.
11) Randomness is impossible. I’m still a determinist, but quantum folks tell me I need to get with it. So much of quantum physics seem so contradictory to what I learned I too cling to the old ways in some matters. I just don’t assert them publicly and don’t name call those that have these odd-newfangled heretical beliefs. Crow sticks between my teeth and messes up my smile.
john, thank you. I don’t know those were all consensus positions of scientists in each field, and I’m not sure I even agree with all of them, but I found the list very interesting. You missed the following abandoned consensus belief:
Only nature can change the climate.
HA HA, got you on that one.
max1ok,
You may not agree that Man is part of Nature. However, the sentiment that Man is indeed part of Nature appears to be the general consensus of Humanity.
In the wider sense, one might consider that everything in the universe is part of the natural universe. So, if something can happen, it is by definition natural.
Even miracles brought about by the power of prayer, (if such were to occur), occur within the universe, and being part of nature, are natural.
Present day scientists were known, not too long ago, as natural philosophers – a term I prefer, for obvious reasons. If you could describe anything that is truly unnatural, I would be grateful. Even Warmist fantasies and mad beliefs are natural.
The atmosphere responds to various natural rules, which we call physics. I purposely set aside the supernatural, or Warmist, views as currently being unnecessary. The operative principle of the atmosphere is possibly a deterministic dynamical system which is highly sensitive to initial conditions. Natural. If you are actually trying to imply, (in the finest Warmist obfuscatory fashion), that Man, just like every facet of Nature, affects the weather in various as yet unknown ways, then why not just say so in the first place?
Like you, I enjoy laughter. Keep it up.
Cheers.
Max,
Not only can man change the climate, we can do so in a myriad of ways; to a number of end states. A geo-engineering project of gargantuan scope, over a long enough period of time, could turn the earth into anything we’d fancy; rabbit warren or Garden of Eden.
Personally, I prefer the fantasy promoted by a website I visited years ago, that suggested we protect our God-given rights to drive anywhere we want to, whenever we want to, as fast as we want to, by paving the entire earth. No lanes, no steering, no braking, no stop signs, no merging, just the ecstasy of the wind blowing through your hair. “Go West Young Man.” at 1,000 mph would give my spotless mind eternal sunshine.
Compare that fantasy with huddling in your cold T.P.-less teepee of brambles, reading “The Population Bomb,” over and over again by the dim light of a CFL while eating your only meal of the day; an indigestible rancid glop of tofu, recycled paper waste and soylent green. A hair shirt and breast beating would be optional.
john, sorry, but my mind has been occupied with your previous post which mentioned the abandoned consensus that only humans use tools. Is there a consensus that only humans can play musical instruments and compose original music? If so, I have evidence it should be abandoned. Watch and listen to the video of an amazing musical genius who is just a common house cat.
What max doesn’t know would fill an ocean – something he demonstrates with every comment.
What he does know might fill a thimble.
I think it’s Very Likely (TM IPPC) that Max10K and JimD are paid blog bombers. Paid by Dimowits or EcoNotSee Enviro groups. They just spend too much time and don’t even make sense most of the time. Better than Willard in that they occasionally make sense. But there was a good bit of craft in Willard’s Rorschach comments. Can’t say that about Max and JimD.
As much as I hate to admit it, it’s very impressive the way lone wolf, independent skeptical thinkers like jim2 can sniff out the devious plots hatched through millions spent in research by Democrats and environmental groups to try to figure out ways to trick the public into going along with their hoax about climate change.
“devious plots hatched through millions spent in research by Democrats and environmental groups to try to figure out ways to trick the public into going along with their hoax about climate change.”
Perfect description and sooo true.
“trick the public into going along”
Oh no! They got Joshua!
Our kickball team bench will never be the same. ;)
Andrew
Right, I have been trying to figure out who “skeptics” think is doing the hoaxing and who are just innocent bystanders that are getting fooled or brainwashed or whatever.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_R._Ehrlich
So without Paul Ehrlich we wouldn’t be concerned about climate change? No science? No IPCC?
I don’t have time to make a long list, so I gave you one example of a hoaxster.
Socially organized hoaxes.
http://350.org/campaigns/
You could use Grist as your guide:
http://grist.org/series/skeptics/
Or maybe you go here:
http://mythopedia.mediamatters.org/
jim2 complains
“They just spend too much time and don’t even make sense most of the time.”
____
Give me a break. Do you think it’s easy making sense to those who have no sense?
If they’re as d00mb as they seem, why wouldn’t they be d00mb enough to do it for free?
My own speculation is that they’re among a large number of people here who actually support the other side from what they seem to (false-flaggers), and are filling the blog with f00lish non-thought to discredit the more thoughtful on that side.
I could come up with many examples, on both “sides”.
Everyone’s entitled to comment @ CE open salon,
no complaints, but ten % bizarre thread hi-jacking
by one heckler ignorant of blog policy … too tedious.
beth confesses to ignorant heckling.
Good for you beth. Now I don’t regret saying you might be honest.
Sharp, that Max. He should be made ruler of the world. He knows exactly what everyone needs to do. Sharp, I say.
Again, I take up for beth, and am criticized.
max1ok,
A Warmist told me that pro abortion groups are using your picture to support their position. I thought it was a bit harsh, but you would understand Warmists just keep right on believing.
I am sure your relationship with your mother was fine, and you do actually know who she is.
Don’t worry, I support your right to exist, and your right to say anything you like. And everybody else’s, I suppose, even if they might go so far as to say things you might find hurtful, or even offensive.
Words won’t pick you pocket, or break your leg, so you have no logical reason at all to fear them. I’m sure you don’t, and good for you!
Cheers.
Mike, thank you for the kind words. I can believe Freedom of Speech is a right. without condoning blabbermouths.
max1ok,
I’m not sure how you support free speech, whilst condemning those who use it. Am I wrong in assuming blabbermouths is your perjorative description of those whose free speech you do not condone?
In any case, why would anyone give a tinker’s damn whether you forgive their free speech or not? Or do you truly consider yourself the arbiter of what may or may not be said?
I would truly like to see the effects of you condoning, (or not), anything I say. Just as the greenhouse effect, the effect is completely and utterly of no effect whatsoever!
Go ahead. Don’t condone my words. See if I care. Have a tantrum, threaten me with lightning bolts, the wrath of God, Mann, or Steven Mosher – go your hardest. Give yourself a hernia, if you must.!
I still don’t care!
Cheers.
Mike asks
“Am I wrong in assuming blabbermouths is your perjorative description of those whose free speech you do not condone?”
______
Nope, it’s a description of people who have nothing to say but can’t stop talking.
Perhaps they feel the volume makes up for lack of content. I prefer someone like kim who uses very few words to say nothing.
Carpe dioxeidium carbonicum.
Attempted humiliation, derision, discounting, marginalizing, and character assaults really have no effect on person’s reasoned conclusions.
Meaning “skeptics” or “deniers” or whatever they are are not going to be silenced with anything but evidence and unequivocal explanation. There is no other method.
max1ok and mike flynn both need a timeout for overposting
David Springer,
Feel free to ban me from your blog for any reason you deem appropriate.
Cheers.
Stupidity isn’t against the rules in and of itself so you’re okay there. However taking up more than 5% of the commentary is. Feel free to stifle yourself for breaking the over-posting limit if you like. Or let the custodian do it I don’t care so long as it stops.
David Springer,
You wrote –
“Stupidity isn’t against the rules in and of itself so you’re okay there. However taking up more than 5% of the commentary is. Feel free to stifle yourself for breaking the over-posting limit if you like. Or let the custodian do it I don’t care so long as it stops.”
I have considered your kind offer, and have decided to decline. Thank you anyway. I appreciate your interest.
I am curious as to what further action you propose to take should I continue to defend myself against seeming ad-hominem attacks.
Or is it that you do not like my comments in general? Have I been mistaken in matters of fact, or do you disagree with the opinions I might form after considering the facts? If so, pleasevfeel free to say so.
Finally, you said “I don’t care . . . “. Neither do I.
Cheers.
If you have over 50 of the last 1000 comments it breaks Dr. Curry’s over posting rule. It is sometimes called thread jacking. I report anyone I see doing it to the moderator. Repeated or egregious breaking of the rule results in comments going into a moderation queue for approval before they appear on the blog to slow it down.
Max-1OK broke it several times over and is now moderated. You were over the limit by a lesser amount and it was first offense so far as I know. You probably aren’t in moderation yet.
Prof Curry,
Back on track, somewhat.
You wrote –
“In these two essays, Lucas Bergkamp has provided some remarkable insights into the utter disfunction an the interface between climate science and policy.”
Maybe disfunction should be dysfunction. The following word “an” might not be what you meant.
You also wrote –
“I have no idea how to push the ‘reset button’ here and salvage climate science. As for energy policy, one can only hope for technological breakthroughs in energy generation, storage and transmission that make all this a moot issue.”
Science salvages itself. Sometimes it takes a while. Phrenology, Lysenkoism, and other forms of science advance, evolve, or however you wish to put it. It’s possible that time spent looking for a reset button might be time that could be better used for being curious, writing grant applications, or drinking fine wine. Or things of that nature.
On energy production and use, who knows? I, like yourself, hope the issue eventually becomes moot. In the meantime, it seems that burning stuff works. There’s still a lot a burnable stuff lying about, free for the taking.
Maybe not a supremely acceptable view, but it seems factual.
Cheers.
Good news!!! From the article:
…
The World’s Largest Renewable Energy Developer Could Go Broke
…
https://science.slashdot.org/story/16/03/29/2323244/the-worlds-largest-renewable-energy-developer-could-go-broke
I think the article JC excerpted here for discussion hints at the problem of the latest international agreement on AGW mitigation. It would probably have been better that the science and political part have been kept separate. The politics have very little to do with science and the result is an ineffective (thankfully) agreement that never deals with the difficult task of putting confidence limits on the climate models predictive skill vis a via a comparison with observed and further relating AGW climate changes to adverse effects for humanity.
Those on the warm side who are in touch with the reality of the agreement see it as pretty much meaningless with regards to mitigating AGW. While those on the skeptic side see the supposed science behind the agreement for what it is: very incomplete. Those peoples’ views will never hold any weight or influence with those doing the policy that leads to the international agreement under discussion here. Never has and never will.
The agreement is cheered on mainly by those who see it as a foot in the door for bigger and further reaching government. I would suspect that even those cheerleaders see the weakness of the agreement from both the warm and skeptic viewpoints. Activist climate scientists may see it as a political victory of sorts but probably value it more in keeping the advocacy element in the science.
The politics in these matters are rather constant and on changing. The science – as in climate science – will change when more scientists feel freer to report the science in an unattached manner. Reasonable analyses and discussion of published climate papers may put the science on a different footing. That could well happen without changing any minds or approaches in the science community or for that matter having any affect on policy in the foreseeable future. It may in the immediate future merely provide a relief for informed climate science skeptics and critics frutrations with the prevailing science.
+10
Paris is in Europe, so tangentially applicable!
“Europe’s suicidal green energy policies are killing at least 40,000 people a year.”
Now just wait for the usual pack of Warmist deniers to tell us that cars kill more people, doctors kill far more people, and Hansen says we are all going to fry, drown, or starve sometime soon.
The Warmist deniers will do anything at all to avoid even establishing a semblance of the truth. How about accusing the writer of being a paedophile, or maybe of knowing someone who knew someone who once oiled their bicycle? Big oil, anyone?
Are there no depths to which this band of bumblers will not sink?
Or maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Warmists can adopt a scientific approach to establishing what is fact, and why it might be so.
Time will tell.
Cheers.
I want to thank Judith Curry for bringing the “The Journal of Environmental Risk” to my attention. Based on their titles, some articles in the Journal’s past issues look interesting. I am particularly interested in those on the Volkswagen scandal.
I want to thank Judith Curry for getting rid of max10k and Mike Flyynn.
Reset button– Just ask a simple question: who would wish socialism on a free people? It’s been tried before and it always ends the same way. “It’s hard to believe that people can do these kinds of things to one another, but human experience indicates that it happens all the time. Lenin killed tens of thousands of his own people. Stalin killed tens of millions. Mao killed many more. Nadolf Nitler fits in somewhere between Lenin and Stalin. But proportionately, the Khmer Rouge are the champions.” ~L. Neil Smith
After Paris, climate change will remain ‘hot’. It is where the money is and will be; pursuant to the COP-21 Decision, developed nations should collectively contribute at least USD 100 billion a year from 2020 to help poorer nations dealwith climate change.
The US pays about 1/5 of the UN’s yearly $300M operating budget. Applying a similar percentage the US would be contributing $20B a year from 2020 to help poorer nations deal with climate change.
This could easily come out of the $77B budget of the Department of Education.
We could get rid of the Dept of Ed and not pay the 20 billion. I see no reason to prop up a bunch of dictators who grid their own people into the dirt with the heel of their boot.
Trump is the most outspoken about that–e.g., ending common core… it’s a beginning.
Concerning the subject of the Twitter link to Mario Loyola’s article, Twilight of the Climate Change Movement, I also learned recently that the Canadian government has determined yet again that, polar bears are doing just fine. Hopefully, it’s creatures like Al Gore that are headed for extinction.
In fewer words, Loyola says its the AGW fearmongering business that now faces a great danger of we tax payers coming to understand that, (1) we’ve been lied to by our Leftist Overlords and (2), only we have skin in game and its time we stopped baring our backs to the whip.
I will devote a full post to Loyola’s essay on Sunday
I look forward to this post, although I think Loyola’s essay stands pretty much on it’s own merits.
It will be a welcome relief from the recent back and forth BS on the US Presidential election.
Agree that Loyola’s essay is an important development in the climate change debate and look forward to Judith’s post on this and in the hope that the usual protagonists will debate the relative merits of Loyola’s essay in a more unbiased and objective manner than has been the case in the more recent past.
The article is a great read and informative synopsis. The author seems to have gotten the big picture just right. I look forward to the post and just as importantly the reaction to it.
Anyone have any idea what Loyola is referring to here? …
The future will bring further challenges for which we will find ourselves far less prepared than we could have been. But frightfully little attention is being paid to these risks, for the simple reason that they don’t fit snugly into the environmentalists’ essentially anti-industrial agenda.
these risks?
–e.g., earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, asteroids and aerolites, drought, fire and flood, solar storm… global-cooling– famine, plagues?
Paris was another example where politicians get to make themselves look good, get media airtime, make out that they’re “Doing something”.
The reality, however, was it was all show.
Whether or not one believes that human activities pumping CO2 into the atmosphere has any major, malign, impact upon the environment is irelevant.
The real outcome of this jamboree was precisely nothing.