by David Wojick
The “Climate Change Education Act” (S.3074) directs the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to establish a climate change education program focused on formal and informal learning for all age levels.
When it comes to beating the climate change drum, Sen. Ed Markey is the Energizer Bunny. As a Congressman, Rep. Markey was Chairman of the now defunct House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming from 2007 to 2011. This time he is drumming on the education front. Markey has dropped the “Climate Education Act” into the Senate hopper. While the bill is unlikely to pass at this time, it is still important to object to, lest it be seen to be acceptable.
Sen. Markey’s website summarizes the proposal as follows: “The “Climate Change Education Act” (S.3074) directs the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to establish a climate change education program focused on formal and informal learning for all age levels. The program would explore solutions to climate change, the dangers we face in a warming world, and relatively small changes in daily routines that can have a profound global impact. The legislation also establishes a grant program to support public outreach programs that improve access to clean energy jobs and research funds so local communities can address climate mitigation and adaptation issues.”
There is a lot not to like here, beginning with the false scientific claims. The first is hyping the supposed dangers we face in a warming world, which simply do not exist. Nor are there small changes in daily routines that can have a profound global impact, because humans do not control the global climate. What is here being called Education is really just scaremongering and propaganda. Ironically, the Bill itself says one goal is to remove the fear of climate change, which it actually promotes.
What is really strange is the focus on so-called clean energy jobs and technology. The term “clean energy” is a misleading euphemism for renewable technologies. Thus the thrust of the Bill is not just on climate science education; rather it is on using the education system to promote renewables. NOAA has no expertise in this regard and no mission. They do things like running the National Weather Service. Promoting renewables and green workforce development is the Energy Department’s job.
On the science side, NOAA has long been active in so-called “climate education,” which basically means spreading the Government’s biased view of climate change as human driven and dangerous. For example, the Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN) Portal was launched in 2010, co-sponsored by NOAA, NSF and the Energy Department. As of 2012, CLEAN has been syndicated to NOAA’s climate.gov portal, where they offer over 600 educational materials, most of which are biased toward the scary Federal version of climate science.
In fact NOAA has led a Federal drive to redefine “climate literacy” as accepting the Government’s biased position. According to their website, the stated Guiding Principle for climate literacy is “Humans can take actions to reduce climate change and its impacts.” The reality is that humans can do little to change climate change and a little global warming is not harmful. It is probably beneficial.
What the proposed Climate Education Act would do is give statutory authority for NOAA’s existing propaganda actions, something that is presently lacking. It also allows the agency to bribe states to use its stuff, which is pretty insidious.
It would also allow NOAA to go beyond simply providing online information, to begin writing actual curriculums to be used in the classroom. That is where the bribery really comes in. This curricular push coincides with the widespread deployment of the Next Generation Science Standards. Most states that adopt them need to develop new curriculums, because these science standards are very different from the existing state standards, especially in the area of climate change.
Beyond this, the Bill would put NOAA into the strange new business of promoting the renewable energy industry and training its workers. The Energy Department already does this, while NOAA has neither the mission nor the organization to do it.
In summary this so-called Climate Education Act does nothing that is good, for the climate or the students. It is based on false science and pushes NOAA in the wrong direction. NOAA should be trying to understand climate change, not promote renewable technologies in the name of dangerous global warming.
Press coverage is bad, buying the Bill as expected. See for example these:
Moderation note: As with all guest posts, please keep your comments civil and relevant.
Pingback: Senator Markey’s Climate Education Act Goes The Wrong Way | Climate Etc. | jamesbbkk
Taxpayer money for propaganda purposes.
In my view lying to children is far worse than propaganda. Propaganda is for adults.
What lies are being told to children, David?
They are spelled out in the article.
We fill our children’s heads with all sorts of lies about things that don’t exist. There’s Santa Clause, for instance. Then there’s the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. And Mosher’s unicorns.
CAGW falls into the same category.
Most adults manage to see through all the hype about CAGW and unicorns. There is a minority, however, that still believes in CAGW and unicorns — in things that haven’t been shown to exist.
https://s12.postimg.org/f22w8sb6l/Captura_de_pantalla_1404.png
Markey wants to correct this flaw in the logic of most humans, however, in the failure of most humans to believe in something that lacks evidence of its existence.
I’m not much bothered by this kinda thing.
Invite kids to study the subject.
Then forbid them to access to a different point of view.
Wait.
http://warandgenocideinchlit.weebly.com/uploads/1/2/8/3/12833398/5326115.jpg
Yes, Turbulent Eddie.
Does this paragraph sound like it came straight out of todays environmental movement? The only tipoff otherwise is a couple of words:
“We recognize that separating humanity from nature, from the whole of life, leads to humankind’s own destruction and to the death of nations. Only through a re-integration of humanity into the whole of nature can our people be made stronger. That is the fundamental point of the biological tasks of our age. Humankind alone is no longer the focus of thought, but rather life as a whole . . . This striving toward connectedness with the totality of life, with nature itself, a nature into which we are born, this is the deepest meaning and the true essence of National Socialist thought.”
“When people attempt to rebel against the iron logic of nature, they come into conflict with the very same principles to which they owe their existence as human beings. Their actions against nature must lead to their own downfall.” —Mein Kampf, München, 1935, p. 314.
These are the people that began the 20th century green movement.”Fascist ecology: The “Green Wing” of the Nazi Party and its historical antecedents: “The youth movement did not simply fail in its chosen form of protest, it was actively realigned when its members went over to the Nazis by the thousands. Its countercultural energies and its dreams of harmony with nature bore the bitterest fruit.”
Unfortunately an incompetent joke as a congressman and senator can propose a lot of harmful legislation.
George Devries Klein, PhD, PG, FGSA
The “Energizer Bunny” is – like the Group of 20 Summit Leaders meeting in Hangzhou, China on Monday, 5 Sept 2016 – absolutely powerless over the forces that actually control Earth’s climate and human destiny.
In the short run human destiny is controlled by humans. Hence the debate.
Yes, the power of mankind is an illusion. Both Science and Nature have recently acknowledged that super-solar flares occur every ~1000 years. The next one will certainly restore human sanity (contact with reality), whether or not we succeed in getting world leaders and puppet scientists to admit reality before that happens.
Destiny hands you some cards and you can decide how to play some of them, but you did not get to pick the cards.
You don’t have a climate card, mother nature holds those cards.
David Wojick wrote:
“The first is hyping the supposed dangers we face in a warming world, which simply do not exist.”
This kind of sentence is just ridiculous in an essay like this, if you really expect to be taken seriously.
Such a blunt statement tells me you really don’t, and are just writing for your choir. Unfortunate.
“Such a blunt statement tells me you really don’t” — this statement tells me you really do take the writer seriously, good.
Wrong. It’s the kind of statement that makes me immediately dismiss an author, because it indicated he is clearly ideological and not at all interested in the details.
David Appell, was it you or your cousin, that was using the National Review, trying to start a blog in their comments section yesterday? What did you want to learn with the polling question? If it was to judge the chances of HRC and the future of AGW fear… you must of realized you are in the minority almost immediately, you even asked the same question over and over again… How would you describe the results you obtained thru your exercise?
“It’s the kind of statement that makes me immediately dismiss an author”
Does your standard apply to author’s who claim to be Nobel Prize recipients when they are not?
Don’t know what you mean.
David Appell is pulling the same stunt Clinton is: claiming ignorance (in Clinton’s case about the laws regarding the handling of classified information).
DavidA,
Part answer to your comment here “Wrong. It’s the kind of statement that makes me immediately dismiss an author.” is given by my short new essay and trendy “press release” below.
It deals with repeated official assertions that Australian people have been feeling more hot days, more hotter days and more heatwaves.
Our 2 longest temperature records, for Melbourne and Sydney, cover about half of Australia’s population. Should they be feeling the heat?
No.
http://www.geoffstuff.com/isithotorisitnot.docx
http://www.geoffstuff.com/isithotorisitnot.xlsx
The official version is wrong for the reasons given. (Look at the simple graphs). Yet the official propaganda continues. That is why there is distrust of some bodies like your NOAA. It stems in part from a stubborn refusal by ‘authorities’ to correct wrong use of scientific data. It is not just a vague thing that some people think is a problem and others do not. It is REAL as illustrated here. If you want to go further, read some of the references I provided.
There are many examples besides mine about Australian climate work where the official version does not relate well if at all, to reality. The USA seems to have the same affliction.
Why wish these sins of omission by authorities upon our children and theirs? Do you prefer them to mature in an environment of fibs?
Geoff
“The official version is wrong for the reasons given”
Yeah, that’s never convincing.
All the time people like you tell us how the professional scientists are wrong, all wrong, totally wrong, corrupt even, sell-outs, misanthropes, cat killers and puppy kickers.
I”m sorry, unless you have some peer reviewed published science to show me, I’m not interested.
Geoff: One of the earliest sentences in your document is
“It is childishly simple to work this out”
This is not professional and not convincing in the least.
In fact, it tells me you don’t understand the data at all, because professional scientist do not make mistakes that are “childislhy simple” to correct.
Appell,
I am a professional scientist and I have written an essay so simple that it would be stupid to publish it because it involves no more science than counting a few days each year.
If you read the paper, you will see how there is strong evidence that the official line of more hotter days here is simply not supported by the figures.
Why not read the essay and then try to argue?
This is an example of the type that puts so many people off acceptance of the official stance, be they NOAA ot BOM or CSIRO.
These people MUST know of these simple figures, which are part of the basic tools of their trade. Why do they not air them when they are subjected, as shown here, to wrong interpretation?
David Appell is right. The claims of fraud need to be put in a paper for peer review.
Geoff seems to have the background to attempt this. Perhaps David might like to help him as it would enable one or other of you to claim they were right.
tonyb
I have made no claim of fraud.
Scientists with a conscience should be aware of these simple numbers before they advance dissident hypotheses with a view to influence public policy.
Speak up, scientists with a conscience.
Appel is not right. He has proposed nothing. How can nothing be right?
Geoff
Geoff
I am not saying you are claiming there is fraud but that many sceptics do claim this. You are in a better position than most to demonstrate that the data used by scientists may rely on inadequate or misinterpreted material.
You may have seen me on occasions commenting on the inadequate global SST’s to 1850 which are used as a central plank to science
Others claim the information out there-especially on temperatures-has been deliberately misused as part of some giant conspiracy.
It would help to advance the argument if such figures as you have produced for Australia could be presented for peer review, thereby demonstrating that there are more nuances to the official narrative than are often portrayed.
tonyb
Tonyb,
It does not take formal publication of science to inform a researcher of his fundamental stock in trade.
How do you rate sport reporters who show they do not know the rules of the game?
Geoff
Widely used and ‘official figures need to be proven that they are incorrect, for whatever reason. To do this it needs to be done ‘officially.’ That means peer review. Until then David Appell, The scientific community, The IPCC and the government will just shrug their shoulders and roll their eyes.
The two sets of readings you have cited are very specific and limited and are therefore good candidates for a short paper demonstrating why they are wrong.
I suspect that anything prior to around 1910 will be dismissed as the likely screens used will not be ‘officially’ approved ones.
However, if you can demonstrate that official and unofficial data diverge for no good reasons you will be doing all sides of the debate a favour.
tonyb
I am not questioning the official data here. I am questioning quasi official statements about more hot days, plus why present official scientists do not correct such scientifically wrong, but popularly accepted comment.
1. Why is your cutoff changing between the cities you picked, GeoffS?
1955 is far from 1935.
In fact, how did you choose this cutoff?
2. This link is dead:
http://www.geoffstuff.com/heatwaves_hotter_no_.pdf
3. There is no link to the document you criticize at Jo’s or in your press release. Here it is:
http://www.climatecouncil.org.au/uploads/e806ce05fb7971216b16aeed9346cb94.pdf
4. Also, I’m not sure exactly what you mean by:
This seems to matter because you claim having falsified the Climate Council report.
On the face of it, it’s wrong for non scale-invariant stuff.
5. I don’t read Word documents, and dismiss any author who publishes that way.
Willard,
All your science questions are in the texts provided. Don,T try to shift blame to me if you have reading difficulties.
Geoff
By “texts provided,” is there anything else than the press release written in Word and the op-ed at Jo’s, GeoffS?
If that’s all there is to it, your response is false, and that makes me immediately dismiss an author.
Last time I looked there was an essay in Excel named”Isithitorisitnot.xlsx”
Did you not get this.
Other links you mentioned open for me. Maybe one of us has an incompatible system.
Geoff
An “essay” in Excel, GeoffS?
Really?
Try PDF, HTML or any online free service like G Docs.
Steven Mosher above –
“The science says emitting CO2 will warm the planet.”
NO NO NO
The science says that CO2 can help generate heat during interactions with light.
YRS YES YES
What happens in the dynamic global atmosphere when CO2, light and other gases interact is under investigation. A prominent indicator, climate sensitivity, awaits a credible and scientifically accepted figure. It is not yet known if it is zero.
That is why no drastic action should be put into action. That is why the demand to reduce GHG emissions is based not on science, but on wishful thinking, mainly by non-scientists.
Geoff
Willard
I just downloaded the document. It took a bit of time but is a straight forward table of temperatures, not an ‘essay’ in the terms we might understand it
tonyb
> not an ‘essay’ in the terms we might understand it
Anything regarding points 1 and 4, then.
Not worth my time.
““The first is hyping the supposed dangers we face in a warming world, which simply do not exist.”
ya his misunderstanding is pretty fundamental.
I have yet another surgery coming up and as the doctor explained the dangers, Wojicks “logic” never occurred to me. I could just say those
dangers dont exist because they haven’t happened.
The dangers which a surgeon warns of are based on an analysis of the complications which other surgery patients have experienced. These dangers are very concrete, very real, and based on a well documented history of past incidences.
The dangers of burning fossil fuels (the “C” in CAGW), on the other hand, are based on nothing but your unicorn method.
These dire warnings of the looming climate Armageddon amount to nothing more than pure speculation, pure prediction. There exists no history of climate catostrophes caused by AGW, and where a history does exist, it is composed of little more than distortions, exaggerations, half-truths and outright lies.
Too funny, Mosh.
The easy question:
“Where are all the dead bodies?”
We know not even weather is a significant cause of death.
Climate is less significant than weather.
And the cruncher: On the list numerous causes of death ( cancer, heart disease, diabetes, car crashes, suicide ) have behavioral components.
People are a much greater risk to themselves.
By comparison, climate change, which has many benefits at the near end, is irrelevant.
People are irrational – we’re used to that.
I have yet another surgery coming up and as the doctor explained the dangers
Good luck, btw.
But I assume you’re going ahead because the risk-reward ratio is very low – just like global warming.
Industrialized human society has only existed for the barest fraction of the planet’s 4.543 billion year history, Glenn. I’d ask you to give CAGW a chance to prove itself, but that would be redundant.
“The dangers which a surgeon warns of are based on an analysis of the complications which other surgery patients have experienced. These dangers are very concrete, very real, and based on a well documented history of past incidences.”
yes. And we know from the past the damn that floods do, and rising tides, and stronger hurricanes.
in the past these dangers arose periodically and naturally.
The danger put to us by carbon emissions is this.
The science says emitting c02 will warm the planet
A warmer planet will result in higher SLR
A warmer planet may result in more frequent, more severe weather.
we know the dangers of severe weather. we know the dangers of more severe weather.
What we dont know.. We dont know How much more danger..
Small levels, severe?, catostrophic?, existential?
BUT regardless of the MAGNITUDE of the danger, the danger, QUA DANGER, exists.
> The dangers which a surgeon warns of are based on an analysis of the complications which other surgery patients have experienced.
In other news, floods never happened before.
***
> “Where are all the dead bodies?”
There’s always that One Single Proof missing.
So we just don’t know.
From what we don’t know, anything goes.
Lots of theories, except AGW.
Because CAGW.
How can we know that CAGW wiil happen?
We just don’t know.
Not, One. Single. Proof.
Poor analogy Mosher.
They explained possible dangers. I’m willing to bet that for many of the possible dangers the doctor(s) were reluctant to put percentages/odds to. There is also the possibility of a successful outcome without any of the dangers manifesting themselves.
That is not how people like Appell present the dangers of warming. They pretty much say we are all doomed without drastic action because the dangers are 100% a sure thing.
I know someone who recently was diagnosed with a cancer. The recommended treatment had a 50% chance of working. And a 45% of killing him. Guess what his decision was?
BTW – good luck with your surgery. I’ll add you to my prayers. (Been having to pray for a lot of people the past year. Guess it is an effect of getting older.)
David Appell, you have shown elsewhere that you have no comprehension of units of heat or of mathematical relationships involving units of heat.
Do you actually think that you know what you are talking about?
What is ridiculous David is insisting there are dangers when there is as yet no scientifically confirmed impacts from warming.
All you have is speculation of what the impacts will be 100 years into the future, based on nothing more than model output and an unsubstantiated fear of “tipping points”. Even the calculation used to come up with a SCC number doesn’t support mitigation without running it out 300 years. And that’s after they did some cherry picking of the parameters. Now THAT is what is ridiculous. Except to a zealot.
Looks like there is little to no danger of Massachusetts dumping Markey. Trump would have to pull off a miracle to convert Massachusetts:
Massachusetts: Trump vs. Clinton
…
Boston Globe/Suffolk 5/2 – 5/5 500 LV 4.4 55 31 Clinton +24
Western NE University 4/1 – 4/10 497 RV 4.0 62 26 Clinton +36
…
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/ma/massachusetts_trump_vs_clinton-5863.html
As with all guest posts, please keep your comments civil and relevant.
That is going to be really difficult in this issue. If I keep my comments civil, it will be more difficult to make them relevant. If I keep my comments relevant, it will be more difficult to keep them civil.
I will try. Try to remember this post and consider what I had to leave out of my posts. I had to tone this one down several levels.
I believe it means civil to the guest blogger. That leaves a lot of open territory :)
Clearly there is some need for improvement.
https://thinkprogress.org/30-percent-of-teachers-are-teaching-students-that-climate-change-is-likely-due-to-natural-causes-72bd87e96f6#.m7o1pst1s
On the contrary, this is good news, as I explain here:
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/confusion-science
Turns out a lot of teachers are teaching the debate and including skepticism. That this fact is reported as a problem is the problem.
It seems that still many teachers are out of touch with the state of knowledge on climate change, which is why Markey wants them to be more engaged and draws on NOAA to provide the relevant expertise.
Too funny.
I hang out with a bunch of millennials. Maybe I should ask them to teach me how to communicate with emojis, I think something like an animated, chubby smiling cat after each of JimD’s comments would be appropriate. I wonder if wordpress supports that.
Jim D,
First consider the source.
Second, provide us with some evidence to believe you know anything about teaching.
You have a different source. Go for it.
Another gem from Jim D:
“I can see why Markey would be concerned about education, which has to include the teachers.”
Yep, need to educate the teachers. Straight from someone with vast experience teaching.
I will admit that Markey does need to be concerned about education though. His own. Based on his history, he is not one of the brighter members of the Senate.
Jim D:
There’s the concensus. 30% think it’s likely natural causes. You’d think the teachers are informed. More than the average bear. How are the students fairing with this?
I can see why Markey would be concerned about education, which has to include the teachers.
How many of them believe in Creationism, or “Intelligent Design”?
K-12 science teachers:
“The science is super clear about the human component of climate change, and in some cases some teachers are confusing that message for students and confusing it themselves…”
That’s not what the IPCC says. The 50 50 attribution post here covered that. The range of 1.5 C to 4.5 C for a doubling with only 66% confidence helps thing to be ‘super clear’? If I went to client and said the numbers are super clear, your income is from $150k to $450k with 66% confidence, I am really saying, I don’t know what the heck it is, here’s my guess.
In Minnesota, my limited sample of teacher clients, lean liberal. The whole state leans liberal.
“Thirty percent of the teachers surveyed report teaching students that climate change is “likely due to natural causes,” and another 31 percent said they teach the issue as unsettled science.”
If the teachers here were independents politically, the above numbers are suggested to be even higher. This is such a fail for the cause. This obviously cannot stand and the Federal government will have to do something about it. Because liberal teachers are not doing what we want them to do. And their state doesn’t seem to be paying attention either.
““When asked ‘what proportion of climate scientists think that global warming is caused mostly by human activities?’ — only 30% of middle-school and 45% of high-school science teachers selected the correct option of ’81 to 100%,’””
Please send that message to the IPCC. RealClimate too, as there I think it’s over 100%. And just a hint from the CPA. Your range is too tight. Why set yourself up to be proven wrong?
Thanks for the link Jim D.
When they say very likely most, the tail barely crosses 50%, but the center is at or above 100% attribution. Gavin S helpfully illustrated the IPCC view with a graph on these pages a while back.
https://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/attribution.jpg
Let’s zoom out a little. How much of what American schools teach is NOT some sort of postmodernist drivel already?
Seeing how you already got Common Core and Otherkin Studies up there, it would be unrealistic to expect this isn’t exactly what already happens.
Thus a legislation will probably change very little. So it’s not even as much of propaganda onslaught as just another attempt to grab a piece of the pie for those involved.
The state science standards are actually quite good, for the most part. A tremendous amount of science is taught in K-12. I did a detailed study of this for the Energy Department’s Office of Science. http://www.stemed.info/
Hokey smokes , Bullwinkle, I hear ducks quaking. I’ll come back to you guys in March.
This is just scary tbh
Nothing short of brainwashing the next generations. All wacko political movements target children, and even try have them infiltrate the home. These things we are seeing. It’s creepy as heck
Let’s get K-12 education fixed first. Priorities please.
Politicians have been “fixing” education for the last 50 years. Do you happen to recall the definition of insanity? Perhaps we should try something else that doesn’t involve government?
Why did you assume I wanted politicians involved?
You left it open-ended and most demands for fixes are made of the Federal Government.
So, what magic potion do you have in mind, then?
NASA, EPA and the Dept of Education have long made grants in support of climate change education. This climate unicorn seems to have left the barn some time ago.
In addition, you should probably mention that the same bill was introduced in the House by Rep. Honda over a year ago (HR 1961). Obviously, unless/until the Democrats take over Congress, these bills aren’t going anywhere.
Yes but then they will pass. As I say, now is the time to begin objecting.
Wojick:
:
Compare to
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denial
Evidence:
http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg2/
Evidence.
a; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4AAN0H8MRg
https://s22.postimg.org/qsipj6201/Captura_de_pantalla_482.png
Evidence.
https://s16.postimg.org/r03wsl405/Captura_de_pantalla_483.png
Evidence.
https://s22.postimg.org/th4km6fg1/Captura_de_pantalla_486.png
IPCC reports are not evidence of dangerous human caused climate change. They are evidence of dangerous government caused propaganda. The members of the IPCC are governments.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denial
verytallguy, like Steven Mosher, is another unicorn theorist.
The “I” stands for intergovernmental.
Dangerous human caused climate change is not an uncomfortable fact, because it is not a fact at all. Nor are definitions arguments, so repeating them is just silly.
Silly? Seems appropriate for an article which simply denies the existence of evidence.
VTG
David said
Dangerous human caused climate change is not a fact, to which you replied he is denying the existence of evidence.
Please cite your peer reviewed evidence of ‘dangerous human caused climate change.’. Thank you
(pointing vaguely to the entire IPCC document is not helpful nor specific enough)
tonyb
Tony
I disagree fundamentally. The report is well written and accessible, and summaries are supplied for those who don’t wish to read the whole tome.
That Wojick chooses to to characterise this as “not evidence” because is is “intergovernmental” is telling in the extreme.
Verytallguy fails.
David gives him links to evidence countering the “C” and he points vaguely to the entire IPPC reports, LOL.
And even more hilarious, he points to the summaries of the IPCC reports as good representations of said reports, pretending that these summaries have not been negoiated and re-written sentence by sentence by politicians and bureaucrats behind closed doors.
“There’s a Working Group 1 Summary for Policymakers, a Working Group 2 summary, and a Working Group 3 summary – for different sections of that 7,000-page report. These are the documents that matter – the ones that actually get read. These are the documents that influence media coverage and shape new legislation.
Now if scientists were in charge at the IPCC, at the end of the process these summaries would be written up by a small group, released into the world, and we’d all read these scientists’ unadorned words. But that’s not what happens.
In fact, IPCC authors only draft these summaries. And then something incredible transpires.
A big IPCC meeting takes place. Attended by governments. Although some people in the room are scientists, the vast majority are diplomats, politicians, foreign affairs specialists, bureaucrats, and assorted other officials. These people then spend the next week re-writing the summary.
Every single paragraph in that draft gets projected onto large screens and discussed. The delegation from country X wants two sentences removed. The delegation from country Y insists that a new phrase be inserted. Graphs get added; tables get subtracted. And they keep talking about that one paragraph until all of the countries present are happy with it. Then it’s taken down and the next paragraph is put up on the screen.
Even though there’s a hard deadline that this process needs to be finished by, these meetings aren’t always well managed. So toward the end of the week, discussions often take place around the clock – they’re still going on at 11 pm, and at 3 am. People who’ve been through this process say it becomes a bit of an endurance test. Who can stay awake?
The bottom line is that this is a week of naked politicalhorse trading that goes on behind closed doors. Journalists are not allowed to witness what takes place, which is why we’ve been looking at official IPCC photos here. This is what they permit us to see.
It’s only after the diplomats have haggled over this Summary – paragraph by paragraph – that the final version gets officially released at a press conference.
The world is then told that science has spoken. But what’s just happened has nothing to do with science. Scientific truth is not determined in the dead of night by UN-level negotiations. On what planet would such an approach make scientific sense?
But the bad news doesn’t stop there. There’s actually a step in the IPCC process in which the original, lengthy report gets amended so that it conforms to the politically-negotiated Summary. I am not making this up.
Here’s a 2007 news clipping in which the IPCC’s chairman explains to a reporter that the reason the Summary has been released before the full report, is because the IPCC needs to ensure that the report is consistent with the Summary. After the political meeting takes place, they go back and change the original report. In 2013, following one of these meetings, 9 out of 14 chapters had to be revisited. In Chapter 11, more than 20 changes needed to be made.”
Source:
https://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2015/09/01/3-things-scientists-need-to-know-about-the-ipcc/
Wijnand,
I’ll confine myself to noting that Wojick does not dispute the evidence, he states that evidence “simply does not exist”. Which is pretty much the textbook description of denial.
> David gives him links to evidence countering the “C”
DavidW refers to the usual contrarian meme.
DavidW burns down a strawman.
(Hint: the future is not the past.)
Well played!
VTG, My textbooks says the same thing but mine proves itself true.
Tallguy, what evidence is Dave denying?
Where is the evidence for the “C”?
You only mention the IPCC reports.
These reports and summary for policymakers are not science but politics as Donna Laframboise clearly shows in the link I provided.
The graphs that Glenn posts show that there have been no increases in “weird weather” or sea level rise up to now while we have been dumping CO2 in the air at ever increasing rates since the 50’s.
What makes you so convinced of the looming catastrophes, besides IPCC political reports?
Willard, thanks for the hint “the past is not the future”. But as I said above we have been dumping CO2 at an ever increasing rate for 60 years and not a single response in weird weather or sea level rise has been found. What makes you think that will change? And please don’t say “climate models”…
Correction:
The past is not the future.The future is not the past.
Wijnand
Surely The present weather needs to consistently exceed that of the Past before we need to worry about the future?
Tony
Surely The present weather needs to consistently exceed that of the Past before we need to worry about the future?
No.
> But as I said above we have been dumping CO2 at an ever increasing rate for 60 years and not a single response in weird weather or sea level rise has been found.
Tell that to reinsurers and NASA, Wij.
Report.
Willard said:
Is that what counts for “evidence” when one is employing the unicorn method?
Willard says “report.”
Ok.
Your first link is about flood insurance in Canada? Really, Willard? Come on you can do better. Or maybe not.
Insurers love the fears of risk (imagined or not), it allows them to raise the premiums. And yes, insurer risk has increased but this has to do with increased infrastructure value, not with increased risk of flooding.
Wrt your 2nd link, it shows this graph:
http://climate.nasa.gov/system/charts/12_15_seaLevel_left.gif
I see no increase in sea level rise. Why are you referring to this as evidence of the “C”?
The graph doesnt show in my comment.
I was reffering to the graph “The second chart, derived from coastal tide gauge data, shows how much sea level changed from about 1870 to 2000.” on willards link
http://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/sea-level/
https://usercontent1.hubstatic.com/13153328_f520.jpg
The skinny surge busting 2016-2017 La Niña is dying:
http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2016/anomnight.9.5.2016.gif
The SLR rate 1900 to 1990 was 1.2mm per year; the SLR 1993 to 2914 was around 2.8mm per year; the SLR rate in Jason 2 is 4.54mm per year:
http://www.aviso.altimetry.fr/fileadmin/images/data/Products/indic/msl/MSL_Serie_J2_Global_IB_RWT_GIA_Adjust.png
You can most certainly kiss the “no warming until 2030” religion goodbye. The pause is dead; long live the new maroon beating surge!
https://usercontent1.hubstatic.com/13153328_f520.jpg
> Insurers love the fears of risk […]
Insurers also love when other insurers overvalue risks.
They could win big that way.
You may have missed the bit about the fact that water damage has become higher than fire and theft combined, and that we have reports of a 160% increase in water damage claims after 2000.
Wait. Wasn’t there supposed to be a Paws?
Denying evidence will get harder and harder, Wij.
There hasn’t been any “Paws” in building on threatened property.
Who is going to tell the locals they can’t build in ares of potential flooding? Lol. The local real estate association? Lol. The local Chamber of Commerce? Lol. The science teacher at the local high school… hired by the ID priests who have taken over the local school board? Lol. The local contractor’s association? Lol. The local lumber yard? Lol.
Insurance companies who quote such high rates they can’t afford it? Oh wait!
Lawmakers from both parties… for decades.
> There hasn’t been any “Paws” in building on threatened property.
Perhaps, but Roger Pielke Junior.
My point was about evidence.
We got evidence.
What we don’t have is the power to make Denizens admit it exists.
IIRC Pielke Jr. has been making the same point I just did.
AFAIK Pielke Jr. has been showing there’s no evidence that flooding has gotten worse, or storm severity.
Although there’s some slight new evidence things might have been worse, if there’d been any big storms come ashore recently.
> Pielke Jr. has been showing there’s no evidence that flooding has gotten worse, or storm severity.
Showing an absence of evidence is harder than what Junior did, which was to study normalized damage costs.
It was Obama’s fault:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gdz6M2b8ks
Prior to the Galveston flood there was an effort to build a seawall. Local residents noticed that another coastal Texas town disappeared one day, but the alarmists were ignored. The effort failed. After the worst disaster in American history, Galveston built a seawall. Anti-alarmists killing people… it happens.
Old school…
Robert Frost’s Proverb: “Good fences make good neighbors.”
is still valid to US, today too.
Glenn,
VTG is nothing like Mosher. One is an a$$ and the other isn’t.
JCH, out of curiosity, could you post the comparative 1998 graphs. Please excuse my laziness; health issues.
Possible evidence:
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2013/10/coverage-of-extreme-events-in-ipcc-ar5.html
“There is really not much more to be said here — the data says what it says, and what it says is so unavoidably obvious that the IPCC has recognized it in its consensus.”
It’s hard to say. Things could get worse or better.
You say evidence, some say inkblot:
http://blog.chron.com/climateabyss/2011/08/roger-pielke-jr-s-inkblot/
According to Tony’s main page, NG is supposed to be one of yours.
Deal with it.
Climate science doesn’t remark on astrology out of professional courtesy.
Evidence.
https://s18.postimg.org/q9arwzm4p/Captura_de_pantalla_484.png
That chart is a bit out of date. Here’s a more recent one:
http://models.weatherbell.com/tropical/global_running_ace.png
Caption wasn’t captured for the above graphic:
Figure: Last 4-decades of Global and Northern Hemisphere Accumulated Cyclone Energy: 24 month running sums. Note that the year indicated represents the value of ACE through the previous 24-months for the Northern Hemisphere (bottom line/gray boxes) and the entire global (top line/blue boxes). The area in between represents the Southern Hemisphere total ACE.
Also interesting is the annual total ACE:
http://models.weatherbell.com/tropical/global_annual_ace.png
Figure: Last 4-decades of Global Tropical Storm and Hurricane Accumulated Cyclone Energy — Annual totals. The Southern Hemisphere tropical cyclone season occurs from July-June each calendar year. The graph is constructed such that SH annual value for July 2014 – July 2015 is positioned in 2015.
If the prolonged -ve PDO/ENSO regime recently ended was the cause of the “pause” – then 9sn’t it also reasonable to consider it responsibe for a downturn in Ttropical ACE?
Abstract:
“Cursory analysis here demonstrates that low frequency
variability in global TC ACE and hurricane‐force (HF) TC
frequency is associated with changes or evolution in the
characteristics of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO)
and Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). This current and
most recent historical downturn in global TC ACE and
frequency is consistent with similar past periods of overall
colder Pacific large‐scale climate conditions. However, a
notable difference is the observed doubling of the NATL
basin contribution of TC ACE to the global total coinciding
with the onset of the so‐called active era in 1995 [Lander
and Guard, 1998; Bell and Chelliah, 2006].
http://diginole.lib.fsu.edu/islandora/object/fsu:209877/datastream/PDF/view
(the origin of the graph above)
ALso from Discussion:
“6. Discussion
[23] During the past three decades, variability in global
TC ACE is shown to be related to the concomitant evolution
of tropical and North Pacific interannual and interdecadal
climate modes. As the PDO phase has turned decidedly
more negative (colder) and two strong La Niñas have
evolved since 2006, recent global TC ACE has fallen below
levels associated with the previous dramatic downturn in
1999, and the lowest since at least the late 1970s. The
increasing variance of NPAC climate explained by the
NPGO and related El Niño Modoki events during the past
two decades represents a change in overall Pacific climate
[Yeh et al., 2011] that has modulated overall TC activity.”
What do you think ended, we are in the middle of a PDO negative phase based on historical patterns?
Speaking of politics, according to RCP, the spread between Billary and Trump is down to 3.9. :)
According to the unholy alliance between the cognitive elite and the monied elite, democracy doesn’t work. It should be discarded.
Democracy should be replaced with an “epistocracy.”
It looks like it’s a full court press — selling the idea of an epistocracy — in the MSM.
And,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/09/03/democracy-vs-epistacracy/?utm_term=.fa8d8291f76c
Obviously, these ignorant voters need to read more government research. Then they would know not to eat
buttermargarine.Skepticism about the myth of a “cognitive elite” or some “epistocracy” in posession of unquestionable knowledge can be found in an article that got mentioned several times in the last CE post:
It’s whatever increases their influence.
La Times, women’s league of voters
Some writer for the Washington post. As an aside, on the WAPO article, I have a different view. Take states like CA, which are large, and have no political influence since they always vote the same way, and distribute the electoral votes proportionally to the vote. I suspect Republicans and Democrats would once again campaign in CA, increasing its influence. So, isn’t that good for the state of CA? Why shouldn’t CA do that?
What, Mosher has no smart a$$ come back to Glenn Stehle’s evidence ??
err Glenn has no evidence.
If I told you that cops face no danger from armed citizens, would you accept as evidence, a few videos of cops pulling over people with ZERO incidents?
No.
The situation is simply this. Science tells us, that if we continue to pump c02 into the atmopshere that the planet will warm. And if it warms sea level will rise ( for example). You do not counter that with charts of hurricanes TODAY or tornados today.
They are quite simply pointing at White swans when you have predicted that a black swan will appear.
In the current state, Today, the science is quite uncertain about IMMEDIATE danger and damage from a warming planet. That is damage TODAY, danger TODAY. The science makes predictions that if we continue on the same path, the dangers increase. How much is the subject of debate.
David’s argue, stupidly, is that these future dangers do not exist, which is either trivially true ( the future isnt now) or just wrong.
Glen and Logic were separated at birth, prehaps you can offer a transplant
if you a brain cell to spare, that would double his capacity and probably only reduce yours by 10%
°°°°°Steven Mosher said:
No, you have no evidence.
If you cannot see the difference between the evidence that Dr. Curry marshalled and “a few videos of cops pulling over people with ZERO incidents,” then there really is no hope for you.
°°°°°Steven Mosher said:
Science tells us nothing. It is scientists who “tell us.”
There exists no absolute, omnipotent, all-knowing being called “science.” The God-surrogate you call “science” exists only in your mind.
°°°°°Steven Mosher said:
What you really meant to say was that I make predictions.
And in your case, the “I” is autonomous, self-creating, imperial, absolute, all-knowing and infinite. It is an example of what Michael Allen Gillespie called the “dark night of the noumenal I” — a nihilistic “I” which believes itself to be “free from both God and nature.”
°°°°°Steven Mosher said:
Mosher,
“Science tells us, that if we continue to pump c02 into the atmopshere that the planet will warm. And if it warms sea level will rise ( for example). ”
Agreed. And the data to date tells us it does not look to be a serious problem.
“In the current state, Today, the science is quite uncertain about
IMMEDIATE danger and damage from a warming planet. ”
Perhaps the science is uncertain, but the data does not currently support argument for immediate danger and damage.
“The science makes predictions that if we continue on the same path, the dangers increase. How much is the subject of debate.”
Now we get to the issue(s) which are a problem for some of us. 1) The predictions pointing to increase in danger are entirely model based. 2) The debate has ended according to those preaching danger.
Think I agree with Mosher and Appell on this one. This bill sounds like a really bad idea, but that is not because all those scientists have the science wrong and I have it right. That argument just invites people to respond, as they have here, that maybe those scientists know more about it than you do.
But propaganda is a bad idea, and state-sponsored propaganda particularly bad. I don’t want the government deciding what my kids should believe.
Then they should teach the debate.
Which debate is that? The one between “consensus” scientists and contrarian scientists? Or “debate” like here, full of yapping jackals pushing ridiculous pseudo-science on both sides? (In addition to real science on both sides, but how many people can tell the difference?)
There will always be more than enough, we all know what they say about opinions too.
> they should teach the debate.
Here, kid, repeat after me
C
A
G
W
CAGW
Open the debate.
AK,
“Real science on both sides”?
The problem is that there is no agreement on what “real science” is.
There are various epistemologies which compete with one another to determine what “real science” is.
And sure, there are those individuals who fall in love with a particular epistemology, and seek to set themselves up as arbiters of what “real science” is.
Notwithstanding those individuals, however, there are no magical elixirs, no silver bullets when it comes to questing truth.
Perhaps. But the field of controversy could be reduced enormously if journalism and other blatant sophistry could be excluded.
For purposes of teaching science rather than pseudo-scientific indoctrination, all that’s really needed is to reference the major strands of skeptical and contrarian research in the peer-reviewed literature.
It isn’t necessary teach every questioning position, just the majors, enough to demonstrate that there’s more to science than orthodoxy.
You could even leave in the “97%” nonsense (as long as you mention that it’s been questioned). The remaining 3% is more than enough for a robust paradigm challenge.
Of course, if you mention paradigm challenges, you’ll have to say something about Kuhn, which IMO would be a bigger revolution in science education than anything about climate.
But there might be for teaching science.
“Then they should teach the debate.” Who’s “they”? I don’t want the federal government teaching my children. My lifetime has been a time of deteriorating schools in this country, and centralized control at the state and federal level has been a big part of it. There are absolutely no economies of scale here.
@ AK
“Of course, if you mention paradigm challenges, you’ll have to say something about Kuhn, which IMO would be a bigger revolution in science education than anything about climate.”
Why is that – I would think that Thomas Kuhns ideas about paradigms and paradigm shifts are well known in academia and that his perspective is one of the perspectives taught to students?
Perhaps in grad school, although I’m not sure about that.
But K-12, high school? Nope. AFAIK the basic idea has been to teach “science” as received “knowledge”. Just a different set of facts but in the same mold as “Creationism”.
The notion that scientific “Truths” are provisional and subject to change is something they do their best to hide. Why, if students are taught to question, they might find some real science that contradicts their textbooks.
Imagine a Jr. High science teacher who gave their class an assignment to find a peer-reviewed paper contradicting something in the textbook. How long would such a teacher last, d’you think?
The debate is called HISTORY.. and you lost.
if folks want to teach the debate, they can do it in the history department.
Your writings wont be on the syllabus.
But imagine what a science class that “taught” the debate would look like
1. Skeptics have denied that c02 was a ghg. they were wrong
2. Skeptics have denied the increase in c02 is due to humans, wrong agaain.
3. Skeptics have argued that the sun can explain everything.. wrong again
4. they have taught that the climate records are fraudulant, wrong again
5. they have held that c02 cannot warm the planet, wrong again.
In short every PRECISE position held by skeptics has fallen.
All that remains is skeptiical arm waving.. maybe its this, could be that,
the models are not perfect..
blah blah blah.
There isnt a single skeptical text you could put on the syllabus that would not be a joke
http://www.nonlin-processes-geophys-discuss.net/npg-2014-95/
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02626667.2014.992434
http://www.wyattonearth.net/images/KWCT2014_main_FINAL.pdf
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2008GL037022/full
http://www.aegeanconferences.org/src/App/publications/view/6
http://indico.ictp.it/event/a07177/session/6/contribution/5/material/0/0.pdf
Every one of those has Tsonis and he is an AGW person when it comes to the secular trend.
Even after another 2,000 years of evolution there are still many people like you Steven, that are frightened of the weather and want someone to be sure to take care of the kids. You will find that there will be a few times in your life when you can do nothing about current events, that’s the way the weather works too.
He doesn’t rule it out.
But he’s pursuing a different paradigm than the one typified by the IPCC. And, for teaching science, that’s what matters.
Sky-dragons just prove there are plenty of people on the “skeptical” side who don’t understand the science.
His focus is on the wiggles and not the secular trend. But it is the secular trend that matters for projections through the 21st century, not the wiggles, but it is fine to study the decadal variability too. Mann also has opinions on the wiggles, and how to separate out the AMO more accurately by not assuming a linear secular trend. There is a whole debate there too.
The “secular trend” could easily be no more than a century-scale “wiggle”. That’s implicit in his work.
Or it could be AGW. Or some combination, linear or non-linear.
More importantly, in that paradigm, “global average” temperature, etc. means almost nothing.
There’s a great deal more to “climate” than a single “average temperature”.
Bad things happen when science enters the bog politics. Scientists should seek the truth wherever it leads. They should be the epitome of truth, but instead, they pander to whomever gives them money.
Hmmm … so you believe Heartland is a government agency? Explain.
400 million Chinese cannot be wrong: we’ll become communists, send all of the teachers to the farms, and ride a bikes!
David Wojick points out that NOAA (my old alma mater) has now been tasked with “The “Climate Change Education Act” (S.3074) directs the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to establish a climate change education program focused on formal and informal learning for all age levels. Whoa! Glad I’m retired. NOAA envisioned as the ‘wet’ NASA “Our Nation and the Sea’ (1970) President Nixon (I actually have a copy of that in my home library).NOAA Is now going to teach us all about Climate Change. My heart goes out to them. Just a rumor, but I heard that Fisheries (NOAA) had to give their agents guns because too many k-12s ended up floating dead in the harbor after reporting bycatch violations. It seems to me that David’s ire is aimed more at Senator Markey. I agree, I’m convinced, I won’t vote for Senator Markey. Hey wait I can’t, he is from Massachusetts and I live in another state. David and I seem to share a distaste for politics.
I doubt that DavidW shares your distaste for politics, John Maurice.
DavidW has been involved with the Heartland Institute and other think thanks since God knows when. His mailing list promotes the CAGW meme since 1999, and before that there was another mailing list.
You won’t stay at Judy’s for long if you don’t like politics. It’s mostly politics in desguise. Those who pretend being here for the science often are the worse ranters.
Thanks for the plug but my Climatechangedebate.org listserv promotes debate, not CAGW. In fact what we tried to do back in 1999 has now been done most wonderfully by Climate Etc., with almost a million comments to date and all sides represented.
The think tank I really started with was Fred Palmer’s Greening Earth Society.
“We who are old, oh so old….Is anything better?…”
(Yeats, while young).
> Climatechangedebate.org listserv promotes debate, not CAGW
Anything I’ve ever seen you do promotes the CAGW meme, DavidW.
Thank you for the clarification about Greening Earth Society. Don’t forget to mention that you wrote the K-12 program of the Heartland Institute. That tops foundational work, at least for this thread.
Asking for evidence of the C in AGW is like saying that danger don’t exist. Both are epistemological blunders.
Willard. I could not agree more. Politics is pervasive. But what I took away from David was how a’ science ‘agency was being used to push a political goal. No shocker there, in my mind. Heartland Institute and God bother you? If by that you mean those who throw the bible at others should crack it open and read it once in a while? I have often thought that myself but I don’t get that impression from Heartland Institute. As far as Doc Judy’s open restaurant of ideas, as long as there is a vacant bar stool, I’ll hang around even if I don’t have a lab coat.
Not only are you Internet famous, John Maurice, but you’ve just won the Internet.
Seems I’ll need to stick around a bit longer than I thought.
Go Team!
Actually I have a lot of respect for the US political system, as the decision system for democracy. It is climate alarmism that I find distasteful, in fact I find it dangerous.
David Wojick. I never questioned your respect for our democratic process. I just thought you might share my idea that, as the old adage says ‘anyone who likes sausages or legislation should never look to closely at how they are made’. I, personally, have found your insights very helpful on my own quest for information. But I still think politicians (of any ilk) are sharks.
JMH:
From your experience, do you believe that NOAA would be able to provide better, more accurate scientific info on climate change than current efforts by the EPA or Dept of Education?
opluso. Hi guy, and thanks for the help the other day. Actually your query was the most thought provoking. The short answer to your question. No. Don’t get me wrong here, I ‘m not really defending NOAA. I was there with a lot of good people who believe in what they are doing (servants of the public trust, your tax dollars well spent). From that, I will say they will do their best. But you asked about personal experience. The ability to ‘provide better, more accurate scientific info’ . I have a raw spot there. Some years ago I got a FOIA email referral from a woman in Canada whose two daughters drowned in a seiche event on lake Ontario. Accuracy.
The science education non-profit I’ve been involved with for 20+ years started out as a shared program between the Forest Service and the BLM. They quickly concluded that provision of education programs was not among their tasking and the program was spun out into a non-profit organization. They continued to provide grant funding for many years, but had no control or input over program materials.
If NOAA wants to fund non-profit science education, I’m ok with that. However they have no business with curriculum development.
David W. –
Many “skeptics” say that they don’t doubt that ACO2 emissions cause global warming, they just are not sure of the magnitude of the effect. As such, they argue that the effect likely falls into a range, albeit a range that is lower than the estimate of the IPCC.
So are you saying that you disagree with those “skeptics?”
Or, clouds completely overwhelm any effect CO2 might have.
You are modifying what I consider to be the typical characterization of “skeptical” viewpoints as stated by many “skeptics,”…on the order of…
Dagnabit. Let’s try that again:
You are modifying what I consider to be the typical characterization of “skeptical” viewpoints as stated by many “skeptics,”…which is, on the order of…
Never mind that many of the associated arguments that those same “skeptics” present are not logically consistent with that characterization that they make of the “skeptical” position….
My question is whether or not David rejects that paraphrase that I am making of what is often put forth as the predominant “skeptic” position (assuming that he doesn’t think the paraphrase is inaccurate, and because he disagrees with the position as I stated it).
That you may lie outside that characterization (i.e., that “clouds overwhelm” the warming effect of emissions) isn’t particularly relevant to my question…although it does point to the contradiction between the reality of the arguments that many “skeptics” make and the characterization of the predominating “skeptical” position as put forth by many “skeptics.”
My question to David goes to the root of whether or not he accepts uncertainty.
Joshua – uncertainty is all around us. We can’t go back to 16th century conditions based on uncertainty.
And you conveniently whistle past the certainty graveyard (literal grave yard in this case), i.e. if we cut CO2 emissions enough to make a difference, economies across the world will collapse.
comment @jim2 | September 5, 2016 at 2:39 pm in moderation
I do not know where your quote is from, Joshua, but it is inaccurate as far as many skeptics are concerned, especially the risk part.
In my view there is no risk and I doubt very much that humans are even contributing to the warming. As I understand the satellite readings the only warming in the entire record from 1978 is due to a strong El Nino. There is no GHG warming whatsoever.
That’s one big mother of an El Nino.
I don’t know, Joshua. Your characterization is too vague to agree or disagree with.
David W.
I think that the parameters of my question don’t require more specificity to be answered…
But if I provide just one example, perhaps that will help: Do you reject Nic Lewis’ estimation of “climate sensitivity?”
As I recall, his most recent estimation for the high end of “likely” is @ 3.0° and extend the range of what might be possible even higher. If you accept his estimation, then it would seem to me that you would accept that “danger” would necessarily exist within a long-term time frame.
So then for your statement to be true you, as I understand it, you must either.
1. Reject Lewis’ estimation (as too high), and consider only those with a considerably lower range of what is possible.
2. Be certain that within the time frame necessary to risk “danger,” technological fixes will necessarily come about (rejecting any uncertainty)
3. Be certain that a sensitivity of 3.0° (or even higher range for what would be possible) would never pose a risk no matter the time frame.
or
4. Not fit within the characterization of common “skeptical” opinions, (as described often by “skeptics.”_ – i.e., “Skeptics” don’t doubt that the climate is warming and we don’t doubt the basic physics of the GHE or that ACO2 emissions are contributing to the warming to some extent, we are just unsure of the magnitude of the warming” and are sure that the range is lower than the estimate of the IPCC (but is still a range that includes the risk of a high “damage function”).
If it is # 4, then do you think that the characterization I’ve often read of “skeptical” opinions is wrong (or my paraphrase if that characterization is inaccurate), or do you think that you are an outlier among “skeptics”? If it the later, how would that fit within your view of how you should structure your advocacy?
Hey Josh, I like your rundown of possible skeptical positions. A couple of observations:
“2. Be certain that within the time frame necessary to risk “danger,” technological fixes will necessarily come about (rejecting any uncertainty)”
This is done every day in myriad ways – from feeding the planet to addressing viral outbreaks. The human condition is dire, but there’s plenty of hope to be had considering how far we’ve come. On the contrary, its a position that embraces uncertainty.
“3. Be certain that a sensitivity of 3.0° (or even higher range for what would be possible) would never pose a risk no matter the time frame.”
If we mobilize emissions reduction schemes on a massive scale, we’d still be at the mercy of natural climate, wich is chaotic and brutal especially at local levels and sub-decadal timescales. This position only requires one to think that human resiliancy schemes and targeted environmental initiatives to have more of a payoff than ’emissions reductions schemes to affect global mean temperature’ to avoid dangerous warming.
Joshua, Nick Lewis is a lukewarmer, not a true skeptic.
DavidW’s right on that one, Joshua: just like the future, a danger doesn’t really exist.
DavidW’s right on that one, J: just like the future, a danger doesn’t really exist.
The premise of science standards is a good one. Many folks on all sides of this debate demonstrate a deplorable lack of acumen in basic science knowledge and proper scientific method. That said, the current set of “Next Generation of Science Standards” addresses climate change abundantly:
http://www.climateedresearch.org/publications/2013/Climate-Change-NGSS.pdf
It addresses the Scientific Method not so much and in fact re-imagines it as a sloppy, change as you go, set of practices that literally begs for bias:
http://www.nextgenscience.org/sites/default/files/Appendix%20F%20%20Science%20and%20Engineering%20Practices%20in%20the%20NGSS%20-%20FINAL%20060513.pdf
Happily the NextGen standards allow for both human caused and natural climate change and do not take sides on the attribution question. However, they require the use of climate models and that is where the AGW bias is most likely to be introduced.
BTW Pamela, your cited reference brochure contains the following unsubstantiated pro-AGW claim “Anthropogenic climate change is occurring because humans are altering the natural balance of Earth’s carbon cycle.”
This is not known to be true and is probably false in my view. Fortunately the NextGen standards do not say this.
David, the Next Generation document has several statements that would lead the common reader to the conclusion that the science standards do indeed stipulate that humans are substantially the cause of recent warming. I don’t have to go outside the standards to find such statements. The fact that the clarifying statement in red may have been added later cannot be considered as being outside the standard. It clearly now is a part of the standard. You have no choice but to retract.
From the nextgenscience.org website and embedded in the standard:
http://www.nextgenscience.org/pe/ms-ess3-5-earth-and-human-activity
This next gen document is just one more top-down effort to push the world view of a small group of people. In the US, education is best left to the State and local government. Yes, some won’t emphasize man’s role in global warming, but the warmists have the internet and MSM to do that for them.
jim2 wrote above, “Politicians have been “fixing” education for the last 50 years. Do you happen to recall the definition of insanity? Perhaps we should try something else that doesn’t involve government?”
And here he writes, “In the US, education is best left to the State and local government.”
Charming.
From here.
http://northofnorth.co/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/FF-35-Blog.jpg
Fair enough, roving. I was thinking Federal politicians. Personally, we home schooled ours.
Hum. The CAGW true believes surely do want the brain washing to begin at an early age.
Climate Change in the Next Generation Science Standards (K-12):
“At the high school level, standards introduce the constructs of evidence for climate change (HS-ESS3-1)”
The methods used with great success by NOAA now seem to become the new standard in USA.
The scientific method in the standard seem to be:
“Construct an explanation based on evidence …”
This is inductivism in a nut shell. From a scientific point of view – this is beyond bad.
Re: the argument back and forth about global warming being dangerous. I give you a pretty damn good model:
if (warm)=food, elseif (cold)=not food, endif
Do the math.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Richard_Preece/publication/11149328_Buffered_tree_population_changes_in_a_quaternary_refugium_evolutionary_implications/links/54131d1f0cf2788c4b359152.pdf
Note: to hypertalk elderly such as myself, yes I know, I mangled that “if” sentence.
warm is not a boolean, your code doesnt compile
Science, dear lady, is strongly typed, think Ada or pascal.
I don’t always like warm food, but when I do, it’s lava.
I can hardly believe that this is happening in USA. The bill put forward by Senator Ed Markey reminds me about Lysenkoism:
“Lysenkoism was a political campaign against genetics and science-based agriculture conducted by Trofim Lysenko, his followers and Soviet authorities. Lysenko served as the director of the Soviet Union’s Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Lysenkoism began in the late 1920s and formally ended in 1964. The term Lysenkoism can also be used metaphorically to describe the manipulation or distortion of the scientific process as a way to reach a predetermined conclusion as dictated by an ideological bias, often related to social or political objectives.”
– Wikipedia
Steve Mosher
Whatever your surgery: removal of a mole or bowel surgery, I hope all goes well. You do not face this challenge alone.
As for science, and in particular climate science, that is, there has been no certainty of what the future reveals. Simple moles may have invaded the skin deeper and spread through out the body. Small increases in atmospheric CO2 may mean a global warming far greater than anticipated except for the extreme opinion.
Ultimately though, you and I must proceed and make decisions based upon the best information we can obtain. A Naturalplath will suggest a change in diet and life style. Friends of mine have descended down this path, and all, that is all have died with the complications of metastatic cancer.
The science, the sacred involvement of data and analysis have failed most people who wish to “beat” the statistics. The climate scientists themselves, as if struggling with a malignancy, try to predict the future, hoping against hope that some simple metric, therapy, or wholistic remedy will turn the tide into their favor. Time has shown, that this is a vain and wishful thought.
Climate change is vastly more involved than a cancer upon Mother Gaia. Trying to reduce the cause and effect to simply understood metrics has limits, and, ultimately, depending upon the extent of involvement at time of discovery. The prognosis is quite limited. Exceptions occur, but by their very nature of being exceptions, they are few and far between.
Good luck with your surgery.
God Bless, Steven.
Thanks. The first surgery was good news, bad news. Now they work on the bad news. Either way it’s a long vacation.
Mosh
Dismayed to hear you are still not fully recovered. I had thought you had appendicitis, but had recovered. If its anything more, good luck and I shall give you some easy targets, full of anecdotes, for you to take pot shots at
all the best
tonyb
Appendicitis revealed more. Some unlucky.
I hope you get well soon. Getting old soooooooo sucks.
“Getting old soooooooo sucks”
Still, it beats the alternative.
Very interesting post and all the responses. Thank you David Wojick for bringing Ed Markey’s latest attempt to legislate the indoctrination of our youth in their most formative years on climate alarmism, shameful as that is. Herr Doktor Goebbels would be very supportive. The evolution of climate modeling and expressing results in terms of climate sensitivities headlining the temperature increase for a doubling of CO2 concentration is effective to ingrain in the public thinking to achieve a massive support for global and national policy measures to reduce fossil fuel emissions, “set up” by the mandates of UNFCCC protocols, originating in the 1993 Rio convention), to push massive precautionary measures, even though the science is unclear, the degree and extent of attribution is far from complete and significant uncertainties remain. Deterministic model predictions tuned to fossil fuel emissions over distant time horizons are not supportable but make great headlines, especially when groups of like ilk take the headline results and quote as forecasts of doom without acknowledging the real state of climate science – just pickup / read the New York Times on any given day.
David Appell asked what falsehoods were in Sen. Markey’s proposal. One such is:
“relatively small changes in daily routines that can have a profound global impact.”
In fact, massive changes will be needed to reverse the growth of CO2 in the atmosphere. Most of the world’s vehicles will have to convert to electric. Most of the world’s electricity will need to come from something other than fossil fuels. And, the world’s electricity use will be far greater than it is today, since it will power all the vehicles.
Indeed, the statement is absurd political posturing. Moreover, it is far from clear that stopping the growth of CO2 would have a profound [positive] global impact. It could have no impact at all if sensitivity is low, or even be detrimental given that atmospheric CO2 is the global food supply for life on earth.
Low-end sensitivities only mean that actions to remain below 2 C are even more likely to succeed. It is not an argument for no action, but an optimistic argument about the effects of action.
Glen Stehle,
re your embedded quote
“The kindergarten performance standards involve…an imbalance between the solar energy reaching Earth and the radiation leaving Earth …. and increases the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events.….”
Does it actually increase these?
Earlier I posted a longer version of an essay just written, see short form
http://www.geoffstuff.com/shorthot.xlsx
There was some ragged social comment but practically nought about the science, which contests for Australia’s 2 major city records that there are more hot days each year.
People seem not to have read the intent of this essay, which was to highlight how simple counting of hot days refutes the meme taught in schools and in public, akin to your kindy example.
To be more explicit, how many readers here can and will help make a list of similar examples of wrong science, so I can give the list to some relevant policy makers? The standard of proof need be no better than that in my essay. (Dr Curry, I hope you do not mind this excursion. My email is sherro1 at optusnet dot com dot au )
I am thick skinned to insult from the release of my name and email contact.
Geoff
I know you guys don’t like anecdotes but this one might be relevant given all the points being raised. The Lochs at the Sault St. Marie are run by the COE. In the summer they are something of a local tourist attraction. NOS is responsible for the water level gauging stations around the lakes and along the rivers. They need to be reliable 24/7 365 in some harsh conditions through the year. So a field party is at the Soo for maintenance. The big, white shop van with the seagull rondel and National Ocean Service in black letters down the side. An elderly couple are crossing the parking lot on the way to the visitor center and stop to look at the truck. The man says to the party chief “You boys are kinda lost, nearest ocean’s 1500 miles away”. Everyone laughs and the party chief explains about the water levels. The old guy says “Waste of money, If I want to know the water level I just tune in the local radio station” and walks away shaking his head.
COE? NOS?
It’s that alphabet soup collectively called the bureaucracy. US Army Corps of Engineers (USACOE) commonly called ‘the Corps’ (sorry marines) if you ever see a sign proclaiming “Dam the Corps and not the rivers” that’s who is meant. National Ocean Service (NOS) is one of eight major offices comprising NOAA. NOAA also has its own uniformed branch the NOAA Commissioned Officer Corps. They drive the research ships and aircraft that NOAA operates.
Before it was called NOAA, scientists with the agency accompanied the assault teams that captured Mt. Suribachi, my father’s leathernecks, and placed this wooden contraption on top of the volcano:
http://celebrating200years.noaa.gov/events/wwii/iwo_jima650.jpg
The flag in the NOAA photograph is the same exact flag that is in this photograph, now on display at the USMC museum in the DC area:
https://media1.britannica.com/eb-media/35/10735-004-34D8793B.jpg
Right you are JCH. Called the US Coast and Geodetic Survey. Some brave men. For the NOAA 200th anniversary a science historian (no not that one) wrote a series of web articles including the Commission Corps’ exploits in WWII. Some dangerous stuff, more like action fiction than boffin science.
Judith Curry
”In summary this so-called Climate Education Act does nothing that is good, for the climate or the students. It is based on false science and pushes NOAA in the wrong direction. NOAA should be trying to understand climate change, not promote renewable technologies in the name of dangerous global warming”./Wojick
I regard the views of David Wojick on the recent climate warming as results of pragmatic logic. That is science in reality, in accordance with natural laws.
There are difficulties how to make politicians as decision makers understand that influence of anthropogenic CO2 emissions from fossil fuels is too minimal to be anyway accused of recent global warming. There I regard the complexity of climate change as a key problem: it seems to be difficult, or only accidental, to make one-sided, institutional (etc) researchers understand the multi-disciplinary climate change. One have to learn to know the most essential issues in order to get a working solution on climate problem; and that can one guarantee only by using a proper cross- disciplinary approaching of complex climate problem.
Any increase of CO2 content in atmosphere is analogous to any flooding of lake. A lake is flooding as amount of waters coming to the lake is more than the amount of waters leaving the lake. In accordance with this pragmatic logic related to the lake flooding CO2 content in atmosphere increases as total amount of CO2 emissions from CO2 sources to atmosphere is more than total amount of CO2 absorptions from atmosphere to CO2 sinks. The anthropogenic share, caused by burning of fossil fuels, in the increase of CO2 content in atmosphere depends on the anthropogenic share in the total CO2 emission from all CO2 sources. Because recently the anthropogenic share in the total amount of CO2 emissions has been about 4%, it means that the anthropogenic share in the recent increase of CO2 content in atmosphere, at the most, has been only about 4 %, too.
As, in addition, observations in reality prove that changes of CO2 content trends in atmosphere follow changes of global temperature trends and not vice versa, David Wojick is right, as he et al state that climate sensitivity can not be distinguished from zero.
https://judithcurry.com/2016/08/01/the-art-and-science-of-climate-model-tuning/#comment-800135
Seems to me the whole system is just a bunch of cronyism designed to feed cash to the green energy entrepreneurs.
Still waiting on a killer bus system. My car blew up this weekend, got me thinking about how disgusting commuting is.
If the buses were there people would use them.
But there is big $$ in that, so not going to happen.
“But there ISNT big $$”
Oops, I forgot. The left will counter that we should live closer to where we work:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/HK-towerblock-sj.jpg
Nickels
You are exactly right. We have just moved from a semi rural area with buses once an hour. We are now in a more urban area where we don’t even bother to check the timetable but just turn up at the nearest bus stop one hundred yards away and merely wait, knowing that one will be along in five minutes, assuming one isn’t waiting there already.
The point is that we have always had two cars and i got rid of one just before we moved intending to replace it once we had settled in. However there is no point in doing so due to the excellent bus service. Mind you I do miss having my own car….
Tonyb
That sounds like a nice solution, glad for you.
The urban solution does create a crunch, however (see my photo above).
People live further away to avoid the price manipulation in urban areas. Investors buy up all the housing in those areas and send prices through the roof. So quality of life plummets.
One thing that would help is to make investment in residential housing illegal. Let the people that need housing own it.
How would that fix it? If they can afford to pay high rents, they can afford to pay high mortgages.
Nickels
I live at the edge of an English seaside town of some 50000 people. This is our local beach two hundred yards away
https://www.facebook.com/babbcliffrail/photos/pcb.853190884811807/853190854811810/?type=3&theater
It’s big enough to have all the amenities including buses and lots of shops but not big enough to be a vibrant business hub, hence house prices tend to be much lower than in thriving Exeter 20 miles away. So I guess there is a happy medium between price and lifestyle and well paid work
Tonyb
“How would that fix it?”
AK, its the speculation that drives prices through the roof.
Get rid of the speculators and now you a fair competitive market for prices.
Granted, near the city prices would still be higher than farther out, so invest in a train/bus network also.
Everyone (except the ultra rich) wins.
Its mind boggling how much better the government could make things for the common man if they cared. And by using small steps in a better direction and avoiding utopianism freedom (for the commonan) could remain.
Screw the rich.
“I live at the edge of an English seaside town”
Tonyb,
That sounds quite lovely!
When I lived in New Mexico I was lucky enough to be on a direct bus line to work, that was fantastic.
Colorado is starting to become very undesirable, unfortunately.
No decent buses, sprawl, and horrid price inflation.
In theory, since the amount of land goes as R^2, this problem should be solvable with good public transportation, especially here in the West where there are no boundaries…
Nickels
Two things struck me as I read your comments. The first was that most bus services are subsidised in some way other than the really popular commuter ones. In our case we have many older visitors to our coast many of whom have a pensioner bus pass. This allows them to go anywhere for free with the govt picking up th costs but means that others benefit as it sustains the buses. So here we have two elements which ideologically may not be popular in all American states.
The second thing is that over the last several hundred years an extraordinary number of engineers, architects and playwrights have visited or lived here, from Brunel to Babbage, Newcomen to Wilde. So over crowded urban centres were not necessarily the key to advancement and I wonder if the Internet will bring back those times as very many people no longer need to live right in the middle of a city and wait around for a train to give them a two hour commute
Tonyb
Hi Tony. The beach scene certainly looks like Exmouth, especially the seaside cafe at the top. We visited Exeter in 2012 and loved it. The restaurants in the Dutch quarter, between Exeter and Exmouth are remembered with enjoyment.
Tony
Very nice looking beach. A bit OT, but it looks like if anyone could have a long historical view of SLR in their neck of the woods it would be you. Do you have any ability to compare sea levels today at that beach versus many decades ago? I don’t think there should be any isostatic rebound affecting the geology.
Ceresco kid
You may remember that a few years ago I wrote an article on SLR, mostly in this part of the world from the Holocene to the Romans
https://judithcurry.com/2011/07/12/historic-variations-in-sea-levels-part-1-from-the-holocene-to-romans/
A couple of years ago part of the main line railway that hugs the coast here was destroyed by a storm causing cries of AGW.
I wrote an article on that as well. Here is one of the illustrations as during the first year of the railway some 160 years ago the railway line was also destroyed
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Devon_Railway_sea_wall#/media/File:Accident_to_the_South_Devon_Railway_at_Dawlish,_1855.jpg
It is difficult to see that there is much happening as regards SLR , which in some parts of the world has resulted in substantial rises whilst in other places it has reduced, making an awkward ‘global’ average which relates to few real world places.
tonyb
This just in. Achieve is soliciting peer reviewers for lessons designed for the Next Gen Science Standards. Here is the beginning of the blurb:
“Achieve is excited to announce the creation of the EQuIP Peer Review Panel for Science. The goal of the EQuIP Peer Review Panel for Science will be to identify high-quality lessons and units that are designed for the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Building on the work of the EQuIP peer review panels for mathematics and English Language Arts, the science peer reviewers will evaluate lessons and units in their area of expertise and, collectively, will cover grades K-12. Any lessons and units that are determined to be of high quality will be publicly shared via http://www.nextgenscience.org so that educators and curriculum developers across all states and districts can benefit from these materials.”
The full announcement is here:
http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?m=1101326098121&ca=5da54dfb-7232-4213-ba97-69551b532c59
The states and local school districts need to ignore all this and create their own curriculum.
States helped create NGSS and at least 18 have adopted them so far.
K-12 science education has become a regulatory regime, as have most other topics taught. I describe this here:
https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2011/11/10/education-regulation-new-challenges-and-new-opportunities/
A publisher could put together a wide cafeteria of different instructional offerings, and let each district, or perhaps each teacher, slap together a text out of modules and get a few dozen/hundred copies from a book-on-demand printer like Amazon.
And if a picture’s worth a thousand words, I’d bet a 3-D model would be worth a million.
A publisher could create illustrative 3-D models, print them with a 3-D printer, and ship them to the customer. Along with dynamic promotional material on the web to help with selection and ordering.
Education will be broken until, at a minimum, schools recognize that intelligence is not a constant. Instead of standards for every subject, the three R’s should be mandatory. And instead of having the teacher present material, use material such as that found on Khan Academy. Let each student go as far as (s)he can. The teacher being there to help those who need it most.
Aside from the required basic courses, the student would be allowed to pick and choose subjects, including “shop.” Shop could encompass several independent subjects, including perhaps basic wiring, air conditioner repair, auto repair, etc.
At the end of the school year, everyone moves to the next “grade.” At the end of high school, everyone gets a document that reports their progress in the various subjects.
Poisonous pedagogy.
DavidW. Pointed out that the Markey bill would engage NOAA in the ‘clean/green’ industry; This got nickels (Colorado, 100,000 sq mi, 5 million pop), climatereason (Great Britain, 60,000 sq mi, 60 million pop) and Peter M Davies (Australia,3,000,000 sq mi, 20 million pop) examining the questions of urbanization and transportation network development. Started me thinking about size and scale fitting in. Denver sprawl and crawl, Devonshire manicured fields, Perth like parts of the Florida coast. Each having unique challenges for planners. Are broad brush approaches always applicable? The current buzzword in my neck of the woods is ‘smart growth’, right and if my old granny had wheels, she’d be a wagon.
John
Interesting comment. Public transportation come in many guises but if it isn’t there it can’t be used. People are inherently lazy (not all of course ) or may not be physically capable of walking to their destination (often the best solution) or cycling and take the line of least resistance-often a car.
Investment in public transportation is mostly a good thing but the subsidy needs to be kept under control.
As an indication that transport comes in many guises, if you click on the miniature picture top left of the photo I posted above, you will see that we have our own version of San Francisco’s cable cars in order to get to the beach at the foot of a steep hill. We are off there now to have lunch in the excellent café. This gave the cliff railway a new lease of life as the previous one was not a draw. The cliff railway, 90 years old this year is not publicly funded.
I guess that we will walk down and probably walk back up the steep hill but that depends on how big our meal is and what the weather is doing. :)
People need realistic transportation choices, whether it is for a commute , a visit to friends or relatives, or a holiday jaunt
tonyb
Yep. John didn’t say but this sub-thread certainly wasn’t on topic. Yet he chose not to be an a**hole and opened further the discussion on the merits of subsidised public transport. Thanks for that, it is appreciated.
Public transport in Perth and other parts of Australia is always a “loss leader” in supermarket parlance, because the benefits from this only comes from people being engaged and spending in businesses that depend on easy access by their potential customers.
Hi Peter. I didn’t think the points raised were off topic at all. DavidW. Said in his piece “On the science side, NOAA has long been active in so-called “climate education,” which basically means spreading the Government’s biased view of climate change as human driven and dangerous.” Hot button words aside, NOAA is active in many environmental activities. Some good, think Doppler radar and tornado warnings, or the river survey to reopen New Orleans to shipping after ‘Katrina”. Others maybe not so good. But you guys were considering the ‘human driven’ impact on environment (thus climate?) of land use (urban, suburban, and exurban) and transportation networks. Currently the US EPA is scrutinizing the trucking industry (wait till you meet the teamsters’ union, EPA). But, Commuter transport is also human driven. Horse drawn trolleys gave rise to the early idea of the suburb. Before that it was city or rural. The railroad connected the urban ‘hubs’ and brought product distribution to places not supported by waterborne commerce, the traditional ‘highways’. Then the automobile, what a game changer was the internal combustion engine? Human driven land use practices and transportation technologies being the subjects of education policies by government, seemed on topic to me.
Hi Peter. Sorry this was an after thought Thanks for the thanks, but don’t sell me short. I can be quite an a**hole. (As my wife for references). In fact my co-workers called me ‘That G*d D*mned’ Herron. I thought it was a title like ‘The Right Honorable’. Ta.
Diesel prices are rising, again… when all is said and done, people in the blue states will still heat their houses this winter and I guess a lot-of-m are still using oil.
https://marketrealist.imgix.net/uploads/2016/09/diesel.png
As a layman, I’m clearly not qualified to argue pros & cons on climate science. But I do read and listen to climate experts — which includes Dr. Curry.
My take on Dr. Curry appears to be almost a polar opposite of what the overwhelming majority of Commentors here at CE say as they reference and thank her. While she objects to many aspects of “consensus views” on AGW, I “think” she is a whole lot more objective than most people here at CE think.
Anybody — please correct me if I’m incorrect on what I believe she’s said:
Her “best guess” on human contribution on AGW is ~50%. She did clarify this in a subsequent comment that it’s between ~25% and ~75% (which the simple average is ~50%).
The “difference” between the conservative estimate of Gavin Schmidt on TCR and Curry/Stokes is only ~30 years (under BAU). In the “big picture” of things, this would appear to be nothing really.
Dr. Curry has written very favorably on mitigation efforts on “climate pollutants” of smog, black carbon, HFCs, and methane. This lines up favorably with very pro-active AGW scientists like Dr. Molina (Nobel prize on ozone).
These views are very different than those of Dr. Wojick.
Stephen
I agree with part of what you say. Specifically, “I think she is a whole lot more objective…..”. On one side they think she is a political hack and tantamount to a denier. I long ago dismissed those with this view, not just here but elsewhere. I think the rest of the views run along a continuum and are more nuanced than perhaps you are giving them credit for.
I’ve said before that I care more about how she thinks than what she thinks. If all climate scientists were as objective and self aware and deliberative as she is, our knowledge about climate would be much further along than it is. I’ve always admired scientists in other fields who freely admit how little they know.
In my book, she is a jewel.
Careful cerescokid, you might get these guys on that epistemology gig again. How come no one mentions Sartre? A couple of days ago they were on about monks. I like Gregorian chant as much as the next guy but……..(If I say sarc off will I get a reprieve?)
I should have added that I know that Dr. Curry is more objective than her critics (especially in Congress) think.
“If all climate scientists were as objective and self aware and deliberative as she is, our knowledge about climate would be much further along than it is”
I’m sorry this does not scan to me when Curry goes before congress and says …..
“satellite data is the gold standard”
When it patently is not…..
No matter which version of UAH or RSS you choose.
tonybanton
So, which selective satellite data do you approve of?
Global sea level rise? Tick Arctic sea ice extent? TIck Global temperatures? Thought not…
tonyb
SS writes: “These views are very different than those of Dr. Wojick.”
Indeed they are. Dr. Curry is a lukewarmer while I am a hardline skeptic. But we agree in our opposition to climate alarmism and that is what matters most. The scientific debate is primarily a policy debate.
Dr. Wojick — Please correct me if I am incorrect, but I do not believe that Dr. Curry’s favorable writings on “Fast Mitigation” (reducing emissions of methane, smog, HFCs, and black carbon called SLCPs) align with the positions of you and CATO.
“So, which selective satellite data do you approve of?”
None where temps are concerned.
For obvious reasons?
Tony
Yes, obvious reasons, you don’t like what they show.
You know as well as I do the flaws with the ocean data and much of the arctic material is put together by hand as the satellites can’t see through the cloud.
The satellites show a small snapshot of the current climate and it isn’t helped by our constant desire to condense everything to a global average.
Mind you, I think the earth has been warming, in fits and starts for something over 300 years, sea level has been rising for rather less than that after a high water stand around 1600 and the ice has been melting since the end of the LIA. The reason for the initial warming is rather more interesting than knowing that the satellites appear to show limited warming in the modern era or that oceans, unsurprisingly, are continuing a very modest rise as the ice continues its centuries long melt.
Tonyb
“Yes, obvious reasons, you don’t like what they show”
Come off it Tony. I know you have more about you than that. Reading your stuff you seem switched on enough.
You should also know where I come from by now, and appreciate that there are those that follow the science that have no axe to grind. Why does it seem so many *sceptics* do not?
The answer should be obvious however … I did couch my OP in ironic terms.
Any method that uses drifting satellites with multiple sensor changes, using a complex algorithm, in part incorporating model data, not to mention is useless over the poles and high ground. And has regular tweeks to, err, correct some of the prior, is very, very far from any sort of “Gold standard”.
Would you like TLT or TMT? fancy a bit of stratospheric cooling perhaps to aid the, err, algorithm in the right direction. (sarc)
http://www.remss.com/measurements/upper-air-temperature
As Carl Mears (RSS) says: “A similar, but stronger case can be made using surface temperature datasets, which I consider to be more reliable than satellite datasets (they certainly agree with each other better than the various satellite datasets do!)”
I’d suggest it is those on here who “like what it shows”.
If the cap fits my friend.
Tony
You are assuming that I have any more regards for the satellite temperature data as for the sea level and arctic ice ones. I don’t. So the cap isn’t fitting at all well, thank you.
I also don’t have an axe to grind.
So what is your opinion on the sea and arctic satellites?
Tonyb
I think UAH is the best thing we have. If you reject the sat temp data then we have no data, hence no temp questions to answer.
“I think UAH is the best thing we have. If you reject the sat temp data then we have no data, hence no temp questions to answer.”
Which UAH data would that be David.
V1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6beta ?
If that were the surface instrument record history then what would you say?
And I would agree with you.
Meanwhile since RSS went to V4.0 that is no longer the “Gold standard” then?
And why would that be?
Quoting Tonyb
“Yes, obvious reasons, you don’t like what they show.”
Tony
You prefer krigged, made up, estimated data from the arctic, wide spans of africa, wide spans of S America, the open pacific ocean and asian outback to the world wide coverage but at least converted electrical signals to estimated temps on the satellite signals?
There are not good records but at least the satellite data has wide coverage. Now to improve the measuring devices which always are converted electronic signal estimates.
Scott
“but at least converted electrical signals to estimated temps on the satellite signals?”
Just 2 teams do it.
Using the same satellites.
Mears says the surface data is more reliable.
Christy/Spencer have yet to publish details of the V6.0 for peer review (gatekeepers?).
How many surface temp data series is there, by how many teams?
Ther agree to within a gnat’s, homogenised or raw.
Ask Mosher.
Oh, also, there is dfrift from RATPAC radiosonde data since the change over to the latest AMSU…..
https://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/diff.jpeg
tony
How much of the surface data is unmeasured and undergoes major modifications and adjustments?
So basically we have llittel good data? I prefer satellites but acknowledge your issues on calibrations.
But Ruthington in Australia adjustments and converting old temps down in the USA make the entire surface record rough estimates incapable of measuring hottest year ever?
Krigging from 1,000 km apart in the arctic make those numbers useless.
We know very little, much less anything is settled.
Except as tonyb says, generally temps seem to have gone up some in last 300 years since the little ice age.
Scott
I was going back through the exchange up thread about education, NGSS, K-12 brainwashing and all through the Climate perspective as was DavidW’s proposition in the article. I went off to read local headlines that might be relevant but ran into this instead. http://www.wbaltv.com/education/maryland-sees-jump-in-drivers-illegally-passing-school-buses/41549954 Made me sad and worried. How will the k-12s get clean brains, no matter how much money the fed wants to throw around, if they don’t make it to the bus? Public awareness of science issues? Some days I’d settle for Public awareness of traffic law. Sorry back to the satellite data.
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In essence then, Senator Murky wants CAGW alarmism made the official religion, with taxes and government force used to ram it down everyone’s throats. This is no longer to be an issue mere citizens are allowed to agree or disagree about, it is something we must just accept.
Next step the criminalisation of dissent ?
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The Great Climate Change Bamboozle
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
H. L. Mencken
Earth’s carbon cycle contains 46,713 Gt (E15 gr) +/- 850 Gt (+/- 1.8%) of stores and reservoirs with a couple hundred fluxes Gt/y (+/- ??) flowing among those reservoirs. Mankind’s gross contribution over 260 years was 555 Gt or 1.2%. (IPCC AR5 Fig 6.1) Mankind’s net contribution, 240 Gt or 0.53%, (dry labbed by IPCC to make the numbers work) to this bubbling, churning caldron of carbon/carbon dioxide is 4 Gt/y +/- 96%. (IPCC AR5 Table 6.1) Seems relatively trivial to me. IPCC et. al. says natural variations can’t explain the increase in CO2. With these tiny percentages and high levels of uncertainty how would anybody even know?
Mankind’s modelled additional atmospheric CO2 power flux (W/m^2, watt is power, energy over time) between 1750 and 2011, 261 years, is 2 W/m^2 of radiative forcing. (IPCC AR5 Fig SPM.5) Incoming solar RF is 340 W/m^2, albedo reflects 100 W/m^2 (+/- 30 & can’t be part of the 333), 160 W/m^2 reaches the surface (can’t be part of the 333), latent heat from the water cycle’s evaporation is 88 W/m2 (+/- 8). Mankind’s 2 W/m^2 contribution is obviously trivial, lost in the natural fluctuations.
One popular GHE theory power flux balance (“Atmospheric Moisture…. Trenberth et al 2011jcli24 Figure 10) has a spontaneous perpetual loop (333 W/m^2) flowing from cold to hot violating three fundamental thermodynamic laws. (1. Spontaneous energy out of nowhere, 2. perpetual loop w/o work, 3. cold to hot w/o work, 4. doesn’t matter because what’s in the system stays in the system) Physics must be optional for “climate” science. What really counts is the net W/m^2 balance at ToA which 7 out of 8 re-analyses included in the above cited paper concluded the atmosphere was cooling, not warming (+/- 12.3 W/m^2). Of course Dr. Trenberth says they are wrong because their cooling results are not confirmed by his predicted warming, which hasn’t happened for twenty years. (“All of the net TOA imbalances are not tenable and all except CFSR imply a cooling of the planet that clearly has not occurred.”)
Every year the pause/hiatus/lull/stasis continues (IPCC AR5 Box TS.3) IPCC’s atmospheric and ocean general circulation models diverge further from reality.
As Carl Sagan observed, we have been bamboozled, hustled, conned by those wishing to steal our money and rob us of our liberties. Hardly a new agenda.
BTW I have a BSME same as Bill Nye so I’m as much a scientist as he is.
http://joannenova.com.au/global-warming/
“The term Lysenkoism is also used metaphorically to describe the manipulation or distortion of the scientific process (e.g. CAGW) as a way to reach a predetermined conclusion as dictated by an ideological bias, often related to social or political objectives.”