by Judith Curry
BREAKING. The verdict is in – GUILTY.
Mann’s lawyer introduced into evidence an old ethics complaint against Michael Mann that I had addressed to the Penn State administration.
I didn’t expect such a quick verdict, I had this post queued up for tomorrow. More on the trial and verdict tomorrow, but this constitutes what I suspect was my main contribution to the trial.
If you’ve been following the trial, a key part of my testimony related to a Huffington Post op-ed and Mann’s statement about me:
“On the other hand, serial climate disinformer Judith Curry, in a commentary for the same outlet five days later, announced, “Consensus distorts the climate picture.”
Here are my prepared remarks on this, you can also listen to the re-enactment at steynonline.
Prior to this article, Mann had said a lot of very bad things about me. But this is the one that destroyed my academic career. I first spotted this article on Georgia Tech’s daily news feed, that highlights all the mentions of Georgia Tech in the media. A link to Mann’s huffington post article appeared near the top of the news feed, including the serial climate disinformer quote. For the first time in my life, I had the sensation of my heart falling to the floor. This news feed is emailed to all Georgia tech students, faculty members, administrators, alumni and donors. At the time I was under consideration for an appointment in the higher administration at Georgia Tech, I was one of three finalists for the position. Well this was definitely game over for that appointment.
That day, as I was trying to evaluate the fallout from this, I googled my name. The first page of the google search was filled with Judith Curry climate denier, judith curry science misinformer, Judith Curry climate heretic and so on. My first reaction was that this is really bad for Georgia tech’s brand. My second thought was that all this also made me unhirable at any other university. My third thought was that Michael mann’s destruction of my reputation and academic career was now complete. This is what real damage to someone’s career looks like.
During my cross-examination, Mann’s lawyer introduced a document into evidence, a draft of an ethics complaint to the Penn State Research Integrity Officer. Apparently, this doc appeared in an email I sent to Steve McIntyre. I was seeking his input and advice on this. In the end I didn’t send this to Penn State; after all, the damage to my career was already done and I wasn’t clear where this would lead or whether it would have any effect.
Here is the text of my complaint, pdf is here [mann ethics 2]
Date: 16 October 2013
Candice Yekel,
Research Integrity Officer (RIO),
Assistant Vice President for Research, and Director,
Office for Research Protections
cay3@psu.edu or (814) 865-1775
Dear Dr Yekel,
This memorandum documents the basis for a complaint that I am lodging against Dr. Michael E. Mann, an employee of your University, under Penn State Policies RA-10, AD47 and HR64.
For context, I am Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology and President of Climate Forecast Applications Network LLC. My c.v. can be found at http://curry.eas.gatech.edu/files/currycv.pdf. My Georgia Tech website can be found at http://curry.eas.gatech.edu, and the website for my company is http://www.cfanclimate.com.
I am being damaged personally and professionally by Michael Mann by his ongoing defamation of me, in particular malicious and incorrect statements about me, that are being made on Twitter, on Mann’s Facebook page, an op-ed published in the Guardian and Huffington Post. These defamatory statements include the following.
On September 11, Mann made a series of defamatory statements, first accusing me of “deceiving” readers.
Michael E. Mann @MichaelEMann11 Sep#JudithCurry once again deceives on #ArcticSeaIce decline: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323864604579067243988516908.html …. Contrast her statement w/ truth: http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics.php?g=64 …
Then Mann accused me of “spewing denialist nonsense”:
Michael E. Mann @MichaelEMann11 Sep
Does #JudithCurry believe the #climatechange denialist nonsense she is spewing? Or is she intentionally trolling? http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323864604579067243988516908.html …
Then of falling for a hoax:
Michael E. Mann @MichaelEMann11 Sep
So did #climatechange denier #JudithCurry actually fall for the “Lakos” (“SOKAL” spelled backwards) hoax? http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/17/pause-waving-the-italian-flag/#comment-256680 …
On Sep 22, Mann promised readers that a forthcoming op ed would impugn my integrity:
Michael E. Mann @MichaelEMann22 Sep
@cousincat Will be writing about this [Curry op ed in The Australian] in a few days. If anyone thought #JudithCurry has any credibility/integrity, this should dispell…
On Sep 27, Mann published an op ed in the Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-e-mann/climate-change-report_b_3999277.html and Guardian, which contained the following defamatory text:
On the other hand, serial climate disinformer Judith Curry (Georgia Tech), in a commentary for the same outlet five days later, announced, “Consensus distorts the climate picture.”
Mann announced his defamatory article in his Twitter feed as follows:
Michael E. Mann @MichaelEMann 27 Sep
“The IPCC, Climate Change and Bad Faith Attacks on Science” @HuffPostLive @HuffingtonPost #IPCC #AR5 http://fb.me/1oWNhjEt4
Mann’s defamatory article was included in the daily news feed from Georgia Tech that is emailed daily to all Georgia Tech personnel including faculty, staff, and students. The timing of this particular article could not have been worse, as I was under active consideration for two positions (an internal position at Georgia Tech and Dean of a College at another University).
These do not constitute an exhaustive list of Mann’s defamatory statements, only the most recent.
Apart from the widespread dissemination of Mann’s op-ed through the mainstream media, Mann has more than 12,000 followers on twitter, a large portion of whom are climate scientists (who may be involved in evaluating my papers for publication and my proposals for funding, and nominations of me for external recognition by professional societies); and also bloggers and journalists (who may be influenced by this in whether they interview me and how they report about me).
This defamation is affecting my academic reputation and my ability to conduct business. I note that I am far from the only person being attacked and libeled by Dr. Mann.
Penn State Policy AD47 (General Standards of Professional Ethics) states that professors have obligations as members of the “community of scholars” and are required to “respect and defend” free inquiry by other members of the community and to show “due respect” for the opinions of others:
IV.As colleagues, professors have obligations that derive from common membership in the community of scholars. They respect and defend the free inquiry of their associates. In the exchange of criticism and ideas they show due respect for the opinions of others.
The policy also states that researchers are required to be “open-minded when evaluating the work of others” even if that may “contradict their own findings”:
III…. As open-minded researchers, when evaluating the work of others, they must recognize the responsibility to allow publication of theories or experiments that may contradict their own findings, as only by free inquiry and dissemination of all facts will the fruits of the labor of the whole community be allowed to mature.
Policy HR64 says (my bold) that faculty members have “special obligations” as persons of learning and as educators and are obliged to “exercise appropriate restraint” and “to show respect for the opinions of others”
Faculty members are citizens, members of learned professions, and representatives of this University. When the faculty member speaks or writes as a citizen, the faculty member shall be free from institutional censorship or discipline, but the special position in the community held by the faculty member imposes special obligations. As a person of learning and an educator, the faculty member is expected to remember that the public may judge the profession and institution by his/her utterances. Hence, the faculty member agrees at all times to be accurate, to exercise appropriate restraint, to show respect for the opinions of others, and to make every effort to indicate that he/she is not an institutional spokesperson.”
Policy RA-10 clearly asserts the importance of high ethical standards and cites Policy AD47 as a statement of general standards of professional ethics:
Public trust in the integrity and ethical behavior of scholars is essential if research and other scholarly activities are to play their proper role in the University and in society. The maintenance of high ethical standards is a central and critical responsibility of faculty and administrators of academic institutions. Policy AD47 sets forth statements of general standards of professional ethics within the academic community.
It is my belief that Dr Mann’s statements and actions are gross violations of Penn State policies RA10, AD47 and HR64. I therefore request that you initiate an investigation pursuant to Policy RA10.
Thank you for your consideration
Judith Curry, Chair and Professor
Well heck, Mann was just getting started on me in 2013, but this is the time period of particular relevance to the trial.
Ironically, this was admitted into evidence while Mann’s lawyer was cross-examining me. He thought he could score a point with the statement about concerns about my grant funding. A good example of the circular firing squad strategy of Mann’s prosecution.
Mann’s behavior towards other scientists clearly violates the codes of conduct for universities and professional societies for which he is a member. Not only does he get away with this, but he also receives climate communication awards from these same professional societies for taking down those evil climate deniers (which also happens to include Fellows of these same professional societies).
Seems sort of Trumpian to me, whereby Mann appears to be made of teflon and none of these really bad, well-justified accusations stick, and his accolytes keep applauding.
Congratulations Great News
Never go into a court room as your own lawyer! !
https://principia-scientific.org/what-michael-manns-hockey-stick-graph-gave-to-un-climate-fraud/
https://principia-scientific.org/what-michael-manns-hockey-stick-graph-gave-to-un-climate-fraud/
Its a DC jury – so even though Mann produced zero evidence that his HS was valid, it was presumed that any statement criticizing the HS was de facto false.
Further the standard set forth for actual malice in Harte-hanks requires that the plaintiff demonstrate that the defendant had zero factual basis. That is an impossible hurdle with such a tremendous amount of material, studies, etc existed that pointed out the factual errors in the HS.
further the jury instructions were very misleading on the actual malice standard. – Appealable error?
Those are strong grounds for appeal but Steyn may draw an appellate panel which is technophobic or just not interested in the arguments.
The original appellate panel on the motion to dismiss also botched the applicable standard, basing the denial on the multitude factual misrepresentations in the Mann’s response to the appeal.
Dealing with Judges that are easily fooled by politicalized science.
The appellate panel was not fooled. The process was rigged at that point. possibly with improper communication from Mann but I suspect Gavin Schmidt. There was a long delay on the order of years, with in between just a modified ruling that added a footnote. These changes were incorrect and I think were done deliberately to let the appeals court rule how they wanted.
MkkeN –
> The process was rigged…
No doubt. It was certainly all a big conspiracy. Of course.
jtncs,
I think this reflects more poorly on the validity of a DC jury rather than on Steyn himself. That was really my first thought when I saw the headline of this post; probably many, many others too. Only gullible people would accept the verdict at face value. I don’t think this bodes well for the AGW movement.
“I don’t think this bodes well for the AGW movement.”
I am not sure what you mean. The AGW movement is supported by almost all the elite institutions, including education. The discredited hockey stick remains in high school earth science as well as its reinforcement by the showing of Inconvenient Truth to fill in a for a teacher’s absence. Pose that against the people that discover a blog mention of McIntyre and McKitrick or links to Climateaudit posts.
If nothing else this trial showed that even a jury that was shown in excruciating detail the vicious practices of Mann’s defamations and meddling they still had been trained to ignore it in the name of making the world safe from climate den iers.
Newfoundland , St. Pierre and Miquelon stand united behind Mark Steyn’s never ending quest for truth , justice and the North American way.
https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2024/02/canada-advances-solar-powered-steyn.html
The ‘hockey stick’ of Mann et al. was a examined in a 160 page report to congress by a 10 person committee of the National Science Foundation, which included ‘skeptic’ John Christie. It affirmed the validity of the ‘hockey stick’.
It has since been reproduced and extended by many other groups, including a recent paper with data going back 25,000 years:
Globally resolved surface temperatures since the Last Glacial Maximum
Matthew B. Osman, Jessica E. Tierney, Jiang Zhu, Robert Tardif, Gregory J. Hakim, Jonathan King & Christopher J. Poulsen
Nature volume 599, pages 239–244 (2021)
Philip, as I commented on the trial discussion post, the prosecution followed a long used sleight of hand by saying that subsequent studies have confirmed the hockey stick. Even if it were true that does not exonerate data torture, or using deceptive graphing or hiding an unexplained decline in the proxy. If it did, then the 1925 Piltdown Man would be exonerated as the first evidence of human evolution rather than being an orangutan jaw with filed down teeth.
Philip, what you (conveniently) neglect to tell readers of your comment is that Mann et al.’s hockey-stick research was examined by a panel of me, focusing on Mann et al.’s hockey-stick research itself, not on 160 pages of extranea, and found to be materially fraudulent.
So your apologetics for it are as limpotent as the stick itself.
Agreeing with ≠ replicating, Philip. Thanks for playing.
Philip
While your paper, which is paywalled, doesn’t address the Mann issue directly, I want to share a passage out of one of the citations. It reminds me of a study on sea level rise that highlighted the various choices in methodology and assumptions affecting the conclusion of those studies. Reading other citations in the Osman study confirm that there are many views on many topics. Which is good. But it doesn’t reinforce much of the so called consensus.
“ There is no currently accepted best approach to reconstructing GMST based on multi-proxy data. Multiple statistical procedures have been developed to generate time series of paleoclimate variables over large regions and to quantify their uncertainties. Because each one is based on different assumptions and procedures, they can result in different reconstructions (e.g., refs. 1,6). Here, we apply five different statistical methods to the Temperature 12k database to reconstruct global and latitudinal temperatures over the past 12,000 years. The analysis quantifies the extent to which the overall result depends on the choice of reconstruction procedures. The resulting multi-method ensemble of plausible temperature histories captures the integrated uncertainties associated with multiple sources of errors and methodological choices.”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-020-0530-7
Going to the linked paper, I see its lead author is Darrell Kaufman, aka upside down Kaufman, who used another investigator’s Hvitarvatn, Iceland lake sediments (varves) upside down to get a hockey stick, much like Mann (2008).
https://climateaudit.org/2013/04/28/gifford-miller-vs-upside-down-kaufman/
Starting in 2003 Steve McIntrye took a plow through paleoclimatology and found landmines wherever he went. The government funded science response, as those who watched the trial or read Climategate emails knows, was to declare war on McIntrye. Mann actually used the term “blacklist” in an email to journal editors in his circling the wagons behind the scenes. At trial Mann was asked about this and his explanation that it’s a term of art in science to let journal editors know about unreliable reviewers. This type of thing is common in climate science, Mann claimed. If true, there is no reason the public should not be aware of it so they can make objective judgements as to whether to trust the rigor of the output. I have yet to see any article that reflects the trial other than to say Mann was exonerated. That is not what anyone watching the trial saw. If Mann’s supporters out there are happy with the outcome that also tells me this is not about genuine curiosity about truth.
There are 39 OTHER hockey sticks, using different methodologies and many now going back 10,000 years, not 1000 as Mann’s did.
I don’t think there is now any doubt as to the shape of the hockey stick!
To know that you have to understand the resolution of each proxy. Most proxies smooth the data. Also, most of those charts are presented without SD or error bars. So there’s still a lot you don’t know unless you do a deep dive into the data – IF the researcher will even give you the data in the first place. Lot’s of bad practices in climate science you have to deal with. Just ask McIntyre.
If you go to climateaudit.org you can see that McIntrye had a fulltime job in his retirement knocking hockey sticks down. There are many tricks. The Phil Jones version of Mike’s Nature Trick is different than Mike Mann’s trick. One can become very ingenious when career and fame are on the line. But one can also see them as independent endeavors.
The overall trick is the natural smoothing that the proxy does itself. Some are sensitive only in a certain range. All are subject to random confounding influences that tend to flatten their plots. Any noise smooths. The only thing the proxies need to have in common is a loyalty to the early 20th century thermometer record. Before or after (see divergence problem) that they cancel themselves out as sticks. At climate audit search “trick,” Gergis, Pages2K, Oceans2K, Marcott, Steig, Kaufmann, Tiljander, Law Dome, Yamal, Bristlecone, Rahmstorf, Cook, Wahl, D’Arrigo, Graybill.
The thing that could give me the most confidence in paleoclimatology is if their consensus would expose MBH as invalid. When the Leaky family started to find authentic pre-human specimens in the 1950s that is when the paleoanthropolgists gave up 1912 Piltdown Man as bogus.
Ron, it’s too bad science doesn’t have granular decadal climate data going back a couple million years. Such resolution would be devastating to consensus. While I certainly don’t have evidence to such a devastating outcome, there’s more common sense to it than forcing a square into a round hole just so consensus has a useful stick to beat everyone else into submission.
Jungletrunks,
There are proxies with subdecadal time resolution going back 120,000 years. That’s a pretty good start.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-021-00916-9
BAB – do you know of a paper that presents an absolute temperature derived from the NEEM ice core? One that could be compared to temps today? I’ve been searching for one with no success.
McIntryre, of course, destroyed the papers on their math. But I noticed a couple of consistent omissions.
1) Proxies should be the most accurate to their own geographic areas but there is little work that I saw on papers to do cross-proxy validations in localities to see if their squiggles correlated.
2) Mt Pinatubo’s 1991 eruption can be seen clearly in the global thermometer record. Krakatoa 1883 was 3X larger and Tambura 1815 was 15X more atmospheric aerosol projection. These were global events and should make a deflection in any true temperature proxy. Yet I do not see them in any of the proxy plots I’ve looked at or mentioned in any papers, though I have not done an exhaustive search. I notice the deflections are even missing from CET index.
Jim2,
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235228877_Eemian_interglacial_reconstructed_from_a_Greenland_folded_ice_core
That paper appears to present temperature as an anomaly. I was looking for absolute temp comparable to the instrumental record.
BA, I accept the glacial cycle evidence. Ice core proxies are low resolution but are seem to be good. But like all proxies, they are subject to selection (search Law Dome at climate audit).
Do you have any problem with Al Gore winning a Nobel Prize for a movie that shows one ice core plot of the Pleistocene superimposed on a plot of CO2? Do you remember? He shows the audience (including a billion school kids) that CO2 correlates with temperature and therefore proves it’s the cause of the temperature variability?
How does one argue for the integrity of science and promoting bunk at the same time? I know. As long as climatologists know Inconvenient Truth is bunk everything is fine — no need to expose it. It might confuse people or give questions. This is also what the investigations of the MBH said, “The divergence problem was known to other scientist thus there was no deception.”
Jim2,
Cold! =)
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265375912_Greenland_temperature_response_to_climate_forcing_during_the_last_deglaciation
Ron,
Don’t you have anything relevant? I’m not really interested in deflections to what Al Gore (non-scientist) did/said 20+ years ago. (And no, I have no problem with him getting the Nobel Peace Prize for his warnings about what is starting to happen now; it’s not a science Nobel).
Cold! No schist!
Mann’s behavior speaks for itself, perhaps not in DC, but that is a different issue. Stay true to science. I have great respect for all that do. As a student of statistics, I see so much of the climate debate concerning issues that are far more about statistical modeling than climate science. Yet, knowing about statistics doesn’t seem to buy any credibility in the climate debate. Perplexing, maddening, just the way it is for now. Be well Ms. Curry, you have my respect.
I am a scientist and am familiar with statistics. Ross McKitrick and Steve McIntyre had a legitimate concern about the statistical procedures in Mann’s original paper, but those concerns were thoroughly addressed and found not to be responsible for the shape of the graph.
I had an email exchange with Ross McKitrick on another matter. Nice man.
Science is about theories (model is another name for theory) and data. The data shows that the predictions of the causal theory of AGW and models are correct.
For example, in the first IPCC report pubished in 1991, the most likely figure for the amount of warming with doubling of CO2 concentration (equilibrium climate sensitivity or ECS) was given as 3 C.
A calculation based on the ‘gold standard’, ‘best we have’ (so described during Curry’s testimony before congress) satellite temperature data and Mauna Loa CO2 data gives an ECS of 3.0±0.7 C.
In science, data matching the theory is the best kind of evidence that the theory is correct.
the hockey stick and the MBH hockey stick are not the same. The issues related to MBH hockey stick were obfuscated, not addressed. The “MBH hockey stick” required that stripbark bristlecone ring widths were magic thermometers. They aren’t. Nor did MBH hockey stick have claimed “statistical skill”. It was massively overfit by inverse regression in calibration period and had verification r2 of ~0 – showing that model was invalid statistically. We explicitly limited our criticism to MBH hockey stick. Other reconstructions have different problems. In any event, Wiles’ proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem did not show that prior incorrect proofs were valid. Nor would a valid HS reconstruction vindicate Mann’s stripbark bristlecones and withheld verification statistics.
S McIntyre – We appreciate your work and analysis
Stephen McIntyre, thank you so much for your years of effort in bringing your combined mathematical and detective skills to this important area.
Philip Shehan: “A calculation based on the ‘gold standard’, ‘best we have’ (so described during Curry’s testimony before congress) satellite temperature data and Mauna Loa CO2 data gives an ECS of 3.0±0.7 C.”
Philip, can you supply your relationship of satellite data to Mauna Loa CO2 in your ECS calculation?
Thanks. And also, are you a scientist involved with climate related studies? Have you studied climate as a lay person?
“Science is about theories (model is another name for theory) and data. The data shows that the predictions of the causal theory of AGW and models are correct.”
Incorrect. Science is about disproving theories that are ‘disprovable’ with data.
As a general rule one should go with scientists who get the sign right on a rising tide of proxy data, rather than those who pretend the trend is statistically invisible , in the service of those who plead ignoramus as to what could be responsible for the rise.
In this case McIntyre has , unwisely, chosen the side not of geophysics, but CFACT and the CO2 coalition.
PR happens.
Those whom the secular religion of climate catastrophism anoints, do indeed transform into teflon beings.
What an amusing comment, Andy, to read among all this alarmist hand-wringing from one “skeptic” after another.
Looks like you have a very selective view on catastrophism.
I have the same view of all cultural entities, and their undermining of ‘rationality at scale’ (democracy, the law, and science).
So does “rationality” translate to “opinions that Andy has?”
Of course not. Cultural entities constantly undermine ‘rationality at scale’, even as it constantly limits their cultural action. From social data climate catastrophism is demonstrably a cultural entity, which not only defies *mainstream / IPCC* science, but across nations measurably dominates climate policy. I am selective in opposing the deleterious effects of catastrophism, as one should be for say fascism or communism, for the same reasons.
Andy –
Climate “skepticism” is catastrophism.and a cultural entity with deliterious effects. One day, hopefully, you’ll deal with that.
Hi Joshua, I just want to be sure I understand. Are you saying climate catastrophism skepticism is just catastrophism from the opposite political point of view? Can you elaborate? I am honestly interested in understanding my current blindness to this phenomena.
Ron –
Look at all the catastrophism that has been coming out of the mouths of “skeptics” on this issue for years. And that’s just this issue. How about the economic collapse caused by the “climate community” policies? Let alone the associated catastrophism of economic collapse caused by “the left” more generally. It’s all part of the sameold sameold. Catastrophism on both sides, generated by identity-associated cognition.
If I am understanding you Joshua, the conservative catastrophism is their over-reaction to the progressive’s hypersensitivity to human detected impacts on the Earth’s surface. I might actually buy that. We could both be hyperventilating. But if that is correct then both our mental unrest is cured if progressives stop banging the fire bell.
“Climate “skepticism” is catastrophism.and a cultural entity with deliterious effects.”
Nonsense. Climate catastrophism is clearly a religion. Identifying the characteristics of that religion does not make one a member of a religion of skepticism.
‘Climate “skepticism” is catastrophism.and a cultural entity with deliterious effects. One day, hopefully, you’ll deal with that.’
This is not what the social data shows. As Dan Kahan says for US publics, attitudes to climate change are not about ‘what people know’, but ‘who they are’, i.e. their cultural identity. It turns out that this is true for publics across the world. However in the US, four cultural entities contribute to that identity: Rep/Con tribalism, Dem/Lib tribalism, religion and climate catastrophism. In the rest of the world, only the latter two matter (and for religion, any main faith, because all measurably act identically in respect of their interaction with climate catastrophism). The data is extremely clear, and there is no cultural entity of scepticism. However, given you’ve made it a point of honour not to read my work, you wouldn’t know what the social data says, nor have you any basis for criticising what I ‘deal with’ anyhow, because you’ve never read the analysis that does the dealing. Read my book; if you can raise a challenge based upon any flaws you think exist in the theory or its supporting data, then by all means do so.
Jim F –
> Nonsense. Climate catastrophism is clearly a religion. Identifying the characteristics of that religion does not make one a member of a religion of skepticism.
Views on both sides of the climate divide are largely manifestations of ideology-based identification. Just one of many manifestations. The climate food fight is one battlefield in a larger war. Of course a participant such as yourself would assign negative attributes to the other side you exempt your own side from.
Look up the fundamental attribution error.
Andy –
> However, given you’ve made it a point of honour not to read my work,
It has nothing whatsoever to do with being a “point of honour” (even if you were to spell honor corrrectly).
I’ve tried reading your longer posts, but I just can’t get through them. I have a hard time understanding what you write. I can get through it a bit but then it gets to be too much for me. So, no, for that reason I have no intent to try to read your book.
> you wouldn’t know what the social data says, nor have you any basis for criticising what I ‘deal with’ anyhow,
Well, I have tried to read what you’ve written to some extent and sure, maybe there’s material in there in the parts I can’t understand that’s different than the parts I have been able to get through. I can’t rule that out.
> As Dan Kahan says for US publics, attitudes to climate change are not about ‘what people know’, but ‘who they are’, i.e. their cultural identity.
As I think you know, I do agree with that part of what Dan says.
> It turns out that this is true for publics across the world. However in the US, four cultural entities contribute to that identity: Rep/Con tribalism, Dem/Lib tribalism, religion and climate catastrophism. In the rest of the world, only the latter two matter (and for religion, any main faith, because all measurably act identically in respect of their interaction with climate catastrophism). The data is extremely clear, and there is no cultural entity of scepticism.
Here’s what I think: In the US, as well as in other parts of the word although in most other parts of the world (if not all) much less strongly, the association between who people are and what they think about climate change is mediated by ideological orientation. The casual mechanism is kinda complicated but while the association is clear and particularly strong in the US, the effect of the association in the US echoes out across the entire globe. It’s not like that effect in the US just stays within our borders.
And further, climate change is only one manifestation of the lager casual phenomenon that links ideological orientation, and identity-based cognition, to both deleterious and beneficial effects.
As a part of that larger phenomenon, particular individuals see demons. In line with their own ideological orientation they see some horribly destructive process taking place, caused they think by those who view climate change differently than they themselves see climate change. This is largely in line with what Kahan writes about re “motivated reasoning” and identity-based cognition. It’s well-described, I think, by the fundamental attribution error, also. It’s also in line with other ways of framing the interaction between cognitive biases and many, many polarized issues, with climate change being only one.
Ron –
> If I am understanding you Joshua, the conservative catastrophism is their over-reaction to the progressive’s hypersensitivity to human detected impacts on the Earth’s surface. I might actually buy that. We could both be hyperventilating.
Hmmm. Well, that’s close. But no, I don’t see one side or the other as the origin of the dynamic interplay. It goes way back, and it’s possible that “they started it” (whoever “they” is), but I think that to any meaningful extent the beginning of the polarized matrix in views over climate change doesn’t lie on one side of the divide or the other. Of course, as could easily predicted, combatants on each side will say “They started it.” but I doubt that’s true to any real extent.
Polarization over climate change reflects a larger dynamic whereby scientific issues fall into the “polarized” category. I think that’s mostly an essentially random process but of course the more likely a scientific issue is to map onto ideological polarization the more likely that scientific issue is to become polarized.
> But if that is correct then both our mental unrest is cured if progressives stop banging the fire bell.
Well, of course you’d feel that way. And most progressives would say that their mental unrest is cured if “conservatives” would stop banging the fire bell.
Honour is the British spelling, and I assume because I’m based in the UK, the edit window shows an error if I use the US spelling.
“I’ve tried reading your longer posts, but I just can’t get through them.”
Then you’re in luck!! My editor has made huge upgrades to the readability and understandability of the text, while preserving all the meaning. I’ve had positive feedback on this aspect (and others). I can’t believe it’s beyond your capability to read it. It is way less complex than most books on the physical climate.
What you think is currently just opinion, because you have no data to support your view. For instance, it’s clear in the data that regarding global public opinion, the US scenario does *not* dominate elsewhere. Even in the countries that are closest to the US scenario (with my data ending in late 2022), which are Australia and to a lesser extent Canada, they sit fine within the rest-of-word pattern where you’d expect them to be. My position in my book is hugely backed up by theory (mostly not my own original contribution) and refs and data that confirms the theory. So I repeat: read my book; if you can raise a challenge based upon any flaws you think exist in the theory or its supporting data, then by all means do so.
Dammit ‘rest-of-world’, not ‘word’.
Even if views on “climate change” are determined by something other than the facts (as far as those can be ascertained), that in no way means the proposed actions of one or another group are wrong. Conservatives may lean towards adaptation. And adaptation may very well be the most rational course of action.
Andy –
> Honour is the British spelling,
It was a joke about you spelling “honour” incorrectly. Yes, I know that’s a British spelling.
> For instance, it’s clear in the data that regarding global public opinion, the US scenario does *not* dominate elsewhere.
I think I wasn’t clear in what I wrote. I’m not saying that the strong association between ideological orientation and views on climate change is equally strong around the world as in the US.
What I was saying is that the impact of that association in the US has a very large footprint that ripples out into many, in fact I’d say all, parts of the world. IOW, I’m talking for example about the extent to which views about climate change in the US affect geopolitics. If views were different about climate change, perhaps we’d spend trillions less to keep the oil flowing from oppressive, authoritarian theocracies.
Jim –
> Even if views on “climate change” are determined by something other than the facts (as far as those can be ascertained), that in no way means the proposed actions of one or another group are wrong.
I don’t really like “determined,” as I think the causality i complex, but that caveat aside, of course I agree.
> Conservatives may lean towards adaptation. And adaptation may very well be the most rational course of action.
Well, I think that it’s hard to really find consistent characteristics in views across the “conservative” “liberal” divide. I think there’s contradictions in each side, respectively. But again, looking beyond that caveat I’ll go with that as a fair generalization and then yes, it “may very well be” in a sense. However, I tend to think that the divide between adaptation and mitigation is much less dichotomous than most climate change combatants seem to view the situation.
J: “What I was saying…”
Regarding global public attitudes, and policy that is measurably proportional in each nation to the reality-constrained subset of these attitudes (because policy is also reality-constrained), this is not what the data says. Wanna know what it does say? Read the book…
Andy –
> Regarding global public attitudes, and policy that is measurably proportional in each nation to the reality-constrained subset of these attitudes (because policy is also reality-constrained), this is not what the data says.
Sorry, but I’m not smart-enough to figure out what that means.
But once again, I think it’s clear that the footprint of the ideological signal in views toward climate change in the US has a significant global reach.
J: views on climate change everywhere are demonstrably ideological, but demonstrably also to the first order, stem from 4 ideologies in the US and 2 elsewhere, where the latter are climate catastrophism and religion. You’re smart enough to read the book, which explains comprehensively, with charts, and all data is available in a companion file. If you don’t read it, you have no basis on which to mount a critique, as you have not presented any data or fully developed theory of your own.
Andy,
Are you familiar with the work of John Calhoun and his research on vertebrates and social stability? Part of the behavioral sink theory indicates that too many social interactions can lead (herds, flocks, societies) into a spiral of self-destructive behavior. I think the internet and social media is pulling us into the behavioral sink.
Andy –
I can only guess that I’m still not being clear.
1) ideology has a strong signal in view on climate change in the US.
2) that signal manifests in US policies related to climate change, for example energy policies.
3). With US being such a powerful nation, US climate-related policies (such as energy policies) have a significant impact globally.
4). Thus, catastrophism among “skeptics” (and “realists” alike) have a significant global impact.
I can’t see how any of that could be remotely controversial, but of course for many strongly-identified “skeptics” such as yourself I guess it probably would be.
Jack: I’m aware of it, but wouldn’t say familiar. I’m not sure it applies to humans, later work suggested not, and indeed from gene-culture co-evolution and cultural group selection, we seem to enjoy living in crowds. One would think the aspect of unlimited resources would have an effect, but in rats and mice the social degradation also took generations, which implies a much larger timescale for humans beyond a point where all war and competition is removed and all necessary resources are fulfilled for most of humanity. But also humans create their own competition and associated motivation, e.g. in sport. At any rate, I don’t think it explains what is happening with new cultures such as climate catastrophism or extreme trans rights or CRT based cultures, or old ones like religion or communism. These are wholly explainable with reference to behavioural effects bequeathed from our evolutionary past, again from gene-culture co-evolution and cultural group selection, and have happened throughout history, so do not depend upon modern inventions such as the internet.
J: It’s a second order effect at best, maybe less. National policy outside the US (e.g. renewables commitment) is measurably proportional to the national attitudes to climate change (~64 nations), and in turn these are demonstrably differently motivated to attitudes in the US. Attitudes are ideological in both cases, so both satisfy the theory of cultural causation, but a different mix of ideologies applies. You wanna see it with your own eyes on the charts, read the book!
Andy –
Near as I can tell, you’re just not addressing my point. I give up.
J: Your point was that the US surely greatly influences policy in other nations globally, and so to a first order this must in turn export the ideological influences on policy that are prevalent within the US. So generally a high polarization of left/orthodox, right/sceptic. I answered this exactly, and it is measurably not so. Ideology motivates in both cases (US & Rest-of-World), but for each it is the *local* mix of ideological motivation that applies. For all the non-US nations this mix happens to be the same, and it is different to the US case. If you wanna know what *is* happening, chapter and verse and chart, read the book!
Andy –
> J: Your point was that the US surely greatly influences policy in other nations globally,
No that was not my point. Although that’s true to some degree also.
What you describe as ‘sceptic catastrophism’ is not in the US a feature of an identifiable cultural entity of ‘scepticism’, but is a feature of the identifiable cultural entity of Rep/Con tribalism.
Hence my ‘orthodox/right’. But this does not translate to first order policy influence, or indeed underlying motivation, outside of the US, which again are both measurable.
J:>>>3). With US being such a powerful nation, US climate-related policies (such as energy policies) have a significant impact globally
A:>>Your point was that the US surely greatly influences policy in other nations globally,
J:>No that was not my point.
A: hmmm…
Oops, ‘right/sceptic.’ not ‘orthodox/right’.
Andy –
I’ve tried multiple times. I said I gave up. I’ll try once more:
> > J: Your point was that the US surely greatly influences policy in other nations globally,
It’s not just that the US influences global policy. It’s that US policy has an enormous impact beyond our own borders. The first is a subset of the second.
Andy, how was the identifiable cultural entity of ‘scepticism’ teased apart from the identifiable cultural entity of Rep/Con tribalism, that you suggest is quantifiable in the data?
I find it very difficult to believe that this measure of granularity can be adequately reconciled. U.S. conservatives are individualists by definition. U.S. conservatism is distinct from other global variants of conservatism—by definition which means to have a sympathetic appeal to an earlier form of political philosophy, in the U.S. this means embracing those philosophical principles that grew out from the Age of Enlightenment; classical liberal philosophy, embracing individual freedom, liberty, and the rule of law.
All U.S. conservatives by definition are classical liberals, granted over time this has been confused, mostly obfuscated to mean neo liberalism, yet U.S. conservatism remains sympathetic to the U.S. founding principles, however ones lack of historical knowledge chooses to define it.
There used to be a relative even mix of conservatives between the Left and Right in early 20th century, representing those whom believed in larger gov (on the Dem side), or smaller gov (on the GOP side); though both conservative sides shared the same defining conservative view of individual liberty, freedom, and a strict constructionist view of U.S. founding principles. Religion is a separate conservative subcategory, Left, or Right, it evolved as an offshoot trait embracing social conservatism. It’s only a part of the total conservative movement. I saw a stat awhile back that quantified the GOP religious right at about 33%. Total breakdown of christians in the U.S., among the GOP is 82%, for Dems its 63%; though I couldn’t find a more recent stat for social conservative beliefs within the total christian population, but would assume it hasn’t grown above 33% religious right on the GOP side. There’s a religious Left too.
It’s stratified, this begs the question how you truly quantify your metrics for GOP/conservative? The stratification of beliefs makes it not so simple to lump these into a simple metric.
So ultimately there’s certainly subcategories of conservative—social/fiscal, spread between the parties, weighted heavily to the GOP these days, for which religion is but a fraction of that.
The before said, conservative individualism is just that, the religiosity component aside, I suggest that the rugged individualistic side of conservatism doesn’t base their views on “tribal” religiosity at all, but rather critical thinking; which is then essential trait that began the Age of Enlightenment. And while I’m at it, most of todays Left are NOT classical liberals, nor neo liberals; not any kind of liberal at all, they’re collectivists. Collectivism has its roots in Marx/Socialism/Fascism; liberal beliefs are antithetical to the latter political philosophies, as such, this is why collectivists hold COLLECIVIST VIEWs—CONSENSUS SCIENCE, being one of them.
J: “It’s not just that the US influences global policy. It’s that US policy has an enormous impact beyond our own borders. The first is a subset of the second.”
Climate policy, e.g. renewables commitment, outside of the US, tracks national attitudes to climate change (~64 nations), which in turn are differently motivated to such attitudes in the US (despite being cultural/ideological in both cases). Hence, both of your above are not a primary factor.
Lol. OK, this time I really do give up.
Jungle: “Andy, how was the identifiable cultural entity of ‘scepticism’ teased apart from the identifiable cultural entity of Rep/Con tribalism, that you suggest is quantifiable in the data?”
My point is that there *isn’t* a ‘cultural entity of scepticism’ in the US (or anywhere else). But there is cultural behaviour / statements about climate change weighing in on the sceptical side in the US, and the culture behind this is Rep/Con tribalism. It doesn’t run as far as ‘the planet is doomed’ or ‘all life is doomed’, or ‘humans are doomed’ or ‘civilisation is doomed’, all of which are featured in climate catastrophist statements and from authority too, so one could argue that OTT sceptical stances that are cultural are not catastrophist in the same manner. But the point is that it is still OTT cultural, and often goes down the ‘hoax’ path for instance, so the point isn’t worth much.
One must bear in mind that adding all the folks on all climate blogs who actually have some climate literacy together, and throwing in all climate scientists too say, is still a teeny tiny demographic that does not show in representative surveys of nations. The attitudes of bulk publics everywhere do not reflect ‘what they know’, but ‘who they are’; the difference between the US and everywhere else is only that ‘who they are’ in relation to climate change comes from 4 cultures, of which Rep/Con and Dem/Lib tribalism are the most influential. The other 2 are religion (any faith) and climate catastrophism, which is a culture in its own right, and to the first order only these 2 matter outside of the US.
Jungle, I think my reply is in moderation, if it doesn’t turn up eventually I’ll write it again.
J: Goodness. As you wish.
Andy, I’m still not sure I follow:
…there *isn’t* a ‘cultural entity of scepticism’
…there is cultural behaviour
…statements about climate change weighing in on the sceptical side in the US, and the culture behind this is Rep/Con tribalism.
If there’s no cultural entity of skepticism, yet there’s cultural behavior; how is “tribal” quantified without a measurable cultural behavioral metric to weigh? And why can’t this behavior be skepticism? The logic appears circular. Sorry I’m misunderstanding.
All cultural entities (ideologies, religions, cults) have the same underlying behaviours, even if their surface narratives are very different (and in this context ‘tribal’ is just another way of saying behaving culturally). The underlying behaviours are listed in Chapter 3 of my book, but included among many others are policing a cultural consensus, demonizing out-groupers etc. One way we can detect when people belong to a culture is because when interrogated about matters pertinent to that culture & its consensus views, they answer emotively rather than rationally, which leads to large inconsistencies. For instance in response to questions about climate change, the climate-change most-endorsing responses to unconstrained questions, are very different to the climate-change most endorsing responses to reality-constrained questions, and in the wildest case can be opposite. There is a prevalent cultural consensus around climate change (imminent global doom and salvation), and across the world the inconsistent responses mentioned above can be clearly seen and measured in relation to this topic (see Chapter 8 & 9 of my book), and relative to catastrophist consensus values. What cannot be seen is a cultural consensus and policing etc on scepticism, which does not mean that scepticism is not expressed, but next I have to ask what you mean by ‘skepticism’, because there is rational skepticism, which means (whether you happen to be right or wrong), your skepticism is based upon the evidence available to you, and there is innate skepticism (see Chapter 7 of my book), which means you are instinctively rejecting an alien culture that is encroaching upon your prior values. To a first approximation, for global *publics*, all skepticism of climate change is the innate kind, because they have no knowledge on which to base rational skecpticism, and further, outside the US there is more innate skepticism the more religious nations are, but this only shows in reality-constrained scenarios when religious values are actually challenged. In unconstrained scenarios, there is much more climate-change endorsement than for secular nations, because religious leaders have adopted the CC narrative, which flocks go along with as long as there’s no reality-constraint involved. So in the US, before climate change was even a thing, there were Lib/Dems and Rep/Cons, who despite not being quite as tribal then, certainly existed and are easily identfiable. When the cultural entity of climate catastrophism pushed in, the Lib/Dems formed alliance with it, and so automatically Rep/Cons rejected it. The means of that rejection is innate skepticism, because they already do this for Lib/Dem values anyhow, and it simply transfers to climate catastrophist values because of the aforementioned alliance. But innate skepticism is not a culture, it is an anti-cultural cultural mechanism, originally to protect home cultures from invasion by alien ones. In the US, OTT skeptical statements align with Rep/Con-ness, and there is no known common ‘skeptical cultural consensus’ or policing that is separate to that of Rep/Con-ness in the US, with which to try and align. And outside the US there’s comparatively very little rejection of climate change by conservatives anyhow, as in the UK, conservative governments across the world have implemented net zero type policies. In the rest of the world, at national level, the above cultural inconsistency of the questions is systemically related to religiousness and climate catastrophist values, which fully maps both acceptance and rejection of CC, and also both at the same time in different scenarios (reality-constrained and unconstrained), with no need of any further culture. A complaint made a number of times on climate orthodox blogs, is that all skeptics are different, so the orthodox complain that they have no consistent story to attack, as it were; Judith has also mentioned this a being a strength of skeptics, but some of the orthodox view it as evidence that skeptics are all at sea. At any rate there is no detectable cultural consensus or policing or obvious cultural signature, but in the context of Rep/Con tribalism in the US, there is some policing around say the hoax / conspiracy theory, in that those sceptics who don’t believe this are sometimes discriminated against, and there is alignment of this to rep/Con-ness.
Andy, you write:
“A complaint made a number of times on climate orthodox blogs, is that all skeptics are different…; Judith has also mentioned this a being a strength of skeptics, but some of the orthodox view it as evidence that skeptics are all at sea.”
Indeed, all skeptics are different. Some say the temperature is not really changing (though they have had a harder time in recent years), or that it’s the only the urban heat island effect. Some acknowledge it really is warming, but scoff that could have nothing to do with a gas, CO2, which is only .04% of the atmosphere. Some say CO2 is the cause but claim to have “proven” the CO2 rise is a natural phenomenon only slightly effected by human activities. At least one poster on this blog has “proven” that diminished aerosols have caused the temperature to rise. I could go on…
I cannot see how Judith can see a hodge-podge of conflicting arguments as being a strength of skepticism. To advance, science needs to cull bad ideas as well as seek new ones. Suppose you were tasked with designing a university level climate change course to counter the “leftist orthodoxy” currently taught. What would be your syllabus?
Skeptics are, however, similar is that they NEVER criticize their fellow skeptics. Multiple self-described statistics experts go after orthodox analyses, as well they should. They would gain much needed credibility if they also pointed out incompetent statistics in denier papers, but they apparently fear being banished from the tribe.
David: “I cannot see how Judith can see a hodge-podge of conflicting arguments as being a strength of skepticism.”
Because if there isn’t a wide range of conflicting views at the leading edge, then everyone may only be looking under the lamp-post. Or even worse, only pre-accepting one area of research due to group-think. Hence the best ideas can’t be culled from the total width of possibilities, because the possibilities are artificially narrowed, perhaps dramatically, and the best idea might be outside the lamp-light.
“Skeptics are, however, similar is that they NEVER criticize their fellow skeptics”
In what world is that?? In my experience they fight about anything, sometimes like ferrets in a sack, to the point where on occasion some complain and say, ‘if only we could join together and stop arguing, we might have enough weight to make some cracks in orthodoxy’!
” among all this alarmist hand-wringing from one “skeptic” ”
New rule, everyone: If you’re a skeptic you’re not allowed to be pessimistic about any development whatsoever in life, or you’ll confuse Joshua.
“Looks like you have a very selective view on catastrophism.”
What a bizarre criticism. Would you prefer we be indiscriminately catastrophist, Joshua? Are all catastrophes equally likely according to some actuarial bombshell I’ve yet to read about in the Annals? Do divulge!
Brad –
I’ve been watching alarmism and catastrophism and caterwauling and ululating about this case and many other issues from many “skeptics” for years. I find it amusing. I’m sorry if you don’t get the joke.
Dammit, ‘rest-of-world’, not ‘word’.
J: “It’s not just that the US influences global policy. It’s that US policy has an enormous impact beyond our own borders. The first is a subset of the second.”
Climate policy, e.g. renewables commitment, outside of the US, tracks national attitudes to climate change (~64 nations), which in turn are differently motivated to such attitudes in the US (despite being cultural/ideological in both cases). Hence, both of your above are not a primary factor.
Science is not about what any ‘cultural elites’ think. It is about theories explaining how the natural world works and data and observations which either confirm or contradict those theories.
The work of scientists published in scientific journals establishes the theory of anthropogenic global warming beyond a reasonable scientific doubt. That is why scientific institutions made up of scientists affrim that it is correct in the face of powerful commercial and political interests denying it.
“Science is not about what any ‘cultural elites’ think. It is about theories explaining how the natural world works and data and observations which either confirm or contradict those theories.”
Of course! Which is why the secular religion of climate catastrophism, which indeed has captured almost all the elites and many millions of ordinary folks too, is the antithesis of science; it defies *all* science, i.e. inclusive of the mainstream / IPCC science! But across nations this same entity is *measurably* dominating both public opinion and climate policy! This is why it is so important to wrest control back from the culture of climate catastrophism, so that science and indeed rational policy can escape from beneath its huge weight of bias and emotive belief.
” My first reaction was that this is really bad for Georgia tech’s brand.”
That’s saying something:
https://youtu.be/SnIH51niqCY?si=gjWgts_iLO167yyT
Well, after all, Mann does have relatives who died in the holocaust so the verdict should hardly be surprising. Its a freebie card for pretty much everything from genocide to ignoring immigration law to hounding catholics illegally.
Confusing. What Verdict? Who is guilty of what?
Steyn lost ($1 M), Simberg lost ($1 K):
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/08/climate/michael-mann-defation-lawsuit.html?unlocked_article_code=1.T00.6HjE.BOquU6sNtNLs&smid=url-share
You must be kidding.
Whatever happened to evidence-based justice?
Yes, punitive damages were awarded, but there was no false claims made or actual damages. It is very bizarre.
Ron, the NYT article is rubbish. They did not have a reporter at the trial. Here is a series of daily re-enactments of the trial, narrated by two reporters that were there for every minute. I would start at episode 3 or just go to the last one to hear the closing arguments.
Same verdict as the Scopes Monkey trial!
The climate science OJ trial gets an OJ verdict.
My thoughts exactly.
The evidence in the trial showed that Simberg and Steyn spoke the truth. They established that Mann is the Jerry Sandusky of climate science, by bringing a witness who testified the Penn State investigation was going to censure Mann, and then Graham Spanier jumped in to stop that.
Almost the same courtroom temperature, as the judge and jury noticed.
Steyn’s case against the hockey stick suffered a major wardrobe malfunction when it broke 80 outside on the statistically coldest day of the year.
More to the point, you’ve got Scopes backwards- he was fined for teaching the truth, while Steyn got his knuckles rapped for spouting nonsense.
Russell,
“Steyn’s case against the hockey stick suffered a major wardrobe malfunction when it broke 80 outside on the statistically coldest day of the year.”
A quick glance at historical weather data from the NWS website reveals the previous high temperature record for January in Washington DC was 79°F in 1950. Following that was 77°F reached in 1932 and 2002. After that, there was 76°F reached in 1975, 1937, 1927, 1907, and 1890. Also, take into account the growing UHI influence in DC.
Simberg’s result is very much like Scopes. Simberg wrote the truth that Mann manipulated data (What else do you call undisclosed, erroneous FORTRAN code that mines hockey sticks?) and got fined a nominal amount. With inflation, his $1000 is certainly less than Scopes’ $100.
Turnabout is fair play. I.e., this verdict opens the door to a libel suit against Mann for his accusations of fraud against others, especially Judith Curry, as detailed in her unsubmitted complaint to Penn State. But has she waited too long to file a suit? Or has Mann repeated the accusation recently? Is there a lawyer in the house?
That’s simply evasive the Naval Observatory weather station has taken data daily for 152 years, and 80 was recorded across the Potomac in Arlington as well.
Russell,
My only point was that those temperatures are not at all unusual in the area, even in January.
Absolute temperatures vary significantly over complex terrain. Arlington is another population center that has also grown since 1970. Virtually no surface temperature record is homogeneous enough for a difference of 1 degree to be fairly considered a record high. There’s far too much uncertainty. Electronic thermometers did not become widespread until the late 20th century, the field sites change, etc. The media’s coverage of the weather event failed to consider the complete context surrounding the measurement.
As record temperatures are by definition unprecedented, describing the highest in centuries as “not at all unusual” . is an absurdity worthy of an hallucinating chatbot or Mark Steyn fan.
No Russ, unprecedented is never before which is not the same as never in recorded history. When we interview the million year old man and he says unprecedented we might have something, until we interview the billion year old man.
Russell,
“As record temperatures are by definition unprecedented, describing the highest in centuries as “not at all unusual” . is an absurdity worthy of an hallucinating chatbot or Mark Steyn fan.”
Perhaps you should read my previous reply to you more carefully. If we are unable to keep track of ‘record temperatures’ to the very strict precision that climate science demands within recent centuries with such instrumentation, how would we know what they are without? The fact that we are attempting to make comparisons of past, highly unstandardized weather data with today’s is monkey logic.
But in the scopes trial the teaching of evolution was actually against Tennessee law. So the verdict was technically correct. Here, the jury ignored the law, which is called jury nullification. Mann’s lawyer, in underhanded Mannian fashion, used his closing argument rebuttal not to rebut any of the defense but to ask the jury to send a message to “climate deni ers.” There were quick objections, and the judge told the jury to disregard. But the trial was over and the jury obviously took the crooked advice.
Yep. Science and speech lose. Silence and prejudice win.
The outcome of Mann’s lawsuit today is disgusting, but given the venue, not surprising. The rot in academe and government is deep and widespread. I’ve admired Dr. Curry’s integrity and grit for a long time, and am using herr recent book as one of the texts for a graduate course I teach on scientific competence and integrity. I’m ready now to make a monetary donation for action against Mann and/or in defense of her and/or Mr Steyn.
Mann et al’s work was good science, as has been confirmed time and time again. And it’s the expected result based on basic laws of physics. This was a fair, wise and just decision.
David Appell | February 8, 2024 at 6:10 pm | Reply
Mann et al’s work was good science, as has been confirmed time and time again. And it’s the expected result based on basic laws of physics. This was a fair, wise and just decision.
Appell –
A) the HS is not good science
B) you are ignoring the extensive corruption in the paleo community.
C) you a very likely have first and or second hand knowledge of the corruption
David, you only tarnish your own credibility by claiming that Mann’s laughable “Horse Hockey on a Stick” graph represents good work.
Joanne Nova posted a graph of the increase in U.S. Postal Rates over time that correlates BETTER with the rise in the Global Mean Temperature.
If you think DELETING data and substituting data from another time period to HIDE one decline and CREATE A FALSE ONE later on is good work, you are no scientist…and not an intellectually honest person.
Mann’s suit in Canada was thrown out with a warning to him to never bring his suit back to Canada without the proof of his hockey stick formula. Don’t American judges demand proof?
Robert, the existence of increasingly global warmth and ocean heat is done and dusted, and the quantity and quality of palaeoclimate proxy data is increasing with time and advances in isotopic systemics – witness this latest discovery:
https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2024/02/trees-arent-only-things-with-rings.html
You can’t plead Ignoramus in a court of law.
Next case.
02
It’s obvious you didn’t read Judith’s paper from the other post. How anyone can think the hockey stick is anything but destroyed is beyond me.
If David or Russell are interested in real facts they would listen to the counter claims about the hockey stick. It’s ironic to me that they look down on the people of Hillsboro Tennessee in the1925 Scopes Trial for not being interested in hearing the facts about evolution.
RE: “Mann et al’s work was good science, as has been confirmed time and time again. . .”
Ha! If we flip this graph over we’ll get a hockey stick.
Never wrestle with a pig; they enjoy it too much to matter.
It was not good science, as he used data upside down in 2008, and when it was pointed out, rather than retracting, he used the data upside down again the next year.
How was it confirmed? It is barely even plausible and disagrees with multiple lines of evidence (eg sea level rise).
In any other field, if someone pulled what Michael Mann did, they would never work again. It should never even made it past the editor to peer review let alone be published.
Lord how this commentariat splutters on.
I hope the most indignant didn’t invest too much in the Global Cooling Fund Steyn fans Jo Nova & David Evans touted back in this litigation’s early days.
Ron Graf |
“It’s ironic to me that they look down on the people of Hillsboro Tennessee in the1925 Scopes Trial for not being interested in hearing the facts about evolution.”
That puts Steyn in William Jennings Bryan’s shoes, not Clarence Darrow’s
MikeN wrote:
It was not good science, as he used data upside down in 2008, and when it was pointed out, rather than retracting, he used the data upside down again the next year.
a) one proxy series is unlikely to affect the results very much
b) scientists are allowed to make mistakes — that doesn’t mean they are open to defamation and being compared to pedophile. Bohr’s model of the atom had huge mistakes — for one, how could charged electrons stay in a stable circular orbit without spiraling into the oppositely charged nucleus? Yet Bohr’s model was a huge advance. Just as been the hockey stick, which has by now been verified by many other studies by many different statistical methods.
a) There’s an interesting story about the upside down proxy that you are obviously unaware of, David, being just a parrot of talking points. It goes back to McIntyre et al revealing that MBH was dependent on only two tree ring proxies out of the 120+ to create the hockey stick. Wahl and Amman 2007 did the same I believe and also hid their failed (near zero) R2 verification score. Mann 2008 crowed that he had eliminated one of the two proxies and still had a hockey stick. McIntyre looked at the data and found Mann had substituted a lake sediment proxy, Tiljander, but that is was upside down to the original investigator’s interpretation of its use as a temperature proxy. But the worst part is that its value after the 19th century was meaningless due to confounding from major excavation activity nearby. Without Tiljander Mann again lost his hockey stick.
b) Mann did not correct his mistakes nor admit to them.
Mann was not compared to a child molester. That was the bit of humor in the serious point that the Penn State investigation of Mann was done as deeply as the one for the child molester. It was proven in court from Graham Spanier’s mouth that he blocked Mann from being censured just before the conclusion was announced. The two author’s suspicions proved correct also on the fact that there was no investigation of Mann in regards to the Climategate revelation about inducing others to delete incriminating emails. Eugene Wahl testified he mulled over the troubling request for days after Mann’s email (and follow up phone call) before he deleted them.
Mann is not fit to have house sat Niels Bohr’s cat or Schrodinger’s.
Just to clarify, Penn State’s faculty ad hoc investigative committee did not call Eugene Wahl. It was due to Steyn and Simberg who calling him as a defense witness that were heard the dirty truth from a seemingly remorseful Wahl, and whom BTW, the plaintiff counsel did not ask to rebut McIntrye or McKitrick’s claim that Wahl et al 07 was invalid. Mann offered no witnesses to support his work other than the field of climate science holding him in high regard. I suppose Fauci and the proximal origin virologists would mount the same defense.
Also, Bohr and Schrodinger actually did win Nobel Prizes in physics. Mann only falsely infers that claim to the embarrassment of science.
Ron Graf wrote:
In response to David Appell:
a) There’s an interesting story about the upside down proxy that you are obviously
Ron, as I wrote before, you get so many things completely and laughably wrong that it’s not useful to respond to you anymore. It’s nothing but a waste of time.
Ron Graf wrote:
Mann 2008 crowed that he had eliminated one of the two proxies and still had a hockey stick. McIntyre looked at the data and found Mann had substituted a lake sediment proxy,
Where can I read McIntyre’s peer reviewed journal paper on this?
Did he had the confidence to submit one?
PS Ron: as I’ve said forever, blog posts aren’t science.
“Blogs are not science.”
Neither is MBH98/99. That was proven by MM03/05, which have never been retracted.
Peer review is a very cursory challenge, especially since the Climategate emails reviewed major interference with the journals by Mann and other bad actors in the field with “black lists.” Trial cross-examination is a much tougher challenge to claims. Mann failed in his trial on the facts. But his lawyer did not even argue the facts or the law. He ended up parroting partisan talking points just like yourself. He won a unanimous DC verdict on “sending a message to election deniers.”
God help our country.
This verdict will be appealed. Frankly, the judge should have reversed the jury and issued JNOV.
When I heard that it was a jury trial, I thought Michael Mann would win.
But I also thought that if it was judge only then Michael Mann would win.
Because I don’t think courts are about justice.
In civil cases courts favour plaintiffs because that’s where their money comes from. $1m damages for Michael Mann will do wonders for the court’s business.
“The statistics in civil cases show that Plaintiffs consistently win.” https://tlfc.com.au/winning-civil-cases-as-a-defendant/
In criminal cases, it is of course the other way round for the same reason.
A victory for the Hockey Stick,
A defeat for Justice.
Im not so sure…given appeals cost money and unlike catastrophiliacs, skeptics aren’t so lucky with never ending slush funds to mount defences with.
I don’t believe Simberg will appeal as that would cost more than paying Mann the $1000. It’s Styne who would have motivation to appeal, and he might not be able to afford it. Presumably he learned his lesson about self-representation.
Having listened to all 14 episodes of the wonderful Climate Change on Trial podcast, I was truly shocked at the outcome of this trial. It is clear that a DC jury cannot be trusted to be objective.
We have to get justice for those who have been so seriously wronged by the evil person that is Michael Mann. How to do it? I have a few ideas but I’m not going to risk suggesting them here.
Ideas welcome, but I think that a starting point has to be some sort of action against the statements in his well documented defamatory statements against all and sundry!
Please feel free to get in touch with me to discuss.
I love the smug superiority. Because a jury of your peers has a different opinion than you, it must be that they can’t be trusted. Not even that the opposing lawyers made a bad case. Nope. Any ruling you disagree with must just be wrong.
Hard to understand why the founding fathers trusted the judicial process to people so far beneath your level.
Peers. Right.
I felt the verdict was up in the air in the first week but the wheels fell off the case in stunning fashion across the second week. There was no case by the last day. This is a heresy verdict for criticism of a priesthood
The jury ruled $2 in damages and $1,001,000 in punitive fines
“Because a jury of your peers has a different opinion than you, it must be that they can’t be trusted.”
That makes no sense, Joshua, and smacks of unbelievable arrogance.
Now, if there were tangible *evidence* of the stupidity and incuriosity of the jury, like for example their foreperson complaining in writing to the judge that it was a “sensitive issue” having to listen to a former Fox host, or asking in all seriousness to be allowed to skip a day of the trial as if it was high school, then you’d have a case for their being not just wrong, but untrustworthy with a box of sand.
“Any ruling you disagree with must just be wrong.”
Ruling, verdict, award, close enough for government work…
Brad –
The jury disagreed with you. But obviously since they disagreed with you they’re beneath you. It’s unarguable.
Imagine. The founding fathers actually went with a system where people so far beneath you could determine the outcomes in such cases. Every last member of the jury. So far beneath you
Incredible.
Oh, and no one will ever be able to utter a word in public again as a result. WHAT A DISASTER!
Joshua:
“The jury disagreed with you. But obviously since they disagreed with you they’re beneath you. It’s unarguable.”
Had I read their semi-literate Jurors Notes before the verdict, it would barely have come as a surprise.
“Imagine. The founding fathers actually went with a system where people so far beneath you could determine the outcomes in such cases. Every last member of the jury. So far beneath you”
The founding fathers couldn’t think of everything. Allowing venue shopping and libel tourism on a political question in a politically-skewed jury pool is not a good idea, a priori or a posteriori.
“Oh, and no one will ever be able to utter a word in public again as a result. WHAT A DISASTER!”
Oh, they’ll be able to slander climate scientists as climate deniers all they like. This will embolden the anti-science dobermans no end.
The Founding Fathers did not trust the judicial process – they knew from English and American history that judges were often corrupt, arrogant, and vicious, and that juries sometimes erred. But they also thought that a jury of one’s peers might give a person a better chance at justice than judgment by a judge, but they had seen many historical examples where juries were manipulated, coerced, mistaken, etc., but they still thought – or hoped – that the jury system would produce better results by preventing the King or the judge deciding outcomes without public participation in the legal process. Juries often fail because arrogant and power-hungry judges manipulate, mislead, and control juries, and because most jurors chosen to serve are chosen for their ignorance, naivete, and gullibility. Independent-minded and intelligent persons are typically excluded from juries, civil or criminal. Prosecutors, plaintiff’s lawyers, and judges are highly skilled at that. But at least the King does not get to decide “justice” by deciding verdicts without juries. When a jury decides a case against the wishes of the judge or prosecutor or other attorney, the losers often cry “jury nullification,” because the jury reached a verdict the loser disapproves of. Since juries cannot be questioned about how they reached their verdicts, their decision processes remain inscrutable.
An imperfect process, but what is the alternative?” Decisions by philosopher kings?
Shocked?
Serves you right for preferring partisan dramatizations to a live feed
This one is about as truthy as Climate Hustle II, and with much the same cast.
Andy Quinn,
if it’s any comfort, Judge Irving doesn’t come across as a Trump-deranger, so as long as he’s got a shred of judicial integrity he’s not going to sign off on a $1million punitive finding against $1 compensatory. That award can only be understood as
1) an acknowledgement that no harm to Mann himself was shown
2) followed by a warning shot at would-be attackers of The Science and The Scientists in general,
which means it’s in blatant contravention of Judge Jennifer M. Anderson’s ruling that Mann was NOT, and could not embody or stand in for the interests of, climate science sensu lato:
“… the Court finds Plaintiff confuses the definition of actual malice in the libel context with the malice commonly used, mistakenly equates himself and his research to the entirety of global warming, and misunderstands the District of Columbia Court of Appeals’ dicta.….
“The science behind global warming is not the plaintiff here and certainly cannot be defamed. Plaintiff cannot equate himself to the science of global warming. Defendant has no obligation to investigate the science behind global warming, and the failure to investigate the science does not result in any liability to Defendant.”
You have to ask supporters of Michael Mann, are ethics even a part of the process in your world? Does it even matter to you that MBH98/99/08 (aka, the ‘hockey stick’ graph) is a proven scientific fraud? If not, how can it ever be possible for you to demonstrate the kind of virtue that is required of a scientist who would be believed about anything?
Fair and Just.
No – not at all fair and just
A) there are multitude of problems with the HS.
B) The burden of proof is on the plaintiff, The plaintiff presented no evidence that the HS was correct. The issue is not whether the HS is correct, but that the plaintiff did not present any evidence that the HS was correct
C) The court seriously botched the applicable standard for actual malice set forth in Harte Hank.
D) the defense put into evidence that the HS was manipulated. The plaintiff put zero evidence that it wasnt manipulated.
Two standards were seriously violated. 1) burden of proof and 2) the standard for actual malice.
Standby your prophet/profit. A beady-eyed weasel that justice will find.
Looks like I misunderstood the verdict!!
I note that at the end of the trial, the judge allowed the prosecutor to add a final statement. “The judge gave Williams (Michael Mann’s lawyer) a few minutes to rebut the defense’s closing arguments”. (https://www.desmog.com/2024/02/08/michael-mann-wins-defamation-trial-climate-deniers-rand-simberg-mark-steyn/) Isn’t that a corruption of process? I understood the legal process to be that the prosecutor has the first word and the defendant has the last word. Giving both first and last word to the prosecution is surely open bias.
I think that is the procedure in DC courts.
This is what I was expecting of the DC left-tard minions.
I do hope the trial judge will throw out the jury verdict or that an appellate court will reverse the outcome, but I would not count on either of those happening. I do not know anything about the trial judge or about the appellate panel which might hear the appeal, but I do know, from personal experience, that most judges (and lawyers) have liberal arts backgrounds and most are ignorant – and often fearful – of science, technology, higher mathematics, etc. That’s one reason why judges cannot be expected to understand disputes about science, climate science, etc. Jurors are usually even worse and the plaintiff’s lawyers would be expected to make every effort to eliminate prospective jurors with technical backgrounds. Judge’s jury instructions also frequently mislead jurors. Don’t know if that happened here.
This case provides another example of how destructive and irrational defamation law can be. The outcome of this trial is nuts, but it does provide a warning of how dangerous the law is. Criminal law is even worse.
This was as “fair and just” a decision as the Dred Scott decision….prove me wrong.
Cue all the alarmist drama-queens (including Judith).
I remember years ago, all the pearl-clutching about how the very lawsuit would “chill” free speech.
Meanwhile, Trump launches an all out attack to revamp our judicial system to shut down criticism of him, and nary a peep.
Stunning level of self-victimization and hypocrisy.
Ho hum. What else is new?
Thank you for a deep, insightful comment. What else do you find stunning? :-)
Meanwhile, I predicted back in the day and will double down to predict again now, this legal outcome won’t register a blip on the radar outside of the climate blogs freak-out-zone.
OK, resume pearl-clutching.
And I do admit, it will be fun watch all the alarmist drama-queening. Nothing like watching people take themselves so seriously over mostly irrelevant events in the lull before the run up to the Super Bowl. My hometown Sixers have become unwatchable.
The evidence in the trial showed that Michael Mann is the Jerry Sandusky of climate science.
The Good are punished, and the wicked rewarded.
Best to you, Judith.
“Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.” —Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, Act 5, scene 1
Sadly, virtue has been defined down, and sin elevated.
(Went somewhere else).
For your entertainment:
https://x.com/aaronshem/status/1755737107631411318?s=20
Knowing how involved Jeffrey Epstein
and Maxwell were in pushing climate alarmism, I think it’s probably safe to assume any climate scientist who has ever had a goatee is a pedo.
#PleaseSueMeMichaelMann
Sadly, virtue has been defined down, and sin elevated.
Yes, when Mann’s first sin was ignored by his peers, so everything else that was hitherto truly good and proper about science had its real value significantly reduced.
Collateral damage is seldom seen by guilty parties and bystanders until it is far, far too late. That is clear from the verdicts in this case. and there will be a reckoning of the huge drop in the quality of science at some point in the future and/or as fashions change.
Those who cancel others will themselves be cancelled.
It wasn’t simply ignored, it was normalized.
It became standard practice to use inappropriate statistical methods, mistreat end points, and obscure inconvenient information by overlaying instrumental data.
https://x.com/Dardedar/status/1755388299990933671?s=20
It’s mind boggling how a professor at a University could be so immature and angered enough to attack his professional piers over personal differences. Judging by his financial settlements, I’d say it seems he deliberately creates environments that fabricate opportunities for financial gain & gratitude. He obviously doesn’t care how he damages other professionals reputations like Dr Curry, who has a lot to loose over his fake allegations. Selfish, ignorant, vindictive, mean spirited, jealous, evil minded, is how I would describe his behaviour.
Well said. Dr. Curry is a treasure and the damage he did to her personally is incomprehensible.
Perhaps he was upset that Curry did not curry him favours?
Somewhere here, I see the failure to recognize the difference between “science” and “scientist”.
BA, are you saying that though Mann is a despicable person he does wonderful science? If that is what you are indicating let me submit that if Mann created half decent science he would not feel the need to make despicable smears, or in the words of his mentor, Raymond Bradley, “leave a trail of scorched earth.”
Ron,
No, I’m saying what I said.
Well you are not saying much at all then. We can criticize or praise ethics or science results independently. I don’t see any “failure.”
BA –
> No, I’m saying what I said.
I can tell you from experience, Ron has a very difficult time with that concept.
Regardless of whether you are a Warmist or a Climate Realist, this decision and the damage awards are outrageous and not in conformance with either the law and Constitution or the evidence, most of which was not even allowed to be seen by the jury.
If you are cheering this decision, you are cheering for a cheap and hollow victory at the price of the destruction of the rule of law in the United States.
Science is not easily explained in words or depicted in an image, but maybe this will help in illustrating the difference between a Scientist and a Pretender.
–>This is Michael Mann, a Pretender who violated the rules of the Scientific Method and refused to show his data in court and was held in contempt in the Tim Ball hearing in Canada, which Mann lost.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9321a9f2ba8ec8796260751bd62baccb1f1057a966c8467f34dfb34a8d0530a6.jpg
–>This is Dr. Richard Feynman, the Scientist who CREATED the Scientific Method.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b8fde390cbfe08bb48165f42ecc25fa9786f0e7ace25b1132cc489024aff973a.png
Judith,
Your stamina is commendable, having to re-live these bad times in public in the serious atmosphere of a court room. Not something I would like to have to do.
I have read thousands of your words over the years. They do not convey any characteristic of yours that is bad. To the contrary, you have done more than most people I know to advance better understanding of science. I wish I had been as intelligent, capable and outstanding over those years.
Geoff S
It’s a shame this trial wasn’t televised as opposed to being put on WEBEX with instructions not to make copies. There was actually a lot of courtroom drama that would make excellent YouTube clips. All the interesting drama was of course unflattering to Mann.
Sadly there appears to be no real justice to be found in a Penn State Uni or a Washington DC court, but we knew that already from the lack of punishment so far afforded to the plaintiff for his untruths, his lack of professionalism and his nastiness to anyone who dared, or dares, to challenge his way of thinking.
This is the direction this saga must go until the greater good observes a sweet moment of revenge which will come when it is good and ready. Did Mann take the trial seriously – I don’t think he did and now I know why. Revenge may have already set off on her journey such is Mann’s apparent vain attitude to most everything. Perhaps he will one day begin to know the harm he has already done to others if he doesn’t already know so, and he’ll search for peace and perhaps find none.
You, Dr Curry, have your integrity and conscience intact. Just relish the thought that others will never have that good feeling about integrity again and may be too bitter, twisted and nasty to be able to confess to their many bad actions. More chances of redemption come to all but will they be taken? Some people just don’t have what it takes to redeem themselves.
Only about 25% of the DC population are conservative, the majority of the rest are Marxist Democrats. I’m sure lawyers representing the likes of Mann do everything they can to get the most dyed-in-the-wool Marxist Democrats they can find.
There is no justice for a Conservative in DC, that much has been made plain over and over again. So basically, the jury awarded punitive damages of $1 million for Styne for doing $1 of damage to Mann. Id eee ots!! That’s not justice by any measure.
Only 10% are actually conservatives, the rest are MAGA and Christian nationalists. Can you name one conservative that is an atheist?
15% of conservatives are atheists.
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/religious-family/atheist/party-affiliation/
15% is a lot of people. Can you name one that holds any elected office anywhere?
“Can you name one conservative that is an atheist?”
If I’m not mistaken Andy West has studied and written about the relationship between religion and politics. I know it’s off topic but is a fascinating to me since I am a atheist conservative. OTOH, most religious Jews are liberal or progressive. Many of the killed and kidnapped Jews near Gaza were on communes and were sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. Tribalism seems to be an extremely powerful force, as seen in DC.
Ron –
> I know it’s off topic but is a fascinating to me since I am a atheist conservative. OTOH, most religious Jews are liberal or progressive.
Huh? That’s a pretty bizarre thing to say.
There is clearly an inverse correlation between religiosity in Jews and leaning left. The Jews who were slaughtered on 10/7 tended to be left-leaning and secular. The RWers who dominate the Israeli government tend to be religious zealots. What on earth are you talking about?
I gotta say, Ron. The more I think about it…
I’ve seen you say some bizarre things, but that is probably the most bizarre thing I’ve seen you write yet.
On the other side of the coin, one of the surprises at trial was hearing that Eugene Wahl is a devoutly religious Jesuit minister who came to academic science via the seminary. To me he seemed like a deeply moral man. He likely believed in the hockey stick and felt he could find a statistical flaw in MM05. When he couldn’t I think he had been influenced to still report that he did in his conclusion.
Following Jones’s and Mann’s direction to delete all email correspondence between them was yet another step in being compromised. My perception of his testimony there was that it may have been the deepest regret of his life. He said Mann called him after forwarding Jones’s request. Wahl asked him why it was necessary and had to think about it for some days before he complied. The defense counsel was kind enough not to ask the obvious regret. The overall point it that loyalty and tribal affinity are extremely powerful regardless of religion.
Hmmm.
Ok, maybe you weren’t saying there’s an correlation between leaning left and religiosity among Jews, but just that given the overall tendency towards the left among Jews, even though religious Jews are more likely to be conservative than secular Jews, liberals are still more prevalent among religious Jews.
That’s still wrong, but at least it’s not bizarre:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/pew-study-75-of-us-orthodox-jews-identify-as-republicans-up-from-57-in-2013/
Joshua: “I’ve seen you say some bizarre things, but that is probably the most bizarre thing I’ve seen you write yet.”
I admit that I have not studied the issue like Andy. I’m just reporting my life experience. My view is certainly biased since my parents were atheist Jews and were Democrats only in their youth, supporting JFK but were conservative thereafter. By the way, I liked JFK’s policies, as did Ronald Reagan.
It makes sense that in Israel conservatives would be more religious since the state’s formation is based on religious doctrine (combined with survival). The queer thing is why any Israelis would be pro-Palestinian or why such a large portion of American Jews are.
My overall point is that religiosity may be supported by tribalism but that tribalism seems to be the dominant force.
Joshua, in rereading I think I composed my comment poorly. I did not mean to say that the more religious a Jew is the more liberal they are. I just meant to say that most people who identify as Jewish, which is a religion, are liberal. I’m sure that is much less bizarre.
Ron –
>Joshua, in rereading I think I composed my comment poorly. I did not mean to say that the more religious a Jew is the more liberal they are. I just meant to say that most people who identify as Jewish, which is a religion, are liberal. I’m sure that is much less bizarre.
Yeah, as I thought about it more I got that’s what you were saying.
Still, among Jewish people in the US as well as in Israel, there’s a *positive* correlation between being “conservative” and religiosity (and the inverse). I’d guess the same is true for other religions as well, despite a clear segment of say, religious Christians, who lean towards helping immigrants and the like. This may be part of why Andy’s theories don’t hold up in my view. There’s a phenomenon where religiosity is correlated with RW views, and RW views are correlated with climate change “skepticism.” I’m not saying there’s a clear overall signal (let alone a clear overall causal signal), just that finding simplistic associations in such a complex dynamic is largely a function of motivated reasoning. When you see such a strongly identified “skeptic” as Andy finding a massive signal of depravity among those he disagrees with about climate change, be skeptical. Of course, that works both ways and on other issues as well, not just climate change.
Joshua: ‘There’s a phenomenon where religiosity is correlated with RW views, and RW views are correlated with climate change “skepticism.”’
Yes. I agree. I think Andy would agree as well. The big question is why. I would presume that the left believes that religion clouds objectivity because religious doctrine includes orthodoxies tied to scripture or tradition. So, your view would be that atheist’s are more objective or more scientific. Therefore, atheists are more accepting to science, just like with the evolution debate in the 1920s Tennessee in the US bible belt. Is this your position?
Ron –
> I would presume that the left believes that religion clouds objectivity because religious doctrine includes orthodoxies tied to scripture or tradition.
I don’t think that generalizing about views on “the left” and in “the right” often hold up very well. I think that “left” and “right” are more just ideological hats than actual consistent constellations of viewpoints. That said…
That would prolly be generally true of people who identify with “the left,” but it’s not likely a view that’s likely independent of context. In a sense to illustrate that, look at how religiosity is being associated here, among “skeptics” with identify as RW, with a lack of objectivity due to orthodox doctrine. In my view, people on “the left” and on “the right” will use religiosity to assign either negative or positive attributes selectively as the context merits in order to pump up their own group and denegrate the “other.”
> So, your view would be that atheist’s are more objective or more scientific.
No, that’s not my view. Although sure,that’s likely a view shared among many people who identify on “the left,” although that thinking will be applied selectively. For example, they wouldn’t view Jim Wallis’ religious views in such a manner but yes,they’d look at Pat Robertson’s religious views in such a manner.
> Therefore, atheists are more accepting to science, just like with the evolution debate in the 1920s Tennessee in the US bible belt. Is this your position?
Is it my view that atheists are more accepting of science? Or is it my view that most who identify as “the left” feel that way? Not sure which question you’re asking.
Again, I think the associations are complicated. Clearly, in some ways there’s a tension between most (but not all) religious doctrine and the product of the scientific method. How that plays out when you mix in ideological orientation gets quite complicated, and again, imo isn’t always consistent, because of cognitive biases.
Ron –
Here we go again with the disappearing comments that make it impossible to have a convo on this blog. I’ll try again once more…
> I would presume that the left believes that religion clouds objectivity because religious doctrine includes orthodoxies tied to scripture or tradition.
I think it’s really problematic to assign consistent views to “the left” and “the right” on these types of issues because I think that “the left” and “the right” exist as ideological identities but not as consistent constellations of views across issues and context.
Nonetheless, sure, people on the left think that allegiance to religious doctrine clouds views on scientific issues, but so do, often, people on “the right” as we see here among “skeptics” who lean RW, and who denigrate what they see as religiosity on “the left”. There’s a natural tension between the product of the scientific method and (most) religious doctrine, but how that plays out is complicated. People on “the left” think that religious doctrine clouds the views of a Pat Robertson on science, but not a Jim Wallis. The same complicating factors would play out among people on “the right.”
> So, your view would be that atheist’s are more objective or more scientific. Therefore, atheists are more accepting to science, just like with the evolution debate in the 1920s Tennessee in the US bible belt. Is this your position?
Which question are you asking? (1) Is it my position that atheists are more objective, or (2) is it my view that most people on “the left” feel that way?
Sure, I think that as a broad pattern, because there’s an inherent tension between (most) religious doctrine and the output of the scientific process, atheists in general are more aligned with scientific product than people who are heavily devoted to (most) religious doctrine. But how that plays out across various contexts in reality is really, really complicated.
Joshua, I lose comments here frequently as well. I copy them sometimes and recompose. If I’m not conversing I usually just hope they eventually pop out.
“Sure, I think that as a broad pattern, because there’s an inherent tension between (most) religious doctrine and the output of the scientific process, atheists in general are more aligned with scientific product than people who are heavily devoted to (most) religious doctrine. But how that plays out across various contexts in reality is really, really complicated.”
I used to have your exact opinion, and still agree with some correlation, but it’s weak, and I have been persuaded to doubt its cause is the conflict with traditions and doctrines.
I think the correlation to climate justice is stronger between youth indoctrination and left of center political news feeds than to interest in science. You probably have heard the theory that people are naturally religious, so that if they are not brought up with a religion it is very easy to substitute an ideology or affinity, whether is be to a political party, nationalism or political leader. What is your opinion on that?
Ron –
> You probably have heard the theory that people are naturally religious, so that if they are not brought up with a religion it is very easy to substitute an ideology or affinity, whether is be to a political party, nationalism or political leader
> > What is your opinion on that?
I’d have to think about it. I think that people gravitate away from uncertainty. Religious doctrine, imo, tends to service that tendency. It would make some sense that in it’s absence, other means (other belief systems) for distancing uncertainty could substitute for the certainty of religious doctrine.
That could be atheism. It could be Trumpism. It could be any ism, I guess
As to whether there’s some direct and inverse tradeoff between religious beliefs and atheism as a way to ward off uncertainty, I’d have to think about it.
In my own experience, there’s no such obvious tradeoff. The people I know who tend towards atheism also tend towards tolerance for uncertainty. That’s independent of their views on climate change or other forms of political or ideological certainty/uncertainty. Even if their views on various toox seems overly-certain to me, their tolerance for uncertainty more broadly seems to remain. It’s a complicated mix. Merits some more thought but my quick reaction is that there’s not much of a direct tradeoff. But of course personal observation is NOT a valid basis for reaching a strong opinion here. Actually, maybe more than anything else it’s a likely indicator I should go in the other direction.
Where would you place devout believers of Islam on the political spectrum? Conservative? Leftist? Independent? Or what?
Thanks Joshua. I will think more about it too. I would also like to add a couple more things to be considered.
If we agree that catastrophism is a thing how do we discern it from genuine concerns and appropriate response?
How do we discern values to very weakly falsifiable theories? What defines the edges of science and pseudoscience? Are they hard edges or soft ones?
What are the historic patterns of politicizing religion and pseudoscience?
For anyone who listened to the trial of even the closing arguments is there even a sentence in this Daily Beast article that you could agree was not intentionally deceptive?
Jim –
> Where would you place devout believers of Islam on the political spectrum? Conservative? Leftist? Independent? Or what?
First. I have to wonder if by “devout believers of Islam” you’re using a blanket term to include militant fundamentalist Muslims (e.g., Jihadis) a well as non-militant devout Muslims?
Second, I don’t really think that terms like “the left” and “the right” map on to consistent assembleges of values-based viewpoints. I think they’re more just identities. These guys have views similar to mine in that regard:
https://heterodoxacademy.org/blog/how-the-mythical-left-right-political-spectrum-harms-america-book-review/
As such, I’d have no idea how to map those terms on to the views of devout believers of Islam. That would be like asking me to try to map “the left” or “the right” on to both Pat Robertson and Jim Wallis.
I just read that John Walker (Co-founder of AUTOCAD) has died. John was one of the original tech bros that inspired people like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk.
One of his best essays was the Digital Imprimatur.
https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/digital-imprimatur/
Pingback: Climate Scientist Michael Mann Wins Defamation Suit Against Mark Steyn and Rand Simberg – Shoals Up News
honestly, i think the nastiness and impugning of motives on both sides of the climate debate is extremely unfortunate. and sadly, as we know from so many online wars, once these things get started, they are very difficult to walk back. it seems clear to me that mann was defamed. he had not committed fraud, which is a very specific, concrete accusation. he is also himself a loose cannon firing off accusations. i haven’t seen any that are specific enough to be defamation in the legal sense, but that doesn’t make them right.
If the defendants have the stomach of an appeal, I suspect this will get overturned. I think Steyn did an admirable job of laying out the case against the hockey stick. I’m glad that this stuff is finally part of an evidentiary record. I am forever thankful to him for this. But tactically, I don’t think he won over the jury. You need to read the room. (1) This is DC. Most of the jurors either work for an agency that starts with ‘N’, or they have relatives or friends who do. Steyn kept directing heaps of sarcasm at the agencies. In my experience, government bureaucrats take their agency’s mission to be of the utmost importance to the very survival of the universe. So poking fun at them will not win you points. (2) On many occasions, Steyn made comments about the US justice system that I would characterize as, “in the civilized world where I come from, this would never be allowed”. I think he’s justified in this belief, given what he went through. But I suspect some of the jurors found it insulting. (3) Steyn has good reason to be angry at Mann. But as a defendant representing himself, that anger, when on display, could support a conclusion of malicious intent in the minds of some jurors. To be clear, I don’t believe that Steyn had malicious intent as its defined in defamation statues — I think he was just plain angry with Mann. But its a reason why one should not represent one’s self in a defamation suit. The anger comes through and it doesn’t help you.
Apart from the misrepresentation of his coauthors as “distinguished climate scientists, Steyn stands self-convicted as a pundit who , like Rush Limbaugh and Tuck Carlson began by defending PR climate denial deliverables by fossil fuel hacks, but then segued into attacking those who made fun of the contents of his own echo chamber.
As a cautionary tragicomedy it recalls Olivier’s The Entertainer
Thoughts about why a science issue like AGW could have become part of the partisan culture wars in the US:
1. Since Al Gore made it a central issue in his 2000 campaign (24 years ago!) perhaps the other side’s knee-jerk response was “if he’s for it, we’re against it”. Then once the lines of battle were drawn, affirmation bias took over.
2. More Republican politicians have received campaign donations from fossil fuel companies than have Democrats, and money talks. More specifically, the recipients of the money talk and set the party agenda.
3. A core tenet of small government conservatism is that individuals working in their own self-interest produce an optimal society and economy. Think of Adam Smith’s “invisible hand”. Think of calls for “freedom” from government regulation. But dealing with AGW clearly requires collective action. My own carbon footprint has a negligible effect on my climate. Judith Curry was prepared to argue in Held vs Montana that Montana’s own emissions had an insignificant effect on changes to Montana’s climate. It is often argued that the US should not act, given growing Chinese and Indian emissions. This is the wicked “free-rider” problem, solvable only by legislation which restricts some freedoms and by international agreements.
(to be continued)
Except imagine what would happen when a plentiful and cheap low carbon energy source becomes available? The market in that case radically shifts on its own, and regulation would be tangential. e.g., a fusion breakthrough.
“once the lines of battle were drawn, affirmation bias took over.”
Give Gore a rest- even South Park got over Manbearpig.
Dumbed-down denialism is something Libertarians should honestly deplore, because it gives authoritarian social entrepreneurs and communitarian politicians like John Podesta aid and comfort on time scales long and short.
I think your point #3 is quite important. in essence, if you believe that the magic of the free market is always the solution, the fact that we all share this communal resource of the atmosphere shows what amounts a powerful counter-example. The free market does not care about pollution, the environment, clean air, or the warming of the planet. each individual, guided by self-interest, will by the least expensive solution, because his / her own contribution to clean air is so immeasurably tiny. it is similar to the “tragedy of the commons” example of fisheries, where a free market eventually destroys itself. since it is uncomfortable to accept that we need a governmental solution, it is easiest to just deny there is any problem at all.
Of these possible reasons, I think #3 is probably the most important and least discussed. We all wish AGW was no problem. But small government conservatives have an extra reason for their wishful thinking, especially when they see any collective action as a “leftist power grab” . Some posters on this blog may counter “but the science is not settled”. They should ask themselves if this opinion is driven by a realization, conscious or not, that solutions require collective action that is against their principles. They could also consider the question “what should we do about AGW that is consistent with my principles” as a hypothetical question, in case the consensus is correct after all.xx
Small government conservatives probably also balk at the trillions being spent already and trillions more desired by the Climate Doomers.
Adaptation will also, potentially, cost money. But Adaptation has the advantage that money and resources aren’t spent until a threat is clearly imminent. And in the case of sea level rise, imminent means decades if not centuries.
Mitigation on the other hand requires spending money on things that MIGHT (or might not) happen. Clearly that’s a lot of money subject to theft by grifters and won’t necessarily accomplish a thing to prevent “climate change” problems.
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Andy West | February 9, 2024 at 9:09 am |
“I’ve tried reading your longer posts, but I just can’t get through them.”
Then you’re in luck!! My editor has made huge upgrades to the readability and understandability of the text, while preserving all the meaning. I’ve had positive feedback on this aspect (and others)…
Andy West | February 9, 2024 at 9:15 am |
Dammit ‘rest-of-world’, not ‘word’.
You need a better large language model.
Washington Post story today on AMOC: https://wapo.st/3HS1WGj
Neither Steyn nor Simberg were found “guilty.” This was a civil trial. They were found to be liable for defaming Mann because of statements that were malicious and injurious and exhibited a reckless disregard for provable facts.
It now seems like JC has grounds to sue Mann for libel.
Roger, I don’t know if you are from the US, but lately our justice system is only that in name sadly.
It used to be only US adversaries would game our system when both liberal and conservatives parties respected truth and justice as being the defining American principles, and from them liberty. That has been compromised over time in a slow spiral of the corruption of truth and justice in the name of greater causes, namely cultural civil war. The issues seem to be secondary.
Not to sound like the conservative catastrophist proposed by Joshua upthread, I do have hope and expectation that the cycle will be broken. Ironically, it is usually an actual catastrophe or outside threat that does the trick, unfortunately.
The end is nigh, Ron.
Grab the women and children and head for the hills. No one will be able to say anything at all in public soon. The Mann case is just the top of the iceberg.
I agree with the red dwarfs attempt at satire on this one, Ron.
Marx seems to have captured a bounty, the vulnerable, the young. A strange global indoctrination of Stockholm syndrome appears to be nourishing a sympathetic appeal towards Marx. The power imbalance found in higher education is culpable. How unfortunate.
Jungle, did you ever see the Star Trek 1969 episode Let That Be Your Last Battlefield, guest staring Frank Gorshin, (the Riddler from Batman), where the planet goes extinct down to the last two men battling as mortal enemies?
Which poses a greater existential threat, man’s inability to advance technology to control climate or man’s inability to advance culture to advance at a pace necessary to live peacefully while wielding AI weaponized drones? Real question.
Do the drones carry nuclear weapons?
Ron –
Which building materials did you choose for your bunker?
I’ve heard that steel-reinforced concrete seems to be the material of choice among “skeptics.” Hay bales among “progressives” seems to be popular, but I’m not sure how well that’s going to work out.
Josh, I’d first line my bunker with a chain mail construct of climate doomers, so that they can capture abundant solar radiance; a metaphorical testimonial for their energetic cultural impotence.
Joshua: “Which building materials did you choose for your bunker?”
I didn’t get around to building one yet. I am hoping I get out naturally (or maybe painlessly would be a better wish). :)
Young people are not so flippant on the answer and are not having children in some cases, but that is another topic.
Ron: “Which poses a greater existential threat, man’s inability to advance technology to control climate or man’s inability to advance culture to advance at a pace necessary to live peacefully while wielding AI weaponized drones? Real question.:
Hmm, is this a trick question? I would assume any tech that allows for the peaceful advancement of all cultures trumps all else, including climate, because climate is not a threat, it moves at the pace of snail.
Thanks. That’s the same answer I come to. It was not a trick.
I would only clarify that it’s not the advancement of tech that I think could bring peace, but the realization that cultural maturity and disciplined ethics will not be a luxury. Education should be focused more on this.
Clearly the DC jury saw the cause of government science as more important than protecting truth or free speech. They felt sending a message was helpful to their ideological goals, a form of soft coercion. This mentality leads to chaos. We took morals out of school because we thought that they are religion. They are not.
Ron –
> Clearly the DC jury saw the cause of government science as more important than protecting truth or free speech
Clearly, your complete disinterest in cognitive empathy allows you to mind-probe with impunity.
Ron: “more important than protecting truth or free speech. They felt sending a message was helpful to their ideological goals, a form of soft coercion. This mentality leads to chaos. We took morals out of school because we thought that they are religion. They are not.”
Very well said. Ephemeral ideas find a certain truth in the eye of the beholder, but free speech allows for dynamic exchange, it’s the essence of freedom that ultimately navigates to unimpeachable truths.
” I’d first line my bunker with a chain mail construct of climate doomers, so that they can capture abundant solar radiance”
What a great way to have the last laugh on CAGW libtards who install solar power on the outside of buildings
“What a great way to have the last laugh on CAGW libtards…”
Do your bromides change energetic paradigms?
I’d rather channel fusion.
Russell, kidding aside; humans should be good stewards of the planet, I’m considerate of this. Personally, I’d install solar myself if it made sense where I live, but I wouldn’t want others paying for it. I don’t want to pay for your solar either. I don’t want the government funding an entire industry that can’t fund itself, or stay in business without subsidies that we all pay for too. I don’t want the price for electricity to skyrocket because of all the unsound policies driven by consensus.
Someday science and engineers will find a way to create cheap energy, maybe it’s fusion, but whatever it is, the world will rejoice. We don’t need to go bankrupt as a nation when technology will solve future energy needs, cheaply, long before climate might become an issue.
Ron: Per your follow-up here: “I would only clarify that it’s not the advancement of tech that I think could bring peace, but the realization that cultural maturity and disciplined ethics will not be a luxury. Education should be focused more on this.
Clearly the DC jury saw the cause of government science as more important than protecting truth or free speech. They felt sending a message was helpful to their ideological goals, a form of soft coercion. This mentality leads to chaos. We took morals out of school because we thought that they are religion. They are not.”
_____
I agree with all you said. Though I didn’t really answer your original question directly, I used the questions to arrive at a desired benevolent outcome. They’re interesting questions though. To be more direct, what is the biggest existential threat of the two options you described? I think it’s “man’s inability to advance culture to advance at a pace necessary to live peacefully while wielding AI weaponized drones”. I don’t believe that “man’s inability to advance technology to control climate” is an issue of concern, even if tech never allows us to control climate; we will still advance technology to produce energy, cheaply, and cleanly, I see this as a given. For the question you posed about “man’s inability to advance culture…”, technology can obviously go very badly. AI is the greatest existential threat facing us, yet it also holds the greatest promise for advancing global cultures quickly, lifting all boats. I believe think tanks, and the government are well aware of the perils, but also the promise that AI holds. I’m glad to see congress rolling up its sleeves, working with industry, trying to establish guardrails, charting policy. No doubt it has the potential to go in any direction. It’s an existential threat that can’t be ignored.
A bit of trivia; months ago CE hosted a guest essay about AI. I argued in the thread that AI is the neo Wild West, and that hackers will be the new gun slingers. Recently I’ve noticed an ad campaign for Salesforce that features Matthew McConaughey, he uses the line: “So the AI is the Wild West. I heard there’s a sheriff around here”; it finishes with “Data is the new Gold”. I believe AI is all these things, and so much more. But it’s very much like the old Wild West.
So sue the bastard. I’ve had enough of professional reticence. You and others have suffered real damages while he skates free.
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Roger Pielke Jr’s outstanding assessment of the trial and verdict:
https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/false-equivalence?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=119454&post_id=141523260&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=kv1q8&utm_medium=email
In any collective group there are established norms whereby individual behavior is judged as conforming, or not. If an individual acts in a manner that is judged as not conforming, there are mechanisms in the group to assert control of that individual’s behavior. If the individual does not assent to these efforts to change his behavior, expulsion or other acts will result.
What’s interesting to me is when the collective group utilizes social control mechanisms that veer into the coercive. For me, Mann’s lawsuit was ostensibly about accusations of fraud and their coercive effects. Was Mann the victim or the perpetrator of coercion? Having his work challenged isn’t coercive. Keeping others from challenging it, is coercive.
The above can occur on the left or right. The interesting part, as with all human endeavors, is to identify which iteration of left or right, or social groups in general, are more prone to coercive tendencies.
Dr. Curry, I’m a woman geologist. I can’t help but be sorry you had not submitted your complaint to Penn State. The damage to your career might already have been done, but maybe, just maybe, it would have prevented Mann from destroying other people’s.
Yolanda – appreciate the comment
Yes its terrible that Mann’s actions destroyed someones career .
Unfortunately the statute of limitations has expired (most likely expired) so there is no longer an avenue for redress.
My take on Mann’s vicious attacks is that A) he is very insecure and B) he knows his scientific work is weak and C) he lashes out in the manner which he does because the work doesnt stand up to scrutney.
Unfortunately, he has a huge industry of agenda driven climate scientists that support him.
Easty on the bromides, JT , you’re starting to sound like Gilbert Pinfold:
” I don’t want to pay for your solar …Someday science and engineers will find a way to create cheap energy,”
It’s called solid state physics and thanks to it photovoltaic energy is already better priced than fossil , and penetrating markets as fast as the cost of storing it falls. I don’t much care, as I’m on a nuclear grid, but there are those who do because they have assets in the ground that face free market competition
That’s why one side of K Street has been subsidizing one side in the climate wars for a generation.
There is not any Global Average +33 oC GHE on Earth’s surface.
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Steyn wrote a book about Mann called “A Disgrace to the Profession” all about what Manns fellow climate scientists think about him and the fraudulent hockey stock
Hint: they think he is an obnoxious disgrace to the profession
And evidence produced at trial shows he is just that
Buy a copy and help him out
Andy,
[I am starting a new thread because the old one became so long it is hard to find.] In that old thread, you made the following comment in defense of skepticism:
“Because if there isn’t a wide range of conflicting views at the leading edge, then everyone may only be looking under the lamp-post. Or even worse, only pre-accepting one area of research due to group-think.”
That is a noble general sentiment that I cannot disagree with. But can you name any contribution to the current understanding of AGW made by a skeptic? I asked for a syllabus of the skeptics’ viewpoint of AGW and you did not respond, so I will ask any easier question. Can you name one skeptic paper that we all should study and learn from? I maintain that skeptics have been completely unproductive in influencing science, but remarkably successful in influencing pubic opinion. Perhaps that is their only goal.
I like the analogy between science and crossword puzzles. An initial tentative entry to a crossword puzzle (or scientific hypothesis) may be dubious, but when all the interlocking words work out, you can be pretty sure your answers are correct. The interlocking elements of AGW orthodoxy make it believable, though that is not to say that future projections have no uncertainty.
“The interlocking elements of AGW orthodoxy make it believable, though that is not to say that future projections have no uncertainty.”
Rainmakers are believable to those who want to see the interlocking elements. Climate attributions have such weak falsifiability there is huge freedom to “interlock.”
The error bars are so wide and resolution so poor in paleo-reconstructions that the shaft is a cinch to create. Without being able to show that 1000+ year stable climate surface temp the thermometer record in the northern hemisphere just tells us the temperature was rising in the early 20th century then fell slightly from 1945-1975 and then began to rise again. But we have no idea if this is alarming without a longer lookback.
Consider this: before the IPCC’s third report it was believed that climate oscillated in a ~1000-year cycle along with other cycles. There are accounts of an order given to erase that cycle from the scientific consensus. If so, paleoclimatologists complied with their funder’s desires to obtain funding.
We know that MBH is invalid statistically. But the same people who doing the supporting reconstructions are not admitting the MBH was invalid. So skepticism must be at the highest.
Ron
“There are accounts of an order given to erase that cycle from the scientific consensus. If so, paleoclimatologists complied with their funder’s desires to obtain funding.”
I suppose there are accounts of lots of conspiracies like this, but that does not make them true. An alternative explanation is that the hypothesis of a 1000 year natural climate cycle did not hold up to evidence, and was culled as it should have been. I have suggested before that skeptics cull their wrong hypotheses, but that might leave them with nothing.
Perhaps you should pay more attention to current temperature and ocean-heat-content data and less to paleoclimate data. You will find that changes in the last quarter century cannot be explained as part of a 1000 year natural cycle.
David Andrews | February 11, 2024 at 11:53 am |
David’s comment – “Perhaps you should pay more attention to current temperature and ocean-heat-content data and less to paleoclimate data. You will find that changes in the last quarter century cannot be explained as part of a 1000 year natural cycle.”
David A – Knowing if the changes in the last quarter century are within the norm or unprecendented and/or whether the rate of increase in the fasted in the last 2-3k years is all the more reason to address the manufactured consensus and other problems in the paleo reconstructions.
The shoddy stats, cherrypicking proxies, low resolution long proxies, confidence intervals much tighter than justified by valid statistical techniques remain through out all the paleo reconstructions, not just MBH 98 or 99.
“I suppose there are accounts of lots of conspiracies like this, but that does not make them true.”
Sure, we would not be having different point of views unless one of us had a less accurate perception of the truth. Both sides play the man too much for my liking. The left accuses the right of being deniers. The right has similar thoughts about the left. I can’t think of any scientists that are engaged in this other than Mann and a handful of others. Hansen never stooped to such levels, IIRC.
“An alternative explanation is that the hypothesis of a 1000 year natural climate cycle did not hold up to evidence, and was culled as it should have been.”
Yes it’s and important question. MBH is falsifiable, which is why Stephen McIntyre decided to take a closer look and request the data. His worst fears were confirmed and have not been refuted, not here, and not in the DC court last week.
“Perhaps you should pay more attention to current temperature and ocean-heat-content data and less to paleoclimate data. You will find that changes in the last quarter century cannot be explained as part of a 1000 year natural cycle.”
My personal weighting of the evidence from my deep dive into the subject for the last 10 years is that there is likely a CO2 warming effect. I also see evidence that natural dynamics are capable or having an effect. Then, getting beyond the question of attribution, whether the warming is dangerous or how to address fossil fuel use are separate political questions.
Importantly, I don’t believe it is relevant to the danger of whether the warming is anthropogenic or natural. This is where I part ways with the anti-AGW activists. While there is a moral component to conserve our resources. Focusing exclusively on fossil fuel is not objectively justified IMO.
David Andrews comment – “Perhaps you should pay more attention to current temperature and ocean-heat-content data and less to paleoclimate data.”
David A – You mention the ocean heat content data. One of the leading scientists in that sub field is JP Abraham.
Note – Mann perjured himself 100+ times counting all the times in his pleadings, depositions, oral testimony. In any field of science (at least an honest field of science), that would be immediate grounds for termination of employment. No credible scientific organization would tolerate a scientist so prone to repetitive dishonesty.
JP Abraham was Mann’s star reputational witness. Are you going to trust the integrity of his work after his blatant perjury in the trial.
David: “An alternative explanation is that the hypothesis of a 1000 year natural climate cycle did not hold up to evidence, and was culled as it should have been.”
Yes it’s and important question. MBH is falsifiable, which is why Stephen McIntyre decided to take a closer look and request the data. His worst fears were confirmed and have not been refuted, not here, and not in the DC court last week.
“Perhaps you should pay more attention to current temperature and ocean-heat-content data and less to paleoclimate data. You will find that changes in the last quarter century cannot be explained as part of a 1000 year natural cycle.”
My personal weighting of the evidence from my deep dive into the subject for the last 10 years is that there is likely a CO2 warming effect. I also see evidence that natural dynamics are capable or having an effect. Then, getting beyond the question of attribution, whether the warming is dangerous or how to address fossil fuel use are separate political questions.
Importantly, I don’t believe it is relevant to the danger of whether the warming is anthropogenic or natural. This is where I part ways with the anti-AGW activists. While there is a moral component to conserve our resources. Focusing exclusively on fossil fuel is not objectively justified IMO.
David
“ You will find that changes in the last quarter century cannot be explained as part of a 1000 year natural cycle.”
I look at the post 1900 temperature record as a cumulative response to several factors. The base being recovery from LIA. Then, from IPCC6, multi decadal solar activity that is in the top decile of the last 9,000 years. And then being in the warm phase of the AMO. And then some UHI effect, uncertainties with measurements, and possible albedo changes per this graph, in addition to CO2. What fraction by each is and will be unknown. But it seems there are alternative hypotheses to the current establishment narrative. (Prefer the LIA NH/SH endless debate left for another day.)
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GGEfGwaWQAAgpj1?format=png&name=medium
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GD0wgFUXwAA8I0u?format=jpg&name=4096×4096
Not related to this specific question but rather to the prevailing mindset of seeking out alternative answers is this interesting graph which ties in hurricanes and solar sunspots. I don’t know what is at play, but there certainly seems like an association that is worthy of further research. Those who are afflicted with CO2OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder about CO2) are so blinded by their biases that they consider this stuff DOA.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GEolEpCWgAEVf_e?format=jpg&name=large
“The error bars are so wide and resolution so poor in paleo-reconstructions that ”
They still effortlessly outperform the full spectrum of climate cranks amateur and professional.
And witness the Steyn fiasco, justly continue to expand in predictive value even as the echo chambers of the ill-informed implode around them.
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https://www.dw.com/en/fact-check-is-global-warming-merely-a-natural-cycle/a-57831350
“Without the greenhouse gas effect, surface temperatures would drop 33 degrees Celsius (59.4 degrees Fahrenheit), according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) — making the planet a frozen, uninhabitable place.
For thousands of years, nature had well-regulated the concentration of these gases. But this started changing when humans began burning fossil fuels as a global means of creating energy — resulting in a sharp rise of unnatural CO2 emissions. This has interfered with the planet’s atmospheric balance.
And, as a result, Earth started warming faster.”
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“For thousands of years, nature had well-regulated the concentration of these gases.”
Thank you GOOD NATURE!!!
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https://www.cristos-vournas.com
What Nature does is a one way decaying process. It is a never stopping cooling process.
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Earth is slowly cooling since its formation.
Once in the process carbon (C) occured, when combined with hydrogen (H2) the life occured.
Carbon in form of CO2 gets captured and sequestered. It gets sequestered in the natural sinks (oceanic waters, rocky sediments, and coal, natural gas and oil deposits).
By doing so, Nature exploites life. Also, Nature doesn’t care about life’s future existence.
Many large forms of life (dinosaurs etc…) went extinct, because the Natural CO2 depletion from Earth’s atmosphere made the food for the large species very scarce, so the smaller species were more adapted. It was then large mammals (whales) turned back into sea, because there still was enough food.
If Nature is left on its own, Nature will lead life on Earth to inevitable natural ecological catastrophe.
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https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Let’s introduce to the very POWERFUL the Solar Irradiated planet surface Rotational Warming Phenomenon ( N*cp )^1/16.
When comparing the various different planets and moons (without-atmosphere, or with a very thin atmosphere, Earth included), when comparing their mean surface temperatures (Tmean), the temperatures
RELATE, (everything else equals), as their (N*cp) products’ SIXTEENTH ROOT.
( N*cp )^1/16
or
[ (N*cp)^1/4 ]^1/4
Where:
N – rotations/day, is the planet’s axial spin.
cp – cal/gr*oC, is the planet’s average surface specific heat.
Tmean.1 /Tmean.2 =
= [ (N1*cp1) /(N2*cp2) ]^1/16
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https://www.cristos-vournas.com
I find it a little sad that for all the orgasmic idiocy over this upside down verdict from Mann’s supporters not one of them has dealt with the issue of the jury and what may have happened to them in a cancel culture. Where there is no room for free thought or latitude at all in society in major issues then there can only be decay, disease and death. And the echo chamber tries to raise a cheer but we all know it only takes one or two influence peddlers to push a verdict. And, as anyone who has been on jury service knows, there is sometimes a payback when you do not do as you are told in these public scenarios. An so people seriously prepped by their peers to keep on song are pretty predictable, no conspiracy or otherwise.
Mann runs slipshod over his opponents constantly playing the person and not the ball. His actions are of sleight of hand, misdirection, and deception. He hasn’t shown any qualities one would associate with proper scientists (e.g. Dr Curry) willing to admit to their mistakes and suffer the pains of doing so be they undeserved or not. Mann is also the opposite of inspiring and his conceit must require a very precise and abhorrent diet …
If only Mann, and many of his pathetic followers had a solitary gram of scientific integrity and human conscience climate science would indeed be a trillion fold better place even if it still couldn’t today accurately predict temperatures on 21 March 2024 for anywhere on Earth, let alone for 2050 everywhere.
From the first time I saw Mann, it’s been difficult to get Napoleonic Complex out of my mind.
There we go –
> “Where there is no room for free thought or latitude at all in society in major issues then there can only be decay”
And there I thought I was maybe exaggerating a bit when I was mockingly claiming there would be claims that no one would be able to say anything in public again.
But no, leave it for Beth to exceed my expectations. It’s not that no one will be able to say anything in public – it’s that no one will even be able to have a “free thought.”
Alarmism? Catastrophism?
What alarmism and catastrophism?
Oh, sorry, not Beth but UK Weather Lass.
Even better.
I am very sorry, whoever you are Joshua, but AI (about which I have expressed strong views about elsewhere) is more proficient at writing meaningful text than you ever will be or ever could be. You make a three year old program using thirty year old plus algorithms seem intelligent when it is actually a pile of junk with an IQ of zero.
Your Freudian slip will not go unmissed by Beth …
That’s OK lass. As long as I know you won’t have any room for “free thought” it’s all good.
Lost again, eh? Must be the jury’s fault – yep, sure is. That’s the way it works.
😖🍇
Despite Joshua’s efforts here to paper over the bias present in DC cases due to the Marxist Democrats there, the punitive damages violate all guidelines. This will be easily appealable and I will happily contribute to Styne’s effort should he chose to go there.
The U.S. Supreme Court found that the $2 million punitive damages award was grossly excessive and in violation the Due Process Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The Supreme Court outlined three factors that courts may consider in evaluating the size of punitive awards.
How “reprehensible” was the defendants’ conduct?
What’s the relationship between the actual damage and the punitive awards?
What’s the difference between the punitive award and the relevant civil penalties?
In Dr. Gore’s case, the Supreme Court found that BMW’s behavior was not so reprehensible to justify the award, since only economic damage was involved. While the Court declined to specify a mathematical formula, the Court said that the 500-to-1 ratio of the punitive damages award to the actual damages “must surely raise a judicial eyebrow.”
https://www.justia.com/trials-litigation/docs/punitive-damages/
Jim –
So you’re good with numbers, right?
My understanding is that it was a unanamous verdict?.
A quick Google tells me that party affiliation in DC is only 56% Democratic (seems too low but that’s what Mr Google said).
So what is the probability that each and every person on the jury is a hardcore soshlist.demorat as you seem to believe?
Not hard to believe at all. You have presented a load of Bafflegab.
Bafflegab = I can’t refute that, but I have to try something.
Some Jan. 6 defendants are citing research firm surveys of Washington juror pools to expose biases, they say, that would prevent them from receiving fair trials.
Not surprisingly, survey answers show how the heavily Democratic, government-centric city is in line with how elected Democrats view the Republican Trump-supporting protesters and their Capitol Building invasion. One defense attorney labeled Washington a place of “extreme community prejudice” with “an absolute lack of political diversity” and “tribal political landscape.”
There is at least one high-profile non-Jan. 6 criminal case unfolding in the same U.S. federal courthouse that tapped the city’s same voter pools to select a jury. Former Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann is on trial for allegedly lying to the FBI while spreading anti-Trump propaganda.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/may/25/tribal-dc-juries-align-with-biden-and-democrats/
Here you go, BAB …
https://judithcurry.com/2024/02/08/jcs-ethics-complaint-against-michael-mann/#comment-1001334
56% is more than half and therefore enough to produce bias especially in a cancel culture environment, which is what the Democrats are all about. Just read Mann’s own words at the trial about the damage sceptics do simply by being alive and that is why he wanted punitive damages.
That is the exceedingly low standard of tolerance he has especially when added to that weird look he remembered he’d got in a supermarket covering his lies by talking nonsense just like you do, Joshua.
What were his words now … “I knew approximately where I was because I had a precise memory of the layout” … or words to that effect as if supermarkets are like an intelligence test. How much more intelligent than Mann must the shop workers be to get their jobs and precisely know where they approximately are?
5% of DC voted for Trump. So probably somewhere around 95%, minus some probably small number, are Marxist Democrats, even if they don’t admit it.
“5% of DC voted for Trump.”
Hypothesis 1) Democrats work or do business with the federal government are interested in policy that expands government power.
Hypothesis 2) Democrats are extraordinarily compassionate people and working with or for the federal government attracts such people.
Jim –
> 5% of DC voted for Trump.
All that tells you is that only 5% don’t think he’s a lunatic. There are plenty of non-Demoxrara who feel that way.
Don’t let your extremism prevent you from simple coherent logic.
Party affiliation among adults in the Washington, DC metro area:
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/metro-area/washington-dc-metro-area/party-affiliation/
Ron –
Hypothesis 1) Democrats work or do business with the federal government are interested in policy that expands government power.
Hypothesis 2) Democrats are extraordinarily compassionate people and working with or for the federal government attracts such people.
It’s kind of remarkable that the hypotheses you can even. Imagine possible are only those that confirm your biases.
We are talking about DC proper. See …
https://judithcurry.com/2024/02/08/jcs-ethics-complaint-against-michael-mann/#comment-1001385
OK, I stand corrected then. They are all Marxists, worthy of your contempt.
The need for more Republican Hegelians seems more acute as Marxist Democrats are so rarely electable . If exit poles are to be believed the odds are long against finding a climate zealot, pro or con amongst 6 jurors
I used to know a half dozen marxist climate scientists that spouted the same ‘objective circumstances rhetoric ‘ Putin used on Carlson last week, but they all changed their minds when the Soviet Union folded.
Except for one slow learner liquidated for deviating from the party line before he got the chance.
Marxist Democrats occupy the top levels of government. So also, their counterparts in Europe.
Joshua | February 11, 2024 at 3:14 pm |
“Imagine possible are only those that confirm your biases.”
One of the most biased commentators commenting on the biases of others.
Josh is it possible that you could discuss science on a science blog
“So what is the probability that each and every person on the jury is a hardcore soshlist.demorat as you seem to believe?”
Obviously you did not watch the trial. So you are talking from a place of faith that the good people of DC would not put tribal identity interests over the truth when it comes to an opportunity to send a shot at the opposing tribe, the life and liberty of their victims be d@mned.
Not ironically, those people in the jury were majorly influenced by their faith in infallibility of government institutions and the accuracy of their news feeds.
If you can understand that such dynamics lead to a spiral of decay you might better understand the comment of UK Weather Lass. If the USA turns into a Soviet style society, which is the aim of the left. They cheer the removal of any opposition publication or media. Then such a catastrophe is not beyond plausibility.
I don’t believe Joshua has any “faith” that the DC jury is fair to conservatives. He’s here just to take a victory lap and deploy his usual spin and FUD.
JIm – don’t get it, eh? Your losing personal opinion doesn’t matter.
You got nothin’ BAB.
Jim,
As already said, your unsupported personal opinion doesn’t matter, whether it is applied to me or the trial. Your conspiracy theories are tiresome.
Jim –
Nah. No victory laps. No, I didn’t watch the trial, nor do I particularly care about the outcome. I’m not a fan of Mann as I see him as mostly a malign influence (albeit on a much smaller scale than Steyn).
I’m just here to eat popcorn and enjoy the show of “skeptics” displaying their typical alarmist catastrophism.
Actions speak louder than words, Josh.
Not ironically, those people in the jury were majorly influenced by the sworn testimony.
Of course they were, BAB. If they actually had listened to the testimony, they would have returned a verdict that the defendants did not defame Mr. Hockeystick.
Jim, as said, your unsupported opinions and excuses don’t matter.
BA, did you watch the trial or even listen to the closing statements? Perhaps CurryJA can post the transcript of the closing arguments.
Mann present scarce evidence of monetary loss, and his submitted list of grants that he could have gotten was speculative and contained an error found by the defense. A grant listed for 9 MM as actually just 120K, which cut his overall sworn claim in half. This is why even the DC jury could not give him more than a buck a piece for damages.
As for the hockey stick, Mann presented no witness to dispute witnesses McIntyre and McKitrick who presented that MBH had zero validity statistically, forgetting the cherry picking of proxies or the deceptive graphing. Mann’s witnesses were Naomi Oreskes to present peer review is how science works and Ray Bradley to show that paleoclimatology involves real field trips to core trees (without harming them). BTW, Mann’s only field trips are on the campaign stage with Dem politicians and to testify for Dems in congress.
The defamation case relied on the plausibility that calling Mann the Jerry Sandusky of climate science was meant to make believe that Mann was a child molester, not that is was a political humor or hyperbole .
Ron,
No, I didn’t watch the trial – it didn’t particularly interest me. It has something to do with the difference between “scientist” (human) and “science” (understanding the workings of the physical/natural universe).
BA, well it seem that despite your non-denial denial and Joshua’s eye roll at me supposedly misinterpreting your point, you are in fact saying that Mann’s abysmal scientific ethics are not a part of science and have no negative effects on the sausage served.
Or, you are defending the validity of MBH, which I would gladly have you attempt.
Ron,
“… you are in fact saying that Mann’s abysmal scientific ethics are not a part of science and have no negative effects on the sausage served.”
Sorry, you don’t get to say what I am saying. I made no assumptions about Mann’s scientific ethics. And with regard to “science” – I think that it worked the way it is supposed to. Skepticism, valid or not, brought more attention to the subject -> more studies to test the result -> underlying physical science hypothesis confirmed with more validity than if it had not received attention.
“Or, you are defending the validity of MBH, which I would gladly have you attempt.”
No, again, you don’t get to presume what I say or what I defend. I defend the reality of a “global average temperature history” that may have the general appearance of a “hockey stick” over the last 1000 years.
ganon
Did you watch the OJ Simpson trial? I watched nearly every minute of the trial, the nights of the trial. If there ever was an open and shut case, that was it.
That acquittal was considered jury nullification. Sometimes jurors have their own sense of justice regardless of the law. This might be a variant of that phenomenon.
Kid,
And might not. Thanks for the deflection.
cerescokid | February 11, 2024 at 12:54 pm |
ganon
Did you watch the OJ Simpson trial
Cerescokid –
A better example would be the Chauvin trial where the forensic evidence did not match the State’s theory of cause of death. That is not to say that Chauvin wasnt guilty of something, just that forensic evidence did not match the state theory.
all three cases are examples of disregarding the evidence and facts when the jury pool is heavily biased.
Jos –
> That is not to say that Chauvin wasnt guilty of something, just that forensic evidence did not match the state theory.
Classic own goal:
https://radleybalko.substack.com/p/the-retconning-of-george-floyd/
From Joshua’s link, Radley Balko’s criticism of the documentary, The fall of Minneapolis looks very well sourced and convincing to me (first time I’ve seen it).
Here’s a summary of The Fall of Minneapolis
https://www.thefallofminneapolis.com/research
Oops. Belongs here.
Mike –
From Joshua’s link, Radley Balko’s criticism of the documentary, The fall of Minneapolis looks very well sourced and convincing to me (first time I’ve seen it).
Good contrast to the documentary. Hard to understand why people who call themselves “skeptics” are so easily taken in.
I did not follow the Mann defamation trial closely, but from the beginning I saw the verdict going the way of the current intellectual thinking on the matter of climate change and climate science. It was not decided on the validity of the Mann hockey stick or of other sundry temperature proxies and models, but rather on the basis of which individuals can apply defamatory-like language to their enemies. It appears quite ironic that Mann, as a scientist, describes those who might disagree with his findings and methods in demeaning personal terms has won a defamation suit.
There are sufficient technical people making strong arguments against the validity proxy temperature modeling methods and results in technical and not personal terms that personal double entendre comments for the sake of appearing cute from non-technical people such as that made by Steyn are distractions. Steyn and his co-defendants should have been aware that the current climate issue is stacked against them even though I would judge as a matter of free speech they have been wrongly handled by the judicial system.
The handling of historical temperature proxies by climate scientists faces technical obstacles of not being in the domain of hard science (cannot make laboratory and repeatable experiments) and the availability of numerous proxies that on selection can produce contradictory results. The historically observed temperature record is available for calibration of proxy responses even if not always in near location of the proxy site. Unfortunately, the observed record is relatively short compared to the proxy record and the question becomes one of the proxies having a consistent thermometer like response over long time periods. Strategies are available that involve constructing a model with parts of the historical data and testing the validity on withheld data, but even those methods are subject to post hoc selection bias.
A way to address these problems is establishing criteria for selecting individual temperature proxies based on established science, then using that selection method with no post hoc exceptions and letting the result fall where it may. That such methods are not seriously discussed by climate science readily leads to Mann-like manipulations and acceptance by the climate science community and those interested in a preferred outcome.
The best way to address these problems is to vote out the Marxist Democrats.
Jim2
Every time you call someone you disagree with a “Marxist” you admit that
a) you see the discussion as political, not scientific
b) you have no argument to make and must resort to name calling
Bafflegab, David.
Could you please be so good as to name ten Jacobin subscribers in the House of Representatives ?
https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2022/09/jacobins-canadian-comedian-free-red.html
“It appears quite ironic that Mann, as a scientist, describes those who might disagree with his findings and methods in demeaning personal terms has won a defamation suit”.
Perhaps those “demeaning personal terms” are not defamation, but rather, descriptors for those that defamed Dr. Mann. I would have reacted similarly if someone had called any of my work “fradulent”.
Kenneth Fritsch: “A way to address these problems is establishing criteria for selecting individual temperature proxies based on established science…
Yes.
“That such methods are not seriously discussed by climate science…”
But of course they are seriously discussed. See
https://www.climatology.uni-mainz.de/files/2016/03/Esper_2016_QSR.pdf
and the 100+ citations.
I see you found a paper that refutes Mann’s Proxomatic algorithm. Good job!
Thanks, Fizzy.
You (and this trial) remind me it is a good time to re-read Bradley’s book “Paleoclimatology: Reconstructing Climates of the Quaternary” (2014) – 700 pages and 2600 references – a lot of information on the subject. Proxies and understanding their limitations (and information content) is fundamental to paleoclimatology. Those that think they aren’t investigated seriously (and continually improved), speak only for their own lack of knowledge.
BA Bushaw
– or even the venerable “Tree Rings and Climate” by Fritts (1976! – and later editions). Much to learn there.
The criteria in the linked paper are confined to tree ring proxies and appear more as suggestions that are more empirically based than theoretical.
Their effort is to be commended as it was a start in the right direction. Even better would be using a criteria before knowing the results of a proxy and then applying it to proxy candidates. Proxies from published temperature reconstructions have already been selected more post hoc than a priori.
The authors in conclusion make a surprising concession that proxies not scoring well by their method still might be used in reconstructions.
Fizzy, how many of the coauthors on that paper have denounced MBH or acknowledged its flaws?
Piltdown Man survived as the gold standard of paleoanthropology from 1912 to it’s finally being discarded in 1953. An orangutan jaw with filed teeth stood up to scientific scrutiny for 41 years, 37 years after its hoaxer’s death, Charles Dawson.
Piltdown Man had its detractors and accusers the year it was presented but they were overwhelmed by the power of the consensus, a political force in all sciences.
Fizzy
here is a better discussion regarding the Esper study you link.
You can draw your conclusions, yet the behavior throughout the paleo world speaks volumns
https://climateaudit.org/2016/08/13/esper-et-al-2016-and-the-oroko-swamp/
Joe – I am aware of McIntyre’s formidable efforts to ferret out errors, inconsistencies, malpractice, and general intransigence in the paleo sciences, but I prefer the more objective evaluations of, for instance,
https://par.nsf.gov/servlets/purl/10345339
I doubt that discussions at CA will be the final word, but who knows?
fizzy | February 11, 2024 at 2:57 pm |
Joe – I am aware of McIntyre’s formidable efforts to ferret out errors, inconsistencies, malpractice, and general intransigence in the paleo sciences, but I prefer the more objective evaluations of, for instance,
https://par.nsf.gov/servlets/purl/10345339
Fizzy
Take a look at figure 1 and figure 2. Wyner’ s point on uncertainty remains valid. Figure 2 shows less than 50 proxies at 1000 AD, mostly tree ring and low resolution. Its inane to believe, there is high confidence levels with so few proxies.
Attack the problem, not the person.
Congratulations! Please continue individual & collective legal actions against all corrupt climate defamers.
It’s time to give the Climate Doomers a taste of their own medicine! Vote out the Marxist Democrats!
JHY, Here is a way you can put your money where your mouth is and help save the climate from deni ers. The Climate Science Legal Defense Fund paid for all of Mann’s lawyers and filings over the 12-year defense of his reputation as a very ethical Nobel Prize winning scientist leading the fight against climate change.
The founder of the CSLDF, Dr. John Abraham, presented himself as a random witness on the street who saw Mann lose a participation in a grant when the witness said he wanted to invite Mann on the team but “was skittish” in 2012 because the international members of the team’s views about Mann. His founding of the CSLDF only came out in cross-examination but that was not the worst of his testimony. In fact, that did not even make the closing arguments. What did was that when asked if he ever worked with Mann he said he invited him on a team later “when Climategate [2009] died down.” The truth that Mann’s international reputation was defined by Climategate, not Simberg’s 2012 blog or Steyn’s follow-on 250-word political humor column.
Sounds like I should apply for help from the CSLDF . . . ha ha
Anyone familiar with the reality the climate debate on either side should recognize the CSLDF’s mission statement as Orwellian, (meaning it’s the polar opposite the truth).
Here you go. Pick out the areas that are NOT Marxist Democrat.
https://bestneighborhood.org/conservative-vs-liberal-map-washington-dc/
More than 7 inches of snow may fall in the mountains of northern California by Feb. 20.
https://www.ventusky.com/?p=37.8;-121.8;5&l=rain-ac&t=20240221/0900
Regarding water.
jim2- There are many of us who appreciate the center left Democrats and find Trump a scoundrel, bully, and threat to democracy. Mann and Trump appear to me as narcissistic twins- similarly power hungry bullies who demand personal loyalty and are always ready to defame lack of it. When I was in college in the early 1960s and visited apartheid Alabama, it was an eye-opener. I joined NAACP and CORE. Conservatives opposed the social justice goals I embraced over the years and decades- desegregation, women’s rights, gay rights, etc. Yes, I agree that progressive extremism and arrogance is as bad as conservative extremism and arrogance, and I think Andy West’s explanations are helpful. Yes, I agree that Judith Curry and Roger Pielke exemplify responsible science and scientific method compared to Mann and many others. Just as many Trump supporters are hurt and infuriated by the epithets of the Left, so I find your and so many on the right similarly hurtful and infuriating.
Doug, I appreciate your justice motivated centrism, from the 1960s conservative Democrat south to the 2020s unconstrained-by-reality, woke Democrat globalists. I supported Trump only after he was the last man standing in 2016 and today. But I completely understand that he is an echo of the frustration of the working class that was tricked and abandoned by the Democrats, joined with long frustrated, and now aging, GOP.
I also agree with your moral, that truth and fairness need to be supported even when it goes against one of your own causes. When I say truth I am concerned about jokes and hyperbole of Trump or Mark Steyn. I am more concerned with weaponization of justice, aka lawfare.
I am very pro science and technology but I fear politicization could have a very long-term negative effects. MBH and the Mann trial were abuses of the science.
I find Marxist Democrats a much, much greater threat to democracy than Trump. The country was doing well under Trump, Democracy survived, the country thrived. Under Trump we had the border under control, he unleashed the oil field which it still the case today. I just don’t see this big threat to Democracy. Sorry.
And I’m not going to say we will have to agree to disagree. We don’t have to agree. That’s just the way life is.
Marxist Democrats throw around all sorts of disparaging terms for conservatives of various stripes. It’s time you get a dose of your own medicine.
As understand the situation, the data behind Mann’s hockey stick are highly suspect, the statistical analysis Mann used has been shown to be incorrect, and Mann fought tooth and nail not to disclose his data.
In addition, Mann effectively destroyed Judith Curry’s academic career for no other reason than that he disagreed with her.
Why should I respect Mann as a scientist or as a person?
Correction . . . Mann went after me after Climategate because i criticized the behavior the scientists writing those emails. This, far more than any disagreement about the science, is why Mann hates me and has been attacking me.
Corruption is contagious. I’m sure some thought politicization could be contained to climate science.
Here is an article that should concern all.
If you want to talk about COVID, perhaps you should read this peer reviewed article.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38274635/
“If you want to talk about COVID…”
And then there’s this:
https://www.techarp.com/science/covid-19-mrna-vaccines-lessons/
‘Unfortunately, the love-in with China is not the only form of rot that is plaguing science. There is also its enthusiastic embrace of extreme progressive ideologies, in which research is seen to be an activity that should happen in the service of “social justice”…’
Instrumentalism, in Science as in History, acts against honest enquiry.
Not much of a debunk there Fizzy.
Jim2,
Not much to debunk there … not if you don’t bother to read the link. And, “post publication peer review” is not peer review.
Yes, BAB, I read the regurgitation. Nothing new there. I’m not a fan of peer review, but all of a sudden you aren’t either.
If I’m not mistaken, jim was one of the many “skeptics” on here who were advocating the HCQ as a treatment for COVID.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S075333222301853X
josh – your covid infatuation has gotten very old – time to drop it
Influenza made a lot of people very rich and they are getting richer by the day
For early treatment, it appears hydroxychloroquine is still near the top of the list for early treatment.
https://c19early.org/#fpearly
571 HCQ COVID-19 studies, 448 peer reviewed, 419 comparing treatment and control groups. Late treatment and high dosages may be harmful, while early treatment consistently shows positive results. Negative evaluations typically ignore treatment delay. Some In Vitro evidence suggested therapeutic levels would not be reached, however that was incorrect [Ruiz]. Recent:
Chouhdari
Fincham
Pradelle
Soltani
Salesi
Abayomi
Varan. HCQ/CQ was adopted in all or part of 42 countries (57 including non-government medical organizations).
https://c19hcq.org/
I love that some people never present evidence.
Joshua | February 12, 2024 at 6:33 pm |
I love that some people never learn.
Pot meet kettle
I love you boyz. In case anyone though you’d ever give up the ghost on ICM and HCQ, you happily step forward to make it obvious you never would.
Here’s a nice discussion related to the kind of meta-survey you find so impressive (in lieu of ANY high-quality RCT evidence).
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/ivermectin-much-more-than-you-wanted
It’s hard to imagine a better way to capture the mindset associated with climate change “skeptics.”
Although I have to admit, this does come close.
https://radleybalko.substack.com/p/the-retconning-of-george-floyd
Does it ever bother you that you’re so credulous?
“It’s hard to imagine a better way to capture the mindset associated with climate change “skeptics.””
That you readily accept there is a “mindset” associated with a particular skepticism is interesting. You claim to be unbiased. So you don’t have any particular mindset. Help us figure out what causes our mindset so you can cure us. I’m very interested.
So looks like your man hit about 30, no doubt carefully, selected papers out of almost 500. Killer!
Ron,
” … in addition to vested economic interests, climate denialism more broadly is about complicated political and cultural interests, ideologies, social structures and the sentiments of ordinary citizens.”
It is mostly “built in” and difficult to change
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01685-6
Why?
https://www.apa.org/science/about/publications/climate-change.pdf (section 5).
Jim –
Did you even read it? Do you understand how he evaluated the various studies? Do you know that for meta-survey to be useful, you have to evaluate things like the statistical power of the tidies? Do you have an explanation why there have been zero quality RCTs that have shown efficacy for ICM or HCQ? Does that even make any difference to you?
Ron -.
> You claim to be unbiased.
No. I’ve never said that. Why do you lie? .
I gave you a link to understand. If you’re interested, read it
Josh – this is a science blog, not a social science sociology blog.
Joshua: “No. I’ve never said that. Why do you lie?
I guess because of my “mindset” I sometimes jump to conclusions, giving you the benefit of the doubt, that you might be making a logical point. Using as a prior climate skeptic’s mindset as an assumption I saw an implicit assumption in an ability to objectively state such, aka not being biased. If your assumption included yourself being biased in that statement it would have been wise to give that disclaimer to your point’s validity.
Your outrage that I would assume your assumption about our “mindset” tells me something about your mindset. But I might be biased. That is why I was genuinely interested. The fact that you seem to be hypersensitive might be taken by a neurologist or sociologist as evidence (of denial) itself, as a cause of not being logical.
BA: “…in addition to vested economic interests, climate denialism more broadly is about complicated political and cultural interests, ideologies, social structures and the sentiments of ordinary citizens.”
Are you proud of that paragraph? If so, compose a paragraph of the opposing demographic that supports climate justice or climate alarm. Just a suggestion to help you think critically.
If you want to contribute logic to the discussion I am interested. If your logic is that government-academic studies confirm that the people that oppose their policies are biased then we’ll talk about that.
Ron –
> The fact that you seem to be hypersensitive might be taken by a neurologist or sociologist as evidence (of denial) itself, as a cause of not being logical.
Classic. I’m “hypersensitive?”
And why do you reach that conclusion?
Because when you lied, I pointed out that you lied.
I never said I’m not biased. I would never say that. You regularly foist that kind I of nonsense on to me. You put words into my mouth, as I have told you many, many times.
Of course I wouldn’t say that because it would be a dumb thing to say.
Again, it is an example of your mindset that you believed I had said that when I never have. That’s exactly what I’m referring to. You invent a version of something in your head. You make it up out of whole cloth. And then you’re convinced it’s reality.
A perfect example of exactly what I was referring to.
Ron –
> Your outrage that I would assume your assumption about our “mindset” tells me something about your mindset
More bull that you just make up and float in to me..
I’m not “outraged.”. Not in the least. What you did is commonplace. In fact you do it all the time. It doesn’t outrage me because I don’t take it as a personal affront. It’s your problem that you make stuff up and foist it on to me. It’s your problem that you believe things are true that aren’t true. That doesn’t “outrage” me. It’s not a statement about me. I don’t take it personally. It’s about you. It’s about your mindset. If it did “outrage” me I wouldn’t bother to engage with you, because you do this kind of thing frequently.
“And why do you [I] reach that conclusion? Because when you lied, I pointed out that you lied.”
Okay, maybe that is not hypersensitivity to call someone a liar for making a logical jump that wasn’t specifically stated. Let’s give you that. But then why call someone a liar when it is just as easy to correct them by saying, “I didn’t mean to imply that I am beyond bias, but it appears to me that climate skepticism follows a “mindset,” a phenomenon or pattern? The fact that you jump to an ad hom attack could draw a conclusion that you are uncomfortable defending your original point. But it is not proof, just an indication, I admit. Another plausible explanation is that you harbor a deep animosity for people on the other side of the debate and simply can’t control an urge to insult whenever the opportunity might arise. But I hope that is not the case.
“It’s about you. It’s about your mindset. If it did “outrage” me I wouldn’t bother to engage with you, because you do this kind of thing frequently.”
OK, you are you admitting you might be a little biased here? I don’t want to jump to conclusions.
Next are you going to ask when am I going to stop lying?
I honestly want to figure out how to have a logical conversation and I’m afraid that we may not even agree there is still such a thing as logic. We might be too busy discrediting each other first as a pre-emptive defense.
Ron –
> But then why call someone a liar when it is just as easy to correct them by saying, “I didn’t mean to imply that I am bey
Because you do this sort of thing so often. Yes, I could over and over say that I didn’t mean what you assert that I’ve said. But I’ve discussed this with you many times. I’ve over and over told you that there’s a problem where you put words into my mouth. That there’s a problem where over and over you claim that I’m saying things that I never said.
Then you compound it by saying like that I’m “outraged” and “hypersensitive”. Again and again. And again. And again. You mind-probe. And you’re wrong again and again
Its tiresome. It makes meaningful exchange impossible.
Ifs fair to say that there’s no benefit from me calling you a liar. So I won’t defend having done so. That there’s a reason why I did it isn’t a valid justification.
But it would go a long way if at least once in the many, many times that you mind probe, and put words in my mouth, and claim that I’ve said things that I’ve never said, you would must show some straight up accountability. Just acknowledge it.and at least try to stop. Next time you’re about to mind probe with me, or wrongly claim I’ve said something that I never said. Or put words in my mouth. Just don’t do it. It’s not really that hard to avoid if you out your mind to it. And if you do it again, just be accountable.
> OK, you are you admitting you might be a little biased here?
Lol. Is it that you just can’t help yourself?
Anywah, Ron. I’m done. Have a good rest of your night..You can.carry on with your conversations with the version of what I say that you carry around in your head without me. I’m absolutely not necessary for you to have that convo.
“I’ve over and over told you that there’s a problem where you put words into my mouth.”
It might be because I am over-excited that you might be saying something. But as usual you expend all your energy just wasting carbon, getting exhausted before doing anything productive.
The scary thing to me is that you or somebody with your “mindset” is going to send me and people with my “mindset” for reprogramming and re-education because that is easier than conversing.
Ron,
If you’ll notice the quotation marks, it is taken from the first reference. I think “accurate”, not “proud”, is the descriptor I would use.
BA, are you going to step up to the plate and defend the use of psychoanalysis and fossil fuel interest connections as explanations for climate skepticism? I assume you read your links. Why don’t you offer up a point that you found was profoundly enlightening that I would be wise to consider?
If not, I have an observation to offer. Why am I and other skeptics curious enough about the validity of MBH to watch the debate under trial sworn testimony? Why was there was zero interest by the consensus or Mann defenders. Mann did not even have a family member or fan club director there. He only had his founder of his lawsuit trust fund, who also testified as an impartial scientist witness to Mann’s damages. No Desmog reporter. However, an NPR reporter did a drive-by but no factual reporting resulted.
But that could be par for people with that “mindset.” What is the reason I would be interested instead of content not to threaten my continued Koch money gig? (Just kidding — for congressional staffers monitoring).
Ron,
You asked, I stepped up and answered. If you didn’t read, or don’t understand, that’s your problem.
A leading light of the IVM for COVID constituency explains that:
Unvaccinated women talk of menstrual abnormalities after coming into close contact with vaccinated individuals.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/epochtv/dr-pierre-kory-explains-covid-19-vaccine-shedding-5584790
I love you boyz.
Josh – The topic of this thread is the ethics complaint against M Mann
Take the covid discussion elsewhere
Take the social science discussion elsewhere
Marxists, Chauvin. And Joe the hall monitor.
Joe, sorry for letting the discussion wander from the posted topic. I am also thankful for our very tolerant host.
BA, let’s save discussion of your links for a post on “mindsets.” It’s a very interesting topic as we are all vulnerable to bias and delusion.
jim2 You don’t see Trump’s attempt to steal the election that Biden won a threat to democracy? Remarkable! The many recounts, and several Republican Secretary of States confirmed Biden won, and that the results were accurate. jim,2, my remarks were not so much directed at you as to a class of Republicans and conservatives who, in my opinion, are the mirror image of the Democrats you complain about. It’s easy to understand the political division and distrust on both sides and how hurt and angry you and millions of others are on both sides by the widespread disparaging remarks, and how that furthers the tribalism that allows Trump and Mann to lie and be rewarded for it. Don’t Michael Mann and Donald Trump both model the incivility and lack of integrity that are threats to science and to democracy? You say, “So its time you get a dose of my own medicine?” Do you really think that your language does anything but create greater hurt, antipathy, distrust, and tribalism?
It is within the rights of any citizen to question the outcome of an election. Marxist Democrats have done it! Trump suspected foul play in the election. That is NOT insurrection. It is NOT a threat to democracy. I can’t believe you parrot this nonsense!!!
Doug: “Don’t Michael Mann and Donald Trump both model the incivility and lack of integrity that are threats to science and to democracy?”
I again, I agree that patience and trust building with good faith debate is the way. We all need to avoid the trap of mistaking blindness and pride with dishonesty (except with Joshua).
Trump is a politician who admits to be a politician. Mann claims to be a scientist.
Doug: “Don’t Michael Mann and Donald Trump both model the incivility and lack of integrity that are threats to science and to democracy?”
Trump is a politician who is honest about his policy goals but has a tough time with civility in the face of a mostly hostile press and DC security state. Trump seems to be a good politician.
Mann is a political activist posing as a scientist. His means of fame and self-promotion seem to be mostly through bending the truth and riding political favor. He is not a good scientist, IMO.
With a rigged press (how many didn’t cover the trial), rigged search engines (Google is a bad joke), cancelled advocates of truthful science (including Dr Curry), billionaire ignored balanced news outlets, heavily subsidised so called clean energy projects (inc solar, wind, EVs, heat pumps etc), dishonest control and auditing of elections, no lie is too bad to be repeated as often as possible as long as it is on ‘agenda’, and alarmist simpletons popping up on climate honest social media (but not the other way around) I do believe the evidence against Mann and his kind is becoming overwhelming. What is really sad is that so many important people do not wish to put their families in peril by being honest and that is something that here in the UK is seen very clearly in our civil service. This era will come to a close soon enough (they all do) and then we will see what cowards all these easily led fools are when push comes to shove and their easy life sudden;y becomes very tough indeed.
They’ll be squealing, squirming and hiding when retribution comes. Only solid integrity, self belief, and inner strength and honesty to stay true to themselves saves any of us in a crisis as the alarmists will find when the truth is eventually revealed. Dr Curry has already shown us how it was done as the alarmists invaded all that was once good.
The popularity of magic or conjuring tricks only last so long before an audience moves on to some other diversionary entertainment. By that time scientific and political dishonesty will be met by much, much more than just a scary look in a queue whilst out shopping. It is the timing of the switch back is the unknown but it may be rather sooner than the alarmists are reckoning with right now. Like a sudden invasion or takeover or bank collapse it’ll happen before anyone can easily find cover.
We may have seen justice after COVID-19 inquiries; we may have seen justice with the Hockey Stick trials. What will be the third thing that does finally break the back of the terrible conceits of our ruling classes which have endangered the very meaning of equality, justice and liberty?
I will remain optimistic because I have seen and lived through the only tipping points that really matter which happen when individuals stand up for themselves and say ‘Enough is enough’ and really, really mean it. It is surprising how easy it is to do once you make up your mind that you have already suffered too long
IMO Mann was recruited into politics by Al’s crowd because they needed an OK Nature cover story to point to.
Trump , OTOH, is the sort of politician Marcus Aurelius had in mind when he observed :
Τὸ τὰ ἀδύνατα διώκειν μανικόν : It’s crazy to expect bad men not to do wrong.
Thanks for once more corroborating the view of Alt. Climate Stoat
Adduced in 2011:
“A.P. Smith’s Mathematical analysis of Roy Spencer’s climate model has the story.
Poor Roy. He has backed himself so far into a corner that he no longer has anyone competent to discuss his ideas with, with the result that he publishes (in a book, because no-one would publish it in a journal) utter twaddle. It is really very difficult to do science all by yourself, and Spencer is certainly failing.
And updated in 2015:
” I often think of this post, and this concept, when reading the stuff from the Dork Side. Its not just Spencer; Curry is in the same boat and then so is JoNova with her Force X stuff; and so is any number of posts from WUWT. You might think, in the case of the latter two, “how can they be lonely?” when every blog post gets hundreds of comments. And the answer, of course, is to read the comments. Most of them are off the subject; of the few that are on-subject, most will be mindless praise; and that’s no help at all, to a scientist. Only one or two comments will be actual substantive criticism, and they are easily ignored in the morass.
Russell at | February 12, 2024 at 6:36 pm |
Russell opined about sceptics on Dr Curry’s blog “Only one or two comments will be actual substantive criticism, and they are easily ignored in the morass.”
I have commented on this blog for about 10 years now. In many cases, the purpose of my comment was to add data. or to point to where it was located.
In all this time, not counting the snarks and other juvenile blog conduct, not one substantial disagreement with my data or its interpretation has been raised.
I am forced to conclude that it is the critics of sceptics that are actual substantive criticism. I like to get into debate about my findings, because that way advances matters. I have long wondered how well qualified and experienced the usual anti-sceptic suspects really are.
Geoff S
The recounts were irrelevant. Anyone can count pieces of paper. It was vote audits that were required, and requested — but audits were not carried out. Wanting a verified tally of legitimate votes is NOT trying to steal an election.
Doug, ever hear of the term “hanging chad”?
Al Gore lost the 2000 Presidential election to George Bush. The vitriol from the left for the election result was extreme, a “threat to demcracy”.
Election officials recounted the ballots in Florida’s tight election, if a ballot had a hanging chad (a loose nib on a paper ballot) it went into arbitration. The left weren’t satisfied, they went into full hyperventilation mode; it ended up in the courts, finally reaching the U.S. Supreme Court. The US Supreme Court reversed an order by Florida’s Supreme Court for a selective manual recount of ballots.
After the dust settled Bush was declared the winner, but this didn’t stop the left from continuing to “threaten democracy”. Bush stole the election was the refrain, he was declared an illegitimate president from this point forward; lambasted, labeled as illegitimate by many in congress. Bush was skewered in the press, the target of vicious, relentless attacks, it was an all out assault on the Presidency, a threat to Democracy.
Similarly with Trump, who was declared Illegitimate from the start, including by Hillary. The entire left piled on. We know it got much worse. Is calling half the electorate “deplorable” incitement? Prep, tenderizing the red meat, was it soft peddling for an insurrection? The tone behind this statement, and other language, was very disturbing. The deplorable label, and similar language isnt surprising; Hillary was a confidant of Saul Alinsky himself, a student in fact, an all around acolyte, a true believer of his radical ideas.
During Tumps inauguration thousands protested in DC. Six police officers were injured, over 200 were arrested for setting fires to vehicles, destroying public property, violence in general. Most today barely recall this riot, if at all. Maybe it’s because the predominant leftist press often called such large destructive leftist riots “mostly peaceful protests”. One particular CBS headline: “Trump inauguration protest damages parts of downtown Washington”. Ho-hum.
Code Pink, and other anarchist groups blockaded streets in an attempt to shut down the inauguration. Code Pink and Disrupt J20 stated that their goal was to “shut this inauguration down.” Code Pink organizer Tighe Barry was asked, “Are you guys going to cause some mayhem?” His response was an emphatic “Yes sir!” He added, “We blocked this street because we feel like we have the right to tell them not to come into our city.”
Most of the 200+ arrested during the inauguration riot were soon released, nobody was sentenced to prison. DC police however faced lawsuits based on purported excessive use of force; the suits were later settled out of court for 1.6 millon. No federal building was directly attacked; maybe thank DC police officers.
Later Trump was hanged in effigy, in another instance graphically beheaded, his head presented in the national media. Anyone consider the latter inciting? During Trumps entire term there were large, significantly destructive riots by anarchists; including looting, burning, significant destruction of property, and assaults. There were attempts to take over cities, including an attack on a federal courthouse during riots in Portland, Oregon, in 2000. Threats to democracy, indeed.
Trunks,
They “can’t handle the truth”!!
Geoff S
The Supreme Court selected the President in 2000, when Antonin Scalia wrote the majority opinion, ignoring prior election law precedents that had left vote-counting to the states, and he wrote that Florida had to stop their vote-counting. At the time, Florida appeared to be headed towards a recount result with Al Gore winning Florida, hence winning the national election. Scalia wrote in his opinion, that this was a “one-off” decision, and should not be considered as precedent for any future dispute. So was this the result of a democratic process? I’m just asking. . . .
paulg23 – you are laboring under the misconception that the US is a democracy. It isn’t. It is a Democratic Republic. We don’t vote on policy for the most part, we elect representatives. The Constitution set up three branches of government; Congress, President, and Court. None of those can be called “democracies”. That is the system in the US. It’s not technically Socialist or Communist, if that’s what you are expecting. However, the Marxist Democrats have found ways to tightly control companies and individual via lawfare and over-regulation. Decidedly NOT attributes of a democracy.
paulg23 | February 15, 2024 at 12:07 am |
The Supreme Court selected the President in 2000
Paulg23 – NO the SC did not such thing. The only thing the SC said was that FL had to follow existing FL state law, though the slightly botched the legal reasoning using EP clause. Note also that the Florida district court that heard the original case got the right answer for the right legal reason.
Jim: The US “is a Democratic Republic”.
It absolutely is, it’s amazing is that so many believe it’s a pure democracy.
The Founding Father’s recognized the absolute danger of a pure democracy leading to tyranny. They recognized that consensus group think inevitably becomes self serving, consensus overpowers individual freedom and liberty, and diversity of thought. Imagine that.
Pingback: The Travesty of Mark Steyn’s $1m Libel Loss to ‘Hockey Stick’ Climate Chart Creator Michael Mann - Climate- Science.press
Judy, good to have you here! You were brilliant, as you consistently are under questioning.
The actual trial was rather interesting and dramatic. It would be great for someone to make a video reenactment and if possible have some of the actual participants play their own parts.
Of course people want $14,000! A testament to the too high price of EVs.
France will halt a government-subsidized electric vehicle leasing program for the remainder of 2024 after more people than originally targeted applied for it, Agence France-Presse reported.
The government will provide the leases to more than 50,000 applicants, AFP said, citing President Emmanuel Macron’s office. The program will restart next year, the French daily Les Echos reported.
Macron said last year that low-income households would be able to lease electric cars for €150 a month or less with no down payment. At the time, the government had said that only 25,000 vehicles would be made available for the so-called “social leasing” plan, which allows for state funding of as much as 13,000 euros per car.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-12/france-to-halt-2024-subsidized-ev-leases-over-high-demand-afp
I just checked again and cannot find a single article that comes close to reporting anything truthful about the court case other than the $1,000,000 figure. They are all pretty much the NYT copy or NPR even though neither had a reporter at the trial for more than 1 hour according to observers who produced the podcast daily re-enactment.
Even Forbes is just repeated the slanted NYT story.
I did see this in the Forbes article:
Yeah. I don’t recall scientists mentioned in protected speech law.
It’s difficult to see how Climate Doomers miss this kind of thing. It’s probable they know it, but don’t say anything because it’s against their tribe’s rules.
The article in the AGU’s publication is so slipshod it needs correcting almost line by line.
Sorry for the repeat posts. I was trying to solve the hangup but it’s still a mystery to me of why things don’t post. I hate to leave it to Judith to have to release them.
The article in the AGU’s publication is so slipshod it needs correcting almost line by line.
The article on the case and verdict in the AGU’s publication is so slipshod it needs correcting almost line by line.
As someone with a good deal of trial experience, I will give my somewhat speculative opinion of what happened. 1. It was a DC jury that was undoubtedly biased very leftward. That made it an uphill case, no matter what. 2. There was an error in letting in information that Mann was cleared by 4 or 5 investigations. (Court of appeals was mainly responsible for this error). 3. The jury didn’t like Mark Steyn. I saw comments that he was disjointed in his presentation. They may not have liked his accent and may have generally considered him to be pompous. Steyn used to call Mann Dr. Fraudpants and if that got in, the Leftwing jury might think, he was childishly piling on and would need to be punished. 4. The jury returned a verdict within about 5 hours. This undoubtedly means that the statistically arguments were almost surely way above their head. Lucia at the Blackboard a long time ago, tried to simplify the statistics and I still had a hard time getting a handle on it and undoubtedly, it was much worse for the jury here.
Almost surely a motion will be filed to reduce the punitive damages awarded. There is a Supreme Court case that limits punitive damages to 4-10 times compensatory damages. The complication and subtlety here is that most states have a presumption of damages for the most severe kinds of defamation — for instance, falsely accusing someone of committing a crime.
I personally look at Rand Simberg’s verdict as a win for him in a forum that is hostile to his viewpoint.
JTNCS,
“Josh – The topic of this thread is the ethics complaint against Mann”
What ethics complaint? A draft document that has not been submitted is not a complaint.
“Take the social science discussion elsewhere”
Why, the subject matter very much needs social science analysis – it has to with human behavior; physical science, not so much.
Thanks for continuing to be the self-anointed hall monitor. I understand there are things you don’t want to talk about.
BA Bushaw (ganon1950) | February 13, 2024 at 10:21 am | Reply
JTNCS,
“Josh – The topic of this thread is the ethics complaint against Mann”
What ethics complaint? A draft document that has not been submitted is not a complaint.
Ganon – The fact the complaint wasnt submitted does not justify hijacking the thread for you personal pleasure.
Yes sir, Mr. Hall Monitor.
Thanks for admitting that there was no ethics complaint for this thread to be about.
I would encourage Dr. Curry to file an ethics complaint with the Univ. of Penn on Mann’s regularly referring to scientist as deniers, even under testimonies. Also, Mann, just after admitting he should not have spread derogatory and untrue rumors about people, testified that Dr. Curry was fired from GA Tech. Dr. Curry exposed that as a slander upon taking the stand and explaining her retirement with honors from GA Tech.
BA, don’t slip to being abusive to the light moderation. With privileges of being free from censorship on skeptic blogs there should be a responsibility to not parse points disingenuously, aka be a troll.
Speaking of ethics, do you think that referring to skeptics or those who dissent from your opinion deniers is ethical? If so, what are the criteria for its justification?
BA Bushaw,
Add my name to the list of those with lists of what they do not want to talk about, apart freom ending sentences with propositions.
In a nutshell, I do not want to talk about dishonesty here. The verbatim court records which I have heard are full of dishonest statements. I cannot understand why scientists can stoop so low. It feels like a physician screaming “First, do no harm”, while using a scalped to cut anyone in range.
I was fond of the old concept of professional conduct.
Geoff S
Our lovely hall monitor does a very nice job of showing the “mindset” I was discussing.
> “Josh – The topic of this thread is the ethics complaint against Mann”
Keep in mind, below is just a small sampling:
>> jim2 | February 9, 2024 at 9:24 am |
Even if views on “climate change” are determined by something other than the facts (as far as those can be ascertained), that in no way means the proposed actions of one or another group are wrong
>> jim2 | February 9, 2024 at 9:21 am |
15% of conservatives are atheists.
>> jim2 | February 9, 2024 at 1:24 pm |
Where would you place devout believers of Islam on the political spectrum?
>> jim2 | February 9, 2024 at 7:50 pm |
Do the drones carry nuclear weapons?
>> jim2 | February 11, 2024 at 5:05 pm |
Here’s a summary of The Fall of Minneapolis
Joshua, being asked to be respectful of the post is like being asked to stop talking during a movie in a theater. The proper response is not: “Who made YOU God!?!?!”
concur – worth noting that adults dont need hall monitors
But it makes Josh happy.
I wasn’t “asked” I was told. And I was selectively called out among many others who were similarly “off topic.”
Once again, a perfect illustration of exactly the mindset I was discussing.
And I love that you now weigh in, off topic, with more comments, as do Joe and jim, to scold me for not being respectful after you lied about me and made absurd claims about “people like me.”
I love you boyz.
Careful, one might think y’all are lobbying to have my comments deleted so that you can go right ahead being just as off-topic as you’d like without my interference.
Don’t worry, it’s only a matter of time.
The best part? From the hall monitor himself:
>>joethenonclimatescientist | February 12, 2024 at 6:50 pm |
Joshua | February 11, 2024 at 3:14 pm |
“Imagine possible are only those that confirm your biases.”
>>joethenonclimatescientist | February 11, 2024 at 2:08 pm |
cerescokid | February 11, 2024 at 12:54 pm |
ganon
Did you watch the OJ Simpson trial
>>joethenonclimatescientist | February 12, 2024 at 5:20 pm |
josh – your covid infatuation has gotten very old – time to drop it
>> joethenonclimatescientist | February 12, 2024 at 6:47 pm |
Joshua | February 12, 2024 at 6:33 pm |
I love that some people never learn.
Pot meet kettle
JTNCS,
“… adults dont need hall monitors”
Certainly not self-appointed ones.
Dr. Curry allows almost everyone to speak, unlike RealClimate and blogs of that ilk.
jim2
Dr. Curry allows almost everyone to speak, unlike RealClimate and blogs of that ilk.
Where have you been for the last decade?
https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2013/06/keeping-up-with-orwells.html
Dr Curry allows everyone to speak unlike Mann who, in his own words, appears not to want any sceptic to have the freedom to do anything that might even slightly upset him.
Mann followers have also caught this bug. It is a disease democrats appear to pass amongst themselves as, for example, when they declare they don’t ever question election results unlike republicans. They never ever appear to break the law except when their leaders are caught with their pants down doing deals with China and Russia. They are even handed about everything except when it comes to the truth. Their record on COVID-19 was immaculately clean until the proverbial **** hit the fan. The same is going to happen very soon with climate science and even the notion they know which way the change is going …
Never mind though at least it keeps their glasses full for a little bit longer.
Lass: …”unlike Mann who, in his own words, appears not to want any sceptic to have the freedom to do anything that might even slightly upset him.”
Indeed, but he’s not just one red flag, run it full mast as a Leftist metaphor.
Interesting:
> “unlike Mann who, in his own words, appears not to want any sceptic to have the freedom to do anything that might even slightly upset him.”
Can someone provide the quite where he says that “in his own words?”
I note that it’s “Dr. Curry” and “Mann.” I wonder if that might reflect any kind of observer bias?
Joshua, I know you’re more informed than this. In Climategate Mann was caught telling the NYT reporter that covers science that McIntyer was “complete fra ud.” He put M&M and others on personal black lists he meticulously and nefariously submitted to the climate journals. Mann blocks everyone on X who makes the slightest skeptical or questioning comment. He slanders anyone who disagrees with him.
Realclimate and even your bosses blog are notorious for deleting any comment that is an effective dissenting point of reason to their biased posts. Wake up. There is a pattern. But you won’t see a science paper written about it. Just the opposite. They will write a paper accusing their adversaries of being corrupt fossil fuel merchants of doubt.
Ron –
I’m mostly agnostic on the ins and outs of the whole “hockeystick” drama. It just all looks like sameold sameold teeth-gnashing and drama-queening and bickering and tribalism and proxy identity battles to me. It’s mostly irrelevant, IMO. I don’t either side covers themselves in glory, in the least.
But as a skirmish in the larger climate wars its a useful case study, IMO. And its always amusing to see the related peal-clutching from faiinting couches and alarmism and catastrophism at places like Climate Etc.
The silly bickering about blog moderation is just part and parcel. People playing victim of blog moderation as if it’s actually somehow reflective of “free speech.”
I’ve been moderated here and at places like WUWT just plenty. And it’s all in my control. I could find ways to express my views with more subtlety if my intent was really to avoid moderation. If Judith thinks I’m obnoxious or in some way detracting from her blog it’s entirely her right to delete my comments. I think that her moderation is capricious and far from even-handed, but It’s a matter for me to examine my intent and to act accordingly.
Your comments about “bosses” and the like are just bizarre. I assume intentionally so, but with you I actually never know for sure.
Boy do we get ya, Red.
If you could just please quit clutching your colon like you do your other pearls we could all breath a sigh of relief.
Trunks –
I love that you always go scataligical when whining and playing the victim because you decided to read my comments.
Is there a Freudian analyst in the house?
Joshua, are you agnostic on MBH because you think there is a good possibility that McIntyre and McKitrick’s claim of it having no statistical validity might be true? If so, that is a very big step because then logically one would also then have to question almost all of paleoclimatology’s NSF funded scientists. That’s hundreds of millions of dollars of potential motivated falsity.
You could plausibly argue that like Piltdown Man the community has other data the main theory, (the hockey stick), but just can’t expose the MBH hoax until the science is settled enough and Mann is dead. I am open to that possibility. So in that sense I am also agnostic on the hockey stick, aka skeptical, right with you.
Ron –
I’m not capable of evaluating the statistical arguments.
What I’ve seen is years and years of juvenile tribalism (on both sides) that serves no viable purpose, as far as I can tell.
What I find most amusing at this point is the alarmism and catastrophism from “skeptics” who are absolutely certain that this one case will completely reset the trajectory of our entire judicial system and lead to a total authoritarian state where no one can
say anything in publiceven have a thought not pre-approved by Michael Mann.Even if the case were wrongly decided (I’m agnostic) the level of wrongful thinking behind that widespread belief is just off the charts motivated reasoning.
Joshua: “I’m not capable of evaluating the statistical arguments.”
I don’t quite accept that you are as incapable as claimed. Most people, including myself, are not qualified to reproduce MBH or use principle components analysis correctly. But most are capable of listening to the debate and coming to a judgement of who is correct. Those debating will explain the particular points of disagreement and point to examples of proper use or cite the mathematical rule underlying the claim. I am perfectly able to read and understand 99% of McIntyre and McKitrick 03 and 05. The countering paper, Wahl and Annan 2007, is harder to understand and does not address the R2 score, the main point of MM05. Things like this I believe you could evaluate if you were interested.
I think you are not interested. Why, is another question. So I’ll stop at the question of whether you are interested in the truth of MBH graph.
Ron –
> I don’t quite accept that you are as incapable as claimed. […] I think you are not interested. Why, is another question.
Here we go again.
First, your logic problem. It’s not really that I’m not interested. I don’t focus on it because I’m not capable of even parsing the differences of opinions among statistical experts, let alone formulating an opinion on my own. I’m agnostic and I think it’s mostly irrelevant anyway. There are more important aspects here, imo, than arcane disagreement among statistics experts. It’s enough to say, IMO, that there’s disagreement among experts.
Second, you really ought to stop trying to read my mind, and certainly. you ought to stop thinking you now how to do so. You don’t. Your certainty that you do only leads you astray.
My only complaint about Joshua is that he has time to write umpteen entries on this site to every one of mine. He is obviously in the employ of an entity that doesn’t like free speech anywhere, and wants to clog up sites like this one which, of course, the echo chamber doesn’t have since it is no fun arguing with yourself.
The garrulous carbon dioxide control knob crowd use repetition of lies, false or tampered measurements, unsustainable rhetoric about ‘things getting worse’ just because they feel the need to be useful, idiots maybe, but useful idiots.
We, in the UK, need the odd degree increase or two in temperature and most of us would welcome a repeat of the Holocene when our ancestors flourished at such luxuriously small increases in temperatures with no sign of worse storms or anything else to harm us. Our ancestors also saw at the time a considerable rise in intelligent trading activity with as far away people as Asian communities.
And that is the problem I have with even the 2C increase warning – these people (e.g. Mann) cannot know what they are talking about when it comes to consequences of climate change and mankind has no great record when it comes to prediction. Even when as we say in the UK it looks like a lovely morning, by lunchtime it’s raining cats and dogs … and our Met Office just looks the other way and says bad luck if you are in London and caught the storm but gorgeous as we forecasted along the south coast.
Weather used to be a topic of conversation across the washing lines but now it seems to be a popular theme for defamatory language. Field Hockey Sticks are a different shape to Mann’s creation which therefore should be renamed the Ice Hockey Stick … in the name of precision but what does Mann care for that?
And that is me done for a while.
part II of Balko’s exposure of the Chauvin documentary is up.
Meanwhile, Glenn Loury displays why, while he’s a conservative, he’s not victim of the mindset I spoke of. Bravo, Glenn. He asks himself why he was so credulous. That’s the question that we all need to ask:
https://x.com/radleybalko/status/1757492380373004799?s=20
I’m sure if Balko said it, it must be true. Hope it’s better than the debunk of HCQ.
Follow Glenn Loury’s lead, jim. It won’t hurt. Really.
And what’s most perfect of all of this, is how some people use the Chauvin case as an example, to demean a jury of their peers, as being incapable of evaluating evidence – simply because they disagree with the findings of that jury. Even in situations where they haven’t been there to evaluate the evidence that was presented.
The Balko piece is a perfect breakdown of Coleman’s self-assurance that he can make a gloss of a complicated situation to reach an opinion that he’s figured out what people with years of domain-relevant expertise and experience couldn’t figure out.
Lot’s of evidence left out of the trial. See here …
https://www.thefallofminneapolis.com/research
Joe –
> 1) floyds repetitive complaints of inability to breath prior to any police restraint, 2) the huge buildup of fluid in the lungs, which prevented the exchange of oxygen in the alveoli.
Wrong about both. Apparently you didn’t read thoroughly.
But I do appreciate your willingness to tear yourself away from monitoring the halls long enough to incorrectly weigh-in, once again, on a topic you’re clearly not interested in.
Part II:
https://radleybalko.substack.com/p/the-retconning-of-george-floyd-part?r=cgi7&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
You’re so, unbelievably credulous.
So point out what’s wrong with the ‘research’ article, Josh. What are the inaccuracies???
Part II provides specific details about what’s wrong on the “research” page (can’t get the post through).
Joshua | February 13, 2024 at 7:20 pm |
He addresses each and every one of those topics. You just read stuff and think you understand all the implications. You should be embarrassed.
Josh – this is a climate science blog –
That being said – You might notice the factual omissions in Balko report. To name a few 1) floyds repetitive complaints of inability to breath prior to any police restraint, 2) the huge buildup of fluid in the lungs, which prevented the exchange of oxygen in the alveoli.
Now that we have pointed out the intentionally deceptive omissions in Balko’s “science based” analysis of floyds, can you return the discussion back to climate science
Thanks
Joe,
“this is a climate science blog … can you return the discussion back to climate science”
Please
Oops. Belongs here:
Joe –
> 1) floyds repetitive complaints of inability to breath prior to any police restraint, 2) the huge buildup of fluid in the lungs, which prevented the exchange of oxygen in the alveoli.
Wrong about both. Apparently you didn’t read thoroughly.
But I do appreciate your willingness to tear yourself away from monitoring the halls long enough to incorrectly weigh-in, once again, on a topic you’re clearly not interested in
medical evidence revealed in the official autopsy indicates…
no life-threatening injuries (to the neck or elsewhere)
positive COVID-19 test results
methamphetamine (19 ng/mL)
fentanyl (11 ng/mL)
cannabinoids (THC)
arteriosclerotic heart disease
hypertensive heart disease (“the silent killer”) with 75% proximal and 75% mid narrowing of the left anterior descending coronary artery; and 90% proximal narrowing of the first diagonal branch of the right coronary artery
Lol. Read the reports, jim.
You’re only making it clearer and clearer that just how credulous you are. All of that is addressed in the Balko pieces. He make his research clear. And he’s only done 2 of the 3 parts.
He addresses each and every one of those topics. You just read stuff and think you understand all the implications. You should be embarrassed.
There are many critical aspects of Balko’s piece. This is one that’s among them that addresses your ignorance:
The main point is the amount of work Balko does in evaluating the evidence. The degree of experience he has in looking at these kinds of cases.
You lack any of that. You look at a list of completely decontextualized snippets, and find it convincing. You don’t even look at the analysis provided. by someone with vastly more relevant experience. In fact, you overtly reject doing so.
It’s like a textbook case of a non-skeptical approach. It’s perfect.
That massive prose doesn’t prove the use of force was illegal. After someone forcibly resists arrest, the use of force is legal.
Exactly.
jim –
> That massive prose doesn’t prove the use of force was illegal. After someone forcibly resists arrest, the use of force is legal.
Lol. So now your argument is that he legally caused Floyd’s death?
Any benefit of doubt should go to the officer, not the repeat offender.
>Any benefit of doubt should go to the officer, not the repeat offender.
They failed to make the case that it was a justified use of force. But maybe next time a case like this comes up the jury should ignore the law and the testimony and the evidence and just ask you what to do.
Juries are notoriously unreliable in highly politicized cases. Impartial scrutiny reveal this time after time, though it may take a generation or two for that to happen. This, even though it is seen as a historical pattern going likely further back than the Salem witch trials, and our legal system’s attempts in protections to try to prevent it, it’s still an overwhelming reality.
>Juries are notoriously unreliable in highly politicized cases.
Lol. As opposed to you! You know what the correct outcome should have been. And you know that the jury was wrong.
Perfect!
Classic binary thinking.
Our judicial process has problems. Therefore we should throw it out. Who needs a trial, a judge, a jury of peers. Just go with what Ron thinks (or what jim thinks), because juries aren’t always right.
i love you boyz.
I listened to the trial and you did not.
I witnessed a jury being presented 3 expert statisticians, one completely independent of the playing field, give unrefuted testimony that MBH was statistically unsound, p-hacking, cherry picking, made using the freedom to make dozens of choices, each that would have led to a different graph plot, 95% of them being red noise. Yet the jury decided to ignore all of that to go with their gut instinct that they needed to send a message to “climate den!ers,” whom the plaintiff’s counsel knowingly unethically referred to as equivalent to “election den!ers” as the last words of his closing.
That’s the thing about your mind-probing, Ron.
It’s never wrong because it’s unfalsifiable.
Mann versus Steyn and Simberg closing arguments.
My claim is very falsifiable. Listen for yourself. I probably misremembered the exact wording due to my mindset.
Your mind-probing of the jury is unfalsifiable because you can’t actually mind-probe so the evidence comes from your imagination which can’t be falsified.
Joshua | February 13, 2024 at 9:22 pm |
“Classic binary thinking.”
Stress is the dominant cause of stomach ulcers.
If you disagree, try drinking a concoction that will cause ulcers.
Was there classic binary thinking in there, somehwher?
Geoff S
We just witnessed a jury being presented 3 expert statisticians, (one completely independent of the climate playing field), give unrefuted testimony that MBH was statistically unsound, p-hacking, cherry picking, made using the freedom to make dozens of choices, each that would have led to a different graph plot, 95% of them being red noise. Yet the jury decided to ignore all of that to go with their gut instinct that they needed to send a message to “climate deniers,” whom the plaintiff’s counsel knowingly unethically referred to as “election deniers” as the last words of his closing.
Welcome to the center of the Tabloid Science Universe !
It’s never too late to head for the exits, but please throw the hostess a lifeline as you depart.
Supreme Court Samuel Alito’s 2019 opinion on Mann v Steyn:
First, the question that the jury will apparently be asked to decide—whether petitioners’ assertions about Mann’s use of scientific data can be shown to be factually false—is highly technical. Whether an academic’s use and presentation of data falls within the range deemed reasonable by those in the field is not an easy matter for lay jurors to assess.
Second, the controversial nature of the whole subject of
climate change exacerbates the risk that the jurors’ determination will be colored by their preconceptions on the matter. When allegedly defamatory speech concerns a political or social issue that arouses intense feelings, selecting an impartial jury presents special difficulties. And when, as is often the case, allegedly defamatory speech is disseminated nationally, a plaintiff may be able to bring suit in whichever jurisdiction seems likely to have the highest percentage of jurors who are sympathetic to the plaintiff ’s point of view.
The second question may be even more important [than the first]. The constitutional guarantee of freedom of expression serves many purposes, but its most important role is protection of robust and uninhibited debate on important political and social issues.
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I notice that the three defenders of Mann and NSF funded climate science on this post do not provide any affirmative defenses of Mann’s ethics or his paper. At best they point to the consensus that supports him, the DC jury, the Wa Po, NYT, a string of NSF funded papers, as being evidence.
Why can’t Mann defenders offer a falsifiable point about the trial? Why were they not even interested in the particulars of the trial when Mann is a leader of their cause?
Do they believe that Steyn and Simberg called Mann a child molester? Can they accept Steyn was just joking using the phrase “the Jerry Sandusky of climate science” but to make a serious point that the Penn State investigation was a whitewash? Is pointed humor illegal? Is questioning authority illegal?
Did Mann get the award by proper legal analysis by the jury? Or, did they ignore their duty in order to punish a tribe they have been propagandized against? If the later, is help to a greater cause worth a little harm here and there in this case because of the existential threat?
Ron –
> I notice that the three defenders of Mann
Who are those 3?
My count could be questioned. But I did count you, BA and Russell as defender’s of the hockey stick, which I would hope you could admit was invented by Mann.
Do you concur on the count, or would you add or subtract?
I am not a defense of Mann. This is yet another case of your inability to differentiate reality from what goes on in your head.
Sorry, Ron. All I have ever defended is “a hockey stick” – it’s still out there if you bother to look. PS ~ Mann didn’t “invent” it, that would be Jerry Mahlman.
BA: “All I have ever defended is “a hockey stick”.”
So are you defending a meteorologist named Jerry Mahlman for coining the term? Or, are you defending the MBH hockey stick itself, or just the blade, or just the general shape of the reconstruction, (even though MBH could be bogus)? Or, are you defending the authority of science against those who would tear it down?
BA –
> So are you defending a meteorologist named Jerry Mahlman for coining the term? Or, are you defending the MBH hockey stick itself, or just the blade, or just the general shape of the reconstruction, (even though MBH could be bogus)? Or, are you defending the authority of science against those who would tear it down?
And most critically, have you stopped beating your wife yet?
The “blade” in the get a life world.
https://i0.wp.com/wattsupwiththat.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/GISS-absolute-data-scale100F-1.png?w=1072&ssl=1
Ron,
Sorry, I already told you what I defended. It’s pretty simple – if you don’t understand, it’s not a surprise.
BA, you implied that the shaft did not matter by focusing on the confirmation of the “1.5C blade.”
Crispin Pemberton-Pigott wrote in: https://judithcurry.com/2024/01/19/mann-vs-steyn-and-simberg-discussion-thread/#comment-999603
“…That is the essence of data fraud. That’s why a running set of thousands of Red Noise numbers through the algorithm always results in a hockey stick. It is a hockey stick-shaped filter…”
BA replied: “I don’t think the 1.5 C blade is “red noise”.”
The whole point of the elimination of the prior warming periods and cooling period oscillations is to create a signal when there may very well be none. Without the shaft there is no blade. The longer and smoother they can make the shaft the more significance can be given to the blade. If the MWP in year 1050 was 1.5C higher than the LIA in 1650 then today being ~1.7C higher than the LIA min makes the 1000-yr signal red noise.
BA and Dan, do you understand how the MBH graph was constructed? They explained the data manipulation part at the trial. But there are also deceptive smoothing and splicing tricks available to see in Climate Audit posts. https://climateaudit.org/?s=nature+trick
The IPCC loved MBH so much they recruited Mann to convince Briffa to eliminate his reconstruction and instead allow Jones to combine it into a hockey stick that ended the Briffa series in 1960 to hide the decline of its last 38 years of the 20th century, which they call a “divergence problem.”
BA, you implied that the shaft did not matter by focusing on the confirmation of the “1.5C blade.”
Crispin Pemberton-Pigott wrote in: mann-vs-steyn-and-simberg-discussion-thread/#comment-999603
“…That is the essence of data fraud. That’s why a running set of thousands of Red Noise numbers through the algorithm always results in a hockey stick. It is a hockey stick-shaped filter…”
BA replied: “I don’t think the 1.5 C blade is “red noise”.”
The whole point of the elimination of the prior warming periods and cooling period oscillations is to create a signal when there may very well be none. Without the shaft there is no blade. The longer and smoother they can make the shaft the more significance can be given to the blade. If the MWP in year 1050 was 1.5C higher than the LIA in 1650 then today being ~1.7C higher than the LIA min makes the 1000-yr signal red noise.
“…That is the essence of data fr@ud. That’s why a running set of thousands of Red Noise numbers through the algorithm always results in a hockey stick. It is a hockey stick-shaped filter…”
mann-vs-steyn-and-simberg-discussion-thread comment-999603
BA replied: “I don’t think the 1.5 C blade is “red noise”.”
The whole point of the elimination of the warming period and cooling period oscillations is to create a signal.
Without the shaft there is no blade. The longer and smoother the shaft the more significance can be given to the blade. If the MWP in year 1050 was ~1.5C higher than the LIA in 1650 then today being ~1.7C higher than the LIA min makes the 1000-yr signal red noise.
” defender’s of the hockey stick, which I would hope you could admit was invented by Mann.”
Why?
The acceleration of climate forcing is not an invention.
It’s a consequence of the acceleration of history ( and demography) in the Industrial Revolution’s wake.
It was predicted by a powerful mathematician, Fourier, in the days of John Quincy Adams, demonstrated empirically by Tyndall before the Civil War ,and quantified by the end of the 19th century. All palaeoclimatologists had to do was to extract the signal from the proxy & instrumental record, and place their bets on which way climate was going in consequence of the uncontroversial physics.
As climate is complex , dynamic and computationally demanding, there once was ample noise to justify argument , but the signal to noise ratio improved exponentially even as I began to publish on the subject, because instrumentation was evolving fast in the 80s, and by the time I wrote a policy quarterly reviewof the case in 1990, it was clear that those who considered CO2 forcing a reality to be reckoned with back in the ’60’s were way ahead of the erstwhile skeptics.
Russell, I don’t know it those are your words or just copy and paste job because they seem out of context to my comment.
“The acceleration of climate forcing is not an invention.”
Brilliant. That is just as valid as “CO2 is a trace gas and can’t possibly have an effect,” which I mean to say is just a repeating of a tribe’s assertion, like “Jews occupy Palestine.” (And not the one in Ohio.)
Then you write: “It’s a consequence of the acceleration of history ( and demography) in the Industrial Revolution’s wake.”
Talking past the sale again. What is the consequence, warming? Industrialization to Paul Ehrlich in “The Population Bomb” surmised there was an equal chance that “using the atmosphere as an open sewer” would turn Earth into a frozen hell versus a fiery one. He just wasn’t in 1969. Ehrlich was a father of the environmental movement, which I actually support, just not the orthodoxy, like no nukes, no GMOs.
“As climate is complex , dynamic and computationally demanding, there once was ample noise to justify argument , but the signal to noise ratio improved exponentially even as I began to publish on the subject, because instrumentation was evolving fast in the 80s, and by the time I wrote a policy quarterly reviewof the case in 1990, it was clear that those who considered CO2 forcing a reality to be reckoned with back in the ’60’s were way ahead of the erstwhile skeptics.”
Chatbot goop!
Russell: “…it was clear that those who considered CO2 forcing a reality to be reckoned with back in the ’60’s were way ahead of the erstwhile skeptics.”
Is it not part of the robotic global alarm phrase book to say, “It’s just simple physics?” For example, I think this is the first sort of comment from David Appell’s when he arrives on a post. But you, Russell, are bringing up a true point inside your sentence salad, which is there was a 100-year debate in physics about whether increasing atmospheric CO2 would have a positive forcing. Thanks.
I have been thinking about it more since Christos commented that CO2 does not have much warming power near the surface where it is in much higher concentration, as are all the gases, due to higher pressure. Having 400ppm is not saying much if you only have 1 Pascal of pressure (.0001 psi).
Is it possible the reason Antarctica is not warming like the north is because the high elevation leaves its surface in low pressure, low CO2? Maybe CO2’s effect is more at the surface then at the top of the atmosphere. Is there a physicist in the house?
Way back in 2011 there was a weird confluence of consensus among modelers, NASA’s “It’s just physics”- Gavin Schmidt and Richard Lindzen that the troposphere was more sensitive than the surface. I suppose logically it was thought the oceans would absorb extra energy from a radiative imbalance much more easily than the low heat content atmosphere, just as we see land temp trend outpacing the ocean’s now. They called it the amplification factor. The troposphere was modeled to warm at 1.4X the rate of the surface.
But the 1.4X did not happen. Instead it was 0.7X. And, Stephen McIntyre noticed this and wrote a blog post pointing out the discrepancy with prediction.
https://climateaudit.org/2011/11/01/closing-thoughts-on-best/
Down in the comments Stephen Mosher and (Robert Way?) were about to calculate how far off the satellite trend was from model prediction when a commenter named Gavin popped in with the new prediction (hot off the presses) for climate science modeling.
Robert: “I might need a reference for the model amplification factor of 1.4x. Where can I find that ?”
Gavin: “Nowhere. The expected land-only amplification of MSU-LT over SAT is close to zero (actually equivalent to a factor of ~0.95 +/- 0.07 according to the GISS model).
The ocean-only tropical amplification is related to the moist adiabat which is not the dominant temperature structure over land since deep convection is mostly an tropical ocean phenomena. Ocean temperatures are rising slower than over land, therefore even if tropical land tropospheric temperatures were being set by a moist adiabat over the ocean, it would still have a smaller ratio with respect to the land temp.”
https://climateaudit.org/2011/11/01/closing-thoughts-on-best/#comment-308281
Is that cool or what?
“ Without the shaft there is no blade”
The entire point of getting rid of the MWP. Being “unprecedented” has been the cornerstone of the public relations initiative ever since. Throw in an elegant theory and all of a sudden correlation is causation, regardless of any other possible contributing factors. What a wonderful simplistic world we live in. No need for critical thinking.
My only point of disargreement in your post is that MBH98 / 99 was not funded by NSF. Additionally, since MBH 98/99 were not funded by NSF, the investigation of MBH 98/99 was not under the NSF purview. In otherwords, the NSF did not investigate any allegations of fraud, manipulation of data associated with MBH98/99.
Interesting to note that the NSF admitted in the closeout memorandum that the statistical techniques remain subject to legitimate scientific debate – which is essentially what Simberg / steyn accused mann of doing.
Its one of the many deceptions throughout the saga being the claim that Mann was exonerated by the NSF.
I do apologize for not being as obsessed as you regarding the Mann trial. I didn’t realize I was obligated to be deeply invested in it. I will say this however. the Sandusky comparison strikes me as protected free speech and not meant literally, so I would not find for Mann based on that. the claim of scientific “fraud” however is an assertion of fact and the onus is on the person making the claim to defend it. It is not enough to prove that the hockey stick is wrong (although of course it is almost certainly correct) and it is not even enough to show that data points are cherry-picked – i have no idea if they are or not. cherry-picking is not fraud. it is highlighting to make a point. if you are going to claim fraud you need to show that some actually falsified data, made knowingly untrue claims, etc. i heard nothing that suggested that this was the case.
Dan, what you say about fraud may be true for a non-public figure, but the Sullivan standard was applied for the Mann case.
There is a very specific legal threshold for the defaming statements of fact to be shown in Sullivan to be known to true or truth recklessly disregarded, or “actual malice.” If Steyn or Simberg could show they made some attempt to understand their allegations to be true then they are protected speech. They had three defense witnesses testify unchallenged that the MBH was statistically invalid. They also had many prior and subsequent articles showing they believed their claim to be true.
DanB,
You should find articles to inform your current understanding if you read Climate Audit blogs of the time.
Geoff S
into evidence at the trial, then that knowledge can not be used to convict the perp.
In this case virtually no evidence was enteDan B A few points in response
A) there have been numerous studies, that call into question the validity of the MBH98/99 and the statistical and the statistical validity of the methodology used to achieve the results. Thus, there is a strong likelihood that the statements by Simberg and Steyn of data manipulation were factually correct.
B) The standard set forth in harde-hanks provides that “actual malice ” only exists if 1) the statements were false and 2) if the defendent had no basis for making the false statement. Assuming there statements were false, both simberg and steyn demonstrated that they relied on information that was publicly available that showed the HS was manipulated and that information was reasonably reliable.
C) burden of proof standard. That burden requires the plaintiff to prove their statements were false and that they did not rely on credible information ie the reckless disregard standard. Even if their statements are false and that fact that their statements were false is undisputed, the plaintiff still has to put that evidence into the record. Same rule applies where several eyewitness to the murder have publicly came forward informing the local media of the murder and the perp admits to the murder, If that evidence is not put into evidence during the trial, then that evidence can not be used to convict the perp. In this case, evidence to support Manns claim were either not put into evidence or were extremely weak. On the defense, considerable undisputed evidence was put into evidence supporting the truth of their statement.
for purposes of this explanation, I am not taking a position on the manipulation of the data or the truth or false statement. Only pointing out the applicable standards and the burden of proof.
D) Mann chose the best venue possible to bring suit. The jury pool was 90+% democrats, That is a demographic that any criticism of climate science is blasphemy there de facto defamation.
As others note, climate audit dot org provides extensive detail of problems thoughout the paleo climate world
I notice that your game plan is to go on and on forever in a closed loop of factual denial
May it give you joy, while it lasts.
The “hockey stick” doesn’t cause Global Warming.
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
The argument is that CO2 causes warming and that the hockey stick is a result of that warming.
CO2 is a trace gas in Earth’s atmosphere. Earth’s atmosphere doesn’t cause a measurable Greenhouse Effect, because Earth’s atmosphere is a thin atmosphere.
–
Thus CO2 doesn’t cause Global Warming.
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Christos Vournas wrote:
Earth’s atmosphere doesn’t cause a measurable Greenhouse Effect, because Earth’s atmosphere is a thin atmosphere.
OMG.
Measurable GHE:
t.ly/yiS4k
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outgoing_longwave_radiation#/media/File:Spectral_Greenhouse_Effect.png
That’s correct. It is a measure of global warming.
That is, the temperature graph does not cause global warming. It just shows it.
BA Bushaw,
“That is, the temperature graph does not cause global warming. It just shows it.”
Of course. But CO2 doesn’t cause Global Warming either.
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Uh – huh, sure.
The theory is that the higher the concentration of atmospheric CO2 the higher the altitude in which the atmosphere becomes opaque in the 15um band. And, since the higher the altitude in the troposphere the colder the temperature, that means the effective height of opacity transmits at a lower energy thermal spectrum according to Stefan Boltzmann Law.
Christos, do you refute that CO2 absorbs IR at 15nm or that the absorption does not matter? For example, do you think the Hitran data or code are mistaken?
Correction: 15um, not 15nm.
Yes, but CO2 is a trace gas in Earth’s thin atmosphere. Absorption matters, but it matters very little.
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
How much silver does it take to dramatically change the radiative property of glass to make it low E? How much dye does it take to turn the Platt River green on St. Patrick’s Day?
Ron,
“How much silver does it take to dramatically change the radiative property of glass to make it low E? ”
–
Instead of coating Earth’s surface with silver to dramatically change the radiative property of surface to make it low E, how much silver it takes when it is emanated to atmosphere to dramatically change the radiative property of atmosphere to make it low E?
–
There is much more carbon dioxide implemented on Earth’s surface, than in Earth’s atmosphere. The carbon dioxide on Earth’s surface doesn’t cause any additional warming.
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
I missed the thread with this reply here. https://judithcurry.com/2024/02/08/jcs-ethics-complaint-against-michael-mann/#comment-1001708
There is no point debating this further. I’ve read about the proxies from the few neutral sources i can find and what they say is so radically different from the claims of writers on this blog it winds up being pointless. why do I believe them and not all of you? because in in what is by far the biggest issue, they were correct. the planet is warming due to co2. they had the confidence in their theory to make a concrete prediction and it has borne out. the skeptics claimed the planet wasn’t warming – and they were proven wrong. they claimed the co2 in the atmosphere was not from burning fossil fuels – and they were incontrovertibly proven wrong. they then claimed there were alternative explanations for the warming such as solar cycles, but they were once again proven wrong. imagine if the consensus had been as wrong as some of the theories the skeptics embraced? so if the folks who actually got it right say the paleoclimatology is reliable within some broad range of error-bars, i’m with the ones who got the impact of co2 right.
DanB: “…why do I believe them and not all of you?…”
First, all of us make up a lot of different opinions on a lot of issues. A David Andrews commented way up thread that our diversity in opinion is the skeptic’s weakness. His rationale for giving weight to the consensus respecting scientists is the consistency = certainty. While that is true for data, it is not always true for people. Propaganda’s aim is to create groupthink, a manufactured consensus. Thus it pays to investigate I believe. I hope you spend more time investigating. You are welcome here.
I think it was a mistake not to submit the complaint to the Integrity Officer. Yes, the complaint might not have lead anywhere, but it’s important to get it on record. Further. the next complaint regarding Mann might be taken more seriously.
Juniper I doubt that a complaint against mann would have resulted in any negative action.
His behavior through out his career would have been grounds for immediate termination in any professional field . Instead he is treated as an untouchable god.
I think that a complaint that is not submitted is not a complaint, thus, the title of this post seems to be misinformation in itself. One possible factor might be that filing a complaint can lead to undesired discovery, investigation, and testimony from additional parties.
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The editor and chief of the family of Science Journal Publications just wrote an article on Mann vs. Steyn. https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.ado6275
I saw it in a Pielke Jr. post but have not read it yet. It might be worthy of a new post. Hint to Judith.
Second paragraph When Mann published his famous “hockey stick paper” in Nature in 1998, he began receiving attacks because the paper reported a sharp and alarming increase in global temperature after the Industrial Revolution. Numerous reviews of the paper’s findings were subsequently conducted by the National Science Foundation, Pennsylvania State University (where Mann was at the time), and the National Academy of Sciences. Although a correction was added to the paper to clarify a data matter, the evaluations all concluded that the paper stood.
Its not good when a top level prestigious scientific magazine makes a blatantly obvious false statement
Also saw the “Passion is not Science” editorial in Science, which publication was of course pleased with the pro-Mann verdict.
Now, after the NASA/university/climate-science establishment has proven itself so very powerful that its dubious statistics and relentless propaganda are safely implanted in the minds of 100% of big-city jurors, a request to Science:
Could you Science please demonstrate your magnanimity by inviting researchers worldwide who doubt the temperature hockey stick to submit articles for a special issue titled: “The Critique of the Hockey Stick: We Are Now Omnipotent So We’re Allowing It To Be Heard”.
(And promise to use reviewers who are 1) old and wise, and 2) not dependent for$ on the establishment.)
“Measurements of the sun showed that the radiation sent out from its surface and reaching the ground on Earth is usually consistent with the spectrum of a black body with a temperature in the range of 5,500–6,000 K (5,230–5,730 °C), except that there was no radiation below a wavelength of about 310 nm at the ultraviolet end of the spectrum. “
“It was deduced that the missing radiation was being absorbed by something in the atmosphere. “
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_layer
“The ozone layer or ozone shield is a region of Earth’s stratosphere that absorbs most of the Sun’s ultraviolet radiation. It contains a high concentration of ozone (O3) in relation to other parts of the atmosphere, although still small in relation to other gases in the stratosphere. The ozone layer contains less than 10 parts per million of ozone, while the average ozone concentration in Earth’s atmosphere as a whole is about 0.3 parts per million. The ozone layer is mainly found in the lower portion of the stratosphere, from approximately 15 to 35 kilometers (9 to 22 mi) above Earth, although its thickness varies seasonally and geographically.[1]
The ozone layer was discovered in 1913 by French physicists Charles Fabry and Henri Buisson. Measurements of the sun showed that the radiation sent out from its surface and reaching the ground on Earth is usually consistent with the spectrum of a black body with a temperature in the range of 5,500–6,000 K (5,230–5,730 °C), except that there was no radiation below a wavelength of about 310 nm at the ultraviolet end of the spectrum. It was deduced that the missing radiation was being absorbed by something in the atmosphere. Eventually the spectrum of the missing radiation was matched to only one known chemical, ozone.[2] Its properties were explored in detail by the British meteorologist G. M. B. Dobson, who developed a simple spectrophotometer (the Dobsonmeter) that could be used to measure stratospheric ozone from the ground. Between 1928 and 1958, Dobson established a worldwide network of ozone monitoring stations, which continue to operate to this day. The “Dobson unit”, a convenient measure of the amount of ozone overhead, is named in his honor.
The ozone layer absorbs 97 to 99 percent of the Sun’s medium-frequency ultraviolet light (from about 200 nm to 315 nm wavelength), which otherwise would potentially damage exposed life forms near the surface.”
So, are you are saying 0.3 ppm ozone is a big enough trace to strongly absorb UV, but 420 ppm CO2 is too small a trace to absorb IR significantly?
Thank you, BA Bushaw, for your response.
“…sun showed that the radiation sent out from its surface and reaching the ground on Earth is usually consistent with the spectrum of a black body”
–
“sun … is usually consistent with the spectrum of a black body”
But it is not, sun is a real celestial body, sun is not a black body theoretical emitter, what happens is that ozone does not absorb, because ozone cannot absorb what sun has not emitted.
“It was deduced that the missing radiation was being absorbed by something in the atmosphere. “
There is not any missing radiation! There is nothing absorbed!
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
You seem unable to grasp the quantitative meaning of absorption coefficients.
The percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere is orders of magnitude lower than the percentage of stratospheric carbon black needed to cause darkness at noon.
Readers should try to recall this response if he ever again trots out this innumerate analogy!
Christos,
You should study and learn. Your intuition seems to always be uneducated and wrong.
BA Bushaw,
“So, are you are saying 0.3 ppm ozone is a big enough trace to strongly absorb UV, but 420 ppm CO2 is too small a trace to absorb IR significantly?”
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Heavy rainfall in California will continue until February 25.
https://i.ibb.co/NKDYpPy/ventusky-rain-3h-20240225t0300-32n134w-1.jpg
The attempts at denial of the obvious get more hilarious every day. My favorite is; it might have been warmer some other time millions (or thousands) of years ago, so the warming that is going on now must be a natural cycle, or maybe it’s not even real.
As usual for Ganon (and most all other climate activists), he distorts the criticism by the honest scientists.
The Mannian dishonesty and distortions dominate the climate science field.
Science is about understanding a system enough to allow anyone skilled in the understanding to make consistently accurate predictions using that particular theory. Climate science fails consistently on this test.
1) 100-year debate on Greenhouse Effect only won by the GMST rising for a couple decades. “Science settled?”
2) As late as the 1980s ice core evidence was being used wrongly to prove CO2 fluctuation in the Pleistocene was the cause of glacial cycle. (This was the basis of the “proof” in The Inconvenient Truth 2007. Though it was known to be false for 20 years it still got a Nobel Prize). The CO2 cause of the ice age was originally Svante Arrhenius’s theory (inventor of GHE).
2) GHE models predicted the tropics would see amplified warming. The opposite has been seen.
3) GHE models predicted the troposphere would see 1.4X amplified warming. The troposphere lags the surface we see now with proof since NASA set up STAR to disprove UAH and instead proved it accurate.
4) The GHE models do not explain why the southern hemisphere is barely warming compared to the northern.
5) No models predicted or explain the 60-year oscillation seen in the ~150-year thermometer record.
6) Paleoclimatology consensus was that there was a 1000-year cycle until it became the specific aim of scientists to remove it (because it confounded the GHE theory).
7) The IPCC’s CMIP models have consistently over-predicted warming for decades.
BA: “The attempts at denial of the obvious get more hilarious every day.”
Mark those words. I am sure all of your tribe said Putin interfered with the 2016 election to get Trump as president, just like all of my tribe was sure that Iraq had hidden mobile bio-labs and nukes.
My theory is that power corrupts.
GCMs and ESMs address all the things that you say don’t exist. As for your conspiracy theories and deflection to Trump and “your tribe” – I’m not interested.
BA Bushaw:
Two observations destroy the Greenhouse Gas Warming hoax:
1. Whenever SO2 aerosol pollution levels decrease, temperatures rise because the less polluted air increases solar insolation.
2. This INEVITABLE warming is totally ignored by all of those pushing the Greenhouse Gas hypothesis.
BA, I know you know the difference between models being tuned to observation and models that can predict otherwise unpredictable events. So I ask you what is the difference between enforcing church gospel versus arguing for a the support of a theory?
If your answer is that the scientists are far more educated in the field than we are then my reply is why did all the virologists call the lab leak theory a “conspiracy theory?” Why did not any of the noted virologists dissent in public? Why did no science reporter question an obvious lie until a retired one came forth 18 months later to state the obvious? Do you understand the moral of the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes?
Ron,
Until the wavefunction collapses, all that can be predicted is probabilities. Thanks for your deflections, anecdotes and analogies, but as said, not interested.
One thing you might be able to find that would be persuasive to me is papers that detail the exact modeling of the CO2 physics in the atmosphere.
We know that 50-year in the future predictions are not science since they are not falsifiable in practical terms. But the radiative properties of CO2 should be falsifiable there should be experimental research on the record confirming CO2’s behavior.
From the blogs I understand that because of CO2’s molecular bonds being able to absorb and retransmit certain bands or radiation acts to interfere with the transmission of radiation and thus acts as a mild insulator in the atmosphere.
Questions:
1) How much energy do CO2’s bands interfere with in the solar spectrum versus the Earth’s transmission spectrum?
2) What is the statistical probability, according to pressure CO2’s pressure, that it will retransmit an absorbed photon before colliding with another molecule and releasing the photons in the black body spectrum profile?
3) Has there been a study of deserts that have not seen substantial changes in humidity for many decades in a wide area, and thus be free of confounding H2O GHG, to study the night time temperature record? GHE theory predicts that such a study would show a marked increase in night time (TMin) as compared to adjacent geographies with higher humidity climates.
If the Greenhouse Effect could be nailed down scientifically that would go a long way at bringing the debate solely to mitigation and adaptation debates. It would also help the models make accurate predictions.
https://www.rsc.org/images/Arrhenius1896_tcm18-173546.pdf
A few other questions:
1) Why did Paul R. Ehrlich in The Population Bomb not consider that CO2 could help crop yields? Photosynthesis was well understood in 1968.
2) Why has the mainstream scientific establishment and political leaders been completely silent on CO2’s contribution to alleviating world hunger?
3) How many people die of cold versus heat?
4) If Urban Heat Islands are significant to be a public health problem why are they too insignificant to be adjusted for in the thermometer record?
5) Does the GHE warm mostly winter nights and have little impact in the summer? If so, why is this never reported?
6) If global warming increases precipitation is that a good thing or bad thing?
7) If Global warming has no effect on frequency or severity of tropical cyclones when would we know that for certain? Would it be reported if true?
8) If global warming is causing sea level rise how do we determine that is occurring versus the natural rate in rise seen for the last 10K years? How much cooling would be necessary to stop SLR. Did the LIA have zero SLR? Do we want the LIA? Or will that cause more suffering than SLR?
Ron (& Christos),
You might find this new research paper on the IR absorption properties of CO2 interesting – It’s worse than you thought.
“Quantum Phenomenon Explains Tiny Molecule’s Huge Impact on Global Warming”
https://www.sciencealert.com/quantum-phenomenon-explains-tiny-molecules-huge-impact-on-global-warming
“It is remarkable,” Harvard University planetary scientist Robin Wordsworth and colleagues write in their new preprint, “that an apparently accidental quantum resonance in an otherwise ordinary three-atom molecule has had such a large impact on our planet’s climate over geologic time, and will also help determine its future warming due to human activity.”
When hit with incoming rays of light at certain wavelengths, CO2 molecules don’t just jiggle about as one fixed unit as you might expect. Rather, CO2 molecules – which are made up of one carbon atom flanked by two oxygen – bend and stretch in certain ways.
…
“A chance alignment in two of these vibrational patterns creates a type of quantum hum in CO2 molecules called Fermi resonance, which can make the molecules vibrate more.
In turn, this broadens the range of radiation that gets absorbed by CO2, as Wordsworth explained in an interview with New Scientist’s Alex Wilkins. “It’s this broadening which is really critical to understanding why carbon dioxide is an important greenhouse gas,” he said.”
I think everyone agrees that CO2 absorbs according to molecular bond dynamics. Everyone also agrees that Ivermectin kills SARS2 in a petri dish. The hydrosphere is more complex just as the human body is more complex. In vivo testing is the gold standard.
Ron Graf wrote:
1) Why did Paul R. Ehrlich in The Population Bomb not consider that CO2 could help crop yields? Photosynthesis was well understood in 1968.
What science says it does?
More atmo CO2 also changes temperature and the hydro cycle. Are warmer temperatures good for a particular crop? What about more rain? More drought? More extreme rain?
Ron, your statement is naive.
Ron Graf wrote:
8) If global warming is causing sea level rise how do we determine that is occurring versus the natural rate in rise seen for the last 10K years? How much cooling would be necessary to stop SLR. Did the LIA have zero SLR? Do we want the LIA? Or will that cause more suffering than SLR?
More goofiness from Ron, who has shown he isn’t worth paying attention to.
In the 5000 yrs before the industrial era, sea level rose about one meter in 5000 years — an average of 0.2 mm/yr. It’s now rising at over 4 mm/yr.
Also, neither the MWP or the LIA was global.
david appel:
“And neither the MWP or the LIA were global”
Nonsense!
BOTH were global
burlhenry wrote:
david appel:
“And neither the MWP or the LIA were global”
Nonsense!
BOTH were global
Show the data and analysis that shows that.
—
Meanwhile:
“No evidence for globally coherent warm and cold periods over the preindustrial Common Era,” Neukom et al, Nature, July 2019.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1401-2
“There were no globally synchronous multi-decadal warm or cold intervals that define a worldwide Medieval Warm Period or Little Ice Age….”
— “Continental-scale temperature variability during the past two millennia,” PAGES 2k Consortium, Nature Geosciences, April 21, 2013
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v6/n5/abs/ngeo1797.html
burlhenry wrote:
There are no chemical kinetics involved. Just a decreasing layer of reflective SO2 aerosols in our atmosphere.
How do we know it’s decreasing? (Again, genuinely interested.)
Burl,
All it means is that increased aerosols cause cooling and that increasing GHGs cause warming. They are not directly coupled; and as it turns out, the current GHG warming is about 10 times greater than the loss of aerosol cooling. Hasn’t changed since the last time we discussed it.
BA Bushaw;
I am NOT referring to aerosol cooling.
I am referring to the inevitable warming resulting from the millions of tons of decrease in SO2 aerosol pollution due to “Clean Air” efforts and Net-Zero activities.
Burl,
Yes, you are, whether you know it or not. Less cooling and warming are not the same thing.
BA BUSHAW
When there is an intervening layer of reflective SO2 aerosols between the Earth’s surface and the incoming solar radiation, temperatures will be cooler than they will be when that layer is decreased or removed.
QED
Burl,
That is correct and is not in question. The question is: what fractions of observed temperature changes can be attributed to what causes. You have claimed it is ALL due to loss of SO2 produced sulfate aerosols, but cannot produce numbers or references to support it. I happen to believe anthropogenic sulfate aerosol decrease can only be responsible for 10% (or less) of the observed temperature increase, and have already provided numbers and references regarding atmospheric lifetimes and radiative forcings.
BA BUSHAW:
According to the Community Emissions Data Systems (CEDS) of the University of Maryland, industrial SO2 aerosol emissions into the troposphere fell from a peak of 139 million tons in 1980, to 75 million tons in 2019 (latest source data available). Even lower, now.
That is a decrease of 64 million tons. (By way of comparison, a VEI4 volcanic eruption, on average, injects ~ 0.2 million tons of sulfurous gasses into the stratosphere, causing ~ 0.2 Deg. C. of cooling When they eventually settle out, temperatures rise by ~0.2 Deg. C., because of the cleaner air)
Thus, ALL of the warming since 1980 is easily due to the >64 MILLION ton decrease in tropospheric SO2 aerosol emissions.
Burl,
So what? Comparing anthropogenic tropospheric emissions with volcanic stratospheric injections is apples and oranges, by about a factor of 100 (mean lifetimes). Does not change the fact that the temperature increase from less creation of sulfate aerosols is about 1/10 (or less) of the increase from GHGs.
Deja vu, all over again. Read chapter 7 of IPCC AR6 WG1 for relevant background.
BA:
In the NASA Fact sheet “Atmospheric Aerosols: What Are They and Why Are They So Important” they discuss Volcanic SO2 Aerosols, and state “Once formed, these aerosols stay in the stratosphere for about two years. They reflect sunlight, reducing the amount of energy reaching the lower atmosphere and the Earth’s surface, cooling them”
In their discussion of Human-Made Aerosol, they state “The sulfate aerosols absorb no sunlight but they reflect it, thereby reducing the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth’s surface”
Therefore, their climatic effects are identical, and not apples and oranges, as you suggest.
Burl,
No, they are not the same. Stratospheric sulfate aerosols last a couple of years. Tropospheric aerosols last a couple of weeks. Integrated climatic effects are proportional to lifetime. Unfortunate that you don’t seem to be able to comprehend the difference, nor the difference between industrial and natural sources.
BA BUSHAW:
Your statement that tropospheric SO2 aerosols last about a week is valid ONLY for an isolated instance,
Since 1980, NASA/GMAO Global SO2 Re-Analysis images are available for any day, and there is NEVER a day that is free of significant amounts of SO2 aerosols. even when there has been
5-7 years between volcanic eruptions.
This would not be possible if tropospheric aerosols had a lifetime of only a week.
However, due to global “Clean Air” efforts, and Net-Zero activities, atmospheric SO2 aerosol levels have greatly decreased, and our climate is warming up, as it has to because of the cleaner air.
Burl, it is unfortunate that you don’t understand chemical kinetics.
BA:
What a stupid response!
There are no chemical kinetics involved. Just a decreasing layer of reflective SO2 aerosols in our atmosphere.
Burl,
No, it’s not a stupid thing to say. SO2 is removed from the (tropospheric) system by both chemical reactions and hydration. How long that takes is determined by chemical and physical (mixing, diffusion & gravity) kinetics. This determines how long a given sulfate aerosol lasts and the total amount of cooling reflection it produces. Like I said, it is unfortunate that you don’t understand chemical and physical kinetics – and apparently can’t be taught.
BA:
There is no SO in the troposphere to be removed by hydration. It exists in the atmosphere only as the hydrated SO2 aerosol, Sulfuric Acid (H2SO4), and its decrease is gravitational, and by reductions in the amounts of industrial SO2 aerosol emissions into the troposphere.
As you know, the burning of fossil fuels produces both CO2, and SO2 aerosols, so that the banning of their burning decreases the amount of SO2 going into the troposphere, and the cleaner the air, the hotter it will get!
This is irrefutable.
Burl,
I do not, and have not, refuted loss of sulfate aerosol production reduces cooling. The question is how much cooling is lost compared to the warming caused by the CO2 and CH4 that is emitted along with the anthropogenic SO2 emissions. The answer is less than 10%. And that doesn’t even consider the warming from co-emitted black carbon.
Your hand waving is less than convincing. Your hypothesis that loss of anthropogenic SO2 is the only cause of global warming has been falsified from several different directions. When you can provide a (supported) radiative forcing value for anthropogenic-SO2 (I have already done that), I’ll consider that; otherwise, I’ll have to consider it either willful ignorance or abysmal understanding of physical science.
BA:
If you examine the IPCC diagram of warming radiative forcings, you will find that all forcings for aerosols are negative forcings. They do not show any forcing for the largest warming forcing of all, the warming of Earth’s surface due to the removal of SO2 aerosol pollution from the atmosphere..
(Actually, they do, but they attribute it CO2, which has zero proven forcing).
BA Bushaw wrote:
The question is how much cooling is lost compared to the warming caused by the CO2 and CH4 that is emitted along with the anthropogenic SO2 emissions. The answer is less than 10%. And that doesn’t even consider the warming from co-emitted black carbon.
Do you have a source for that 10% number? I’m genuinely interested….
BA Bushaw: is there any data for SO2 concentration in the atmosphere, over time?
David,
SO2 radiative forcing:
[1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342900187_The_positive_radiative_forcing_by_the_substantial_SO2_emission_reductions_is_counteracted_by_decreased_BC_concentrations_in_China_over_the_recent_decade
[2]
“Global and regional trends of atmospheric sulfur”, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-37304-0
“The global mean radiative forcing, due to aerosol changes over the 1990–2015 period, increased by about +0.1 W m−2”
1990 was aproximately the peak of anthropogenic S02 emissions. The +0.1 W/m2 (warming) from reducing SO2 can be compared to WMGHG radiative forcing of 3.5 – 4 W/m2. So probably actually less that 5% of the warming is due A-S02 depletion.
I wouldn’t pay to much attention to Burl, he just denies (or doesn’t understand) all the things that falsify his pet theory, e.g., denying there are no chemical kinetics associated with the oxidation of atomospheric SO2 that limit it lifetime to about 3 days.
BA Bushaw wrote:
David,
SO2 radiative forcing:
Thanks very much.
Ron Graf,
All your questions are deflections that just show a lack of knowledge. They do not change the reality of climate change and the scientific understanding of the GHE.
When reasonable questions directly relevant to the climate change debate are scoffed at as deflections. Then I propose you are the one who is doing the deflecting.
BA, I hope you can see you are just repeating an orthodoxy with hands covering your ears, very much like one sees in history or geography when it comes to religiosity.
“Is it possible the reason Antarctica is not warming like the north is because the high elevation leaves its surface in low pressure, low CO2? Maybe CO2’s effect is more at the surface then at the top of the atmosphere. Is there a physicist in the house?”
You need an echo chamber with a higher ceiling and better mirrors on the walls.
The article whose existence you question is one Judith linked here in 2017, as I noted in my blog at the time”
The Climate Wars Thursday, October 12, 2017
HERE WE GO AGAIN
SINCE Judith Curry has linked it, I suppose I should repost it:
The National Interest
Summer 1990
A War Against Fire
By Russell Seitz
https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2017/10/mama-dont-low-no-skeptics-round-here.html
I don’t think I repeated anything. You were the one repeating a bunch of talking points (some framed as questions) with mostly well-known answers.
I hardly have my “hands over my ears”. I am here. Unfortunately, haven’t heard much convincing.
ganon …
> All your questions are deflections that just show a lack of knowledge. They do not change the reality of climate change and the scientific understanding of the GHE.
What do you think is the ‘reality of climate change’? By that I mean, what is the reality today and what do say will be the reality in the future? I assume by reality you mean: The state of being actual or real.
Bill Fabrizio wrote:
What do you think is the ‘reality of climate change’? By that I mean, what is the reality today and what do say will be the reality in the future?
Bill, have you really not read any science whatever?
Ron Graf wrote:
3) How many people die of cold versus heat?
Ron wants to warm up the entire world so a few people won’t die of cold.
I assume he keeps his windows open in winter and insists his town warms up all the air of the entire neighborhood where he lives, so he can avoid paying for heat.
Much cheaper, right Ron?
Dave … I’m not asking for a science answer. I’m simply asking for what he thinks his statement the ‘reality of climate change’ is … now and in the future.
Bill Fabrizio wrote:
I’m simply asking for what he thinks his statement the ‘reality of climate change’ is … now and in the future.
Do you not read about climate science, make an effort to learn what’s going on with it?
Dave … I wouldn’t mind hearing your description of ‘the reality of climate change’.
By reality, I mean what is real – not what you, or I, think is real.
True … yet, we all make attempts at describing reality, utilizing facts, etc. If we say that we have the ‘correct’ description, then that description should be easily stated in a ‘plain language summary’. There are a plethora of quotes from eminent scientists that say if you can’t explain your position simply then you don’t understand it. This is of great importance to the non-scientist, particularly when the scientist is asking for changes in society … and funding. The plain language explanation must not only be understandable, I would say that it must have a descriptive power that connects to the experiences of the listener. That’s the component that renders the explanation acceptable as a description of a ‘reality’ that is held in common. Otherwise, I think you would agree, it is then only an opinion.
Bill Fabrizio wrote:
If we say that we have the ‘correct’ description, then that description should be easily stated in a ‘plain language summary’.
No. Can you give a “plain language summary” for the Standard Model of physics? The Lagrangian itself, which describes (with some rules) the entirety of the physics of the electromagnetic, strong and weak force, and classical gravity (general relativity) is hardly a “plain language summary”:
http://t.ly/WYjR5
Bill Fabrizio wrote:
Censorship … institutions … the individual.
https://x.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/1758653462232093011?s=20
It’s a real shame what happened to Scott Adams. He took all his good work and has made a fool of himself.
Bill,
It is impossible to describe it “correctly”; however, it is easy to describe simply: Humans are burning fossil fuels faster than the climate system can absorb them, resulting in increasing global temperatures, with various follow on effects.
ganon … thank you. In reference to changing societal behavior and funding, the ‘effects’ need to be explained and discussed. Particularly, since I agree with you on ‘correctly’.
Why am I being tortuous on this? Because scientific authority, on scientific questions, does not equate to political authority on social questions … without acceptance by citizens. I have a feeling you ultimately agree with that, regardless of frustrations you may have with non-acceptance of your view. This why the scientific community should be open, honest and straightforward. But of course, scientists are human, so we will have examples of the pettiness, greed and manipulation that plague us all. The Mann drama clearly shows that. This only makes it more difficult to assess ‘correctly’ the ‘effects’ and what our responses should be.
Bill,
That is correct, scientific authority is not political authority.
ganon …
> follow on effects
Now there’s the rub …
Yet, there is not any Global Average +33 oC GHE on Earth’s surface.
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
I’m not really worried about the exact value for the temperature of a hypothetical world without GHGs vs. our reality. I’m more interested in about the nearly 2 C increase measured over the last 100 years. The rate of change is even more noteworthy.
BA Bushaw, thank you for your respond,
“I’m not really worried about the exact value for the temperature of a hypothetical world without GHGs vs. our reality.”
Yes, it is our reality – a world without GHGs.
The very small amounts of GHGs in our thin atmosphere do not make it a world with GHGs.
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Christos. Sorry, I can’t compete with willful ignorance. Believe what you want.
Ok. But “sorry” for what?
Steyn and Simberg deserved all of this. You can’t defame a scientist when you don’t even understand his science. If they had understood why the hockey stick is required by basic laws of physics, they would have saved a huge amount of money, esp Steyn. Good to see that scientific ignorance and bad intentions has consequences.
+“You can’t defame a scientist when you don’t even understand his science.”
Does that mean that if they couldn’t understand the science, they were incapable of defaming Mann? By the legal standard of malice, does it mean they couldn’t have known whether their statements were true or false?
Yes – Both simberg and Steyn defamed Mann with malice.
However both statement by Simberg and Steyn were thruthfull.
Mann did in fact use bad stats to reach a conclusion not supported by actual science and math.
Bafflegab.
Mike Dombroski wrote:
Does that mean that if they couldn’t understand the science, they were incapable of defaming Mann?
Not at all. That’s exactly what happened.
They could have tried to understand the science. It’s not really that complicated. Probably logarithms are too complicated for Steyn but not for Simberg. But they had no interest in doing so. They didn’t understand the science, made no effort to that I can discern, and now will pay for their ignorance and defamation. It’s well deserved.
“They could have tried to understand the science. It’s not really that complicated. ”
I disagree with every assumption in this sentence.
1) The relevant science in the hockey stick is principle components statistical analysis of multiple time series of multiple proxy group types from multiple geographic locations in the northern hemisphere.
2) A highly acclaimed statistical expert in principle components analysis testified at the trial that this is one of the most complicated tools being used on one of the most complicated sets of data.
3) Because of the complexity, and that Mann refused to share his data initially and still refuses to share his code, Mann’s results were not easy to verify or reproduce. But against all odds, and Mann’s personal campaign of smear and obstruction, Stephen McIntrye et al was able to get the data and now even the code and verified that the statistical verification score, R2, indicates Mann’s graph is a hoax.
4) When I say hoax I also mean that Mann could have been fooling himself to some degree since it is very easy not to be conscious of the guiding of results to the desired destination when many choices need to be made, but which the investigator has the advantage of knowing the effect of those choices. This is why we require double blind studies in medicine with pre-determined statistical rules for evaluating the data. Not doing so is known as p-hacking.
5) Steyn and Simberg were well aware of McIntyre and McKitrick’s work, which has not been refuted. Doing new studies does not exonerate the validity of the soundness of a previous study even if the results are identical. If the flaw in the first study is not challenged this should also put into question the follow on study. In the case of Wahl and Amman 07, they like Mann did not report the all important R2 verification statistic. That they got away with this says more about problems with climate science than it does about anything else.
David, did you read MM03 and MM05? Did you listen to the trial testimony on the statistics? If not, you are just repeating slogans that you do not understand, but obviously care deeply about for some reason.
Ron Graf wrote:
1) The relevant science in the hockey stick is principle components statistical analysis of multiple time series of multiple proxy group types from multiple geographic locations in the northern hemisphere.
No Ron, that’s the mathematics. The science involved is this:
1) temperature change = (climate_sensitivity)*(change in forcing)
2) CO2_forcing = constant*ln(CO2/initial_CO2)
3) Atmospheric CO2 has been increasing exponentially since the beginning of the industrial era.
Hence, if CO2 isn’t changing, as prior to 1850, CO2_forcing=0 and there is no temperature change — that’s the flat handle of the hockey stick.
If CO2 is increasing exponentially, as post 1850 during the industrial era, its forcing is changing linearly (ln of an exponential = linear) and hence so is the temperature change – which is the blade of the hockey stick.
I understand computer science, and looking at Mann’s code, it is clear he used data upside-down.
It is getting warmer!
Graph:
https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BB1ipQCL.img?w=768&h=448&m=6
March is usually the hottest time of the year for the oceans because it is late summer in the southern hemisphere, where most of the world’s major seas are located.
Burl,
Yes, if you look at the IPCC chart, you will see that the total cooling of ALL anthropogenic aerosols (not just sulfates, includes land use (dust) particulates), compensates about 1/4 of the total GHG warming. Particulate/aerosol cooling is a significant factor in the sum total of radiative forcings, but its magnitude is minor compared to GHGs, and that coming from anthropogenic sulfates is only a subfraction of that.
IPCC 6: anthropogenic climate forcings:
https://mega.nz/file/o3cTjYSZ#49UAykMhLTzQXN_Vwx-V58vqdj8uisFYGfrg1WfR3cA
You are the one that referenced it. Unfortunate that you do not understand it. The arithmetic handling of negative numbers and graph reading are apparently not within your skill set.
BA:
And CERTAINLY not within your ability to understand it.
LOL, if Burl’s hypothesis is falsified by quantitative analysis, that analysis must be “garbage”. As for my ability to understand physics and chemistry, you can always look up my publications on Researchgate.
Burl, what kind of engineer were you at IBM?
BA:
Your understanding of chemistry and physics is not at issue.
What was at issue was your inability to recognize that the IPPC diagram of warming radiative forcings is faulty, for not including the inevitable warming resulting from decreased atmospheric SO2 aerosol levels.
You point to your many papers (most co-authored) on Research Gate, but NONE of them are climate-related.
For my part, I have 15 articles on Research Gate, all Climate-related.
Regarding my career at IBM, I worked in their Product Assurance area, and retired as a Senior Engineer, with many rewards for outstanding contributions.
BA:
On the Diagram, anything to the right of “0” is for warming forcings.
There is no warming forcing shown for the strongest forcing of all, the cleansing of our atmosphere due to the removal of SO2 aerosol pollution.
Instead, it is wrongly attributed to CO2
The diagram, in other words, is pure garbage!
Censorship … institutions … the individual.
https://x.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/1758653462232093011?s=20
Credulity , education deficits , echo chambers:
https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2017/05/science-isbest-communicatedto.html
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I’m not that keen on cutting Mike Mann slack on publishing deceptive science or making believe he won a Nobel Prize but I do want to point out that he is a bad apple in a barrel of a lot of bad apples. His co-authors, it was pointed out at trial, were the ones who selected the data. One of the two key tree ring proxies necessary for the hockey stick graph was from a study that the authors expressly warned against using as a temperature proxy Graybill and Idso (1993).
This fact was pointed out to the National Academy of Sciences during their investigation spurred by congress in the wake of MM05. The NAS summary advised against using proxies like this in the future yet the Pages2K and others still ignored that advice. They are just too valuable I suppose.
Also, remember it was IPCC 3rd Assessment lead author Chis Folland who we can see in the Climategate emails telling Mann how wonderful his graph would be if he could convince Keith Briffa to change his results or not submit them as to not “dilute the message.” Phil Jones was perhaps more instrumental than Mann in his embellishment of Mann’s deceptive graph to make it the WMO and IPCC darling image that would win Gore a Nobel Prize for putting in his scientifically flawed movie.
The reason Mann’s only defense at trial is that the establishment loves him is because we that is his only defense.
Medical science is more and more having scandals but unlike climate science average people are more concerned about the implications.
https://open.substack.com/pub/bariweiss/p/cancer-research-fraud-columbia-vinay-prasad?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Hockey stick or not, these short term depictions of climate do not provide the proper context. When variance data from ice cores and HADCRUT are converted to temperature in degrees C or F and charted together there have been several climate highs within the current interglacial above our current level. Every other interglacial over the Vostok period has been higher than present temperature. This despite the overwhelming probability that the highs are understated due to the very long intervals of observation. The CO2 observations have the same issue, they were most certainly higher. Also, the diminishing impact of higher levels of CO2 on warming is apparent when combining that data with present measured CO2
M. Mc wrote:
Every other interglacial over the Vostok period has been higher than present temperature. This despite the overwhelming probability that the highs are understated due to the very long intervals of observation. The CO2 observations have the same issue, they were most certainly higher.
Before the industrial era, the forcings on climate were natural, and not mostly due to CO2 over the Pleistocene. See: Milankovitch cycles.
Also, the diminishing impact of higher levels of CO2 on warming is apparent when combining that data with present measured CO2
Really? What analysis says that?
I have to agree with David that there it’s hard to see any analysis could be made about CO2 concentration’s diminishing forcing when there is too much natural variability to even be sure CO2 has any forcing, though it seems likely due to CO2 absorbing at 15um in lab experiments. The GHE is plausible. But even if correct they theory only produces 1.2C per doubling of CO2, not the 3C that the IPCC model mean projects with hypothesized positive feedback.
The temperature increasing capacity of atmospheric CO2 is real enough, but its influence is known and widely accepted to diminish as its concentration increases. It has a logarithmic in its relationship to concentration. Global Warming advocates and Climate Change sceptics both agree on this.
IPCC Published reports, (TAR3), acknowledge that the effective temperature increase caused by growing concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere radically diminishes with increasing concentrations. This information has been presented in the IPCC reports. It is well disguised for any lay reader, (Chapter 6. Radiative Forcing of Climate Change: section 6.3.4 Total Well-Mixed Greenhouse Gas Forcing Estimate) [1]. It is a crucial fact, but not acknowledged in the IPCC summary for Policy Makers[2].
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/08/10/the-diminishing-influence-of-increasing-carbon-dioxide-on-temperature/
Dr. Steven Koonin also discussed this in his book: “Unsettled”