by Judith Curry
House Science Committee Hearing: where the so-called ‘deniers’ behave like scientists and the defender of the establishment consensus . . . lies.
Well, I’ve returned home following the recent Hearing, and have had a chance to reflect, as well as follow the twitter and media responses to Hearing.
Response from the media
A representative sample:
Mother Jones: A scientist just spent 2 hours debating the biggest global warming deniers in Congress [link]
Pacific Standard: The House Science Committee Flouts Science [link]
BBC’s uncritical interview of Michael Mann [link]
Scientific American: House Science Committee Calls on Alt-Science to Drive Policy [link]
HuffPo: GOP Congressman Turns Science Committee Into Platform for His Own Science Views [link]
A relatively balance summary is provided by EOS.
Minorities and victims
Much ado has been made about the lack of balance among the witnesses, with three ‘deniers’ and one ‘establishment’ scientist supporting the consensus. Well if everybody agrees with the consensus and with each other, I don’t see why they need more than one scientist on the consensus side.
Ironically, being the only witness called by the Democrats played to Mann’s favor. All of the Democrat members fed Mann ‘red meat’ questions, and some of the Republican members also asked Mann questions. Mann probably got more air time in the questioning than Christy, Pielke, and myself combined.
But even though Mann is in the majority with his claimed 97% consensus, he still claims victim status as a minority. From Julie Kelly’s NRO article:
In his testimony to the House Science Committee on Wednesday, Michael Mann, one of the world’s leading climate scientists, told the story of Trofim Lysenko, a plant scientist who worked for Stalinist Russia:
Lysenko was a Russian agronomist and it became Leninist doctrine to impose his views about heredity, which were crackpot theories, completely at odds with the world’s scientists. Under Stalin, scientists were being jailed if they disagreed with his theories about agriculture. And Russian agriculture actually suffered, scientists were jailed, many died in their jail cells and potentially millions of people suffered from the disastrous agriculture policies that followed from that.
The gist of Mann’s anecdote was that scientists who challenge the ruling government’s diktat on any given scientific issue are demonized and punished while innocent bystanders suffer. In the here and now, this would seemingly apply to the minority of scientists brave enough to question the reigning dogma of climate science. After all, these are the folks who have been threatened by top law-enforcement officials, personally and professionally attacked by their peers, and even driven out of their academic positions due to the harassment.
But astonishingly, Mann was not talking about those scientists: He was talking about himself. In his alternative universe, he and other climate scientists are the martyrs, oppressed and silenced by the Politburo. Never mind that Mann — a tenured professor at one of the country’s top public universities — opened his testimony by reciting a prodigious list of awards he has won, books he has authored, scientific organizations he leads. He is celebrated by the media and environmental groups around the world, and yet in front of Congress he talked like a guy on his way to the Gulag. It takes a special blend of hubris, juvenility, and dishonesty to portray yourself as a victim when you are really the bully.
I also find Mann’s musings on the Serengeti Strategy to be . . . ironic. From his testimony:
I coined the term “Serengeti Strategy” back in 2012 in “The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars” to describe how industry special interests who feel threatened by scientific findings—be it tobacco and lung cancer, or fossil fuel burning and climate change—single out individual scientists to attack in much the same way lions of the Serengeti single out an individual zebra from the herd. In numbers there is strength, but individuals are far more vulnerable. Science critics will therefore often select a single scientist to ridicule, hector, and intimidate. The presumed purpose is to set an example for other scientists who might consider sticking their neck out by participating in the public discourse over certain matters of policy-relevant science.
Mann is a master of the Serengeti Strategy, as he illustrates in his written testimony by going after me:
Bates’ allegations were also published on the blog of climate science denier Judith Curry
That includes the study28 led by Zeke Hausfather of the “Berkeley Earth” project—a project funded in part by the Koch Brothers and including29 as one of its original team members, climate change contrarian Judith Curry. (JC note: footnote 29 is the source watch slime job on me )
Well, that was a first . . . being called a ‘climate science denier’ in the Congressional Record.
Lies, damned lies and more lies
I always thought that there would be consequences for lying during Congressional testimony. I guess not. Mann got caught out in several blatant lies during the Hearing.
This is pretty classic: Mann denies calling me a denier [link]
A number of statements have been attributed to me. I don’t believe I’ve called anybody a denier
when he states this in his written testimony:
Bates’ allegations were also published on the blog of climate science denier Judith Curry
Mann ‘denies’ being associated with the Climate Accountability Institute [link]. Julie Kelly writes in an article Michael Mann Embarrasses Himself Before Congress
Turns out Mann appears to be a bit of a denier himself. Under questioning, Mann denied being involved with the Climate Accountability Institute even though he is featured on its website as a board member. CAI is one of the groups pushing a scorched-earth approach to climate deniers, urging lawmakers to employ the RICO statute against fossil-fuel corporations. When asked directly if he was either affiliated or associated with CAI, Mann answered “no.” [JC note: Mann also lists this affiliation on his CV]
Some additional ‘porkies’ are highlighted in an article by James Delingpole.
Venal motives
Michael Mann’s testimony plays to the theme of the evil oil companies and Koch brothers being responsible for climate denial. I’m still waiting for my check (according to Mann, I’ve earned one).
Lets take a look at Mann’s venal motives. A little birdie dropped this in my mailbox this morning:
x
The sent time on the email is just moments after the Hearing. Apparently Michael Mann now has a Political Action Committee (PAC) 314.action
I imagine that my receiving this information will intensely provoke someone’s paranoia.
Red Teams
Well I have to say that I feared our key messages got lost in all the bickering and nonsense of the actual Hearing.
I was very heartened to see this article by Chelsea Harvey in the WaPo: These scientists want to challenge climate research. Congress is listening. This article is basically about the ‘Red Team’ strategy discussed by Christy and myself. It is a good and article, and I would like to thank Chelsea Harvey for writing this.
I will have lots to say on this topic in coming months.
JC reflections
Well, the Hearing was rather bizarre. I don’t think anyone got out of it what they wanted (other than MM with his PAC donations). I hope that my written testimony will result in reflection by some scientists. And it seems possible that the Red Team idea will develop legs.
Some establishment scientists are calling for climate scientists to boycott these Hearings. Well, that would be fine with me. Scientists who don’t want to engage in respectful discussion and debate should stay home, and preach to their choirs.
Here is some advice for Lamar Smith. If you hold another Hearing on climate change and the democrats invite Mann, either cancel the Hearing or call Steve McIntyre and/or Mark Steyn as witnesses. Several times during the Hearing, the thought popped into my mind that I wished Mark Steyn was here. Who could forget his performance at Ted Cruz’s previous Hearing [link].
And finally, here is Josh’s cartoon:
You know, it does eventually come out who is the abusive lying scumbag and who isn’t.
On a lighter note…
http://imgur.com/a/9ptEU
http://www.latimes.com/nation/ct-california-wildflowers-20170331-story.html
It’s been a great couple of years for desert wildflowers in California. Last year we had early season heavy rains which led to Death Valley Superbloom, which incidentally was one of my bucket list items.
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1127632287261485.1073741826.100000441737214&type=1&l=e41219a532
Never tried to post a Facebook gallery before. Click on the link above.
In Dr. Curry’s linked testimony , it takes her barely 30 seconds to proceed from :
“I was basically called a denier…” to
“In the 20th century 40% of the warming occurred before 1950, when carbon dioxide was not a factor in the warming.”
While the term ‘science denier’ in political debate is deplorably polemic , her indignation at the word “denier” dissolves into absurdity when , only seconds later , she asserts that within living memory, ” carbon dioxide was not a factor in the warming “
Tell that to Fourier, Tyndall & Arhennius !
russellseitz – You have not been paying attention. There is nothing even remotely controversial about the comment. Both sides agree that the purported CO2 warming did not kick in substantially until mid-20th century. AGW opponents merely casually dismiss the earlier warming as being induced by the convenient fudge factor of aerosols.
JC: “I always thought that there would be consequences for lying”
Sometimes all you need is a bigger lie. “Clean Coal”
After reading all the comments as well as listening to an hour of “Why everything out of Trump’s mouth is demonstrable lie” on radio, I have become convinced that even something that should be as simple as what constitutes a lie has become polarized. A lie is when someone says something they know is untrue. I now assume if Trump said “The weather is lovely day today” while standing in Washington on a warm spring day, some opponent would immediately leap up and say “But there was a tornado in Texas today, and so once again Trump has demonstrably lied.” And the media would go insane on that topic for the rest of the week. However, when any of their own are caught in deliberate and outright lying, people now make every possible excuse they can. He didn’t understand the question, he got mixed up, he corrected himself, he didn’t mean it that way. This is my opinion. Mann outright, demonstrably and obviously lied about calling Judith a denier. He appears to have also lied about being part of Climate Accountability Institute. It might be possible he was flustered or misunderstood the question about the Climate Accountability Institute and all the other excuses people have given, but set beside how he lied about calling Judith a denier, I am not prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. Mann = liar. That is my opinion.
There was an interesting psychology paper I heard about last year that said that telling lies rewires the brain to tell lies more easily, which makes sense because that’s how our neural net works. The brain is learning a skill so that it can use it without much conscious thought, like walking or driving a car. The trouble is, for some people lying become so ingrained that they’ll do it automatically once it seems to be the most efficient way to some goal.
No climate change proponent want anyone to take a closer look at their research and data, unless they provide their proprietary versions, or challenge the “climate scientists,” many who simply seem self-titled or labeled that by the media when the author/editor think it’ll strengthen their story.
His lies are because he was on the psychological defensive and to worm out of potentially threatening situations, they came right out. And there’s no such thing as just a little lie. A lie has to be made to deny it, then another and another, like all the BS excuses you list, until it’s second nature and the person can’t even remember or tell what were lies and not. And whether there was ever any conscience to be disturbed is questionable. A liar is a liar, and guilt doesn’t seem to exist with most of them. And there are some egregious lies coming out of the whole climate change scene, primarily from the establishment, who unsurprisingly just ignores them and attacks anyone daring enough to point them out. If this is settled science, like Obama the Great declared, then what are we even doing having hearings and why is it still being disputed? We don’t argue if water is wet. Although I’m sure some liberals would take that argument up. Replete with lies throughout.
This sham hearing was effective in allowing Mann to describe the overwhelming consensus, pointing out that Judith Curry agreeing with Scott Pruitt makes her a climate science denier, and that Lamar Smith is a idiot for claiming that the journal Science is not objective.
LOL Science rejects most articles without even having any review due to bias. They only publish about 7% of all articles. They freely announced their own bias when they said they will not publish anything that does not support global warming. As for the overwhelming consensus being right, let me see, continental drift, gradients explain morphogenesis, jumping genes, geocentrism, origin of life according to Miller-Urey… I could go on and on. Only facts and data that is freely shared and can be replicated by others, means anything. Any scientist who has to invoke consensus and actively work to silence his critics to make his point has no point.
You also missed the point, that being that Mann denied calling her a denier. He also denied being associated with a group that he listed in his CV as belonging to. That makes him a liar.
Tumbleweed – As you previously pointed out, “Something that should be as simple as what constitutes a lie has become polarized. A lie is when someone says something they know is untrue.”
You somewhat belatedly seem to be exhibiting the “polarization” of which you spoke? Dr. Mann didn’t deny “being associated with a group that he listed in his CV as belonging to”. He said, and I quote, “It’s all in my CV which has already been provided to Committee”.
Which “group” is that you suppose he “lied” about “belonging to”?
I said he lied about calling Judith Curry a liar and people like you are making excuses for him supposedly not lying about being associated with the “let’s RICO everyone who disagrees with us” gang, which was in his CV. People like you may be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on that one with excuses like he got mixed up. Since he so blatantly lied about calling Judith Curry a denier, I do no accept excuses from his supporters on the other apparent lie as well. If not liking liars makes me polarized in your opinion, I’m okay with your label.
Tumbleweed – I’m not “making excuses” for Mann. Having watched the proceedings live I fail to comprehend how anybody who isn’t already “polarized” beyond belief on the issue can claim with a straight face that Mann “lied” about what’s in his CV when he told Rep. Higgins more than once to go look at his CV since it was already on record.
Dr. Mann does have more of a case to answer on the “denying calling Judith a ‘denier'” front, but that’s a rather different kettle of fish.
Lie about one, you’ll lie about lots of things. My opinion is he casually he lied to congress on both counts.
The available evidence strongly suggests that your opinion is wrong in this instance.
Perhaps your opinions are wrong in other instances also?
I doubt it. Time will tell.
Judith – “Mann ‘denies’ being associated with the Climate Accountability Institute”
Perhaps you didn’t read my comments on this contentious matter on the previous thread? At the risk of repeating myself:
Mann said, and I quote:
“I’ve submitted my CV. You can see who I’m ‘associated’ with”
His CV states, quoted by Steve McIntyre:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C8LoasUVwAEkwBq.jpg
Q.E.D?
Jim Hunt is repeatedly misrepresenting the exchange on Climate Accountability Institute by deleting the most critical part of Mann’s answer.
Higgins asked Mann “Are you affiliated or associated with an organization called the Climate Accountability Institute?”
Mann clearly and unequivocally answered “No” – omitted in Hunt’s quotation. Mann added ” I may…uh.. correspond…”
Presumably taken by surprise by Mann’s untruthful answer, Higgins asked, perhaps in disbelief: “You’re not affiliated or associated with them?”
As support for his assertion that he was not associated with Climate Accountability Institute, Mann’s reply indicated that this answer was supported by his CV. “I can provide… I’ve submitted my CV. You can see who I’m associated with.”
As it turned out, Mann’s CV did not exactly the opposite of supporting his false answer of No. It showed that he was indeed on the Advisory Board of Climate Accountability Institute.
The only correct answer to Higgins’ original question was “Yes. I’m on the Advisory Board of the Climate Accountability Institute.” It’s ludicrous for Jim Hunt or anyone else to try to argue that “No” was a correct answer.
Steve Mc. – Have you seen my comments on Judith’s previous article concerning this contentious issue yet? Perhaps you might start with this one?
https://judithcurry.com/2017/03/29/house-science-committee-hearing/#comment-844119
Perhaps Judith can comment on whether any of her answers were continually interrupted by Rep. Higgins, or anybody else for that matter?
JH, defending the indefensible does not place you in a good light. As a lawyer, let me tell you Mann’s NO answer was perjury. Period. Not fixed by later reference to CV; quite the opposite, the CV proves the deliberate perjury. No different than the deliberate perjury when hedenied he had called Judith a denier, when his own written testimony did and she called him on it. Perjury SHOULD have consequences.
Moreover, you ignore the end of the Higgins Mann exchange, where Higgins asked for more evidence of lack of association with UCS and CAI and Mann said he would provide it.
JH
Look over there, a squirrel.
distract and obfuscate.
The only correct answer to Higgins question was “yes, I’m on the advisory Board of the Climate Accountability Institute.”
Please stop trying to distract.
Don’t refer back to some random comment you made an another thread and give up asking Dr Curry to support you false response.
Scott
Ristvan – I’m not “defending the indefensible”, I’m merely desperately misunderstood!
That, and pointing out some actual facts that should be readily apparent to anybody who bothers to watch the video of the incident thoughtfully provided by Beth on the previous thread.
Perhaps Lamar Smith will thoughtfully provide a comfy chair for the witnesses invited by the Democratic Party to his next “climate science” hearing?
R. Istvan testimony before congress is not necessarily sworn. Was this sworn testimony? If not then no perjury.
I checked the video and it doesn’t appear the panel members were sworn. No perjury.
Whether this is sworn testimony, is something that could use a little more clarification. Do witnesses get sworn in or do they sign a document or is it just written in the law that anyone who testifies is considered to be sworn in? And how would anyone who blatantly lies be sanctioned?
Unsworn testimony before Congress is governed by 18 U.S. 1001 (link below). Giving unsworn, false testimony before Congress “shall be fined under this title [and/or] imprisoned [for] not more than 5 years.” Pretty much the same punishment as perjury.
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE-2014-title18/pdf/USCODE-2014-title18-partI-chap47-sec1001.pdf
“As a lawyer, let me tell you Mann’s NO answer was perjury. Period.”
This gets absurd. People can make mistakes in testimony. Mann was clearly trying to answer a question out of the blue to the best of his memory. He said first that he may have corresponded with people (which is exactly what advisers do), and then referred to his submitted CV, which is just what is the right thing to do when memory is shaky. He is in no way trying to cover up his association (see CV), and indeed, why should he?
Jeff Sessions, on the Russians, was a far more significant breach. I saw no moves to charge him with perjury. He’s still the Attorney-General.
Mornin’ Nick (UTC),
“This gets absurd”. Quite so. Surreal even? As I put it in my own summary of Wednesday’s events:
The denialosphere is of course now spinning like crazy attempting to pin something, anything, on Michael Mann.
For those that still don’t get the point, here’s the relevant section of Marc Morano’s selected video recording once again:
https://youtu.be/S3f42t4C7XU
You can’t even be sure of which question Dr. Mann is attempting to answer. Perhaps Rep. Higgins agenda is clear enough though?
LOL! Ok snow white. I do not see the skeptics here trying to spin how Mann did not call everyone on the panel names. I do not see the skeptics here trying to spin Mann’s outright lie about the name calling OR his associations.
That is not spin. Those are called facts.
Jeff Sessions answered the question that was asked, and answered it truthfully. And yet there have been calls for bringing him up on perjury charges.
Mann lied when answering the question asked.
I understand why you cannot see the difference, however the facts make your statement ridiculous.
Mann can send in a letter correcting the record as Sessions did. The issue is that Mann had a motive to lie, namely, to avoid having to answer questions about why he is associated with a group calling for RICO prosecutions of skeptics, about as serious an abuse of the legal system one can imagine.
“Mann can send in a letter correcting the record”
Absurd. He had already submitted his CV, and he referred to it as the right place to look. And it was accurate.
“Mann had a motive to lie”
Nonsense. The question made no reference to such an association.
“why he is associated with a group calling for RICO prosecutions of skeptics”
That’s an absolute lie. OK, it was made by a congressman, but it’s still a lie.
“Pretty much the same punishment as perjury.”
But it isn’t perjury. So it looks like lawyer ristvan was full of it, as usual.
Nick, I’m a little surprised by what you say. It’s legalistic and very narrow in denying certain very specific statements.. The Climate Accountability Institute is openly pushing the fossil fuel/Koch brother’s conspiracy theory that Mann himself mentioned in his testimony. And then there is the stupid and wildly inaccurate analogy with tobacco. The idea they advocate legal RICO actions is no doubt this false parallel they push and their association with the George Mason RICO McCarthyites. Naomi Orestes is clearly not living in reality. If there are Merchants of doubt they are not agents of some vast conspiracy of secretive and evil fossil fuel interests.
This is another nail in Mann’s coffin. He seems to be inclined to lie about things that are trivially verified to be false. CAI is just one instance. The lie about calling climate scientists deniers is even more striking. What this points to is that Mann was interested in political posturing and spraying conspiracy theories and keeping everyone else off balance by various denial tactics.
We have people like this in CFD. They are a combination of arrogance, very thin skin, and a very strong talent for questionable methods and ideas that they remake into memes that promote the financial and intellectual interests of the field. This is why the modeling literature is so dangerously biased.
the MO is familiar: Deny any problems with science and your work. Attack your opponents both rhetorically and legally, and fail to really address any specific scientific point raised.
So Nick, Do you support the CAI or not? Do you believe in Merchants of Doubt? Do you believe that RICO should be used against climate skeptics?
dpy,
“Do you support the CAI or not? Do you believe in Merchants of Doubt? Do you believe that RICO should be used against climate skeptics?”
Actually, I hadn’t heard of the CAI before. Mann was obviously scratching his head as well. It turns out that what the congressman was probably referring to was a workshop they mounted in 2012 (not attended by Mann), which explored the RICO civil lawsuit mounted against tobacco companies. There was no mention of RICO prosecution of skeptics. That is a lie.
As for “legalistic and very narrow”, what is this stupid gotcha with a puffed-up lawyer claiming that Mann is committing perjury when it wasn’t even sworn testimony, and where he was clearly trying to answer the question, and directed the questioner to the correct information that he had supplied.
And no, I don’t think RICO should (or could) be used to prosecute skeptics.
So Nick, It sounds as if you broadly agree with the critique of the CAI and Mann, whose public statements are if anything even more extreme. I don’t think Mann committed perjury, he just replied with a falsehood to deflect attention to the line of questioning and it succeeded. The follow up was never brought up. The easiest explanation is that he chose to lie to maintain control of the conversation.
It continues to amaze me that the defense of Mann (who is really indefensible) is not just dropped. There are obviously better climate scientists to bring to the table. It is indeed puzzling as to why the Democrats chose him. The probable answer is that they are on board with the polarization of the issues advocated by CAI and the George Mason RICO tyrants.
In other decades, I would think such behavior would land someone in jail. At least couple days in a cell with Jerry Sandusky.
Nick
Much more likely he was going to discuss Mann’s role in giving Shukla a hand.
“There are obviously better climate scientists to bring to the table.”
It seemed to be just a whinging session about who has been most maltreated. And Mann certainly has a lot of material.
I don’t think Mann replied with a falsehood. He was asked out of the blue “Are you affiliated or associated with an organisation called the Climate Accontability Institute” – no line of question given – and he’s just racking his brains to figure what that means, and who they are. So in the end he just says, look in my CV. Which gave accurate information.
As to “broadly agree with the critique”, I’m not sure what that means. I don’t actually think a civil case against Exxon will get anywhere useful, but I see nothing wrong with people discussing it.
What bugs me is when people push these ridiculous gotchas with Mann, with portentous talk of perjury, and don’t care about the blatant lie that Higgins put, which is so prevalent in sceptic world. If CAI had actually proposed the RICO prosecution of skeptics, it would be public and someone could point to it. No-one has, despite all the Mann-bashing.
So your defense of Mann is his ignorance. Even though it is listed on his CV, he is not expected to know what is on his CV?
That explains the hokey stick
Nick, I just looked up this: Climate Accountability Institute RICO
And voila,
http://www.climateaccountability.org/pdf/Climate%20Accountability%20Rpt%20Oct12.pdf
And yes they do talk about initiating RICO suits.
qbeamus is as wrong as Rud Istvan. It’s not a crime. Can’t you people take a minute to check your facts before you blurt?
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1001
http://imgur.com/a/hVdUA
Nick
He first been asked about the Union of Concerned Scientists, then CAI and he ends up being asked if these organisations were associated with efforts to encourage the use of RICO on skeptics. Mann says put like that he be extremely surprising if that was true.
For context see https://energyindepth.org/national/with-each-new-batch-of-foiad-emails-more-insight-into-collusion-behind-rico-climate-effort/ ignoring the commentary if it gets in the way of your understanding.
It didn’t seem surprising to him back then, in fact he was busy helping get their help.
Now that know USC 18.1001 only applies to congressional investigations and reviews, not hearings, does this law apply to congressional committee members themselves? I’ve seen congress critters telling some pretty big whoppers in congressional investigations.
CTM,
“And yes they do talk about initiating RICO suits.”
You didn’t nee to search. Look back about 3 comments and you’ll see I gave that link and discussed it. The claim by Higgins, reflecting much skeptic victimhood fantasy, is that CAI advocated RICO prosecution of sceptics. That workshop was about civil suits against fossil fuel producers, based on misleading about their product and its effects.
HAS,
So where is the proposal that sceptics should be prosecuted under RICO? This is typical – an allegation gets made, challenged, and then, but look over there. Skeptics prosecuted under RICO was the claim. All your link has is someone suggesting that they emphasise that they aren’t proposing prosecution of skeptics. Which they did.
Which, according to Mann et. al., all the skeptics are in the pay of. So since they are part of the fossil fuel producers, by their admission, and they seek to persecute fossil fuel producers, by their admission, they seek to persecute skeptics through RICO.
YOu blew it nick. You cannot have it both ways. Either all the skeptics are in the pay of fossil fuel producers, as alleged by Mann, Orestes, UCS, etc. and hence they sought to persecute them via RICO.
Or Skeptics are not in the pay of fossil fuel producers, in which case you may have a minor point. But in either case, you lose both ways.
Nick
There was this guy called Shukla who proposed that RICO be used to have a go at skeptics. You do recall this? And he got in touch with this guy called Mann asking for help when things got tough. Mann helpfully did an introduction to the Union of Concerned Scientists and a PR firm that did work with the CAI. In that he asked for advice and resources. The latter gave advice back including making a link to coming media on Exxon.
Roll forward to the hearing and Mann gets asked about his relationship with both the UCS and CAI and ducks for cover. He may be a bit thick as you seem to be suggesting and didn’t see where this was going, but when it gets to the crunch question i.e. if these organisations were associated with efforts to encourage the use of RICO on skeptics, Mann says that put like that it’d be extremely surprising if that was true.
Given that he’d directly asked UCS to assist Shukla, the one person who has called for the use of RICO to go after skeptics, and UCS didn’t dissociate themselves from the request or subsequent assistance from Climate Nexus, Mann is going to have a hard time with his last answer to Higgins. More so than the answer re CAI.
Having looked at this I’d say Mann was a hostile witness that was just a bit too smart. Alternatively he lacks self awareness. Who knows.
HAS,
“the one person who has called for the use of RICO to go after skeptics”
You keep repeating the same lies, fuzzing the language a bit from Higgins version. Shukla did not call for use of RICO to prosecute skeptics, or even “go after” them. What Mann said in his email introducing Shukla was:
“As you may know, Shukla was recently involved in the effort to call fossil fuel interests accountable for their decades-long campaign of denial and disinformation via RICO. “
That isn’t a proposal to prosecute skeptics. And neither was Shukla’s letter to Obama:
” One additional tool – recently proposed by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse – is a RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) investigation of corporations and other organizations that have knowingly deceived the American people about the risks of climate change, as a means to forestall America’s response to climate change”
He proposes an investigation (not prosecution) of corporations. And he is clear in the letter that their suggestion is analogous to the tobacco suit.
The response from Newell set out what is true:
” I’d recommend you keep it [the letter] up and point to it as a call for investigating (not prosecuting) organizations and companies (not specific scientists) in an oped or simply a statement on the IGES website that clarifies that distinction.
…
At this point there needs to be a link people can point to showing that the denier’s “Perp walk” language and the focus on individual scientists is simply not accurate, that your compensation is fair and justified, and that refocuses attention on the real issue: corporate sponsorship of denial. “
” He may be a bit thick as you seem to be suggesting and didn’t see where this was going”
It’s not a matter of being thick. It’s just not being familiar with paranoid fantasies.
“associated with efforts to encourage the use of RICO on skeptics”
Again, you are fuzzing it over. Higgins specifically said “associated with efforts to prosecute skeptics via RICO”. And that is what Mann said that, put like that, he would find it hard to believe. And he’s right. Despite harrumphing here, no-one has produced anything from CAI or UCS about prosecuting skeptics.
Nick
“Shukla did not call for use of RICO to prosecute skeptics, or even “go after” them.” & “He proposes an investigation (not prosecution) of corporations.”
Sorry Nick you are making stuff up. He proposed a RICO investigation, with a view to stopping them. (last para of letter). In my vernacular “go after them” and in Higgins case prosecute via RICO.
And relying on Newell’s post fact PR damage control advice as evidence that Shukla et al didn’t have prosecution on their minds is a joke.
Whitehouse and the subsequent letter from Shumla clearly contemplate the investigation leading to some form of action as per the tobacco model they all quote. Whitehouse pursued action with USAG Lynch who said it had been raised with DoJ.
You should also have a look at the FOIA release of Shukla et als emails to get a measure of the extent to which this was happening in conjunction with the AG, taking the lead from Whitehouse, working with CAI and also to get a measure of the general desire to get a prosecution.
Nick it is quite simple. The team clearly thought a RICO investigation leading to action was the way to go with denier organisations, it had been well aired in public (even I knew what Whitehouse had suggested), and Mann through his interactions with Shukla knew exactly what was going on at least as far as UCS were concerned, and I suspect the CAI.
“Why he instinctively shrunk from admitting it”
Why indeed. He’s happy to record it on his CV. What is actually wrong with being “affiliated or associated with an organization called the Climate Accountability Institute”?
Good question for Mann – why are you so ashamed to be a member of this organization.
Mann’s willingness to prevaricate, twice here in the face of obvious contrary evidence, does seem to make him better suited for politics than science.
TE – What are you on about? Can I safely assume that you haven’t seen the bit that was not shown in Morano’s video?
http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2017/03/the-house-science-climate-model-show-trial/#Apr-1
That’s the bit where Mann says:
You haven’t defined what “association” even means here.
“Good question for Mann – why are you so ashamed to be a member of this organization.”
There’s no evidence that he’s a “member”. And I’m sure that he would be totally unashamed to be associated with it just because it once organised a workshop on possible lawsuits against fossil fuel emitters. And he’s not ashamed to be listed as an adviser – he proclaimed it on his CV. He’s a busy man, and it seems that the demands of this role have not left a deep impression.
Mann apologists crack me up.
He twice told outright falsehoods that you pretend he didn’t. I think this says a lot more about apologists than Mann. Evidently there’s a lot of denial going on from all sides of this issue.
Witnesses were not under oath. That means, as noted above, 18USC1001 as amended in 1996 (in response to the 1995 Scotus Hubbard ruling) applies. There are a lot of terms of art from past cases used in revised 1001. These are explained for US District attornies in the DoJ Criminal Resouce Manual (CRM) specifically at CRM #901-909. Most relevant are 902, 907, and 908. It is available on line at justice.gov
902 explains the 1001c revisions with respect to the legislative branch: applicable only to administrative matters (e.g. Time sheet billing) or to ‘investigation’s’ within the lawful purview of the investigating committee or subcommittee. The language was intended to exempt ordinary constituent communications and requests. The title of the hearing specifies the investigation, clearly within the purview of Smith’s SST committee. Details are further explained at CRM 906, Jurisdiction.
907 decribes when prosecution is warranted. This requires a material federal interest. The legitimacy of climate science is material to things like CPP. Prosecution warranted test is met.
908 describes the elements required for successful prosecution of specifics. (A) knowingly false. That Mann verbally contradicted his written testimony to the same hearing (twice) unequivicolly satisfies the knowing requirement. CRM says thismis the most difficult element, and that DA’s shoild proceed cautiously.
(B) Materiality. The false statement must bear directly and materially on the investigation, and not be merely incidental.
1. ‘No’ Affiliation with CAI is material because that organization advocates RICO prosecution of ‘climate science deniers’ and is material evidence that Mann’s side does not practise the scientific method as described by Curry and Christy. Supression of nonconsensus legitimate science is highly material to the investigation.
2. ‘Not’ calling Curry a climate science denier. Again, marginalization of a contrary climate science view, failure to engage on the merits, both directly material to the ‘scientific method in climate science’ investigation.
Mann is culpable beyond any reasonable doubt. Whether anything will come of it is a different question. Hopefully this analysis will at least be of some tangential value to Mann. v. Steyn.
Nick Stokes: Shukla did not call for use of RICO to prosecute skeptics, or even “go after” them. What Mann said in his email introducing Shukla was:
At the time that the RICO proposals were fresh and discussed here, I thought it was unclear who would be exempted from investigation, and a fair interpretation was that Prof Curry was herself at risk should the procedures get started.
ristvan: ‘No’ Affiliation with CAI is material because that organization advocates RICO prosecution of ‘climate science deniers’
Is that documented someplace?
matthewrmarler you are correct that individuals could be at risk because under RICO “enterprise” is widely defined to include association-in-fact enterprises, i.e. potentially individuals operating together for a common purpose. This is hardly surprising when you consider racketeering typically involves illegal groups.
If you want to find out more see the DoJ “CRIMINAL RICO: 18 U.S.C. §§1961-1968 A Manual For Federal Prosecutors” available online.
I’d had half expected Nick’s next nick-pick to be that Higgins referred to prosecuting sceptics, and individuals can’t be got under RICO, hence justifying Mann’s response that it would be extremely surprising.
I also wonder if Higgins’ reference to “associated with” mightn’t have been heavy irony – with an implication that Mann et al were potential RICO targets themselves as an association-in-fact.
matthewrmarler you are correct that individuals could be at risk because under RICO “enterprise” is widely defined to include association-in-fact enterprises, i.e. potentially individuals operating together for a common purpose. This is hardly surprising when you consider racketeering typically involves illegal groups.
If you want to find out more see the DoJ “CRIMINAL RICO: 18 U.S.C. §§1961-1968 A Manual For Federal Prosecutors” available online.
I’d had half expected Nick’s next comment to be that Higgins referred to prosecuting sceptics, and individuals can’t be got under RICO, hence justifying Mann’s response that it would be extremely surprising.
I also wonder if Higgins’ reference to “associated with” mightn’t have been heavy irony – with an implication that Mann et al were potential RICO targets themselves as an association-in-fact.
“Is that documented someplace?”
No. It’s a lie. The irony is that if there ever were prosecution of skeptics, many here would not be eligible. They believe and repeat stuff like this with not the slightest evidence.
As to the possible investigation of Dr Curry, it is possible that individuals could be caught up in the investigation of FF companies activities. But that is not prosecution. The RICO statute proposed does not even allow penalties for companies for their past activity, let alone individuals. It allows the court to restrain their future activity.
Nick, I just took great legal pains to prove you wrong under US law. MM, I just,p provided the legal,p proof you seek.
Now, I get you are not licensed lawyers. What you not get is that I am..
Nick, Being an Australian you can be forgiven for not understanding US law. The RICO law was specifically to allow criminal prosecution of people participating in illegal criminal organizations like the mafia. Applying it to fossil fuel companies is a clear excess unless wrongdoing can be proven beyond normal business practices and advertising. In the US, the 1st amendment gives people and corporations broad rights to say things no matter how wrong they may be. There are both civil and criminal penalties.
In general the whole “fossil fuel associated denialosphere” nonsense is an example of a conspiracy theory such as that the government set up 9/11. Fossil fuel companies are very good at making money and are quite willing to do it with “clean” energy too. It’s really an indication of mental illness to see dark secret conspiracies everywhere to harm the earth. And it harms society generally because it causes people to focus on unreal obsessions and ignore real and practical solutions and policy.
ristvan: . MM, I just,p provided the legal,p proof you seek.
My question was whether CAI advocated RICO proceedings against any skeptics. What I am finding is that they want accountability from producers of CO2.
Nick Stokes: it is possible that individuals could be caught up in the investigation of FF companies activities. But that is not prosecution.
I stand corrected. I was thinking more of “harassment” and “persecution”.
“Now, I get you are not licensed lawyers. What you not get is that I am..”
Your earlier version said:
“As a lawyer, let me tell you Mann’s NO answer was perjury. Period. “
matthewrmarler you are correct that individuals could be at risk because under RICO “enterprise” is widely defined to include association-in-fact enterprises, i.e. potentially individuals operating together for a common purpose. This is hardly surprising when you consider racketeering typically involves illegal groups.
If you want to find out more see the DoJ “CRIMINAL RICO: 18 U.S.C. §§1961-1968 A Manual For Federal Prosecutors” available online.
Nick perhaps you could read it too.
Nick is incorrect about individuals, but unfortunately for some reason my attempts to clarify linger in moderation.
HAS,
“Nick perhaps you could read it too.”
RICO is a broad act, and has a criminal component as well as civil. The issue, that neither you nor anyone here seems to be able to deal with, is what did CAI actually propose? It only needs a quote. They conducted a workshop on using the civil remedies that were used in the tobacco case. These are for the remedying of damage caused by FF production. It is very unlikely that individuals would come under that, and there is no indication that CAI sought any such thing. And it isn’t prosecution, and does not support penalty for past activity. As for the criminal component, that is for actual crimes, of which “skeptical” thought is not one.
@Istvan
It wasn’t a congressional investigation. It was a hearing. There’s a difference. What you don’t get is I was an elected official and when I wanted an attorney’s opinion I gave it to him.
…. and if civil proceedings are proposed “ORGANIZED CRIME AND RACKETEERING SECTION, U.S. DEPT. OF JUSTICE, CIVIL
RICO: A MANUAL FOR FEDERAL ATTORNEYS”
@Istvan
In the interest of your continuing education here is a description of types of congressional hearings. The hearing in question was a legislative hearing. USC 18.1001 does not apply to these types of hearings. It applies only to investigative and oversight hearings which are also described.
https://www.senate.gov/CRSpubs/cb39da50-6535-4824-9d2f-e5f1fcf0a3e4.pdf
Wise up.
dpy,
“It’s really an indication of mental illness to see dark secret cοnspiracies”
I think the mental illness is the search for a cοnspiracy to prosecute sceptics. It just isn’t there. As for RICΟ, I don’t myself think action under it is a good idea. I’m just pointing out that CAI is not, despite much assertion, advocating prosecution of skeptics.
What was discussed at the CAI workshop isn’t a first amendment issue. It’s a lawsuit to restrain future behaviour by FF producers. We know how that works from the tobacco analogy which they make clear is what they are proposing. Whether that is a good idea is another matter. People do have a first amendment right to propose it.
The analogy was 500 drivers going to LA on Interstate 40. Is that a conspiracy? or just a commonality of goals?
That there are many out there willing to do anything to silence skeptics is factual. (and links can be given if you are so obtuse as to deny it). To then jump to the conclusion it is a conspiracy is not far fetched, regardless of the veracity of it.
You either need to get out more, or learn the meaning of the terms you use.
I do believe that Springer just won the internet.
Mornin’ Rud (UTC),
“Mann is culpable beyond any reasonable doubt.”
Sez who? You? Did you see Steve Mc’s April Fool’s joke?
http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2017/03/the-house-science-climate-model-show-trial/#Apr-2
ROFLMAO
HAS,
I see a comment emerged from moderation. I have one there too. I think the reason may be cri…
” individuals can’t be got under RICΟ”
RICΟ covers a lot of things. Of course it allows prosecutions of individuals for various things, although by no stretch of the imagination for climate scepticism. What your scattershot comments don’t link to is what CAI (or any Mann associate) proposed. It was a civil suit under the same section as the tobacco industry case, where no individuals were defendants and no penalties for past behaviour could be imposed. The recently settled case against Trump University (Art Cohen) was also a RICO suit. It’s not all about gangsters.
Yes, Nick, but legal action under RICO requires illegal activities and in any case the law was not intended for legal businesses engaged in normal business. Unlike tobacco, fossil fuels have very positive effects and some pollutants. It’s wishful thinking to suppose that there will be “incriminating” documents showing fraud in this matter. Everyone has known for 100 years that fossil fuel production has negative environmental consequences. This fantasy is really an example of wishful thinking and really just a consequence of desperation. When the normal political legislative arena is very unfriendly, you comfort yourself with such fantasies. Most Americans would strongly oppose such decisions.
It is another example of circumventing the people’s representatives that is an abuse. RICO has always had critics because it is so broad and subject to prosecutorial misconduct. Why not just pass laws to limit emissions? You and I know the answer to that. It’s a very low priority and is dead on arrival as was the Paris agreement. That’s why Obama had to circumvent the constitution and bypass the Senate.
BTW, The ultimate fruit of Obama’s legally questionable extensions of executive power is that Trump can just as easily undo them. You were not doubt alarmed to hear that the Paris agreement was on his list. Americans have never gotten used to these “government authorities know better” kind of arguments. You Brits tried that about 250 years ago.
ristvan: “Mann is culpable beyond any reasonable doubt.”
After deliberating a while, I have to say that if I am on the jury I vote “not guilty”. The information was in Mann’s written cv, which he referred to. Orally, he goofed up. Maybe the prosecution, so to speak, has more evidence; “reasonable doubt” in this case follows from the knowledge that we all goof up sometimes.
Mann’s inconsistencies, so to speak, in the Mann v Steyn and Steyn v Mann should be ignored here, I think. In this case, what Mann wrote was correct and informative.
Mann’s use of “denier” (“deny”, “denial” etc) is reprehensible. But that’s separate.
Matthew – Re “denier!”, I suggest we adjourn elsewhere:
https://judithcurry.com/2017/03/31/deniers-lies-and-politics/#comment-844560
Re “no”, Shock News! I concur with your assessment.
Perjury is not what is factual (the CV), but what is said under oath. Had you been on the jury, the judge would have explained that to you.
Nick
“Of course it allows prosecutions of individuals for various things, although by no stretch of the imagination for climate scepticism. What your scattershot comments don’t link to is what CAI (or any Mann associate) proposed.”
We aren’t discussing whether RICO would be successful. We are discussing whether Mann’s associates wanted to have a go using it and whether he was aware of that. In fact we know from Shukla’s emails he was advised it wouldn’t work, but he still went ahead.
You did notice I linked to is Shukla’s letter that clearly has him saying let’s use RICO with the clear desired outcome of shutting them down, and links to Whitehouse’s activities that had gone so far as to raise with the US AG whether prosecution was on the cards.
“It was a civil suit under the same section as the tobacco industry case, where no individuals were defendants and no penalties for past behaviour could be imposed.”
You are making things up. The Shukla letter just advocates for action under RICO, with no limitation. They just note that the behaviour was the same as the tobacco industry. Whitehouse didn’t limit his activities either.
It was only after Shukla got adverse reaction that back peddling began, as you note in part derived from a PR person Mann had organised for him.
“saying let’s use RICO with the clear desired outcome of shutting them down”
Why no actual quotes?
Preferably of someone actually talking about prosecuting skeptics.
Nick
You are perfectly correct. Not your particular words. Shukla’s letter says “use … RICO” and “if the fossil fuel industry and their supporters are guilty of the misdeeds … it is imperative … that these misdeeds be stopped …”.
No doubt in your world there is some way RICO could be used to establish guilt without a prosecution. Note he doesn’t say do it the same way it was done to the tobacco industry, just that the methods used by that industry were similar and RICO had been used against them.
Turing to Whitehouse he has explicitly requested action be taken under RICO, and Lynch testified she had had the DoJ look at taking action under RICO.
Perhaps you have in mind to use a technical argument that civil actions aren’t prosecutions, but I trust that would be beneath you.
HAS
“to use a technical argument that civil actions aren’t prosecutions”
Most certainly. They are actions for the remediation or prevention of damage. And that has the important effect here that they couldn’t be practically used against individual skeptics anyway. All the proposals have been about damage caused by FF production and use.
But technical? All this is about Mann having uttered a No while directing the Committee to the information that he had correctly supplied about his involvement with CAI (all while being talked over by Higgins). Do you think ristvan’s absurd claims aren’t “technical”?
You still have nothing about 1)CAI 2)prosecuting 3)skeptics. You just have a whole lot about Shukla supporting a civil suit investigation against FF producers. And still no quotes.
Nick
The bits in quotation marks are things called quotes, there is nothing to stop a group of individuals who are associated-in-law having civil action taken against them under RICO, and my comments have been exclusively dealing with the idea that Mann should be claiming it to be surprising that UCS (specifically) could be associated with people advocating RICO action when he was party to introducing one such (Shukla) to them. The FOIA emails show CAI were associated with Shukla too, but not necessarily that Mann was involved in that.
I’d just note that Shukla isn’t just concerned about fossil fuel production and its use, citing for example Merchants of Doubt as documenting the misdeeds they want action taken against.
HAS,
“The bits in quotation marks are things called quotes”
Well, you’ve quoted me. You have quoted the titles of some manuals. What you haven’t quoted is what Shukla, Mann, CAI or whoever said that justifyies saying that they advocate the prosecution of skeptics. You did quote
“if the fossil fuel industry and their supporters are guilty of the misdeeds … it is imperative … that these misdeeds be stopped …”
with a lot of gaps.
But that is not saying that someone should be prosecuted, It is saying that misdeeds should be stopped. And that is exactly what a court can order under a civil suit, and what they did order in the tobacco case, where they had no option of imposing a penalty for past behaviour. And that is what CAI earlier, and then Shukla, propose.
First, let me make a distinction without a real difference: According to a federal judge and federal prosecutors, lying in a federal investigation is not technically perjury, but it is determined and punished the same way. Ristvan could still be correct, they just wanted our jury to understand. Whether it is under the same statutes, really does not matter. With what went on, were the interruptions important. Yes, as to charging. But to actionable? Probably not, usually witnesses who answer as Mann did get trounced as Mann did. The more likely scenario is contempt with jail and fines. Unlikely here, because they were guests giving their opinion.
But the defenders of Mann are just wrong. Stating something as false, when you have provided something showing it true, is false testimony. The prohibited action is providing false testimony. It doesn’t matter if you are interrupted. It IS the material evidence of lying that counts against you. It is unlikely for conviction for the reasons brought up about memory, interruptions, etc. Defenders of Mann must not have heard prosecutors pointing out “You knew. Or you should have known.” when summing up the evidence. He knew. End of story.
Next be careful what you ask for. There are enough items of relevance in the leaked Climategate to warrant considering the quote from CAI:
“Roberta Walburn, a key litigator in the pathbreaking 1994 case State of Minnesota and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota v. Philip Morris et al. [C1-94-8565], explained that her legal team, with strong backing from Minnesota Attorney General Hubert “Skip” Humphrey, made it a goal from the start of the lawsuit to use the process of legal discovery to gain access to Philip Morris’s internal documents and make them part of the public domain. Walburn noted that Humphrey was mocked and scorned by many of his colleagues for this emphasis, but it proved critical to achieving the landmark settlement. For the previous four decades, the tobacco industry had not lost a single legal case nor been forced to release most of its internal documents. But attorneys began to see the tremendous value of the industry’s memos in an individual New Jersey smoker’s case in the 1980s, and when a paralegal leaked some internal documents in the early 1990s.” Link provided by Charles the Moderator.
David Springer: https://www.senate.gov/CRSpubs/cb39da50-6535-4824-9d2f-e5f1fcf0a3e4.pdf
Thank you for the link.
A lot of misleading information is being provided here by Nick Stokes among others in defense of application of RICO to fossil fuel producers. The idea of applying RICO here is just silly and an abuse of the legal system. Fossil fuel producers are perfectly legal enterprises and are not criminal enterprises by any common use of that term.
“by Nick Stokes among others in defense of application of RICO to fossil fuel producers”
I’m not defending the application of RICO. I have said several times that I don’t think it is a good idea. I’m happy to defend the right of people to suggest it. That is also a legal enterprise, even if misguided. What I am saying, that you don’t seem to be able to process, is that proposing a RICO civil suit against FF producers (citing a precedent) is not at all the same thing as seeking the prosecution of skeptics.
Nick, I often don’t bother reading comments by people who I don’t find informative so there may have been some minor errors stated above I missed. But what disturbs me about this whole back and forth is that the focus has shifted to largely irrelevant issues, such as whether or not the CAI advocates “using RICO against skeptics.” No one can predict who might get swept in a RICO suit once greedy and politically motivated states attorneys general get involved. Academics could very easily get swept up. Why are you even arguing such an irrelevant and speculative point?
The real point here and I’m glad you sort of acknowledged it is that RICO law itself was always problematic from a civil liberties perspective. If there is criminal activity going on by an organization, then charge them directly with that activity. Why is RICO even needed?
1. RICO is a tool ripe for abuse to punish organizations of people engaged in perfectly legal activities that some rogue prosecutor doesn’t like.
2. It bypasses the people and their representatives and thus is undemocratic.
3. It allows activists, state governements and slimy lawyers to enrich themselves by “punishing” legal enterprises they don’t like. And individuals can also be punished. That’s fundamentally a tyranny and something we expect in tin horn dictatorships, not in the US.
4. The whole tobacco RICO thing was just immoral and stupid. States and lawyers got a lot of money which was ultimately paid for by smokers, who in the US are generally poor and less educated and the least able to bear the costs. It was just another form of taxation on those who couldn’t fight back. The rich and the 1% felt no pain and the attorneys general were in my view very culpable of a witch hunt. Tobacco companies did not suffer but instead have moved into oversees markets like China.
5. Anyone with so little moral sense and so much arrogance as to advocate using this tool in the fossil fuels case is in my view a political hack. For crying out load, propose legislation and work for its passage if you believe its a problem. Mann, Orestes, and CAI are in my view culpable morally for this silly overreach and attempt to accomplish through legal persecution what they cannot accomplish through normal democratic processes.
Charles the Moderator: http://www.climateaccountability.org/pdf/Climate%20Accountability%20Rpt%20Oct12.pdf
Nowhere in that document do CAI advocate RICO actions against skeptics.
It is now late on April 2. Somebody who believes that CAI has advocated RICO use against skeptics needs to put up some evidence.
JIm Hunt: Matthew – Re “denier!”, I suggest we adjourn elsewhere:
No. Using “denier” and cognates like “deny” and “denial” in place of “critic”, “dispute”, and “disputation” is reprehensible, especially as applied to a well-informed acute critical scientist like our host Prof (retired) Judith Curry.
Mann knows this, which is why he denied calling her a denier. It does not matter whether he meant “climate change denier” or “climate science denier”, it is the word “denier” in this context that is reprehensible. Prof (retired) Judith Curry has raised important challenges to the “consensus” theory on evidentiary grounds and also to the social processes that have produced the appearance of consensus. Mann’s language with respect to her substantial challenges is disgusting.
One thing about Mann is that he speaks and writes great amounts of verbal flak. His accounts of his own previous writing and speaking are unreliable. This hearing produced another example. His “No” with respect to CAI may not be a provable crime, but his language toward Judith Curry should be universally condemned.
@Springer
Please direct me to your authority for the proposition that the March 29 Congressional committee hearing was not an “investigation or review.” Please note that, contrary to your latter post, 18 usc 1001 is not limited to “investigations.” Therefore, even if “investigation” were read in a very narrow sense, you’d still need some authority establishing that the hearing was not a “review.”
I can find no case law for the proposition that either “investigation” or “review,” in the context of section 1001, have special, narrow definitions that would exclude an official hearing of a full committee of Congress. Furthermore, the United States’ Office of Attorneys website’s recitations of the elements of a crime under section 1001 suggests that there is no such element of the crime. Rather, it appears that the import of subsection (c) is merely to make clear that lying to a Congressman in his personal capacity is not a crime. If falsely telling a postal inspector that one had purchases airline tickets online can be a violation of 18 usc 1001 (see U.S. v. Calhoun, 721 F.3d 596 (8th Cir. 2013)), then it makes little sense to argue that lying to a full Congressional committee in an official hearing can’t.
Although I can see no reason why deliberately lying to Congress in its official capacity does not or should not subject one to criminal liability, the best argument I can find for your position that is does not is that, in 2014, the DOJ changed its policy to require specific intent–that is, not only must the perpetrator have deliberately lied, they must have done so knowing that it was a crime to do so. This policy is an entirely reasonable one, based on the way the statute makes it so incredibly dangerous for people to interact with the government in the course of criminal investigations. (Section 1001 is not specific to lying to Congress, as subpart (c) tacitly shows.) However, that policy is not at all implicated by what Mann did on the 29th. And, of course, the policy merely represents prosecutorial discretion. It does not change the fact that deliberately lying to the government is a crime for which one can be punished by fines up to $250,000 and prison sentences of up to 5 years.
qbeamus
https://www.senate.gov/CRSpubs/cb39da50-6535-4824-9d2f-e5f1fcf0a3e4.pdf
It was a legislative hearing as described above. It does not meet the definitions for investigative or oversight (review) hearings.
Do your own homework next time.
In my opinion Mann deliberately lied, realised it was untenable and didn’t exactly retract. People are entitled to correct their testimony – but it does’t exactly inspire respect for his integrity.
You’re not misunderstood Jim. We understand you perfectly. What we don’t understand is how you can’t see the obvious. And by obvious I mean even the 1st graders at Kennydale Elementary I was working with Monday could recognize a lie like that. (Though I will grant someone would have to explain what CV means.)
Nick Stokes,
While Jim Hunt has no credibility, you do. Do you really want to expend some of it defending Mann? This is a guy who portrays himself as a warrior. Knowing a large number of people who have deployed into harms way, I personally think it is borderline disgusting. It is hilariously ironic that he is also claiming victim status. Even NPR picked up on that.
From Nick Stokes:
“I’m not defending the application of RICO”. …. . “I’m happy to defend the right of people to suggest it. ”
I see you found a way to put those tap dancing lessons to use.
@Springer
Yes, I did look at that paper, but it’s merely informational. It does not even purport to interpret the statute, and it is most certainly not any kind of legal authority. If that is what you were relying upon, you’re simply wrong.
Also, check your ‘tude. As hopeless as calls for civility on the the internet are, I’ve done nothing to justify the snotty attitude. I gave you the benefit of assuming you might have more information than I do. Had you come up with anything, I’d have thanked you for the information.
So here’s another attempt. What is your authority for saying that the March 29 hearing was a legislative hearing?
Mann said “No”. It really is as simple as that.
Why he instinctively shrunk from admitting it can only be speculated upon.
My feeling is that Mann is now so used to getting away with avoiding dealing honestly with his critics by the lazy technique of finding any tenuous links they may have to organisations, thereby implying his critics submit totally to that organisations full identity, that for a moment he may have worried for a split second that CAI had done something he missed and may regret being associated with and panicked ;)
“Why he instinctively shrunk from admitting it can only be speculated upon.”
Maybe he’s got so many irons in the fire he can’t keep track of them all.
“Why he instinctively shrunk from admitting it”
Why indeed. He’s happy to record it on his CV. What is actually wrong with being “affiliated or associated with an organization called the Climate Accountability Institute”?
This is the stupidest gotcha. There is a very long list of such associations on his CV. He clearly couldn’t remember that one, so he referred to his CV.
Nick:
This guy claimed that he was a Nobel prize winner in a complaint filed with the DC Court. He later submitted an amended claim which omitted that spurious assertion.
This claim was also made in information his handlers rprovided to the press surrounding the myriad of public (paid) appearances he made, until he was outed as a liar.
He denied calling Dr Curry a “denier” when he used the very term in his written testimony submitted to the committee.
He denied calling her a climate change denier, when his public tweets indicate that he did just that.
A man who habitually characterizes others as “carnival barkers” whining about personal invective?
The irony is rich indeed.
He sits on the Advisory Board of the CAI, an organization that has advocated the use of RICO laws to prosecute skeptics.
He lied about being”associated” with the group, and its practices as well, even though he lists his affiliation with the group on his own CV.
Just stop it Nick.
Stop it
“even though he lists his affiliation with the group on his own CV”
This is typical. There is a claim that he committed perjury which clearlyly won’t stand up. And a clear lie by Higgins about what CAI proposed. So instead of dealing with this, just another list of irrelevant specious claims.
Mann told them that that CV that he submitted was the place to look if they wanted to know his associations. They had it, and it had the information.
He is listed as on the Board of Directors on the CAI website – not something one seems likely to forget. That he then backtracked to knowing people and ho associated is defined and then further backtracked to referencing his CV and failing to retract his testimony directly – oh that CAI – was vaguely amusing but no longer. As was your squirming around the issue.
The CAI are building a case against major emitters – and explicitly link this to tobacco. Hence the RICO link is quite apparent. Your disavowing of the
RICO objective on their behalf is as disingenuous as Mann’s instinctive distancing of himself from the organisation.
But I did note that there is a new term for CAGW – dangerous anthropogenic interference (DAI). I think they can do better – how about dangerous interference with the Earth (DIE).
“He is listed as on the Board of Directors on the CAI website – not something one seems likely to forget.”
He is not.
“Your disavowing of the RICO objective “
Again fuzzing over the issue. The claim is that they advocate RICO prosecutions of skeptics. This is quite different from the proposal for a RICO civil suit against producers based on harm done by their products.
Robert – “He is listed as on the Board of Directors on the CAI website”
Gotta link?
David – Stop it. Just stop it.
And send Robert your link!
No – I see I missed a heading – http://climateaccountability.org/about.html – he is an adviser not a board member. Still his first instinct was to deny it, admit he knew people, suggest it was a matter of definition and then realise that none of that would do – and not directly retract it.
“In 1999, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) sued several major tobacco companies for fraudulent and unlawful conduct and reimbursement of tobacco-related medical expenses. The circuit court judge dismissed the DOJ’s claim for reimbursement, but allowed the DOJ to bring its claim under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). The DOJ then sued on the ground that the tobacco companies had engaged in a decades-long conspiracy to (1) mislead the public about the risks of smoking, (2) mislead the public about the danger of secondhand smoke; (3) misrepresent the addictiveness of nicotine, (4) manipulate the nicotine delivery of cigarettes, (5) deceptively market cigarettes characterized as “light” or “low tar,” while knowing that those cigarettes were at least as hazardous as full flavored cigarettes, (6) target the youth market; and (7) not produce safer cigarettes.”
Man up and stop squirming guys.
“The DOJ then sued on the ground”
Yes. It was a civil suit for the remediation of damage done, not a prosecution of people for their views. And it continued on through the Bush Admin, and eventually was resolved in DoJ’s favor. Whereupon corrective actions were agreed to, but no penalty.
This is mainstream stuff, and there is no reason for Mann to shun CAI for seeing if it applied to fossil fuels. And no-one was prosecuted.
It was a criminal case for defrauding the public – and criminal penalties applied. The ‘major emitters’ are the priority targets. Squirming around forms of words seems very Mann like.
The deliberate lies are assumed to be sceptic views – and the targets are ‘major emitters’. And no one said he can’t associate with whoever he likes.
The tobacco case was for conspiring to defraud the public – btw – and criminal penalties imposed. That was the context not whatever you assume it to be.
“The tobacco case was for conspiring to defraud the public – btw – and criminal penalties imposed. “
More alternative facts, and just not true. The 2006 outcome of the case is described here. It’s true that the DoJ sought “disgorgement of profits”. This is a civil remedy. No individuals were named as defendants. But in fact the Appeal Court ruled thus
“In that opinion, the Court held that, because the RICO statute allows only forward-looking remedies to prevent and restrain violations of the Act, and does not allow backward-looking remedies, disgorgement (i.e., forfeiture of ill-gotten gains from past conduct) is not a permissible remedy.”
And that is the statute that was proposed here, and that is the law. Orders were made restricting future activities.
Robert I Ellison: He is listed as on the Board of Directors on the CAI website –
Michael Mann is listed on the council of advisers:
http://climateaccountability.org/about.html
I corrected that in this thread Matthew.
Tobacco companies were convicted of RICO racketeering, and the conviction was upheld by an appeals court. No executives went to jail and the industry was not forced to pay penalties. A Pyrrhic victory – pun intended.
There was an earlier out of court settlement with the States.
Robert I Ellison: I corrected that in this thread Matthew.
So you did. I am sorry that I missed it.
There’s no risk you are indeed repeating yourself. You can’t remember? In the past 24 hours?
Jim Hunt,
What does a “surrealist programmer” do?
Your take on Mann’s testimony is surely surrealistic.
I’m glad you appreciate it Mark!
Two ‘Nos’ don’t maker a ‘Yes.’
Caught o-u-t.
Nick Stokes
Your argument about RICO being for the ff industry fails because to have legs one has to assume that the ff industry has no sceptics.
Geoff
Judith
Thank you for your efforts to inform the public and US policymakers.
How do “scientists” or “policy makers” in the USA determine whether the “climate” is improving or worsening over time, period; much less as a function of CO2 levels? What are the metrics?
Judith
In your opinion, do you think the democrats actually believe their talking points? They worked the 97% to death. I think every one of them mentioned it. I questioned that metric when I first heard it and have found many rebuttals of the studies that were used to promote it with none of them faring well when studied.
DMA,
Right! 97% nonsense. Using Google to find only peer-reviewed publications to prove something is like asking a professional hockey player if they like to play hockey. Of course they do, how do they get paid? The sampling was flawed from the start. The publication of this study was total lunacy. Madness, madness!
I don’t think they actually “think” rationally an that is the whole problem. They spew talking points. As for Obama, I don’t think he actually believes the 97% rhetoric or that his smoking caused his daughter’s asthma. I think he was simply embracing Joseph Goebbels who said ““If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
I do want to commend you on one point you made. Much of the money going to so called ‘climate research’ is indeed going to find out why pimples and warts are caused by CO2 and global warming. For the simple reason that scientists have found that magic key that opens up the grant coffers of the previous regime. Blame it on the boogeyman du jour, and the money flows. That has to be stopped.
Right now, most of the “science” coming from government grants is, if not down right fraudulent, definitely a waste of money period.
The link for the Ted Cruz hearing is not working.
Dr, Curry I hope you take some joy in the fact that it was so interesting to me I watched it twice completely, and several segments several times.
I agree with those who thought you were best.
fixed, thx. if you haven’t seen the clip of me and steyn at the Cruz Hearing, it is a must watch
Thanks for fixing. I have watched it about 6 times lately.
I have to point out, seems all sorts of people want to put words in your mouth, deny what you have put in written submissions, then deny what they said. It has been a hoot. Listening to it again while doing this post. Just hilarious.
Have you ever seen a cobra snake attack? It raises up in height, weaves back and forth, spits in you eyes and then strikes. The climate wars have gone reptilian.
Mann has risen to prominence in the academic world and climate science in particular, for a reason. I have seen such academic creatures before, and, always in the back of my mind, I wonder, why I am seeing such a menace and others seeming do not? What I have learned, such venomous behaviors are both frightening and fascinating. Paralyzing spit in the eyes of victims, to those who are writing in the media, a source for endless news stories. It matters not the truth or falsity of what is said, just, entertainment.
In the climate wars, science is secondary to the egotist’s goal of “devouring” one’s opposition.
Snake in the grass comes to mind.
RiH, I agree with you. It seems to be common in science for snakes to rise to prominence. It does require a certain technical facility at developing methods and results often that support a narrative. In my field, there is a senior researcher who played a similar role when he was in his prime. His positive results (and exclusion of negative ones) seemed to promote the field to money givers. His shameless self-promotion and prolific publications (many of which were redundant) helped him become a Fellow of the Royal Society. But perhaps half of his “ideas” were simply dead ends, some of which continue to obstruct progress to this day. Basically, scientists are all worried about their careers and their funding. Someone whose very arrogant persona seems to support that funding generally is often elevated and people refrain from valid and even very important criticisms of deeply flawed work.
RiH, I think you may well be interested in this free cli-fi / sci-fi novelette that featured in Judith’s Christmas 2012 cli-fi review, and which expands on the serpent metaphor you cite here.
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/273983
andywest2012
Thank you for the link. Although the large dinosaurs perished 265 million years ago or so, it appears their legacy smaller children still exist today, yet their behavior seems to have endured.
Steve also showed Mann has called her both climate science and climate change denier. So Mann’s denying was an utter hoot. The very care he claimed to use, he himself falsified. Besides making himself look small minded, mean, and foolish.
Yeah – to be in denial about calling some one a denier – precious.
Attribution is a peculiar word.
1. regard something as being caused by (someone or something).
“he attributed the firm’s success to the efforts of the managing director”
In this meaning, it is a subjective projection of opinion.
That’s why there’s so much arguing about it.
We do know the radiative properties of greenhouse gases, so we’ve established motive.
But the resulting internal processes are in sealed testimony – there is no smoking gun, only receipts for ammunition.
You can attribute things falling to gravity.
He should have just owned it.
If I did call her a denier I would have meant she denies the consensus on attribution
Yes, he should have. Owned and then gave his personal opinion explanation. That way, he would have only put up with the fact some people might not like his opinion. Since a lot don’t like him anyway, hard to see it would have cost him anything of real value.
Further, after owning and explaining, if he kept getting interrupted; then he could have pushed back. If he would have used your comment as explanation, think of how coherent his other statements would have been.
Have we become a nation of twitter heads? Say what you mean. Do not use single words that lose their meaning in the vast scheme of ideas. If you mean “denies the consensus on attribution”, say that. Not denier. The latter is not only inaccurate, it is juvenile.
What I found most telling about the hearing is how reticent the Democratic members were to ask anyone but Dr. Mann any questions. They appeared afraid to have their beliefs and biases challenged in an open setting and so continually asked Mann questions (including about the work of the other panel members instead of asking those panelists about their own work).
I also wish that the US Congress had the option for interjecting with a “point of personal privilege” so Dr. Curry and Pielke could immediately challenge the false assertions that they were deniers etc…
On the whole I think many of the Republican members would have done much better simply asking Dr. Christy, Curry and Pielke to comment on the previous answer (from the Democrats) rather than trying to make their exceedingly blunt (and sometimes obtuse) points. Spending the hour fact-checking Dr. Mann live on camera would have been the best disinfectant for the field of climate research.
I got the distinct impression that Mann knew exactly what questions to expect; his quick-fire answers made him look as if he was right on top of his subject and didnt need to spend time thinking about his answer. Had there been a rehearsal? It certainly seemed that way to me.
Fewer than 10% of any audience reacts to appearances in that skeptical manner. Too bad.
I believe you are absolutely on point.
The Demos followed the same strategy in the Senate hearings Judith and Mark Steyn participated in, They provide 1 “witness”, and complain that they are underrepresented. The truth is though they can keep it all very simple and focused and not risk any divergence of opinions.
The Demos and Mann were completely choreographed. Mann’s lying though was all his doing.
AL, if all your questions are about settled science, then no rehearsal is necessary. All Catholics memorize the same chatecism. Ditto all Lutherans. Warmunism is a belief system, and settled science is the chatecism.
If there were not prepatory conversations between Mann and Committee staff, then someone was not doing their job. Much of this is theater.
While I testified on a routine basis and the content was more predictable, we nevertheless had extensive conversations with the committee members and their staff in advance of every committee hearing. It was not uncommon to have spent 5 hours in meetings and phone conversations for each hour in committee.
Very rarely did an oddball question or circumstance come up in the hearing, at least from the chair.
I’m surprised anyone would defend Mann. While I spent countless hours in testifying, I spent much more time in the room observing others deal with their questions and you recognize when someone doesn’t want to be forthright. It was obvious he was being cutesy
with the question about his affiliation.
He knew the sensitivity of some of his associations before he ever walked in the room. If he didn’t, he’s a bigger dumb##s than I thought.
Likewise.
He turned to just the right page in his notes, rapidly, sometimes while talking. How did he know what to put in his notes? It is a broad field.
Geoff
Reblogged this on ClimateTheTruth.com.
In my opinion it went better than you thought. Delingpole has an article listing several Mann porkies from the hearing. Mann’s poor demeanor was on plain view. Your written testimony was very powerful even though not much discussed. Christy’s basically nailed CMIP5, and that should have major future implications.
The DEM opening statements show how reliant they are on ‘settled’; this opens several useful lines of political attack using ‘unsettling’ observations beyond Christy’s. Crockford on polar bears. Greening. Possible pause return. No SLR acceleration. Wettest ‘permanent drought’ ever in California. GBR in decent shape. SA blackout officially attributed to too much wind and notnenough grid inertia. US forced by law to defund UNFCCC and related IPCC and GCF because it recognized Palestine as a member state. Lots of unsettling stuff cropping up.
A movement with this much mass and momentum will take a while to slow and turn. But there are significant signs that it is starting to happen. Great job on your part.
Ristvan – I think you should know by now that I have copyright on the term “porky pie” in the ClimateBall™ arena? See for example:
Stale News? Mail on Sunday Corrects Yet Another David Rose “Porky Pie”
Please choose your words more carefully from now on.
Thank you for your attention..
I was citing Deller’s column. And don’t much care for the cut of your jib.
You want to play here and have an impact, you will need to up your game. Steve McIntyre just schooled you badly. I could not resist a little legal pile on upthread. Knowingly false sworn testimony to Congress is perjury. Period. Mann perjured himself twice in that one hearing, because what he said was plainly contradicted by his written submissions to the same hearing, which he cannot as a matter of law disavow.
Judith: Was your testimony “sworn” or not?
Ristvan – In which case you have my apologies.
Dellers has been a naughty boy, but that’s nothing new! I’d go and moan at him over there, but based on past experience my comment would never see the light of day.
” Knowingly false sworn testimony to Congress is perjury. Period. Mann perjured himself twice in that one hearing, because what he said was plainly contradicted by his written submissions to the same hearing, which he cannot as a matter of law disavow.”
Again, just nonsense. Fir a start, it wasn’t sworn testimony. Secondly, he referred the questioner to his submitted CV, which had the correct data.
Contrast this with Jeff Sessions on his Russia contacts. It was sworn testimony, and obviously at the very highest level – being examined for confirmation as the top law officer. He gave no information that might indicate the truth, until much later, when he was found out. No charges of perjury. Then he was allowed to disavow it, with a “clarification”. And he’s still the top law officer.
“Contrast this with Jeff Sessions on his Russia contacts. It was sworn testimony, and obviously at the very highest level”
He had to recuse himself from the investigation and the democrats screamed for his resignation. So why don’t you get Mann to recuse himself while we scream for his resignation?
“Mann to recuse himself”
The Climate Accountability Institute isn’t under investigation, certainly not by Mann. It isn’t an offence, but in any case, they certainly did not seek to prosecute climate skeptics via RICO statutes, as his questioner claimed. That is a real lie.
“but in any case, they certainly did not seek to prosecute climate skeptics via RICO statutes, as his questioner claimed. That is a real lie.”
You seem to have a great deal of confidence in that. Is this one of those cases where if evidence was produced to prove you wrong you would change of mind, or just change tactics?
“if evidence was produced to prove you wrong”
Please produce it. No-one has, yet. No-one seems to care. In fact this “RICO prosecution of skeptics” is just for skeptics seeking victimhood. No credible organization has proposed it.
The NY State AG office is not a credible organization? Well, given their incompetence, you may have a point. However given the stature of the organization, you are clearly wrong.
“It isn’t an offence, but in any case, they certainly did not seek to prosecute climate skeptics via RICO statutes, as his questioner claimed. That is a real lie.”
It is well known the CAI sought to prosecute climate skeptics via RICO statutes. In 2012 the CAI published a summary of a workshop they held titled: Establishing Accountability for Climate Change Damages; Lessons from Tobacco Control. Below are just some excerpts from that publication:
” Richard Ayres, an experienced environmental attorney, suggested that
the RICO Act, which had been used effectively against the tobacco industry, could similarly be used to bring a lawsuit against carbon producers. As Ayres noted, the RICO statute requires that a claimant establish the existence of a “criminal enterprise,” and at least two acts of
racketeering (with at least one having occurred within the past four years). It is not even clear, he added, whether plaintiffs need to show
they were actually harmed by the defendant’s actions. As Ayres put it, “RICO is not easy. It is certainly not a sure win. But such an action
would effectively change the subject to the campaign of deception practiced by the coal, gas, and oil companies.”
“Others, such as Sharon Eubanks, took issue with this perspective. “If you have a statute, you should use it,” she said. “We had the case where people said, ‘What if you screw up RICO?’ But no matter what the outcome, litigation can offer an opportunity to inform the public.” Stanton Glantz concurred with this assessment. As he put it, “I can’t think of any
tobacco litigation that backfired; I can’t think of a single case where litigation resulted in bad law being made.”
Hi Nick
I have been too busy with Brexit this week to have followed the hearing.
. Which link did you use to access it and do I have to start at the beginning or are there lots of preliminaries I can safely skip?
tonyb
Tony,
It’s a bit odd that in a post written by one of the participants, and where people are claiming all sorts of sins by Mann, it is I who is expected to provide the links. But links to the written material are here, with the video.
Tony,
For a (biased) slide deck of (mostly) live Tweets see also:
http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2017/03/the-house-science-climate-model-show-trial/
Where should I go to see the selected highlights of Brexit live tweets?
Nick
It must surely show that I trust you even if I don’t always agree with you.
Also I am not as ill disposed to Mann as some others on this site as my article The Long Slow thaw hopefully demonstrated.
I merely want to view the actual hearing without any asides. If there were some minutes of preliminaries I could miss out that would have been useful.
tonyb
Tony,
There is a link to the specific Mann bit upthread.
“No credible organization has proposed it.”
So the orgainzations have to be credible? That makes it more difficult since the Union of concerned scientists and the senate of California may not qualify.
Cap’n – Please feel free to provide some evidence to support Rep. Higgins’ RICO insinuations.
Please be aware that I reserve the right to discount (in)credible sources.
Jim Hunt, Proof is one of those elusive things. If it requires connecting a few dots, there is plausible deniability and semantic obfuscation that can be employed. Use of RICO is just one of a number of strategies and “think tanks” could be considered something other than “skeptics.”
In any case, the Union of Concerned Scientists and Climate Accountability Institute are nearly one and the same. The heavily sponsored California SB (1161) the California Climate Truth and Accountability Act. Love it when scientists and politicians work together to create a ministry of truth. I believe Ministry of Truth comes before the Ministry of Love and Ministry of Peace.
http://blog.ucsusa.org/jason-barbose/climate-science-truth-and-accountability-act-sb-1161
The bill didn’t come to vote though and the RICO attempts so far have failed, so it would be easy to deny the effort.
Cap’n – But what on Earth does that have to do with the “scorched-earth approach to climate deniers” alleged above and Rep. Higgins’ “organised efforts to prosecute man influenced climate skeptics via RICO statutes”?
“Cap’n – But what on Earth does that have to do with the “scorched-earth approach to climate deniers” alleged above and Rep. Higgins’ “organised efforts to prosecute man influenced climate skeptics via RICO statutes”?
Well nothing of course Jim,planning advocacy strategies and promoting legislation that would force people to adhere to the “Climate Truth” would not be in any way connected to actually using the tactics to silence “Skeptics.” People that would do that are obviously misguided lone wolf types that misinterpreted the intent of the strategies which is of course to save the world as we wish it. After all, Climate Scientists cannot be held responsible for people that think climate change is a potential catastrophe of biblical proportions just because they say climate change could be a catastrophe of biblical proportions.
Jean Paul Zodeaux: Richard Ayres, an experienced environmental attorney, suggested that
the RICO Act, which had been used effectively against the tobacco industry, could similarly be used to bring a lawsuit against carbon producers.
CO2 producers are not “skeptics”. I have been unable to find any support for the claim that CAI aims to support RICO actions against skeptics.
There are reasons to be cautiously optimistic. But few people will watch the whole show. Most will just read Mother Jones or HuffPo. WaPo is a pleasant surprise. The swamp is deep and wide.
I thought you communicated well, as did the others, including Mann. His communication was the type of person he is.
I am 100% in support of you and John Christy encouraging much needed “red teams”. That you were exposed to the vitriol by Mann and the media illustrates yet again how dysfunctional our profession has become. Unfortunately, Mann is just one of a number in the climate science leadership who act the same way that he does.
We need independent, objective assessments that are inclusive of all scientifically supported views. That gas not existed for a while.
Roger Sr
A) Are you suggesting red teams for Christy’s work?
B) You were part of a red team for GPWF that ignored the submissions
and that has not produce a single word for years. tell me again how red teams work?
C) How exactly are red teams selected ?
I ask this because the prior method you suggested for red team selection was not followed by the GWPF, yet you agreed to serve on their team.
In my organization red teams and blue teams had to be able to switch sides. Its the only way it works effectively. As a Blue team member I had to also serve time on red teams. As a red team member I had to also serve on blue teams. I had to work every day with people who could “red team” me some day. I had to red team my own work presented by others. I had to blue team work I disagreed with.
A) Are you suggesting red teams for Christy’s work?
Great point. Never heard of RSS? Fu? The multitude of others?
While the groups did exchange original code, they arrived at results more or less independently. This is a good example of Red teams.
Judith recently tweeted this link, which I recommend.
But on the other hand, it may not matter.
Roger Jr. quotes chapter and verse from the IPCC, but people don’t listen to the Blue team ( as quoted by Roger ) when it doesn’t corroborate their disaster narrative.
That fits into my favorite current meme of the abuse of the Hegelian Dialectic:
Most people will gravitate toward a thesis or antithesis, regardless of the evidence, rather than some sort of nuanced position. Politicians long ago discovered this, or may understand it intuitively. So if you put forward a scary enough thesis, you can marginalize opponents as being complicit.
Steven M: C) How exactly are red teams selected ?
If there is enough contention in a scientific debate to be calling fellow scientists names that is evidence enough there are credentialed scientists in abundance to choose a team from. The harder question is what the protocols are. I would honor the suggestions of the late Michael Crichton in having teams duplicate studies and simultaneously report their results. This establishes accountability as well as competitive market forces. A contradiction in findings would call for a do-over by new teams. This is expensive, but how much of a bargain are results that can’t be universally trusted to be fee of political bias?
Of course, all data and code would be published.
steven mosher November 28, 2009 at 1:23 pm
Fu and rss are not red teams.
A red team has a purpose. That purpose is to find the weakness in the blue team.
Fu and RSS make similar untested assumptions as Christy does. They are blue 2 and blue 3.
Not red.
” If there is enough contention in a scientific debate to be calling fellow scientists names that is evidence enough there are credentialed scientists in abundance to choose a team from. The harder question is what the protocols are. I would honor the suggestions of the late Michael Crichton in having teams duplicate studies and simultaneously report their results. This establishes accountability as well as competitive market forces. A contradiction in findings would call for a do-over by new teams. This is expensive, but how much of a bargain are results that can’t be universally trusted to be fee of political bias?”
Name calling is enough to initiate a red team?
Newton was a putz. There. Red team required.
Duplication is not red teaming. That is reproducibility.
Has anyone here worked on a red team or murder board.? Besides me that is.
Fu and rss are not red teams.
A red team has a purpose. That purpose is to find the weakness in the blue team.Fu and RSS make similar untested assumptions as Christy does.
???
I guess you’re not old enough to remember that RSS got its start ‘fixing UAH’.
Some of the RSS team are honest about its structural uncertainty and that they trust surface data more.
Steven, yes I am suggesting full duplication. When you have people in the same organization but with different ideas I think a red hat among the blue hats may work. If you have people that don’t trust each other on any level I don’t think it’s productive to have them on the same team.
You ridicule my logic that a significant level of skepticism justifies opposing and concurrent duplication of study. Do you trust Mann’s paleo-climate studies? James Muller:
1) Were you and Muller wrong to be skeptical?
2) Would MBH98/99 have produced the same chart if there was a skeptical team duplicating the same multi-proxy reconstruction?
3)How much time and money and credibility to the cause would that have saved?
Steven, yes I am suggesting full duplication. When you have people in the same organization but with different ideas I think a red hat among the blue hats may work. If you have people that don’t trust each other on any level I don’t think it’s productive to have them on the same team.”
1. re running code is a 5 minute job. you DONT use a red team for that.
2. Red teams are external. Devils advocates are internal
“You ridicule my logic that a significant level of skepticism justifies opposing and concurrent duplication of study. Do you trust Mann’s paleo-climate studies? James Muller:
As a scientist, quite frankly, I now have a list of people whose papers that I will not read anymore. They are not allowed to do this in science [hide the decline in data by replacing it with a spliced set of different data to complete an upward trend]. This is not up to our standards. I get infuriated with colleagues of mine who say, ‘well it’s a human field. People make mistakes.’ Then I show them this [pointing to the hockey stick after the truncated proxy data was restored] and they say — ‘No, that’s not acceptable.’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuqjX4UeBYs”
#############
1 You logic was NOT skepticism, your criteria was name calling.
2. Its rich muller not james
1) Were you and Muller wrong to be skeptical?
1. I called him Piltdown Mann, what do you think?
2. I wasnt skeptical. He clearly made mistakes
2) Would MBH98/99 have produced the same chart if there was a skeptical team duplicating the same multi-proxy reconstruction?
Duplicating? yes. a team duplicating his results would duplicate his results.. including the mistakes
3)How much time and money and credibility to the cause would that have saved?
Better than duplicating people worked with different methods and overlapping data. Answers grossly the same. I dont consider Manns work IMPORTANT at ALL. so, I wouldnt hyperventilate about his obvious errors.
You are obscurating. You know perfectly well that Christy’s work would also be assessed. You also know the GWPF effort is not a funded red team effort – and there are products; see McNider et al’s PowerPoint from the Feb 2017 Santa Fe conference.
As to how they are selected, look at the 2005 NRC report list on climate forcings to get an idea of balance. Even Michael Mann was on it, although he has always ignored the findings which he signed off on.
Steven M: 1 You logic was NOT skepticism, your criteria was name calling.
My logic is that scientific funding agencies should have little difficulty in determining what science is politically contentious, and thus requiring a concurrent duplicate investigation. Your expectation that a MBH98/99 results would have been replicated is ridiculous as asserting Pilt Down Man would have been replicated.
There is no better way to demonstrate the effects of investigative prerogatives on data handling and results analysis than to show the independent outcomes of two separate lead investigators.
I dont consider Manns work IMPORTANT at ALL. so, I wouldnt hyperventilate about his obvious errors.
The IPCC Third Assessment Report put the hockey stick on their summary cover for policy makers. The considered making it the IPCC logo. Sixth graders are still being shown it in their text books. Al Gore and the IPCC shared the Nobel Prize mainly for it. What is your definition of “important work?”
2. Its rich muller not james
I know. My apologies.
“My logic is that scientific funding agencies should have little difficulty in determining what science is politically contentious, and thus requiring a concurrent duplicate investigation. Your expectation that a MBH98/99 results would have been replicated is ridiculous as asserting Pilt Down Man would have been replicated.”
1. Own your OWN words please. You stated that the criteria was
scientists calling each other names. Admit your error. Rise
above your own Mann like tendencies.
2. You’ve changes from Duplication to replication. replication
IS DIFFERENT FROM DUPLICATION. you called for
studies to be duplicated. That means same code, same
data, do you get the same answer.
3. Your demand was for DUPLICATION.. ( we refer to this
as reproducability) that means you run the same code
with the same data and ask… did we get the same answer.
my expectation: yes, his would would be reproducable.
4. REPLICATION, typically refers to an independent assestment
using possibly different data and different methods.
I would not expect it to replicate in detail. but in general
the results are comparable. Main issues being waviness of the
Shaft and height of the MWP.
“There is no better way to demonstrate the effects of investigative prerogatives on data handling and results analysis than to show the independent outcomes of two separate lead investigators.”
1. you called for DUPLICATION, not independent assessment.
these are two diffferent animals.
2. You now have a choice: Act like Mann and try to wiggle
out of your misstatements. or admit your error. Choose.
I dont consider Manns work IMPORTANT at ALL. so, I wouldnt hyperventilate about his obvious errors.
The IPCC Third Assessment Report put the hockey stick on their summary cover for policy makers. The considered making it the IPCC logo. Sixth graders are still being shown it in their text books. Al Gore and the IPCC shared the Nobel Prize mainly for it. What is your definition of “important work?”
1. The 4th and 5th dropped it. Stop living in 2007
2. Really? show me the transcripts of the Nobel committee
discussions.
Long ago I likened the HS to the shroud of Turin. In the end nobody who believes in Christ, does so because of the shroud. And no disbeliver will be convinced by it.
Important work is simple. It is work that directly expands the core understanding OR challenges the core understanding.
the Core
1. C02 is a GHG
2. Burning FF adds c02 to the atmosphere it does not SUBTRACT c02 from the atmosphere.
3. GHGs warm, they do not cool, the surface of the planet.
4. Doubling c02 will increase warming somewhere between 1.5 and
4.5C
Mann’s work could vanish tommorrow and not a single one of those changes. Long ago I used to end my posts with:”Mann was wrong and AGW is correct. find the logical fallacy” Nobody could.
why? one reason.. the “unprecedented” argument is unnecessary
Steven Mosher: 3. GHGs warm, they do not cool, the surface of the planet.
4. Doubling c02 will increase warming somewhere between 1.5 and
4.5C
GHGs warm the troposphere but cool the stratosphere. How much the warming of the troposphere will warm the surface hasn’t been reliably calculated.
Your omitted:
5: the consequences of CO2 increase and warming to date have been beneficial. Warnings about the future go beyond what can be supported by the bulk of the scientific research.
Steven, productive debate is not only achieved by limiting ad hom but also not litigating grammar when the meanings are clear. And because I clarified to accommodate nitpicking does not mean I disowned my words. I am giving you the benefit of the doubt that you don’t see how concurrent replication or red teams would advance both quality and trust in results.
If we can’t convince you, the founding member of the lukewarmers, to me that just provides more reason to doubt your repeated cock-surety that studies like paleo-climate reconstructions would survive such a process to essentially solidify the hockey stick, as you claim. And to say never mind, it doesn’t matter anyway because the important debate is over, is also disheartening. I’m sure it would also be for Mann to hear his work is irrelevant, that we all know GMST is a straight line trend back to the last de-glaciation. If that is so then there is no logic in funding paleo-climate.
4. Doubling c02 will increase warming somewhere between 1.5 and
4.5C
That’s true if there is zero natural centennial/millennial variation, and if Lindzen and Choi’s zero net feedback result is wrong. Even so, the difference between 1.5C and 4.5C could easily the difference of a net benefit to a net cost of 20 trillion dollars.
The only way forward is to build climate science with bricks that everyone can trust as a solid foundation.
The problem here is of course finding red teams who will really make an honest effort to find the truth. This is a real problem in a field like CFD or climate science where there is a strong “consensus” that is enforced by self interest and career considerations. Modeling fields are in my view the worst. Modelers have a strong vested interest in their models and in showing “good” results. In CFD a good strategy is to put skeptical engineers who use the results on the red team including for example those involved in testing. They will often reject modeling results that in the literature are portrayed as “perfect.”
I suspect Russian failures in agriculture had less to do with disputed science in agronomy and heredity, and much more to do with the failings of a centrally planned economy.
In following the link to the Mother Jones article, it occurs to me in reading the comments that follow the article that we’re losing the social media war. The level of discourse here is far above the discourse in places like Mother Jones, but those who ignore sites like that give it up to the enemy. That’s exactly why many of my friends on the left are certain that the science is settled and deniers are paid by the dirty bastard fossil fuel industry.
I wouldn’t blame anyone here for not stooping so low as to participate in those forums, but if not, then who will set them straight? Who will make them think? Who will represent the other side? I’ve spent a good deal of my time trying to counter some of these forums– and enduring a lot of insults. And yes I did make comments on the Mother Jones article, but I simply can’t afford to follow up and address every response or insult thrown my way.
Someone recently mentioned that we only have to convince those at the top but I completely disagree: the momentum of alarmism is carried forward by all those who are certain that the deniers are minions of the devil.
Those fora delete skeptical comments, so engagement is basically futile. Same with Grauniad in UK and the Conversation (a misnomer if there ever was) and such. I think the people to reach surround Trump, like Pruitt and Kushner, or are in Congress, or are at state government equivalents. Where the rubber meets the road. The progressive warmunists will not give up their beliefs until the evidence is overwhelming. Some will not even then. Look at Bernie Sanders. But where the rubber meets the road we can prevent their beliefs from doing more harm. Send them gift copies of my ebook Blowing Smoke. I have already gifted hundreds. Foreword from Judith helps place things in context. Deliberately done as a series of topical essays. Clean coal. Renewable intermittency. Polar bears. Models.
You’re basically right. I’ve found that sites associated with NPR don’t delete comments. The NYTimes will, on the other hand.
I’ve tried at Ars Technica, which gets climate articles featured on Yahoo but it is overwhelming. All they have to do is alert the moderator of a skeptical comment and it’s gone and you get a polite email of temporary suspension. But I will keep trying and thanks for voicing what I have been feeling too: we should all try to add at least one comment on really biased climate reporting.
Here is a sample of Ars Technica’s coverage of the hearing:
I try to do my part at places like And Then There’s Physics, Climate Denial Crock of the Week, DeSmogBlog, Rabbett Run and in the comments of Amazon reviews. Mostly, I’m just curious to see how they’ll respond to my arguments. Mann has a lot of groupies and staunch defenders. It’s amazing how mad they can get. I’m still trying to figure out what to do with BBD’s goat:
http://rabett.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-most-important-political-takeaway.html?showComment=1484593558662#c5309384117714071641
I get comments deleted sometimes, so I have a small blog where I publish a record:
http://canmancannedcomments.blogspot.com/
Wow that’s pretty professional. Even consider a job with the Russian intelligence services?
I also comment on Amazon reviews. Yes, I get a lot of insults but my hope is that maybe one or two will actually look up references and start to think. Every little bit helps. And thanks to everyone here who has helped educate me. Climate Etc. got me started and made me see that a lot of thoughtful people don’t buy the consensus view; thanks Dr. Curry.
hmm. calling people crackpots, just like calling then deniers, is good cause to be blocked or deleted.
For the record NO AGW site ever blocked me or moderated me for attacking folks over climategate or calling Mann, piltdown mann.
in 2008 one single comment at RC was blocked related to hansen.
I am currently blocked or moderated by skeptical sites.
too funny.
So much for open debate.
So much for “ignoring” view you dont agree with.
In general, my experience,…
Skeptics are the only ones who wont share data or code with me
They are the only ones who block or moderate me.
Oh.. one exception. Mann Blocks me. no big deal. He shares that distinction with skeptical sites and skeptical twitters.
Steven Mosher @11:17(April Fools Day),
I assume by “calling people crackpots”, you’re referring to my post on Mark Jacobson:
http://canmancannedcomments.blogspot.com/2016/07/mark-jacobson-has-blocked-me-on-twitter.html
Notwithstanding his impressive publishing record on black carbon and atmospheric modeling, do you want to tell me that on the subject of supplying energy for the world, that he is not a crackpot? “Electrolytic cryogenic hydrogen” for all new long haul aircraft by 2040?
BTW, I’m not the only one calling him names:
https://twitter.com/ClimateAudit/status/753338564373610496
I block all climate blogs – except this one – and it’s pretty annoying.
Here are two more mainstream articles:
Mann might do OK in politics, where truth doesn’t matter so much.
TE
I don’t think Mann would do ok in politics. Most of them are engaging and have the ring of sincerity. Once they can fake that they are good to go. Mann is irritating and obnoxious to observers and seems small minded and bitter. That does not go over well with non committed believers. He may win democratic primaries but most independents would cringe at his snake like qualities. Pam G is correct about the mezmerizing cobra impression.
Scott
Sorry, the cobra reference is from RiHOO8 above. Still very apt.
Scott
I disagree. I think what Mann does is sort of a form of politics and he’s well suited to it. He has charted a course and followed it relentlessly. He’s cultivated this image of a nerdy scientist who’s inconvenient findings have been attacked by powerful forces and a lot of people have bought it. He hobnobs with celebrities and has 50,000 Twitter followers!
I suspect that most CAGW scientist and their democratish elected politicians only fan club have practiced this testimonial response often referred to as TDOWII (pronounced “ta do wee”).
“That depends on what ‘it’ is.”
Mann isn’t as practiced in it and I give him a D- on the attempt, but make no mistake, Mann will clarify his statement using TDOWII methods soon. JimD here has provided the script.
PG, Slick Willie actually was slick. Classic lawyer dodge on what the meaning of is is despite the stained blue dress.
Mann is neither bright nor slick. Blew it twice in one hearing between his own written and oral testimony. Makes me want to volunteer for Steyn’s pro bono legal team. Mann would be like the goat fed to the velociraptors in the original Jurassic Park movie. And as to CAGW, another line from that movie comes to mind. “Nature finds a way.” Ma Nature is IMO not on the warmunist side.
McIntyre had sort of a different take:
https://climateaudit.org/2014/07/05/george-zimmermans-libel-lawsuit/#comment-676980
I think that the original statement from Bill Clinton was: “It depends on what the meaning of is is.”
IDOWTMOII…doesn’t quite roll off the tongue as well.
Reblogged this on CraigM350.
Reblogged this on Utopia – you are standing in it!.
“single out individual scientists to attack in much the same way lions of the Serengeti single out an individual zebra from the herd”
Hysterical.
The female lions do the hunting.
They single out the weakest of the herd.
MM understands nature more than he realizes.
The figure of 1 to 17,352 of skeptics to believers among Climate Scientists was recited at the Congressional Hearings, this was to suggest that having Curry, Pielke and Christy along with Mann on the panel was not a proportional representation of Climate Science views. Assuming those three were the only skeptics in Climate Science, that would suggest that there were 52,056 other qualified climate scientist who have a pro catastrophic AGW opinion. I don’t know but it would seems highly unlikely that there are much more that a tenth of that number of scientists in all of Climate Science. And if you add in all the other contrarians, well we are probably getting into the millions of scientists in Climate Scence.
Unfortunately, you all think that all this debate about climate is about the science. It’s utterly not about science. Instead, it’s all about which political group is in control of your destiny. In this type of struggle, the facts, and truth are completely irrelevant. To achieve control is paramount to those that seek to overturn the established political order. This permits them to lie, obfuscate, distract, and distort reality. In essence, the ends justify the means.
I’m arriving at that conclusion. It will probably continue until something else becomes the scare tactic focal point.
The more we as scientists realize that this is a political and social struggle, and is not about science, the more we are able to understand why the science is deliberately obfuscated, why people lie, and mislead others. If you don’t understand the political struggle, all this doesn’t make sense.
Crichton’s “State of Fear” explores the distortion of climate science and the use of propaganda for political control, albeit in a highly dramatic and fictional account. It’s not about the science, which leads me to believe that, somewhat paradoxically, if non-scientists knew what the science said, then they would realize that something else is going on. If you read comments on most of the forums (fora?) you see that people in general have no idea what the science or history says; they are merely mouthing propaganda.
Yes, fear is reflexive – “cows burning alive”.
Reason takes time, effort, and knowledge of measurement outside one’s experience – no increase in wildfires in the US.
Which one do you think wins out?
Mann being a politician now certainly indicates his conflicts of interest. I also wasn’t aware of all the other advocacy groups he was on.
It’s more troubling that this isn’t troubling to mainstream media.
+
Not any longer TE. MSM has surrendered all pretense at being unbiased and non partisan. Most recent example – CNN telling viewers to ignore any news or information they hear concerning Susan Rice requesting the unmasking of names from surveillance reports.
A potentially larger mistake than failing to recognize that CO2 has no significant effect on climate is failing to realize what actually does. Beware the still-rising water vapor. Its increasing influence is addressed at http://globalclimatedrivers2.blogspot.com
What point of science related to climate was Mann correct about in this weeks congressional hearing?
I find none of substance.
John
Folks, all this seems to be nonsensical if you always frame the debate as a scientific knowledge debate. It’s political. It’s always been political and not about the science. Now does it make sense to you?
From The Verge …
Republicans held a fake inquiry on climate change to attack the only credible scientist in the room
Climate denial: popular in this committee hearing, unpopular among the public
http://www.theverge.com/2017/3/29/15109876/climate-change-science-committee-hearing-republicans-consensus
“Republicans held an inquiry on climate change and witnessed attacks by the only scientist in the room who falsely claimed he was a Nobel laureate (and only stopped after being called out for it multiple times).”
Fixed for accuracy.
Effective independent opinions of IPCC have been given in reports by NAS and RS. These are highly honored scientists who work in many areas of science. Skeptics don’t like them either. We’ve seen what they make of the AAAS in this meeting. They lash out by reflex against any independent views supporting IPCC.
Jim D
Speaking of which, have you examined any of the publications by the NONgovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC)?
See Climate Change Reconsidered
These people are far from independent. You should get the NAS to look at their stuff too.
Yes I read that report. Same as I read the ipcc.
I focused on the area I know best.
The ipcc was better. They had an open review. They took comments. Admitted mistakes. And improved.
The nipcc took no outside comments. Had no open review and was junk as a result. They would have done better to take the ipcc documents and red team them.
But instead they beclowned themselves.
The IPCC lemmings lead the climate lemmings. Fascinating to compare John Christy’s evidence that the IPCC models fit historic data better since 1979 WITHOUT CO2.
I’ve read neither of them – gave up both long ago. I just read actual science on topics I am interested in – not the products of extreme bias. I suppose you could read both for balance but that sounds more like the uncomfortable horns of a dilemma. It seems as well that Mosh failed to find any balance that way – so I’ll refrain from the experiment.
Effective independent opinions of IPCC have been given in reports by NAS and RS. These are highly honored scientists who work in many areas of science. Skeptics don’t like them either.
Judith Curry testified that there is large uncertainty in attribution.
The IPCC agrees.
John Christy testified that the modeled Hot Spot still has not appeared.
The IPCC AR4 us that it hadn’t ten years ago.
And Roger Pielke testified that with warming to date, there’s no increase in extreme weather.
He cited almost exclusively the IPCC.
Which one of these are you in denial of?
If there is no hot spot that was a negative feedback that is missing, and it is worse than we thought, because the surface temperature has kept pace with expectations even if the upper air has not. Anyway, it is good when “skeptics” quote the IPCC, because more often they deny it, especially the main conclusion that the warming from GHGs is comparable with the warming seen.
I’m glad you agree with Curry, Christy, and Peilke.
Do you agree that only makes it worse than we thought? A hot spot would radiate excess warming to space and restrict surface warming, but instead we get a lot of surface warming, especially in land areas and the Arctic, areas that don’t produce the hot spot by their relatively dry nature.
Jim D, let me try to follow you logic. You are saying because the both the surface temperatures and the atmospheric temperatures are much less than the models predicted it’s “worse than we thought.” But in actuality doesn’t it just mean the models are worse than we thought? I mean the observed surface temperatures are what we are concerned about ultimately. The atmosphere was just an additional validation point of failure.
Do you agree that only makes it worse than we thought?
No – that’s your confirmation bias. And in fact, whenever I hear ‘worse than we thought’ I believe that’s an indication of a bias seeking confirmation.
The implications of the missing hot spot are not yet clear. Surface temperature rise has been at the low end of IPCC projections even without the major negative feedback – that doesn’t sound like worse than expected to me.
The one clear implication of the missing Hot Spot is that the models have been inaccurate at heat transfer within the Hot Spot volume. And that error means other modeled energy balances are erroneous as well.
Jim D,
“If there is no hot spot that was a negative feedback that is missing, and it is worse than we thought,…”
The CMIP5 models (just like the CMIP3 models) all show a very strong negative correlation between lapse rate and water vapour feedback. The sum of these two feedbacks is (therefore) better constrained between the models, and works out to be a median positive value around 1.2 W/m2/deg K (See Knutti papers for more detailed analysis). In other words the water vapour feedback ALWAYS dominates the lapse rate feedback. So models with a large negative lapse rate have an even larger positive water vapour feedback. Moreover, models with a high WV feedback tend to have a high total (WV plus lapse rate) feedback.
The basis for the two feedbacks working in compensation in this way can be traced back to the understanding founded on early 1-d radiative-convective models. Surface heating, either by increased SW or by reduction in LW cooling, is expected to result in increased evapo-transpiration, leading to an acceleration of the hydrological cycle and an expected increase in the mass of water vapour in the mid-to-upper troposphere (i.e. an increase in specific humidity or water mixing ratio). This results in an increase in upper tropospheric heating relative to surface heating caused by the GH effect of the additional water vapour and a smaller compensating decrease in the moist adiabatic lapse rate (a negative feedback). With respect to the former, the RTEs predict that the effect on net flux (heating) of adding water vapour to the upper atmosphere is far larger than adding water mass to the lower atmosphere.
So in summary, if the tropical lapse rate (negative feedback) is over-predicted by the CMIP5 models, then it ALSO means that they are over-predicting the moistening of the critical mid-to-upper troposphere region, which means that they are overpredicting the more dominant positive water vapour feedback. The obvious conclusion is that the models are therefore over-predicting the total feedback from lapse rate plus water vapour. Within mainstream theory, you cannot have no lapse rate feedback and a large positive feedback from WV, which is what your conclusion implies.
Incidentally, Lindzen and Choi 2011 provides rather more direct evidence that the AMIP models are overpredicting net positive feedbacks in the tropics and their results are consistent with the models overpredicting upper troposphere moistening.
kribaez, that is an important point that the reduced strength of the lapse rate feedback also indicates a reduced water vapor feedback. This is consistent with the global warming being dominated by continental regions that are warming twice as fast as the oceans. The balloon data would alse be weighted to continental regions. The most likely places to find the hot spot would be over El-Nino-warmed tropical ocean regions, but we don’t get soundings there and the satellite data blurs the stratospheric cooling into it. That the continents are warming faster could also lead to less clouds and a stronger positive feedback that way, so a reduced water vapor feedback and consequent reduced relative humidity is a mixed blessing at best.
kribaez: Within mainstream theory, you cannot have no lapse rate feedback and a large positive feedback from WV, which is what your conclusion implies.
That was a good post.
Jim D: Do you agree that only makes it worse than we thought?
No.
The lack of a hot spot in the predicted spot undermines the credibility of the basic mechanistic account (that more CO2 warms the atmosphere and consequently warms the surface) and the numerical calculations of those who purport to predict (model, forecast, etc) the future.
The strength of the hotspot relies on the tropical ocean surface warming. Since the surface warming is more than average elsewhere like on continents and in the Arctic, the hotspot would be weaker than expected. We are in a transient state of the climate induced by the forcing. Lapse rates don’t change uniformly because the surface doesn’t, and as the tropical ocean catches up, the hot spot should be expected to follow. By the way, more CO2 doesn’t warm the atmosphere directly, it warms the surface by restricting heat loss and convection spreads it to the atmosphere.
The strength of the hotspot relies on the tropical ocean surface warming.
Precipitation indicates heat transfer to the hot spot ( cooling of evaporation at the surface, warming of condensation aloft ). The models falsely create too much tropical precipitation. They do so because they create too much convergence. They models cannot predict changes to the dynamics of atmospheric circulation, and so cannot predict changes to the advective or convective energy budgets. But that’s what they were intended to do!
Since the surface warming is more than average elsewhere like on continents and in the Arctic, the hotspot would be weaker than expected.
The models expect the Hot Spot,
We are in a transient state of the climate induced by the forcing. Lapse rates don’t change uniformly because the surface doesn’t, and as the tropical ocean catches up, the hot spot should be expected to follow.
The modeled Hot Spot response occurs for shorter and longer periods.
The satellite era is now 37 years, for which a robust modeled hot spot was supposed to have occurred. Further, part of the Hot Spot is probably a radiative response ( RF at the surface is close to zero, RF at the Hot Spot is the maximum for earth ). which is close to instantaneous.
By the way, more CO2 doesn’t warm the atmosphere directly, it warms the surface by restricting heat loss and convection spreads it to the atmosphere.
No.
CO2 does change the cooling rates for layers in the stratosphere.
CO2 does not significantly change the cooling rates for layers in the troposphere.
CO2 does change the net radiative flux at tropopause.
This implies warming for the troposphere as a whole, but not so much for individual layers within. In fact, radiative forcing from 2xCO is close to zero at the surface in the tropics. Look again at the old model from Hansen ( first row, second column ):
https://scienceofdoom.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/hansen-1997-plate2-forcings-temperature-2xco2-annotated.png
Near the poles, forcing is more vertically uniform. In the tropics, the process is evidently top down, not bottom up.
TE, the temperature of the troposphere is governed by the surface temperature and lapse rate. The lapse rate is determined by thermodynamics and changes when there is surface warming, especially over the ocean. You dispute that CO2 operates by warming the surface, but it does. The energy imbalance at the top of the troposphere is maintained down to the ground where it is the surface that has to warm to oppose it. The troposphere reacts to that because it can’t do anything to change its lapse rate by itself. Regarding Hansen’s plot, that is due to the lapse rate change which is larger higher up. It changes in response to surface warming and the negative feedback effect is also seen by having those higher fluxes in the upper troposphere, but those changes are a response to the warmer surface.
Another issue I raise is that balloon data is mostly over land, so it is not going to be sampling the warmer ocean areas where the hot spot would be, while the global models sample everywhere, dominated by oceans in the tropics. It’s a bit of an apples and oranges.
“The strength of the hotspot relies on the tropical ocean surface warming. ”
Well, there ya go, we missed it. Pages 2K recently noted that anthropogenic warming of the tropical oceans started circa 1820 which was before satellites I believe, although I am sure that can be created with cleaver enough math.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v536/n7617/abs/nature19082.html
The other thing Christy does is use trends from 1979-2010 to detect the hot spot when, because he starts with an El Nino year and ends when it isn’t, you get net cooling over much of the tropical Pacific. Not much point looking for a hot spot when such a large area is cooling. Why did he expect one? The models don’t track individual ENSO cycles, so again apples and oranges.
https://data.giss.nasa.gov/tmp/gistemp/NMAPS/tmp_GHCN_GISS_ERSSTv4_1200km_Trnd112_1979_2010_100__180_90_0__2_/amaps.png
Jim D: By the way, more CO2 doesn’t warm the atmosphere directly,
You might want to review that. CO2 molecules excited by absorbing LWIR collide with other molecules before they “relax” and radiate to Earth. Adding CO2 molecules to the atmosphere warms the air directly (except at high altitudes where the air is much less dense.)
This is consistent with the global warming being dominated by continental regions that are warming twice as fast as the oceans.
You have reason to believe that the standard view is wrong, like some skeptics, and your own handwaving repair of it.
Anyway, it is good when “skeptics” quote the IPCC, because more often they deny it,
Sure, any competent commentary ought to quote them or paraphrase them accurately. It’s in reviewing the theory in detail that we can see its flaws. Quoting does not imply agreement any more than critiquing implies “denial”.
Jim D: TE, the temperature of the troposphere is governed by the surface temperature and lapse rate.
Don’t forget the rate at which the troposphere radiates energy to space.
The lapse rate does not “govern” the temperature of the troposphere; the lapse rate is the vertical distribution of the temperature of the troposphere.
MM, no, when you take the surface out of the equation, the troposphere would act like the stratosphere and cool with added CO2. The only reason it warms is because the surface does, and the tropospheric temperature is governed by the surface temperature, while the stratosphere is more independent of it.
The continents warm faster in a transient climate, and Arctic faster still. This shouldn’t be new. It is governed by thermal inertia and local feedbacks. It is also a reason that estimates of ECS from observations will be low, because the water vapor feedback is delayed (Armour et al., 2013).
MM, no, when you take the surface out of the equation, the troposphere would act like the stratosphere and cool with added CO2.
No.
Look at the graphic again. Radiative forcing from doubling CO2 is maximal high up in the troposphere, not at the surface.
Now, solar radiance is mostly absorbed at the surface, but getting rid of the sun is not what’s being considered, doubling CO2 is.
The only reason it warms is because the surface does, and the tropospheric temperature is governed by the surface temperature, while the stratosphere is more independent of it.
Again, you’re considering the base state, not the change from the base state to 2xCO2.
Jim D: MM, no, when you take the surface out of the equation, the troposphere would act like the stratosphere and cool with added CO2.
Yeah, right. “Take the surface out of the equation”. Why not? Other people have tried to take the H2O out of the equation, and still others have tried to take N2 and O2 out of the equation. The “control knob” results from trying to take all of the CO2 out of the equation. But with the system that we have, there is no single control.
TE, that graphic shows the lapse rate feedback which increases with height in the tropics. That is latent heat, not radiation, doing that. Any kind of surface warming would do that. Increased solar forcing would give a similar tropical signal. The hot spot comes from surface warming.
MM, think what happens at night. The atmosphere cools. It is the GHGs in it that do that. Their tendency is to radiate to space and that more than offsets any energy they absorb from the surface. The reason being that the radiative temperature of space is farther from the atmospheric temperature than that of the surface, so equilibrium tends in that direction. This is balanced by surface heating from convection in what is known as a radiative-convective equilibrium (Isaac Held has done a lot on this). Convection warms, radiation cools.
Jim D: MM, think what happens at night. The atmosphere cools. It is the GHGs in it that do that.
Is that what comes from taking the surface out of the equation? The moon cools at night without any GHGs at all.
There is not a single control. Not CO2, not other GHGs, not the surface.
But notice that you have changed your ground: Now you remind me of what I wrote earlier — atmospheric temperature is affected by atmospheric GHGs.
MM, all I am saying is that if you add any GHG to non-GHG air, it cools because it allows it to radiate to space. That’s the way IR radiation operates in the air. Look up convective-radiative equilibrium. Convection warms, radiation cools, and this produces an equilibrium profile which has a lapse rate governed by the sea surface temperature.
Jim D: MM, all I am saying is that if you add any GHG to non-GHG air, it cools because it allows it to radiate to space.
TE, the temperature of the troposphere is governed by the surface temperature and lapse rate.
I reminded you of the temperature-moderating effect of the GHG radiation to space.
You also wrote: By the way, more CO2 doesn’t warm the atmosphere directly, it warms the surface by restricting heat loss and convection spreads it to the atmosphere.
Which is false, because where the air is dense, adding CO2 will warm the non-CO2 air via molecular collisions before the CO2 radiates.
What you wrote collectively is an undisciplined mishmash.
MM, have you agreed now that the first effect of adding GHGs cools rather than warms the atmosphere? This is the point I was trying to correct in what you said. It is the cooling that spreads through collisions, and if the surface didn’t change, the net effect would be cooling (like in the stratosphere). The surface warms through the energy imbalance created by the added downward IR. Then that warming spreads through the troposphere by convection.
MM, have you agreed now that the first effect of adding GHGs cools rather than warms the atmosphere? This is the point I was trying to correct in what you said. It is the cooling that spreads through collisions, and if the surface didn’t change, the net effect would be cooling (like in the stratosphere). The surface warms through the energy imbalance created by the added downward IR. Then that warming spreads through the troposphere by convection.
Jim D, you are correct that GHGs act to cool the atmosphere ( the atmosphere can’t radiate without radiators in it ). However, the optical depths in the layers near the surface are very thick for a relatively shallow layer. You can see that in ‘cooling rates’ for various wave lengths by height. In the CO2 band, near the surface and halfway up the troposphere, the cooling rate is close to zero:
http://chiefio.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/stratosphere-radiation-by-species-1460.jpg
That’s the base state. The question becomes what happens when you double CO2? I tried to understand that by running a radiative model on the current atmosphere. There are some assumptions about albedos and uncertainty, but I got a similar result to the RF in Hansen’s ‘Daisy world’ ( but without a GCM changing the temperature, moisture, or clouds, just using a fixed atmosphere ):
https://turbulenteddies.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/rf_instantaneous.png
Looking at the ‘heating rate’ ( negative cooling rate ), yielded this:
https://turbulenteddies.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/hr_2xco2_instantaneous_2010-03-21_00z.png
The color scheme is a little hard to make out, but see the purple in the upper stratosphere? That’s more than 1K cooling per day increase from 2x CO2. In the troposphere, there is a decrease in cooling rate, but mostly yellow ( which is very close to zero ).
They consider RF at the tropopause because additional CO2 doesn’t change the heating rate of the individual layers very much in the troposphere ( unlike the stratosphere ). BUT, the net flux difference at the tropopause implies that the troposphere as a whole warms.
Now, I had forgotten another thing I encountered that agrees with the convection action you are thinking about. If you consider RF at the top of the troposphere and also at the middle of the troposphere, the difference implies that the lower troposphere retains more heat than the upper troposphere. This is somewhat confounding. On one hand, it implies radiative warming should be greater in the lower troposphere than the upper troposphere ( Hot Spot ). On the other hand, it implies convection should be both more likely and more effective at transporting heat to the Hot Spot.
What may be happening is that GCMs create too much convergence which is more important so far than the static stability.
TE, how would it be possible that GHGs net cool the troposphere, but doubling CO2 cools it less, even by a little, rather than more? That is an extremely counterintuitive result. Anyway, as you confirm, the greenhouse effect is driven by these gases cooling the troposphere, not warming it directly, only indirectly via surface warming and convection.
TE, how would it be possible that GHGs net cool the troposphere, but doubling CO2 cools it less, even by a little, rather than more? That is an extremely counterintuitive result.
Yeah, those are NET RF and NET cooling rates ( from both LW and SW – CO2 absorbs a small amount of solar, so increasing CO2 also increases absorbed solar, both from above, and anything reflected from below ).
Anyway, as you confirm, the greenhouse effect is driven by these gases cooling the troposphere, not warming it directly, only indirectly via surface warming and convection.
This has served as a good reminder ( to my aging memory ) that the hot spot, as modeled, would be a dynamic feature, not a radiaitve one.
But getting the dynamics was the whole point of GCMs, and they don’t appear to be working.
The hot spot magnitude is tied to the tropical SST warming rather directly. I noted two caveats about Christy’s results.
1. Balloons focus on land areas, not where the hot spot would be strong.
2. His 1979-2010 trend is dominated by tropical Pacific cooling because it starts with an El Nino and ends when it isn’t.
Beyond that, there is no doubt that surface warming has been strong especially over the land where the rate is double that over the ocean, and the Arctic where it is triple. Neither of these would produce a hot spot. So, the warming is elsewhere where it is also not so susceptible to the negative lapse rate feedback. However, 1979 must have been a strong El Nino because even 2016 is only a similar temperature in the tropical Pacific. The trend there is flat.
https://data.giss.nasa.gov/tmp/gistemp/NMAPS/tmp_GHCN_GISS_ERSSTv4_1200km_Trnd112_1979_2016_100__180_90_0__2_/amaps.png
However, that trend may not just be from 1979, but also from the super 1982-3 El Nino near the beginning of the record, because the 2016 Pacific was definitely warmer than in 1979 (from looking at individual years in GISTEMP).
From Mathew:
“That was a good post.”
Which I agree. Too bad it went over Jim D’s head.
Jim, last time around you managed to get to three in your quest to enumerate these skeptics you claim to speak for. Any advance on three or are you happy to just wave your arms and put words and thoughts into your straw man? Your rhetoric is just so lame.
Oh, and in case you weren’t aware the IPCC is anything but a scientific organisation. The hint is in the name and the brief it was given.
The IPCC produces the report that is written by the world’s experts. Also I suspect it is more than three people who disagree with its attribution statement, but you tell me. Not sure what you’re on about there.
Jim, you spent an awful lot of energy last time trying to wriggle out of your unsupportable statements about Bates.
One of your attempted distractions was a ludicrous straw man attack attempting to put words into the mouths of sceptics. You then couldn’t even identify more than three sceptics.
Remember now?
What words? I am not going to go back and search for it. You can.
Jim, I just did and presented what you wrote to you.
I’m not surprised that you are keen to forget your failures. What is disappointing is that you fail to learn from them.
Hint: try limiting yourself to things you can actually back up.
Remind me again.
Jim D.
You said a lot.
Forrest, the clever, challenged you to name some.
You named 3.
Basically you won.
Now, he wants more names, because 3 is not a lot.
Silly Forrest.
Oh Mossshhher the Great and Powerful, your inability to argue your way out of a wet paper bag manifests itself yet again.
Astute readers, which of course excludes you, will understand how unconvincing straw man arguments are.
I called Jim out and you declare victory for the creator of the straw man.
What ever happened to you?
– Mark Twain’s Own Autobiography: The Chapters from the North American Review
Except that from his “hockey stick” publications, I don’t think Michael E. Mann made it as far as any courses in statistics – as sadly documented in detail by M&M (aka McIntyre and McKitrick
The Democrats focused on feelings and personalities. The Republicans asked science-related questions.
Dr. Curry, very good job on your recent testimony at the US House of Representatives. Thank you.
Dr. Mann reflects an odious creature often seen lurking in the halls of many US Corporations; the “Seldom In Doubt, But Often Wrong” hubris-tic organism, aka the “SIDBOW”.
These are all too common, best to avoid them when possible, eventually they will wither on the vine they chose to call “home”.
Dr. Mann chose the “CAGW” meme as his professional branch of the tree. As the tree rots away he will eventually be seeking another branch of a healthy tree to hang from.
Similar to a Sloth that spends it’s whole life in a single tree and only comes down infrequently to defecate….
If the “red team” concept gets some traction (possible now that the “Donald” is in office as POTUS) I would gladly offer a minority view about why the “Radiative Greenhouse Effect” is simply an “Optical Illusion”.
Thanks for your efforts to maintain scientific integrity.
Cheers, KevinK,
Kevin. Judith identified your views as fringe.
And recommended ignoring fringe science.
Also, red teams do not get to offer alternative theories.
They identify the blue team weaknesses.
But if the blue team weakness is its theory, red teams critique it too. Authorities on the topic are latitudinarian enough to go that far: for instance, here’s Wikipedia on Red Teams:
And here are the first two paragraphs of the lead article on the home page of The Red Team Journal, “Red Teaming and Alternative Analysis”:
PS: Here’s the link to the Wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_team
Mosh, old boy, the whole purpose of a Red Team is to figure out how the Heck the Blue Team “screwed it up”……
If any branch of science has “screwed it up”, climate science is the gold standard for “screwed uppedness”…
You can’t predict a thing, the data is a complete mess with multiple adjustments and totally untrustworthy in total. Well documented historical facts (previous warm periods) have been erased willy-nilly. It is a God Awful Mess, as a US taxpayer I want my money back (all of it)…..
All you have is a dogged allegiance to a hypothesis first proposed over a century ago. For kripes sake people gave up on the “aether” theory a long time ago. Time for a fresh start from first principles.
And “fringe” is a badge I will wear with honor once this whole “CAGW” debacle falls apart.
Stay warm as the cooling commences my friend, Kevin
Kevin,
the only problem is you are wrong
Judith: Tremendous props to you for having the patience to deal with all the fools. If it were only Mann, it wouldn’t be a problem. But on issues of science, the media haven’t only reserved the right to be opinionated, but also the right to be ignorant. Any person who doesn’t come to the conclusion that your testimony was the most reasoned and informed contribution to the hearing is incapable of logic and understanding.
Mann is the perfect agent for the Left because, like a troll, he so effectively subverts the conversation. You won’t win the liar liar game – they don’t care. Having perfected ad hominem attack, they are immune to it. Hypocrisy? So what, if they don’t care about consistency. Lying? So what, if they don’t care about truthfulness.
Gotta keep going back to the science, simplify its communication so that common people can make common sense of it, and create compelling narrative. “We just don’t know enough” may be true, but doesn’t offer an emotional alternative to apocalyptic fear.
There’s no amount of science or scientific argument that will assuage those using the emotional argument. The emotional appeal is a political tool that is used to shame, batter, and control rational thinkers. The truth and science is absolutely irrelevant to those that are attacking the existing political structure using emotions to attract adherents and expel rational and reasoned thinkers. This is a political battle at its core. This will continue to frustrate rational thinkers because the emotional appeal seems somewhat irrational, given the subject matter. Realize what you are up against.
Dr Judy
I used to comment from time to time a couple of years ago on your GT blog. At the time you weren’t ready to throw down on the obvious politics of the affairs and hoped to talk some science sense into them. As I remember that was right before the Cruz show.
This time around I notice you are far along the track and might be coming to the recognition of the theatrical aspect of these Congressional venues. Its all theatre.
The 2 party system is nonexistent and you are most likely dealing with representatives who are beholden to some master somewhere who has them over a barrel. As Grace Slick once sang .. when the truth is told to be lies and all the joy within you dies ….
Its a beautiful and painful moment of awakening to watch your opponent execute breathtaking projection isnt it ? Its like a hammer to the forehead and dagger to the heart all in one when its executed so shamelessly that you cant believe your ears nor quell your thumping heart.
The hyjacking of your profession was for a good cause if you were a member of the G20 and played by the perscribed rules of the Swiss Bank of International Settlements. Yes, it is that big. They like that the public considers CAGW a low level priority because they scheme in relative anonymity that way. The most recent estimate of monies to be made with the plan is somewhere in the neighborhood of 90T dollars over the next 10 years. Countless institutions can be controlled with that kind of money at their beck and call. Meanwhile China builds the worlds largest power transmission line to Europe to sell them excess power generated by fossil fuel generation. Trump hits the mark with his summary statement.
So now what ? You are one of my favorite warriors on this issue and I often wonder what you’ll end up doing with your large fortitude. You alluded to Lysenko above and yes again, your opponent twisted the essense of the story to fit his newfound victim role. Please laugh about such things because we need you to be whole and healthy.
Good. You are dealing with monsters and their sycophants.
Good people need to be able to be a momentary monster when the circumstances demand it. Consider what the mother lion does to protect its cubs. Its all predicated on taking a piece of the evil to become the warrior. Its an archetype as old as time itself. Its allows us to defend ourselves from attack by summoning up the aggression needed .. to break free of the norm .. to create the new.
Victory is achievable as evidenced by the researchers who managed to outlast and outwit the USSR spies and controllers back in the days of Soviet Russia. In this case you have a mighty proponent .. albeit temporary in Trump. My hope is that you’ll create a gang of likeminded science warriors who have had their fill of congressional theatrics and have come to a full awakening of the money and corruption involved.
I find irony in the 97% number because it was only 3% of the colonists that fought in the Revolutionary War. I believe you are a 3%er. You may not wield a musket but you are among the intellectual 3%ers. We need you.
Its with the utmost respect that I close out this post.
Thank you for your time.
Beautiful letter, Knute.
Thank you Mr Draper. Gentle souls such as Dr Judy need to be loved supported and defended against the psychopathic morass that is encroaching.
If only I could do more than just a simple letter.
Reblogged this on Patti Kellar.
For folks interested in what red teaming is..
First
http://redteamjournal.com/2016/02/why-we-red-team/
http://redteamjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/WWRT5600.jpg
http://redteamjournal.com/about/red-teaming-and-alternative-analysis/
“Despite their many potential advantages, red teaming and alternative analysis are not silver bullets. As one would expect, the quality of the output hinges inter alia on the quality and experience of the team, the team’s approach and toolset, and the overall context of the effort. An overconfident or culturally biased analyst or team will not benefit as much from these approaches as might an analyst or team that employs “actively open-minded thinking,” to use Jonathan Baron’s term. (See, for example, his book Thinking and Deciding.)”
http://redteamjournal.com/2013/05/new-to-red-teaming-start-here/
http://redteamjournal.com/2013/02/red-teaming-a-balanced-view/
“In short, the decision when and how to red team can be a surprisingly complex one. Dropping a red team into a highly charged political situation can undermine trust and erode hard-won consensus. Similarly, red teaming a decision during implementation can raise more questions than it answers, sabotage morale, and cause a decision maker to second-guess sound choices unnecessarily. On the other hand, aiming a seasoned red team at a problem or system at the right time with the proper mandate can steer a decision maker away from an otherwise pending catastrophe.”
Trump rejected both opposition research on his rivals and on himself. Red teaming is basically opposition research on oneself because it’s better to know what the real opposition might turn up and have a plan to address it.
Trump broke all the traditional campaign rules and still won. That is truly remarkable and really can’t be emphasized enough. Anyone who can do that is someone I want running the country. Evidently a lot of other people felt the same way.
Probably doesn’t matter, anyway.
The blue team (IPCC) says neither wildfires, droughts, floods, tornadoes, nor hurricanes have increased with warming, but people still believe it be so.
If a red team reaches the same evidence based conclusions, wouldn’t seem as if that would convince the excitables any better.
I assume you’re aware that allusion to “An overconfident or culturally biased analyst or team” referred to the blue team (that being the one that is supposed to be the beneficiary of the red team’s input).
It is a weak solar/albedo/lower sea surface temperature play that will put an end to the global warming theory . El NINO if it should come this summer may delay the drop but once the drop occurs which will likely be after this next El Nino ends will be fast.
Albedo should increase, even a 1/2% increase is significant , and sea surface temp. should cool all in response to very weak solar.
Increase in clouds, volcanic activity ,snow cover will in turn result in a higher albedo. Less UV light will promote lower sea surface temperatures.
Not much more say but wait and see how this unfolds as solar activity should remain very weak going forward.
The legal world is filled with frivolous suits and biased judges. Overturned decisions from one court to the next are ubiquitous. Harm “proven” in one decade is disproven in the next. If it is too late to reverse what the journals are still spitting out, that weather disasters have been and are more so made worse by such and such amount because of the fossil fuel industry, it is only a matter of time before class action suits find their way into the court room. Nick, and his attempts to parcel out the difference between this or that “fact” has his head in the sand if he thinks this is being blown out of proportion by those opposite his view. Politicians know how to play that game and have at times played it successfully in court. Trust me, a fly on the wall would feel dirty after listening to the brainstorming sessions regarding RICO driven desires to seek vengeance over a flooded basement or roof destroying blown down tree. And maybe even little Susy’s asthma. Yes I exaggerate but bigger disasters harming more people are what these events are composed of. It is only a matter of time, if we are too late to stop this madness, before we see the advertisement on tv to get in on the class action gravy train if your basement became a swimming pool.
Each witness signed the False Statements Act Certification.
https://science.house.gov/sites/republicans.science.house.gov/files/documents/HHRG-115-SY-TTF-MMann-20170329.pdf
Give it a rest.
1. Mann’s questioner talked over him and interupted him during answering.
2. His answer was false, however, there was no intent to deceive or actually
mislead as he referred to his CV providing the answer to the
gotcha question ( stupid of him to say no, when the context of the
question screamed YES )
In short Mann didnt know the answer was YES, and say NO, in full comprehension of the fact that the answer was YES. Otherwise, he would not have referred folks to his CV.
So, wrong answer, false answer, but not deceptive. He didnt KNOW the answer was yes, and say NO with the purpose of deceiving. He answered no, to fight a fight. he lost.
HAD he intended to deceive he would not refer to his CV.
In my one interaction with Mann where I caught him in a porkie, he seemed prone to shooting from the hip first and checking later. Not unlike the Orange one. That is he uses interactions to fight. to win. Not to find rational agreement.
Could be a “no” that indicates a refusal to address any utterance of the questioner’s inane act.
Like “I refuse to comply to this inane act”.
But I like the “denial by obfuscation” – it serms to apply to Junior’s obfuscation of the fact that most of his results in hurricane damage is irrelevant to the points he keeps insinuating.
OK, you want to take a shot at explaining how Mann’s denial of calling Judith Curry a denier wasn’t a lie?
You can parse Mann’s lies all you want, and imply that his lies were minor miscommunications on unimportant topics, but you are wrong.
Mann demonstrated for all to see that he will lie when he feels like it to whomever he wants to lie to.
Making excuses for Mann’s behavior demeans you.
Mark Steyn’s analogy of Penn State’s tolerance for Michael Mann’s corrupt behavior to their handling of the Sandusky affair was spot on.
I agree with your assessment. I think Mann saw a loaded question question
> You want to take a shot […]
How much are you offering?
Beware your wishes.
His answer was false, however, there was no intent to deceive or actually.
You know his intents? Sounds like your projection.
Actually, Mann apologists seem to expose their own biases.
Lying and misleading are not crimes, or at least, not in Washington.
But they are not the stuff of science.
“You know his intents? Sounds like your projection.”
No. I dont know his intent
intents are CONSTRUCTS used to explain behavior.
In one way intents are theories proposed to explain the observed behavior of people.
Good red-teaming, Steve.
Steve: How many emails do you think Mann exchanged in the weeks before his testimony with his pals at CAI while preparing for his appearance before the House Committee? The idea that he didn’t know or could remember the answer to the question is absurd. He didn’t want to discuss his relationship with CAI before this committee. IMO, the existence of a relationship with an environmental group shouldn’t cause Mann any discomfort (nor should Judy speaking at a Marshall Institute event). However, Mann may know that CAI and/or he were involved with dubious attempts to prosecute fossil fuel companies and he didn’t want to discuss this subject. So he lied. Then he covered his ass by mentioned his CV, knowing that a questioner with less than 5 minutes was not going to waste time looking through his CV.
I actually agree mostly with Mosher. Mann is a dick and often wrong on issues of substance. He calls people nasty names and is very self-righteous but in this instance, he told a falsehood to keep control of the conversation, but may not have remembered the truth. Of course, an honest man would have said “I don’t remember.”
In reality though, the choice of Mann as a witness says more about the Democrats and their use of science for political purposes than about Mann. Why would they invite such a weak and uninformative witness. Mann simply didn’t say much about science at all. Christy was far more detailed and actually said something of scientific substance, whether you agree or not, at least there was real substance there.
Of course, an honest man would have said “I don’t remember.”
It was too funny. When I heard the Question, the tone, the accusatory style, the talking over the answer, I knew Mann was toast when he said no.
I mean seriously, I’m surprised the Dems didnt have their gotcha questions for curry, christy and pielke, but the second I saw that uptight dude questioning mann, heard the tone.. I knew… Gotcha coming
DUCK MIKE!
Incoming.. take cover mike.!!
But mike never sidesteps a fight.
he hit that guys fist with his face so hard!
You have GOT to be kidding! Every time he uses a juvenile insult – he is doing so to AVOID a debate! He has stated he will NOT debate the subject (he makes excuses). He refused to divulge his code, data or methods when asked by M&M to AVOID a fight! His entire history is running away from fight after fight and sniping from behind his mother’s apron!
“I knew… Gotcha coming”
But it never came. I can’t see how that exchange was damaging with Mann. Nothing was said about whether he saw in fact associated, beyond his answers – it wouldn’t have mattered what he answered. Higgins just got in his lie about CAI and that was it. There was no effective interaction, except that Mann was able to express doubt about the lie. People are gotcha-ing here, but that isn’t going to hurt.
Nick, Mann clearly told a falsehood in response to the question. I suppose you mean Higgins said that CAI wanted to use RICO against skeptics. Is that the “lie?” As I explained above once a RICO action starts, no-one can say who might get swept up. And that’s the fundamental problem with RICO in the first place when used against legal organizations. But its largely irrelevant to the issue here. Using RICO is just stupid and an abuse of the legal system.
“Mann clearly told a falsehood in response to the question. “
It may be clear to you (not me). But how would people watching the segment know?
“I suppose you mean Higgins said that CAI wanted to use RICO against skeptics. Is that the “lie?” “
Yes. Of course, all sorts of things could happen. But CAI is responsible for what they propose, and nowhere did they propose prosecuting skeptics. That is just made up. You could make up anything. The Pope could get swept up. Does that mean CAI wants to prosecute the Pope?
But Nick, You are avoiding the larger issue of RICO being used against legal organizations engaged in normal business. That’s an abuse and discussing it seriously shows a heavy dose of arrogance and lack of respect for Congress for one thing. If you don’t like the EVIL fossil fuel industry, pass a law restricting their activities. Isn’t focusing on legalistic small issues an ordinary artifice of those who seek not the truth but their own advantage?
David,
“You are avoiding the larger issue of RΙCO being used against legal organizations engaged in normal business.”
I said above that this is mainstream. The RICO tobacco case, which CAI used as a template, went through from 1999 to 2006. Appeal courts were involved, and a succession of attorneys-general. If you are going to label people who suggest such a thing villains, there will be a lot of them.
In fact there was no crιmιnal prosecution associated with that case (nor penalty). As I mentioned, the recent Art Cohen vs Trump University case went through under RΙCO, to take advantage of the “pattern of behaviour” provisions. But it was otherwise just a normal civil case. The fact that RICO also has crιmιnal law provisions is not relevant here.
Nick, the RICO cigarette trials also involved second hand smoke “science” which scientists collaborated with lawyers to produce, which has recently been found to be grossly over stated. I wonder if an independent, expert commission could find any gross over-statements in Climate Science?
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2017/02/secondhand_smoke_isn_t_as_bad_as_we_thought.html
Nick, I appreciate your cognitive dissonance. You seem to largely agree with my critique of RICO (which is also very mainstream), but you seem to want to defend CAI, Mann, and Oreskes in their desire for essentially tyrannical use of the legal system to penalize legal businesses engaged in normal business. And to circumvent Congress and the people too. And you seize on an unimportant error in an assertion made by a Congressman. Certainly we should hold scientists to a higher standard than politicians.
Of course, Jim Crow was mainstream at one time too, so this defense of RICO and CAI rings very hollow to me. CAI was in bed with the same slimy lawyers who made in many cases hundreds of millions of dollars off the tobacco litigation which helped really no one, penalized those in American society least able to pay or defend themselves, but paid off the right people. It was classic malefactors of great wealth stuff but with collusion with government.
“And you seize on an unimportant error in an assertion made by a Congressman.”
It’s not an unimportant error. It was a prepared, gotcha question. Had he asked – did you know that CAI was involved in proposing a civil suit against fossil fuel producers, it would have had no impact. He made up a much more inflammatory charge. And it was a lie.
OK,Nick, if it will make you happy, it was a “lie.” But its a very minor and unimportant point. The main point is that using RICO to persecute legal corporations doing normal business practices is just a sign of a dictatorial and undemocratic personality. You seem to be once again focusing on the largely irrelevant to score a point.
It can’t be a lie. Mann said something patently and provably untrue, and Nick says it is not a lie because he was fooled. By that standard, nothing is a lie until you can prove the person was not fooled.
Spake the Jabberwocky.
Dpy – In your considered opinion the exchange was a “conversation”, and Mann “kept control” of it?
The main point is that Rep. Higgins said what he wanted to say regardless of Dr. Mann’s responses. Rep. Higgins appeared to not even be listening to Dr. Mann’s answers. He didn’t let Dr. Mann utter a complete sentence until later, when Mann finally managed to state “You haven’t defined what ‘association’ even means here”.
Boilerplate form doesn’t apply in this case. I specifically cited the false statements law USC 18.1001 which explicitely excludes statements to legislative branch not made during congressional investigation or review. This was a hearing not an investigation or review.
I believe you’ve misread the statute. Please see my post of April 3.
https://www.senate.gov/CRSpubs/cb39da50-6535-4824-9d2f-e5f1fcf0a3e4.pdf
No I’m not wrong. You are. Still.
Thank you again Dr. Curry for doing what you do. Partly because of Mann’s shamelessness, it is difficult to lay a glove on him in person. Detailed critiques of his published work are too technical for most people–or they lead to a shocked comment like “it can’t be true that he did that; no reputable scientist would even try, and he would be stopped by other reputable scientists.” The comparison between people who criticize him and the Lysenko movement was masterful; he is somehow the victim whom an Establishment is trying to silence. Of course, it would be hard to think of a scientist who has had more media recognition (to say nothing of fawning flattery), political/religious recognition of the “hero of the planet” variety, and monetary rewards. One might expect public health scientists or cancer researchers to achieve a higher standing, but this isn’t happening. For one thing, the warmist group seems to overlap with anti-GMO and anti-vaxx intellectuals. They may be unsure whether science is always or even generally a good thing; it might all (except for efforts to save Bambi) be an example of human beings asserting dominance over nature. Cancer specialists may be stuck with the typical status of a true researcher: knowing more and more about less and less.
For whatever combination of reasons–and money, along with a lifestyle far above most professors that comes with it, is certainly part of it–there are leading warmists who are full of zeal for their cause. Von Storch is refreshing because, even though he is a warmist, he has an intelligent detachment from the doom and gloom predictions. The Red Team approach should be a big help in correcting for the influence of zeal, whether that zeal is based on monetary, political, or religious motives.
I don’t think Die Klima Falla by Von Storch and Krauss was ever published in English, but some translated paragraphs by P. Gosselin show a perception of the strong cultural aspects that bias mainstream climate science, by one who is nevertheless still a part of that mainstream. E.g:
“Was the climate apocalypse really at our doorstep as we could read in the media? Or were they exaggerating in their depiction of the results coming from climate science? […]
The climate scientist [von Storch] had the suspicion that climate science was dragging around a ‘cultural rucksack’ that was influencing the interpretation of the data. The cultural scientist [Krauss], with regards to the appearances by some climate scientists in the media and the roles they were readily assigned, was reminded of weather-wizards and shamans of foreign cultures.”
http://notrickszone.com/2013/01/28/new-book-by-hans-von-storch-climate-scientists-took-on-role-of-prophets-completely-in-over-their-heads/
Steven Mosher | March 31, 2017 at 5:25 pm | Reply
“In my organization red teams and blue teams had to be able to switch sides. Its the only way it works effectively. As a Blue team member I had to also serve time on red teams. As a red team member I had to also serve on blue teams. I had to work every day with people who could “red team” me some day. I had to red team my own work presented by others. I had to blue team work I disagreed with.”
Red team time, Nick Stokes, Mosher and Jim D.
Blue team, TE and Bob.
Go for it guys. Remember two things. Mosher has served on Blue Teams before [A prerequisite for a red teamer wanting to win]. Mann lied three times, the same as Peter Gliek, No, No and I never called anyone a denier. Or as Nick says He is allowed to change his mind.
Was that Jim D or Jim Hunt, I get confused because they use the same logic interchangeably, I did say logic didn’t I? Not much difference really with the lightweights and my glasses.
Good guess… every adult human being who has ever lived has lied way more than three times. Go to a local courthouse and sit in on a few cases. Lie blizzards, usually both sides.
not usually in one sitting JCH when asked direct settings.
It continues to amaze me that the proponents of the AGW theory, and the economics it influences, have found no better a lead scholar than Michael Mann. His hockey stick effort, which continues to masquerade as a legitimate scientific undertaking, is more representative of matters of personal character, than of science. And yet, it continues to stand; no longer promoted by the IPCC, but not disavowed. My bigger concern is the extent to which the UN’s involvement, beginning with the questionable influence and personal objectives of Maurice Strong as far back as the 70’s, continues to guide this debate. If the Iraqi ‘Oil for Food” debacle didn’t fully unmask the boundless ambitions of these unprincipled socialists, perhaps a broader inquiry into their interests in this ‘science project’ would raise some serious doubt about the continuing legitimacy of UN sponsorship or ANY continuing form of participation. Climategate was a revealing event, and it continues to escape me how the IPCC avoided exposure, and continues – to this day – to be considered a relevant source of leadership and information.
Reblogged this on Quaerere Propter Vērum.
Pro-tip to Dems. If another Hearing on climate change is held and teh Lamar invites Judith or Junior, call IsaacH or JohnNG.
This is not science, but it’s important.
+1
You could exhume and bring back Professor Corey and it wouldn’t help with the kind of science that the clowns on your side practice.
But given that Mann scored points for the skeptics every time he opened his mouth, anyone would be better than an encore by dodgy boy.
Playing home would be easier if cheerleaders were judging which teams deserved touchdowns.
call IsaacH or JohnNG.
That would be good.
They’d probably talk about science and not exaggerate risks the IPCC says have not occurred.
> That would be good.
Of course it would be, for here’s the last Junior-NG meeting:
http://blog.chron.com/climateabyss/2011/08/roger-pielke-jr-s-inkblot/
In the comment section that has disappeared, Senior rescued his son by diverting NG from the topic and going Pielke-all-the-way-down. You can still find that exchange at Senior’s.
As for the other meeting, it’s been covered here and elsewhere.
Willard, I read your linked article, which spent 90% regurgitating common sense then two things jumped out at me.
1) The author is explaining the whole issue of AGW theory, including mentioning Tyndall several times, but never mentions the non-feedback enhanced warming is only 35% of the IPCC model ensemble mean. In other words the article is a straw man for what is the real debate as Dr. Curry, Dr. Christy and Dr. Pielke pointed out in the hearing. The real question is how the models handle the vapor and cloud feedbacks. For those there are physical tests that can be set up and be falsified and Dr. Christy is claiming that at least one of them has been.
2) The author’s definition of the scientific method is at odds with mine and the three real scientist at the hearing that don’t accept predicting the past as evidence of model skill. From the article:
RonG,
Thank you for finding a way to plug in JohnC’s name.
My related pro-tip to Dems would be: next time teh Lamar invites JohnC, try not to facepalm, and go for BartV:
http://climatechangenationalforum.org/john-christy-richard-mcnider-roy-spencer-flat-earth-hot-spot-figure-baseline/
Thanks for playing.
The denial is in the context of the AR5 WG1 SPM consensus attribution statement.
“It is extremely likely that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to
2010 was caused by the anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas concentrations and other anthropogenic forcings
together. The best estimate of the human-induced contribution to warming is similar to the observed warming over this
period.”
There are some who not only deny that this is extremely likely, but they assert that the opposite is likely, on absolutely no evidence, I might add.
My definition of denier is one who asserts the opposite to evidence-driven consensus on no evidence of their own. It’s not just a “don’t know” or even a contrarian who has derived a number and some evidence for it.
So you would not deny calling Judith a denier then?
If my definition fits, yes. I don’t think she really thinks it is more likely less than 50%, however. That’s probably just for show, and not to upset her supporters. Few skeptics realize that Lewis and Curry postulated 100% for their chosen endpoints without criticizing it, and that is her only publication on the matter. So there are some contradictions, and it is difficult to pin down a real position.
“It is extremely likely that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was caused by the anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas concentrations and other anthropogenic forcings together.”
Were you listening when Dr Curry cited this line?
The observed warming could be extremely likely to be 49% natural?
That’s what this statement says.
I certainly understand that CO2 can and without something else changing will increase the surface temperature. ( somethings elses are always changing, most notably heat into and out of the oceans, but it wouldn’t seem likely that things would change in a systematic way to reverse GHGs ).
But this does get to the nub of the argument a little more clearly.
People care about this and harbor bias not because of warming, but because of what they believe that warming implies. That includes extent, impacts, presumed harm which exceeds benefits, and response.
So, the debate is not whether there is AGW.
The debates are:
how rapid that AGW is,
whether that AGW implies net detriment from benefit,
and whether that net detriment is so large that we gotta do something other than the secular factors which are already decreasing global CO2 emissions.
Unfortunately, many deny the IPCC cited science when it explains that one of the largest presumed detriments, extreme weather, has not discernably changed with the warming we have observed.
So, there is denial, but ironically it is from Mann types who deny the evidence and the IPCC and still try to scare the sheeple with “cows burning alive”.
No, that interpretation is completely wrong when you read the second sentence of the attribution. The most likely value is 100%, and the probability curve is such that 100% is many times more likely than 51%, because extremely likely means 95%. This means that <50% is at the tail of that distribution accounting for 5% of the area. Anyway their second sentence makes it clear where the center of the distribution is, and is almost never quoted by skeptics.
No, that interpretation is completely wrong when you read the second sentence of the attribution.
That these are even open to interpretation is a reflection of their subjective nature.
When the precise natural variation is unknown, how on earth is attribution knowable?
Having a positive imbalance helps nail it down to a forcing attribution versus internal variations. Then of the known forcings since 1950, manmade ones have been dominant. They give error bars, and Gavin has provided a helpful diagram based on their numbers.
http://www.realclimate.org/images/attribution.jpg
That looks made up – because it is.
Unfornately, nothing empirical.
The point is that the center is at 100%, or in this case 110% if you just consider GHGs because the aerosols bring it back a bit.
Jim D | April 1, 2017 at 5:29 pm |
The point is that the center is at 100%, or in this case 110% if you just consider GHGs because the aerosols bring it back a bit.Gavin has provided a helpful diagram based on their numbers. With the lovely inscription best guess.
Best guess really helps nail it down to a forcing attribution versus internal variations.
Can we all have a guess Jim D?
angech, sure you can have a guess, but it needs to go with evidence to count for much.
“When the precise natural variation is unknown, how on earth is attribution knowable?”
you dont need to know the PRECISE natural variation, strawman.
Its enough to know the range or probable range.
See Lovejoy.
The chances the warming is natural is approx 1/10000
The problem is that AR5 WG1 SPM is simply false. AR4 WG1 SPM figure 8.2 made an unequivacal point by continent, by hemisphere, and globally. The warming from ~1920-1945 was mostly natural; not enough change in CO2. The subsequent warming from ~1976-2000 is essentially indistinguishable from the earlier period, a point Lindzen has made several times both visually and statistically. The basic problem with AR5WG1 SPM is that natural variability did not stop in 1975. The subsequent problem is that except for a now mostly cooled 2016-16 El Nino blip, there has been no warming this century except by Karlizarion. Yet this century comprises ~35% of the total increase in CO2 concentration since 1958 (strt of Keeling Curve).
So yes there is an AR5 WG1 SPM consensus. And it is wrong.
As I have been arguing with RIE, the change from 1910-1940 was likely about half solar, which leaves the right amount for CO2 to account for the rest. So while I agree with you that natural warming had an effect in that period, it was most likely only about half because CO2 can account for the rest. Since 1950, the solar forcing has net declined, so that leaves GHGs for the 0.8 C warming since then.
Nice written piece here comparing the two time periods.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/08/22/virtually-indistinguishable-comparing-early-20th-century-warming-to-late-20th-century-warming/
Phil Jones BBC interview was classic right after the East Anglia Climategate debacle.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8511670.stm
Poorly argued I would suggest.
The early warming regime was from 1911 to 1944. This precision has to do with regimes of atmospheric and ocean circulation – and associated changes in the trajectory of surface temperatures. These regimes add to greenhouse gas global warming or counter it. They added to warming both in the early and late century warming. If you don’t get this – nothing makes sense.
Our interest is to understand – first the natural variability of climate – and then take it from there. So we were very excited when we realized a lot of changes in the past century from warmer to cooler and then back to warmer were all natural. Anastasios Tsonis
The effect of the regimes is pretty widely supported. This link – which I post a lot – is a simple one pager from a eminently reputable source.
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=8703
Late century warming seems to include some cloud effects – that are anti-correlated with sea surface temperature. A 1.4 W/m2 increase in cloud radiative forcing in ERBS.
https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/fig/figure3-23.jpeg
In summary, although there is independent evidence for decadal changes in TOA radiative fluxes over the last two decades, the evidence is equivocal. Changes in the planetary and tropical TOA radiative fluxes are consistent with independent global ocean heat-storage data, and are expected to be dominated by changes in cloud radiative forcing. To the extent that they are real, they may simply reflect natural low-frequency variability of the climate system. IPCC AR4 s3.4.4.1
Are the cloud observations equivocal? Depends where you look.
https://watertechbyrie.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/clement-et-al.png
There is a lot hanging on it not being real.
The change is TSI in the 20th century was about 0.5W/m2 at TOA – 0.125W/m2 of effective irradiance. Net anthrpogenic forcing is some 0.25W/m2 in the early warming period between 1911 and 1944.
https://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelforce/Miller_et_al14_fig2_upd.png
So together there is 0.37W/ms increase in forcing in the early warming period – with about the same warming as the latter century warming. We are justified in assuming there is a lot of missing forcing in the early 20th century – leaving a lot of room for natural variability due to internal Earth system dynamics. Reminiscent of the missing heat – still missing btw – in the 21st century.
Another made up statement with no supporting data. So tell us Jim, why are you concerned with people who assert things on absolutely no evidence? You just did so here.
The evidence, presented fully in WG1, is that it is extremely likely most and probably all of the warming is accounted for by increasing GHGs. The people denying that it is likely, and stating instead that the opposite (less than half) is more likely need to provide their evidence of such a conclusion, which no one has yet seen, even the “skeptics”.
Let me introduce you to an unknown unknown that could explain some of the warming effect. I will simply call it geomagnetic Iinduced heating. Solar variations can induce geomagnetic storms on Earth, and these geomagnetic storms are likely inducing the generation of additional heat in the oceans.
This geomagnetic inductive activity has coincidentally increased with indusalization. We are currently in, and have been in the highest period of solar activity overall since the early 1700s. In fact, this period of high solar activity is the highest in over 8000 years (proxy based). If the induction effect is significant, then there is a coincidence here that makes climate change look like AGW if you are unaware of this unknown unknown.
Now, can you say that there is no inductive heating of the oceans? I say that we just don’t know, therefore there is uncertainty in the attribution of climate change.
Until this unknown unknown is investigated and understood, I claim that implementing highly damaging policies is folly.
I emplore scientists who have the capacity to do so to research into this phenomenon.
Let me know your thoughts.
> Let me introduce you to an unknown unknown […]
I don’t always explore the unknown, but when I do it’s an unknown unknown.
It could be unicorns. Until they are investigated we know nothing.
In other words. The known knowns are known enough to rule out any need to hunt unicorns or unknown unknowns or even known unknowns. We Knew Enough To Take Action 100 Years ago. Unknown unknowns don’t make the known less known nor do they obviate the case for action. Logically they can’t.
Dang autocomplete
I hate the whole “Ooh geez for a moment there he said something!” Gotcha rubbish.
Mann’s testimony is better savored for a far future dispassionate future IMO.
I think Mann’s sophistic attempt at dominating a scientific climate hegemony today will be a long lasting obvious pathology judging by the interviews with him I’ve seen.
Mann Says this in his recent testimony:
Well the emails were reviewed by 538, by Nate Silver, and he decided they were not in keeping with the values of the organisation, he terminated Roger’s involvement with 538. Roger then presented himself as the victim, so in this case clearly Roger was the bully, sending these bullying emails to me and Kevin Trenberth and our bosses and trying to paint himself as the victim. And that just doesn’t serve the discourse.
But the Climate Accountability Institute have this to say about Mann’s contribution to their philosophy:
“Libel suits
Lawyers at the workshop noted that libel lawsuits can be an effective response to the fossil fuel industry’s attempts to discredit or silence atmospheric scientists. Pennsylvania State University’s Michael Mann, for instance, has worked with a lawyer to threaten libel lawsuits for some of the things written about him in the media, and has already won one such case in Canada. Matt Pawa explained that libel cases merely require the claimant to establish falsity, recklessness, and harm. “What could be more harmful than impugning the integrity of a scientist’s reputation?” Pawa asked. ”
Note that lawsuits is a tool there encouraged by Mann’s association with CAI.
The fact that Mann *was actually* Lysenko today will be the recurring theme in 2050 TV shows, not any of his claimed climate anomalies ;)
Michael E. Mann will receive his “comeuppance” in due time.
Jesus Matthew 12:34-37
Merriam Webster: “comeuppance”
I’ll meet your question-begging quote with John 12:46-47:
I could also raise you with Ephesians 4:29.
willard I agree with Ephesians 4:29:
On John, quote the context. Jesus continued: John 12:48-50
See further Jesus’ parables of The 10 Virgins, The Stewards, The Sheep and Goats
We’ll all get the comeuppance we deserve, DavidLH. The New Testament discharged us from having any business judging Otters. It is neither my business, nor yours.
Brown nosing the Lord sounds suboptimal to me, but please continue.
Yes – wee wllie – let’s not judge otters lest we be judged.
https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/enhanced/terminal05/2012/3/15/17/enhanced-buzz-8923-1331845868-4.jpg
http://68.media.tumblr.com/59f5b42ad9d36cc4e3299779a7786a12/tumblr_n6lk8v8axR1rjiopto1_1280.png
Source: http://discourseontheotter.tumblr.com/post/87697030900/eva-lynn-jagoe
Willard, claims that God is on your side are always made by both sides in a fight. Standard operational bulldust.
Arguments about the meaning of scripture are the road to hell. They also show how utterly unscientific the debate has become.
It is almost as bad as trying to silence opponents with a claim that the science is settled.
I have now had time to watch the event. It was rather tedious. The tone was set at the outset by ms Robinson who was a crashing bore. Who is she?
If I knew nothing of the subject I don’t think anything I heard would have persuaded me to support one side or the other.
Dr Mann was rather whiny, he’s not a confident apeaker is he? Having said that he was by no means a disaster, just a little weak for someone of his standing.
In short, A lot of heat and light from the panel but little convincing content.
Why does no one at these hearings ever take on the oft repeated and falsifiable claim about extreme weather, by pointing out we have seen it all before?
Dr pielke skirted round the subject but there is rarely any sort of historical context given to current events.
I would imagine that if the Politicians have already made up their minds, that nothing they heard that day would change them.
Was it a fruitful use of anyone’s time and money?
Tonyb
Well I certainly enjoyed the spectacle Tony!
Whether US taxpayers think it’s a good use of their money to entertain at least one of us on this side of the pond is another matter entirely.
The sole reliable source of truth, Donald Trump or Michael Mann…. is that a trick question?
You picked the one guy the other guy beats.
Thomas Kuhn, in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, opined that paradigm conflicts were largely immune to facts and logic: “Just because it is a transition between incommensurables, the transition between competing paradigms cannot be made a step at a time, forced by logic and neutral experience.”
Rather, time seems to be a key factor. As Max Planck noted: “a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”
Pielke did a good job in his work, notably his book The Climate Fix, showing that the UN’s engagement with climate extensively politicized and distorted science. I think at this point there may be no independent, credible cadre that could effectively arbitrate conflicting claims.
One thing that seems fairly certain at this point is that no broad, global regulatory policy will be instituted that could have any effective impact on human. As the whole string of COPs — especially COP21 — have demonstrated, any compact that can be accepted by a large number of countries is too tepid to have any serious effect. And any compact that would sufficiently alter emissions to possibly realize an espoused temperature goal will not be accepted by a large enough quorum to matter.
What remains is a true experiment. What human nature dictates will unfold in the messy way it normally does, and in a century or two scientists will attempt to explain, and argue about, what happened and why.
If a climate apocalypse happens the Chicken Littles will proclaim their vindication with a chorus of I-told-you-sos. And if nothing too bad happens, the heirs to the current crop of contrarians will do likewise.
What I am fairly certain will not happen is that computer simulations will be able to prove anything one way or another any more than they can now.
Taking a long view, at some point sooner or later, carbon-free energy technologies will be developed that are more than cheap enough to make fossil fuels unneeded and thus unwanted. In the subsequent phase of the grand experiment, our successors will then see to what extent carbon emissions helped deter the likely onset of the next ice age. Assuming the ice age cycles of the last million years or so continue, the future civilization might even set about engineering a more benign climate by pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
“I think at this point there may be no independent, credible cadre that could effectively arbitrate conflicting claims.”
Someone has poisoned the well that’s for sure.
They don’t even believe the military’s position on AGW since it became political.
“What I am fairly certain will not happen is that computer simulations will be able to prove anything one way or another any more than they can now.”
I thought computer simulations are projections and don’t prove anything. There has never been a computer model of a nuclear war that has “proved” anything either but we don’t ignore them and we design defense systems to mitigate their projected effects.
“Science is a thought process, technology will change reality.”
“They don’t even believe the military’s position on AGW since it became political.”
Could be because “the military’s position” is a direct result of what they were ordered to support by the previous administration. In the event you are unaware of this fact Jack, in the US the military submits to civilian rule. They know their response to an order is Aye, Aye.
It’s a sad day when a professional in my field engages in name-calling in the halls of Congress.
But let’s look at another word: bigotry. In an open and free society, that noun has always had a pejorative connotation so we should be careful in applying it.
Webster’s definitions from 1828 is “Obstinate or blind attachment to a particular creed, or to certain tenets; unreasonable zeal or warmth in favor of a party, sect or opinion; excessive prejudice.” In 1913, it was “The state of mind of a bigot; obstinate and unreasoning attachment of one’s own belief and opinions, with narrow-minded intolerance of beliefs opposed to them.” Merriam-Webster’s current definition is “obstinate or intolerant devotion to one’s own opinions and prejudices”
Other dictionaries are now tending to emphasize race and religious intolerance. For example: Cambridge :strong, unreasonable ideas, esp. about race or religion: This hidden meaning has so encroached on the original meaning that I’m sure that many illiberal liberals believe that it is impossible for a liberal to be a bigot.
In any case, it’s clear by their actions that people like MM are completely intolerant of skeptics and many of them will tell you they are intolerant. Imho, that makes them, by definition, bigots who are open and proud of their bigotry.
We live in a strange world.
Michael Mann just gave everyone the battle plan to expose this hoax. Please share this article.
Michael Mann Just Jumped the Climate Change Shark
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/04/02/michael-mann-just-jumped-the-climate-change-shark/
Scientists Not Served Here; Real Scientists Need Not Apply
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/04/01/scientists-not-served-here-real-scientists-need-not-apply/
https://ieet.org/index.php/IEET2/more/swan20141124
“What is the role (if any) of Bitcoin and blockchain technology with regard to the natural world and traditional science? One obvious link is using the blockchain as a means of improving distributed community computing projects with tracking and remuneration. BOINC, whose software runs SETI@home, has introduced Gridcoin, and [Protein]Folding@home has introduced Foldingcoin.
In addition, these distributed community computing models could be extended using blockchain technology as a way to coordinate and offer supercomputing time to DIYscientists; opening up access to a scarce resource which was previously only available to professional researchers (Zennet). Other projects are investigating a way to harness otherwise wasted crypto-mining cycles (where the computing problem (computing a nonce) must be deliberately intensive, wasteful, and one-way), like Primecoin’s system (http://primecoin.io/, of requiring miners to find long chains of prime numbers instead of otherwise unusable hashes.
Sense-making Models: Religion, Science, Political-Economy, Information
There is a more fundamental link between the blockchain and science in the grand scope of our human models for making sense of the world: religion, science, political-economy, and now information. Information is an interesting paradigm by which we are starting to see the structure of the world and make sense of it, both in physical and digital reality. The blockchain is an information technology, and the Internet and the blockchain provide a heightened information climate; a means of improving and modulating the resolution of information through faster more-expedient transfer, discovery, deployment, and use.
Information as a Sense-making Paradigm Reconfigures Science
The reach of information as a sense-making paradigm can be seen in how this idea is reconfiguring approaches to science. One way is in the growth and pervasiveness of big data and data-intensive science. Nearly every field of traditional study now has a computational complement (computational biology, computational astronomy, computational philosophy, computational law, etc.). The scientific method is transformed from a narrow hypothesis-experimentation loop to dynamic hypothesis formation per large-data results, vastly scaling the degree of experimental activity.
DNA: The Original Decentralized System
Even more profoundly, information is changing how we think about problems in science. For example, the old thinking was that chemistry and molecular biology are the conditions for life, and this is true in the sense that they are the substrate, the hardware for life. But now life is being seen as an information problem. Biology is a software system that runs on the substrate of chemistry and molecular biology. Wetware biology is the language of information, a software system to signal, transcribe, transmit information, encode and decode information, and send secure messages; a lot like a blockchain system. Biology is perhaps the original decentralized system; every cell has the full instruction set, the organism’s entire DNA, like Bitcoind nodes have the full ledger of every transaction. “
Thanks for reminding me of all the great SF where the biological adaptations of life codes to computer descriptions, viruses, worms, etc were woven into the story which was about humanity’s adaptation to the new information world being proposed in the 1980’s. Especially the wetware/hardware use of some of the stories. I have even lived long enough to see some of it come true.
Judith,
I get the message. I’m an unbeliever. Until somebody demonstrates they can make a thermometer hotter by the cunning use of CO2, I shall remain so.
Unswerving and passionate belief in the non-existent won’t make it true.
I’d venture to say that if the US President manages to divert funding from climate research (whatever that may be) to doing something of more immediate and useful benefit – say reducing the US debt of 20 trillion dollars -, there may be no discernible negative impact on the world’s population.
In the meantime, I wish you well. I obviously don’t agree with your belief in th GHE, any more than I agree with John Tyndall’s carefully reasoned belief in the ether, or Lord Kelvin’s excellent (but silly, as it transpired) calculations showing the age of the Earth to be 20 million years or so.
Maybe I’m just generally disagreeable. The universe keeps unfolding, regardless, I guess, and doesn’t care what I think, or how I appear to others.
He who laughs last, laughs best. I might have the last laugh – who knows?
Time will tell. Best wishes to you and yours.
Cheers.
Rud – Re your point 2
“‘Not’ calling Curry a climate science denier…. Mann is culpable beyond any reasonable doubt”
Let’s consider this case separately shall we?. From my “live tweet” archive, I present Exhibit A:
https://twitter.com/AF_Wetware/status/847119183997517824
Jim, to pretend that a categorical statement was really not categorical at all is problematic for Mann because he went for the dichotomy of “climate denier” versus “climate science denier”.
Why problematic? Because he has called Judith a denier in both of the categories he constructed. The truth will set both him and you free.
Even Mossshhher the Great and Powerful says he should own it. It’s time for you to admit defeat and agree. Try it. You may well find it quite a liberating experience.
Forrest – Are you a mind reader? What makes you think you can put words in my mouth? Here are some of my words, plus the relevant part of Dr. Mann’s written testimony:
http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2017/03/the-house-science-climate-model-show-trial/#Mann
Mann wrote (amongst other things):
Bates’ allegations were also published on the blog of climate science denier Judith Curry (I use the term carefully—reserving it for those who deny the most basic findings of the scientific community, which includes the fact that human activity is substantially or entirely responsible for the large-scale warming we have seen over the past century — something Judith Curry disputes). That blog post and the Daily Mail story have now been thoroughly debunked.
Discuss.
Jim, I put no words in your mouth. If you want to be offended because Mann got it very wrong then go right ahead.
Defending him on this point is hopeless. I repeat that you may find conceding defeat on this issue quite liberating. The truth will set you free.
jim
its a glorious day today so just looked in briefly. Shouldn’t you be out putting in your early peas and potatoes rather than wasting time defending a good, but by no means great, scientist?
tonyb
Tony – I just got back from a trip to Tintagel, so I have some catching up to do! We went looking for Merlin’s Cave, but failed to locate it.
What makes you think I’m “defending” Mann? I’m endeavouring to establish the “facts” of the matter, which has proven to be a trifle tricky regarding the “no” issue!
It’s not that basic. We know that Earth dynamic processes added to 20th century warming. Well – at least some of us do.
https://watertechbyrie.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/meehl.png
Meehl, G. A. Decadal climate variability and the early-2000s hiatus. Newsletter, U. S. CLIVAR Variations, 13, 1–6 (2015).
https://watertechbyrie.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/vance2012-antartica-law-dome-ice-core-salt-content.jpg
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00003.1
More salt is La Nina and more rain in Australia. Did the Hiatus finish in 2014? Difficult to tell really against a hyper-dynamic background. Not much to do with global warming at any rate.
It driven by Solar UV chemistry modulating circulation in the polar cell. There is a diagram in a comment just below. Frankly – I am expecting a super-Hiatus this century.
The question to ask Michael Mann is – who’s the science denier now doofus?
… solar UV/ozone chemistry…
Robert – I’m attempting to provide a central location to discuss the “Deniers” portion of Judith’s title. What’s the relevance of your contribution?
Forrest – As I already pointed out to Tony, I’m not “defending him”. As Judith and I have already pointed out above, Mann’s written testimony included the phrase “denier Judith Curry”. Why don’t you go right ahead and “prosecute” him?
Perhaps the truth will set you free?
What you are doing Jim is running interference for Mann. Your rhetoric is just pathetic.
jim
My point was not about defending Mann-a perfectly reasonable proposition-but defending him during a sunday when the sun was actually shining for a change.
I hear Tintagel has been a little disneyfied-a bit of a metaphor for climate science perhaps!
tonyb
Denying the basic science for God’s sake. I have little doubt which doofus is the denier.
https://judithcurry.com/2017/03/31/deniers-lies-and-politics/#comment-844563
Robert – Here once again is Rud’s legal point number 2, which I referred to in my opening address:
https://judithcurry.com/2017/03/31/deniers-lies-and-politics/#comment-844432
“2. ‘Not’ calling Curry a climate science denier.”
Tony – There were remarkably few visitors at Tintagel Castle given the glorious weather, and no sign whatsoever of Mickey et al.
https://twitter.com/jim_hunt/status/848836940489261056
We didn’t actually visit the “Visitors Centre” or “Exhibition” though!
Got it. You like repeating things and insisting people play by your secret rule book.
I have no doubt that you have not the slightest clue that there are legitimate grounds for dissent from the Mann doctrine of basic carpetbagery. So calling someone a climate science denier all makes perfect sense – but is still hopelessly rockerless.
Got it – you simply can’t comprehend denying the premise of science denying.
Denial of global warming science goes well beyond how much was natural and how much was anthropogenic to a wildlife, wildfire, human health, flood and drought holocaust if we don’t transform economies and societies in a neo-dystopian model of lower consumption, social planning, economic regulation and rule by elites. And as conspiracies go – it is widely admitted to. Does that make it a social movement and not a conspiracy? Either/or – the world is not standing still for it and they can despair all they like.
The solution to everything is to build prosperous and resilient communities. The real reality is that there are ways to advance communities and environments – and at the same time sequester carbon in soils and ecosystems. There will as well be a transition to 21st century energy within decades as the creative destruction of capitalism is unleashed. The truth is that environments do better in prosperous economies.
Climate science denier implies that there is one view of the science – and that any dissent on any of the corollaries is a denial of the authority of science. Therefore wrong, mad or evil. They assume that the only truth is theirs and -moreover – that this must be known to sane people and is denied for personal enrichment. In the US this opens up engineers and scientists who advise mining or energy companies to charges of racketeering.
The thing is that they have got the science wrong as well. There are things outside their ability or willingness to comprehend. Dynamic processes modulate climate and extremes of the Holocene are way more extreme than those of the 20th century. Theirs is a static science in a dynamic world and there is a large and rapidly growing literature – e.g.
https://watertechbyrie.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/gyre-impact.png
Decadal Patterns of Westerly Winds, Temperatures, Ocean
Gyre Circulations and Fish Abundance: A Review
Candace Oviatt 1,*, Leslie Smith 2, M. Conor McManus 1, 3 and Kimberly Hyde 4
The future people choose for themselves and their children is much more likely cyberpunk than sackcloth for us and $2000 suits for them. The singularity occurs on January 26th 2065 when an automated IKEA factory becomes self-aware and commences converting all global resources to flat pack furniture. Until then – endless innovation on information technology and cybernetics will accelerate and continue to push the limits of what it is to be human and to challenge the adaptability of social structures. New movements, fads, music, designer drugs, cat videos and dance moves will sweep the planet like Mexican waves in the zeitgeist. Materials will be stronger and lighter. Life will be cluttered with holographic TV’s, waterless washing machines, ultrasonic blenders, quantum computers, hover cars and artificially intelligent phones. Annoying phones that cry when you don’t charge them – taking on that role from cars that beep when you don’t put a seat belt on. Space capable flying cars will have seat belts that lock and tension without any intervention of your part. All this will use vastly more energy and materials this century as populations grow and wealth increases.
Our best advice to these urban doofus hipster ning-nongs is to take a long jog on a sort pier. And we get on with the business of life.
Great post!
Gets my vote for best of the year if not the decade.
Hi Mark – real people want ‘solutions’ that don’t involve dismantling the economy. These other people want to regulate away fossil fuels. It aligns with a philosophy of limits and ‘economic degrowth’.
Cheers
Reblogged this on Climatism and commented:
“I always thought that there would be consequences for lying during Congressional testimony. I guess not. Mann got caught out in several blatant lies during the Hearing.”
Nuff said. Other than well done JC for your bravery in the face of smear and slander by peers when your only crime was sticking up for and valuing the “scientific method”. Which simply involves questioning and challenging the preferred wisdom of the day (i.e. “Manufactured consensus”) via data observation.
But sadly, within the established field of climate ‘science’, questioning the preferred wisdom is taboo and heresy.
This is politics, not science.
> if everybody agrees with the consensus and with each other, I don’t see why they need more than one scientist on the consensus side.
Yet the contrarians’ picks did not provide conflicting testimonies. Arguing they their viewpoints were complementary also applies to orthodoxy. It would reveal the “I don’t see” a bit less credible.
Considering that contrarians are not constrained by mutual consistency, that their testimonies did not conflict looks fishy more than anything.
Why was it not mentioned that CO2 has been much higher than now over most of earth’s history?
Why was it not mentioned that water vapor is by far the most important ghg?
These are simple things that our technologically challenged politicians might be able to grasp.
Speaking of politics and lies, LA Times is having a psychotic breakdown over Trump. I’ve never seen such disingenuous drivel. From the article:
*****
In a matter of weeks, President Trump has taken dozens of real-life steps that, if they are not reversed, will rip families apart, foul rivers and pollute the air, intensify the calamitous effects of climate change and profoundly weaken the system of American public education for all.
*****
If you are young and ignorant, the psychosis can be contagious.
http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-ed-our-dishonest-president/
How Climate Change Affects Mental Health
Add to this mounting fear and anxiety derived from watching the world around us change in irreversible ways — coupled with the helplessness of feeling as if we cannot stop or reverse global warming— and you have another effect of climate change on mental health: “Watching the slow and seemingly irrevocable impacts of climate change unfold, and worrying about the future for oneself, children, and later generations, may be an additional source of stress (Searle & Gow, 2010),” the authors write. “Albrecht (2011) and others have termed this anxiety ecoanxiety. Qualitative research provides evidence that some people are deeply affected by feelings of loss, helplessness, and frustration due to their inability to feel like they are making a difference in stopping climate change (Moser, 2013).”
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-truth-about-exercise-addiction/201704/how-climate-change-affects-mental-health
5 Reasons It’s Dumb To Panic Over Global Warming
The liberal hysteria over global warming is hard for normal people to comprehend. Leftists don’t worry about deficits or about terrorists who are looking for any way to kill Americans. They don’t care about the health care costs they drove into the stratosphere, the way teachers’ unions have ruined public education, or the out-of-control growth of the federal government that takes more of our money and freedom every day. However, the possibility of global warming 100 years from now freaks them the hell out. Then the rest of us get treated to people — who don’t know anything about global warming other than “I heard it is scientific consensus” and “What about the polar bears?” — screaming about how the rest of us are wrecking the planet.
Settle down, snowflake! There’s no reason to panic over global warming. Why?
https://townhall.com/columnists/johnhawkins/2017/04/01/draft-n2307281
“….and profoundly weaken the system of American public education for all.”
He’s going to adopt the corrupt CA state govt./teachers union cycle of corruption for all states?
My take-away is somewhat an echo of Rud Istvan’s above. Getting more and more information (your written views, answers, and the documentation) enhances the process long-term — I think your efforts, including appearances before Congress, will eventually be seen as effective.
.
> footnote 29 is the source watch slime job on me
Some may call that profile “political science”:
https://climateaudit.org/2006/10/11/bill-gray-presentation/#comment-66696
I have no idea why anyone would say such thing, but Matthew Nisbett seemed to have like it when I reminded him of Junior’s doctrine.
I cannot wait until Steyn gets that b—–d in court.
Judith: Several Democratic questioners tried to imply the three of you were kooks from outside mainstream science. I think that witnesses whose reputations and credibility have been challenged in front of the committee have a right to reply – even when a questioner leaves no time for a reply.
Somewhere in the session (preferably as early as possible), I wish you had said that you three belong to the 97% consensus that believes aGHGs are changing climate. However, you rarely say this because the phrase 97% consensus has become incorrectly associated with the idea that we must drastically restrict CO2 emissions. Before advocating spending trillions of dollars reducing CO2 emissions, we need to know HOW MUCH humans are changing climate.
The IPCC has said that humans have caused at least half of the 0.6 degC of warming observed since 1950 and most likely all of it. They relied on climate models to reach this conclusion, but we know that climate models don’t accurately reproduce many aspects of our climate. In particular, 16 IPCC authors of AR5 published a paper (Otto 2013) showing that models predict about 50% higher sensitivity to CO2 than we have observed. The discrepancy was so large that the IPCC stopped publishing a “best estimate” for the warming expected from doubled CO2. You have personally published and reviewed work on this subject. Despite these problem, the POLITICIANS and A FEW SCIENTISTS who control the SPMs decided to ignore this discrepancy so they could make a POLITICALLY important statement about human attribution.
According to one survey (the one that reporting a “97% consensus”), about 20% of papers contradict the IPCC’s attribution statement. This is not a fringe position.
If only 50% of recent warming were due to aGHGs, then the IPCC’s estimates of future warming might be exaggerated by a factor of two. If so, estimates of the SCC and the need for an 80% reduction in CO2 emissions may be grossly wrong. Policymakers need to understand that there is no consensus that future warming MUST be catastrophic if we do nothing.
More importantly, thermometers show that the warming rate from 1920 to 1940 (when GHGs had negligible impact) was similar to the rate of warming from 1975-2000, which caused the IPCC to first attribute at least 50% of warming to humans. Likewise, we know that the change associated with cooling after the MWP and warming after the LIA were comparable to that attributed to GHGs. Climate change since 1950 is not unprecedented compared with periods when GHGs weren’t rising! So I have publicly challenged the IPCC’s human attribution statement, which is based solely on climate models and doesn’t reflect the totality of the evidence. The IPCC places too much emphasis on the output from climate models and not enough emphasis on data from other sources.
Unfortunately, Dr. Mann published an infamous and flawed reconstruction of the MWP and the LIA that showed no significant temperature variation during this period. Since then other work (including papers published by Dr Mann) showed that this early work used flawed methodology and that there was significant temperature variation before the 20th century. Today the IPCC says:
“Continental-scale surface temperature reconstructions show, with high confidence, multi-decadal periods during the Medieval Climate Anomaly (year 950 to 1250) that were in some regions as warm as in the late 20th century. These regional warm periods did not occur as coherently across regions as the warming in the late 20th century (high confidence).”
This thread is a god awful discussion and a waste of time for those of us who are interested in climate science and not the lawyerly defenses and criticisms that are made for specific individual scientists – like Michael Mann. The only consideration I have for what climate scientists might say and advocate is whether I personally judge that those utterances would indicate that the scientists work could be swayed by their advocacy and here I refer to advocacy on all sides of the AGW issues and by swayed I mean that, like an adversarial lawyer, a scientist who will truthfully give me only one side of the evidence or perhaps not do complete sensitivity testing in their work that might shed more uncertainty on their results.
In my case I would not want to argue my judgment on the influence of advocacy on a climate scientists work that I see but rather I would use it in my own analysis in determining how hard I would have to look at the scientists published work and determine in most cases what might well have been omitted and in some cases a basic error that provided a shortcut to an answer that agrees with an advocacy position.
For someone like Mann I would apply the utmost scrutiny to his work based on my personal judgment that his advocacy could result in omissions and shortcuts. His work with proxies in attempts to estimate past temperatures have an obvious flaw in that, unless one finds a physically principled criteria for determining valid temperature proxies a prior (before selection) and then using all proxy results in a temperature reconstruction, the modern instrumental warming period is going to bias the reconstruction results. In this case Mann is not a lone scientist in applying this flawed procedure to temperature reconstructions but rather is in a very large majority who apply and defend this method. With the scientists less vocal than Mann on advocacy one is more likely to assume that those scientists are ignorant of the statistics that have to apply to a soft science where experiments and experimental conditions cannot be repeated. I truly believe at least some of these scientists are confused about the differences between hard and soft sciences and how one is limited in the softer sciences. Mann, of course, could merely be ignorant in the case of an a prior selection of proxies, but either way his work deserve extra scrutiny on my part. I would also have to say that I have evidence from their comments that there are not small numbers of observers on the AGW issue opposed to Mann who do not understand how the statistics used should differ between hard and soft sciences.
Mann’s authorship of Mann (2006) is probably more telling about the extent he is willing to go to get the “right” answer when we recall his using instrumental data in the reconstruction and truncating data that did not agree with modern warming. He also in-filled missing data in an arbitrary manner and controversially used results that well could have been used upside down to what the original authors of the data intended.
> This thread is a god awful discussion and a waste of time for those of us who are interested in climate science and not the lawyerly […]
The title of the head post is ‘Deniers,’ lies and politics.
Nobody coerces nobody to read it, much less participate in it using the good’ CA “but science” two-step deflection.
Thanks for stating the obvious. My point is that for a serious observer of climate science it is better to get closer to the analysis of what a scientist has published. Quips do not do it for me and neither does a lawyerly defense or critique of what a climate scientist said or meant to say. The personal back and forth is even a bigger waste of time.
If I were Judith Curry I would attempt to do something to avoid these threads devolving into the same old same old and very predictable personal exchanges that add zero information to the discussion. I see an interesting topic presented that I would like to see discussed such that I might learn from the discussion only to then see posters turn it into a personality battle with way too many one liner quips in a battle of one-upmanship
> If I were Judith Curry I would attempt to do something to avoid these threads devolving into the same old same old and very predictable personal exchanges that add zero information to the discussion.
The discussion being about “Deniers,” lies, and politics, to repeat the obvious.
Framing it about “the same old same old and very predictable personal exchanges that add zero information to the discussion” omits that obvious fact.
Playing the ref like you’re doing right now adds zero information and never gets old, again to state the obvious.
ken,
notice Willard completely ignores the meat and instead tries for the discredidation play.
Of course he is the “Original Squirrel” here.
“But MBH” is the squirrel KenF’s throwing in that thread, Tim. And it’s far from being original.
How is MBH a squirrel?
> How is MBH a squirrel?
It’s not the topic of the post.
It’s not relevant to the topic either.
(Wegman’s porkies could be more relevant.)
They distract from the editorial point being made.
Like “Look! Squirrel!”
KenW’s “but science” has been over the years the #1 bait and switch at CA. Talk politics. Get caught saying stuff. Retort “but science”.
In our case, KenW’s Very Serious deflection is also an indirect criticism of the editorial policies of the site.
Hope this helps.
Compare and contrast:
And
Willard:::
The title of the thread could well mean to serious posters that the congressional hearings took on an uninformative bent and those posters might want to show how those hearing discussions could have been made better and more informative by dealing with what the authors have published vis a vis climate science..
Joshua:
The differences is that in the first paragraph I am criticizing the defenses and criticisms that arose from the groups with which Mann associates. I wanted to be sure that readers knew I was referring to the individual case for and against Mann. In the second I present my case on Mann from what I have garnered from analyses of his papers. It is not that I am against dealing with individual scientists for what they published as that would make no sense. With Mann I would draw my own views on the extent of his advocacy from his own words..
> The title of the thread could well mean to serious posters […]
Again with the underhanded ad hominem.
***
> that the congressional hearings took on an uninformative bent
That’s an hypothesis. It can be tested. To test it, let’s identify the main paragraph:
The hypothesis is falsified.
Also note the personalization, which goes against the policy you issue.
***
> and those posters might want to show how those hearing discussions could have been made better and more informative by dealing with what the authors have published vis a vis climate science..
That’s just a fancy way to suggest that we should take this opportunity to plug in “but MBH.”
Very Serious People do that all the time.
Willard,
Did you haul all these squirrel cages to the discussion yourself, or did you have help.
Glad you presume that “Deniers,” lies, and politics is a squirrel, TimG.
It’s only the title of the post, after all.
Willard,
More like a skunk than a squirrel. Squirrels can’t cause much mischief – with the significant exception of occasionally frying themselves and shorting out a transformer. A skunk taking up residence in your yard can be a real problem. That climate science has been pushed into the political sphere is the skunk in question. Had it stayed in the woods, not much of a problem. However it was always intended to be pushed into the neighborhood and now folks are complaining because the HOA wants to get animal control to take care of the problem.
Now the title of the thread is a skunk
That’s just great, TimG.
Ken –
I would suggest that the distinction you draw is rather meaningless in the real world. In trying to draw a line between criticizing Mann personally for his associations and veracity, and criticizing him personally for what he is “will[ing]” to do in his science is, IMO, trying to carve out a “safe space” for yourself that fails to have any external validity beyond your own self-concept.
It is entirely predictable, IMO. that in the real world, no engaged combatants will see a meaningful distinction, and I would suggest that neither would practically anyone else. In the real world, both forms of focusing on Mann extend your judgement into areas beyond your expertise or true knowledge, and are more than likely informative of your projection of your own biases more than anything else.
I would respectfully suggest that instead, you stick to your critique of the science. Leave out the references to Mann’s inner world, in either form. We have seen, over and over and over, that the wall of separation you’re trying to build is diaphanous, ephemeral, and impractical, certainly in the context of polarized issues such as the climate wars – and so your judgement of what others do as being less unsavory than your own efforts (in this particular frame, at least), doesn’t play out as you are intending.
I would give the same advice to Mann, were he to ask.
I watched the entire heaing and understand exactly what you say. I placed a comment about Mann on Anthony Watts’ blog which beare repeating here. I have slightly modified the beginning.
It is time to bring out the wrongdoing by Mann when he constructed his hockey stick. I find it necessary because listening to him at the House Committee hearing on Friday he was still promoteing his hockey stick as a legitimate representation of recent temperature history. It is not. Originally it was based upon observations of tree rings which is a legitimate technique. But when his tree ring data showed something else than what he expected he had a problem. He believed temperature should go up as it approached current time, so he went and found a set of current measurements, of unknown origin, which he attached it to the end of the original tree ring curve. And then he pretended, as he still does, that this combined graph is a real temperature record of the last 1000 years. Of course, it is not and such mixing of data sets to achieve a desired result is plain falsification of data. It is a scientific crime and should have been rejected by peer reviewers. It obviously was not which brings up questions about how it passed peer review. The reviewers had to be either incompetent or worse, “buddy reviewers” of the type we know from the Climategate group with whom he was associated at the time. Passing the review meant publication and removed any obstacles that could stop him. He used that fact fully to advance his career. It is plain scientific fraud but it appealed to the IPCC enough to use it on two of their reports. It appealed to the University of Pennsylvania personages who control things there. They gave him a cushy academic job and made him boss of a climate studies section. But a fraud by any other name is still a fraud. The upturned blade of the hockey stick is constructed out of foreign data fraudulently introduced. As a scientist, I feel strongly that under no circumstances can this hybrid temperature curve be used as a representation of global temperature today or in the past. The added data can in no way be correlated to the tree ring data that failed to show the warming he was after, by hook or by crook.
Arno, I agree completely. Correction – Mann is at Penn State University in State College, Pa ( the top public university in Pa), not the University of Pennsylvania, which is an Ivy League in Philadelphia.
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Ah, here it is. You did it already. Re: “I always thought there were penalties for lying”. Wrong, if dodgy politicians make their lies the law. 1st World democratic process. Hence the shouts of heresy and denial when the false justifications for laws are exposed in public.
That is the process by which carbon taxes and renewable subsidies work. If you pass laws that deny the laws of physics for regressive profit, it is still the law, and, if passed by due process, can’t be challenged by reason or logic.
There are whole rafts of such eco malfeasance to profit lobbyists in return for donations and later indirect payola reward in the many troughs of Washington. This includes the generous funding of the ultimately unprovable climate science claimed to support the easy subsidy profits of renewable energy, that must make net grid emissions of CO2 far worse by law. There are many others. It’s what Washington, and Westminster, and Brussels, does. The senior civil servants examine and exploit each real or imaginary issue du jour for opportunities to profit the elite and their lobbyists with easy guaranteed profit by law. Often to make things worse. Real evidence based rationality is not their plan. They don’t care about discovery, as they make the enabling law and there are no sanctions, and they are retired or out of office clutching or receiving their money by the time anyone can prove anything either way. THis systematic legalised fraud is at the rotten beating heart of the 1st World’s system of “democratic” government, tastefully concealed and legalised corruption.
Just legalise defrauding the tax and bill payers for the profit of the eites and their lobbyists. Brilliant! The development of 1st World Democracy was based on the rich retiring from representing themselves after the French revolution, and adding a layer of “professional government” plus a biddable elected veneer du jour to do their law passing work for them, legalising the overtly illegal corruption of the 3rd World model that went before.
Never mind the climate, follow the money.
One way to address this one. I would attack the energy subsidy fraud on the science fact of wasted Billions to make CO2 emissions worse by far, no consensus possible, only facts, and, if the facts of the snake oil remedy for climate change gain traction, watch the money supporting bad climate science sold as fact dry up, once the billions in renewable energy subsidies stop. No consensus required. Just the costed facts of grid generation.
I notice that Joshua and Willard have more to say about me than to give any retorts to my criticism of Mann and in his publications of temperature reconstructions and particularly Mann (2006). I guess that would basically sum up what I find a waste of time about a lot of discussions here.
When that’s the only play in their playbook Ken, I guess you can’t blame them.
You can blame them for not recognizing when they are punching well above their weight though.
I know this is an old post and people are not paying much attention anymore, but Fabius Maximus has a great post on this hearing taking apart Mann, one blustering misrepresentation after another.
https://fabiusmaximus.com/2017/04/02/michael-mann-makes-the-case-for-climate-action/
Thanks, DPY.
The discussion of Mann’s testimony has focused on what is, in the big picture, trivia. The meat, about the science, in his opening and closing sections are been almost ignored. It deserves attention.
I start that by comparing Mann’s statements with the supporting footnotes. The footnotes don’t provides strong support for his claims. Details here.
This important debate about climate policy need not be a cacophony. It’s our choice to make it so.
Judith – Am I imagining it, or have some of my recent comments gone AWOL?
Jim, I’ve deleted comments that are bickering and don’t add the quality of thread.
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@David Springer | April 1, 2017 at 12:54 am: Your reference to 18 USC 1001 shows very clearly that even when not sworn in, testimony before a Congressional hearing is punishable. It is not called “purjury”, but that appears to be irrelevant.
The statute is written in a funny way. Paragraph (a) defines the lying and gives the punishment. Then, (b) says it does not apply in certain judicial settings, and goes on in (c) to list where it specifically applies:
“(c) With respect to any matter within the jurisdiction of the legislative branch, subsection (a) shall apply only to—
(1) administrative matters, [snip]; or
(2) any investigation or review, conducted pursuant to the authority of any committee, subcommittee, commission or office of the Congress, consistent with applicable rules of the House or Senate.” I believe the convoluted structure of the statute has led to confusion, but I cannot conclude after reading the law that it makes lying to Congress, sworn or not, a crime.
Sorry, in the last sentence I intended to say, “but I cannot help but conclude after reading the law that it makes lying to Congress, sworn or not, a crime.”
JC: The real tragedy is that you, John Christy, Roger Pielke and other skeptics have to spend one second dealing with social media and politics surrounding your views. There’s so much better uses for yours and the others’ time. It’s a true tragedy.
Prof Curry,
Next time help us out with a more specific reference. I followed your link to Mann’s CV to verify his affiliation with Climate Accountability Institute. Sure enough, I finally found it on page 12 —- of a 57 page single spaced document.
Talk about an ego — God Almighty doesn’t have a 57 page CV.
Hah!
An almighty may have created earth, but Mann is savin’ it.
I wonder if he even remembers what is on all those 57 pages. This might explain his answer.
Speaking of non-truths, Dr. Mann claims he coined the phrase “serengeti strategy” in 2012. The book Strategies of the Serengeti: where the right strategy is a matter of life and death, was published in 2006. I ponder the originality of Mann’s alleged coining.
My description of the NYPD picking off loners like antelopes on the African veldt at the 2000 “May Marijuana March”I was quoted by Preston Peet in High Times ., http://cosy.com/boba2k/mmm2000.htm .
Mann is a mediocre buffoon and was is appalling is what the raising of lying fools like him and Nye — and Al Gore , and James Hansen — to enduring “authoritative” status says about the mediocrity of a mass of the electorate and the establishment .
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“Well if everybody agrees with the consensus and with each other, I don’t see why they need more than one scientist on the consensus side.”
And if there is a consensus of — to all intents and purposes — every publishing climate scientist on the planet and the global community of scientists as represented by the Royal Society, National Academy of Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Physical Society, American Chemical Society etc etc etc … why are the science deniers represented at all?
Well, because Lamar Smith thinks the consensus is only a small number of a small number. And Trump is the fountain of all knowledge or at least the only source of truth.
If Mann is a liar for being confused when asked about trivial non-science stuff he’d already clarified and presented in writing, I guess the “skeptics” are excused for their whole waffle-science being a lie on the grounds of insanity.
Reblogged this on Climate Collections.
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I know this thread is old, but I realized today another probably false statement Mann made that he asserted with his usual cock surity. He stated that if in fact there was no tropical hotspot, then that would imply ECS was higher than models were predicting.
It was easy to find very convincing evidence that exactly the opposite is true. From Nic Lewis’ excellent summary writeup on ECS, he address the AOGCM modeling of tropical convection. He found that
Most would agree that Lewis is far more reliable and objective than Mann who often relies on a seeming omniscience to pull falsehoods out at a moments notice. Just another indication that Mann is a terrible representative for climate science but an excellent representative of completely politicized climate science who fits the ignorant and partisan narrative.
https://niclewis.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/briefing-note-on-climate-sensitivity-etc_nic-lewis_mar2016.pdf
I am fed-up with being called a Climate Sceptic when what I, and others are, are Climate Realists
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