Translating deep thinking into common sense
Why I Deny Big Climate Alarmism
By Walter Donway
September 18, 2016
SUBSCRIBE TO SAVVY STREET (It's Free)
It is a sign of our times, however, that the one topic of conversation once reliably safe and boring—the weather—is now more treacherous than an abandoned mine field.
What leads an objective non-scientist, examining the arguments, to reject “global warming,” a.k.a., “Big Climate alarmism”?
A couple weeks ago, my wife and I had dinner with a long-time friend of hers and her boyfriend. My wife had been friends with this woman for years, but never introduced me. Now, it seems, the woman wanted to meet me and to bring along her boyfriend. My wife warned me that they were “very Left,” “big Sanders supporters, now Hillary supporters,” and “politically correct.” I hoped that the restaurant’s cuisine would be endlessly fascinating material for conversation, but, just in case, I boned up on Jane Austen’s novels.
It is a sign of our times, however, that the one topic of conversation once reliably safe and boring—the weather—is now more treacherous than an abandoned mine field. (Let’s not get into that.) The global warming/climate change Gestapo (just kidding, will explain) sought out the ugliest epithet of modern times—Holocaust denier—and tailored it to fit their intellectual adversaries. It reflects, I suppose, their scientific temperament of openness to challenge and maintaining an atmosphere of objective discourse. About as much as if I, observing their bully boy tactics toward all opponents, referred to them as the Gestapo of global warming. But I don’t.
I don’t recall how global warming infiltrated into our dinner conversation. But consider: Global warming/climate change activists now view the threat as of the same magnitude as the rise of National Socialist (Nazi) aggression in the late 1930s—the basis for an article recently emblazoned across the pages The New Republic by William McKibben, one of the leading global warming/climate change activists in the world. Therefore, they believe that its implications are overwhelming in science, politics, economics, the 2016 election, health, education, agriculture, urban planning, discussion of any extreme weather, travel, population migration…
I knew that Jane Austen would be a winner!
No such luck, we were onto global warming. “Oh, so you’re a denier?”
“Well, there are no deniers…”
With infinite weariness, a look of oh-God-it’s-one-of-them: “Which means?
“I agree that the Earth’s mean global surface temperature was slowly increasing from about 1880 to 1998. I agree that the climate is constantly changing and requires vigilance and preventive measures based upon real threats such as cold snaps, drought or flooding, hurricanes… I agree that carbon dioxide and certain trace gases in the atmosphere contribute to a greenhouse effect, trapping heat from the sun within our atmosphere. I agree that since the Industrial Revolution, around 1740, average mean Earth surface temperatures may have increased as much as .7 of a degree Celsius and this contributes to the greenhouse effect.
“Did you know that when they say 97 percent of scientists agree with global warming, they mean only that they responded ‘yes’ to those statements? So do I.”
How have the global warming/climate change alarmists convinced much of the public—and of course the mainstream media, but that’s a given—that this multi-decade, sometimes multi-century prediction of the Earth’s weather, down to a degree or two, is as irrefutable, as undeniable, as the most studied and described event of the 20th Century?
My wife, kicking me under the table: “Walter, give someone else a chance to speak.”
My wife’s friend, no dummy, just looking at me, waiting, thinking: What the HELL scam is this?
I say: “But I don’t see any cause for alarm. Science and its predictions are all about how much, how fast, compared with what? The scientific ‘consensus’ is not about that.”
The latest “weather predictions” have moved from telling us we should bring an umbrella, when we go out, to telling us we should moth-ball industrial civilization’s dominant sources of power—of all economic production, transportation, heating and cooling, and everything else—on the basis of a long-term weather prediction.
My wife’s friend says, eyes closed, “I don’t want to discuss it, anymore.”
Who would? Would you want to lend an ear to a guy who denied the Holocaust—an historical event proven in court (at Nuremberg), attested by thousands of victims, documented by literally thousands of historians, and with known and visited sites of its hideous crimes against humanity?
How have the global warming/climate change alarmists convinced much of the public—and of course the mainstream media, but that’s a given—that this multi-decade, sometimes multi-century prediction of the Earth’s weather, down to a degree or two, is as irrefutable, as undeniable, as the most studied and described event of the 20th Century? And in doing so, deliberately envenomed a debate over the predictions of climate science—the weather?
My wife’s stricken friend barely could squeeze out another strained question: “And the Australian reefs?”
Time for some disclosure. I had followed the global warming/climate debate, and even written articles about it from the start, but over the summer my study had intensified. In particular, I had been studying a book, Climate Change: The Facts, published by the Institute of Public Affairs in Melbourne, Australia, in 2010, with a new and updated edition in 2015, bringing together scientists, economists, journalists, and even politicians to articulate, analyze, and document the dissent from the global warming dogma. Arguably, the two nations most affected, so far, by the global warming lobby have been the United States and Australia. They are not alone, though; the United Kingdom has committed itself to economically crushing “de-carbonization” policies, as has the European Union, that suggest spread-eagled submission to the frank propaganda of Big Climate alarmism. change.
The Australian Great Barrier Reef, a veritable poster child of the greens, has actually disappeared during glacial events [in other words, far more extreme climate stress than anything at present] more than 60 times in the past three million years and reappeared after every one of these events.
I will link several times to Climate Change: The Facts because, although it is just one book, it brings together scientists, economists, science writers, government policy analysts, and politicians from several countries and many institutions. Any serious statement of the case against global warming/climate change as a certain looming catastrophe, requiring an effort on the scale of the United States mobilization for World War II (McKibben in The New Republic), would make reference to most of them. The original edition, published by the Institute of Public Affairs, and available on their site as a PDF, is here. An updated version (linked above) by the same editor, Alan Moran, is available, too. And so…
I knew about the reefs—in particular, the Great Barrier Reef, a gigantic underwater ecosystem, the size of some nations, that is the genial host to aquatic plant and animal species, and, in passing, a huge Australian tourist attraction. Summarizing a lot of specific information, I said, “The reefs have been declared under attack, destroyed, forever lost to humankind because of global warming, and the same thing happened just recently. They come back, as they’ve always come back. I can send you the reference.” (Ian Plimer chapter, “The Science and Politics of Climate Change,” in Climate Change: The Facts. Plimer is emeritus professor of earth sciences at the University of Melbourne.)
My wife’s friend, shaking her head with almost agonized patience: “No, no, they aren’t coming back…ever…” It was heart-breaking to see her.
The problem is that the “warmers” will refer to some conclusion from the tidal wave of alarming reports floating through the mainstream media, and the sceptic, however well-informed, must decide either merely to assert the contrary in an “It is! It isn’t!” debate or actually refer to evidence.
But there, at the table, with the requirement to be easy and social, what do you do?
The Australian Great Barrier Reef, a veritable poster child of the greens, has actually disappeared during glacial events [in other words, far more extreme climate stress than anything at present] more than 60 times in the past three million years and reappeared after every one of these events. One of the experts on the reef, for example, predicted in 2009 that it would suffer irreparable damage. A few years later, with rare honesty in this field, he was rejoicing at the reef’s remarkable recovery. It happens over and over. (Andrew Bolt chapter, “False Prophets Unveiled,” in Climate Change. Bolt is one of Australia’s leading journalists.) McKibben’s begins with a war-correspondent-like urgency about territory seized, invasion routes, crushing losses, and areas bombed out. All by the encroaching global warming/climate invader. This list of “defeats,” by the way, is his only reference to the “case” for Big Climate alarmism; the rest of the article is a plan for mobilizing America by imposing a completely centralized command economy (rather as Hitler did in Germany, actually). I say that because the proposal goes far beyond the WWII mobilization by shutting down America’s largest, most fundamental industry—fossil fuel energy—and devoting every economic resource to creating hundreds of gigantic solar, wind, and “carbon capture” facilities.
At any rate, one of his “bombed areas” is the Great Barrier Reef, which, he writes, from the air is not green but “white as bone yard.” Great image; the man can write. The reference to “bone white” is that the chief threat to the reef is seen as “bleaching” of the plant life. In fact, this happens in relatively minor areas of this gigantic reef; it always has—and still is—soon reversing itself.
But cite all this—chapter and verse—to a morally exhausted warmer trying to enjoy her dinner. (Her appetite did hold up remarkably well—not what you would expect when your country is being invaded and is losing to the enemy.) She had one final, incredulous question: “And so you don’t agree that we are making the oceans acidic and destroying them?”
I mean, this could be the last time we can enjoy a $39.95 striped bass fillet with miso sauce!
“No,” I said. It was painful. Our guests were looking at me, shaking their heads.
The world’s oceans never, ever, have been acidic. That is ignorance. The only question has been the PH level—the alkalinity—of the oceans and that has changed by virtually unmeasurable amounts over eons. There are ocean dynamics, including gigantic gullies that open on the ocean floor, that powerfully refresh the alkaline composition of the ocean. (Ian Plimer chapter, Climate Change.) Mere human activities cannot shift the PH of the oceans over centuries. Let’s worry about overfishing, dumping trash, and unnecessarily endangering species. It is just that the strike forces of Big Climate alarmism, the multi-multi-billion-dollar “environment biz,” no longer pay much attention to these problems. Because they can be addressed to human benefit without shutting down the engine of the world’s economy.
“What do you think about spanking?” asked the boyfriend, with a smirk. He added, “Just to change the subject.”
The next day, my wife reported, grimly, “I doubt they ever will want to go out with us, again.” If you reside in the Tri-State area and seek social engagements, do let me know.
But I set out to describe why I am a denier. You know, by now, that means someone who accepts the reality of the physics and chemistry of global warming, the recent warming record, and the anthropogenic origin of some warming. There are no “climate change deniers.” Without the “greenhouse effect” catalyzed by CO2—that overwhelmingly is not generated by human activity—the Earth would be uninhabitably cold. This is not in dispute; our atmosphere holds in the heat of the sun that makes Earth livable. The warming trend, so far, has stimulated a vast greening of the planet because CO2 is a non-toxic, non-irritating, non-polluting gas that is plant food. Humans breathe it out, plants take it in:
“From a quarter to half of Earth’s vegetated lands has shown significant greening over the last 35 years largely due to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change on April 25… The greening represents an increase in leaves on plants and trees equivalent in area to two times the continental United States.”
We “deniers” accept that since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution—itself viewed as the ultimate evil, the original sin, by the Big Climate alarmists—the mean global temperature at the Earth’s surface has risen about .7 of a degree Celsius. We “deniers” accept that since around 1880, and up through 1998, there was a warming trend in the average mean temperature at the Earth’s surface. Yes! Warming!
But if this warming did occur, couldn’t it unleash unlimited climate catastrophe—drought and famine, floods, rising sea levels awash over whole communities, wildfires sweeping over whole countries, constant ever-more-powerful hurricanes, bleaching of the reefs? No one had the slightest idea, so speculation was limited only by imagination—and still is.
As this short-term trend emerged, the Big Climate alarmists seized upon it. Most were already of the New Left and specifically the burgeoning environmental movement. They urgently needed something to do. Real, measurable pollution had improved drastically in our cities, improved in every way. The worldwide alarm briefly raised by the “Club of Rome” and its famous report that the Earth’s natural resources, especially fossil fuels, were being depleted at a catastrophic pace, had become ridiculous in light of new discoveries of oil and natural gas. Billions and billions of dollars had flowed into environmental organizations to conserve “natural” land and endangered species. Damn! All of it had been accomplished and capitalism (in an attenuated form), economic growth, technology, and the flow of consumer goods continued! What to do?
If projected, with a suitable acceleration for economic growth, the warming trend up to 1998 could result in ever-higher average mean temperatures at the Earth’s surface. As much as 2, 3, or 6 degrees Celsius by the end of the 21st Century, maybe by 2050. Couldn’t it? No one knew. But if this warming did occur, couldn’t it unleash unlimited climate catastrophe—drought and famine, floods, rising sea levels awash over whole communities, wildfires sweeping over whole countries, constant ever-more-powerful hurricanes, bleaching of the reefs? No one had the slightest idea, so speculation was limited only by imagination—and still is.
Our age is entranced by apocalypse, global calamity, and that is about all the media feel sure they can sell. Faced with a calamity for humankind and the Earth, governments would have to take over the economies of the world—as the Left had always wanted, anyway—to make things right. Here, in the recent New Republic, is the leading advocate of Big Climate alarmism saying exactly that. You want socialism, maybe National Socialism? Well, Bernie Sanders was a mere piker.
Some 100 computer models to project long-term climate change have been developed with literally billions of dollars from the U.S. and other governments. Not to be unkind toward aspiring young scientists, but, if you bought into the “warmer” premise, your proposal could reap three years of research support—salary, laboratory, assistants, equipment, and travel to a dazzling array of world conferences. Plus, about 50 percent of the grant went to your grateful university or research center for overhead expenses. No grants are made to support research into hypotheses that, if demonstrated, would contradict or undercut the global warming/climate change dogma. That is, no grants. Period.
At first, it was all about these models. The global-warming movement relies upon long-term weather forecasting. What? Predictions of next weekend’s weather are at best chancy? No, this is prediction of the weather and all its effects in 2050 and 2100—along with demands to governments that economies, today, be shut down and reinvented according to forecasts of the efficacy of wind power, solar power, but, more to the point, doing without.
It has been said that opinions about global warming, and the resultant policy prescriptions, must be left to scientists. Global warming is a scientific judgment based on complex computer models. So just butt out!
Well, some 90-plus computer models of the climate, created at the cost of hundreds of millions, failed to predict that 1998 would be the “hottest year” on “record.” That is a problem. These computer models ALL were making predictions 30, 50, 100 years into the future and reporting the alarming news that increases in average mean temperature at the Earth’s surface were inevitable and would bring down upon industrial civilization—the arrogance of mankind turning Nature to his needs—apocalyptic collapse. After 1998, as 15 years went by with no new higher temperature record, something had to change. The facts had changed, so what would you do?
Change your name but keep the Big Climate alarm theory. “Global warming” is now used far less often. The new term is “climate change” or “extreme climate change” or “Big Climate alarmism.” The new topic isn’t warming; it is that every extreme weather event that occurs—droughts, crop failures, flooding, hurricanes, heat waves, spreading tropical illnesses, wildfires, bleaching reefs—are…what?
Caused by global warming? No, only the careless get into that trap because none of the models can or do predict extreme weather events attendant upon long-term warming. No, the precise formulation for when a radio or TV station calls in an environmental scientist to comment on the hurricane or flood or spread of the Zika virus is “it is not inconsistent with what we would expect from global warming…” As someone pointed out, this means nothing. Extreme weather events are not inconsistent with what we would expect if God were punishing mankind for his sins—but that proves nothing about the theory that God exists and has it in for us.
Well, that brings us to the year 2014 and the New York Times cheering on page one that the “hiatus” in global warming had ended. What was this about? Well, only two of the models for long-term weather forecasting had even been “consistent with”—never mind predicting—the halt in global warming after 1998. In other words, the steady, relentless, and terrifyingly rapid global warming predicted by the models took a long vacation after 1998.
Finally, reported the Times, with obvious relief, that had changed. The first headline devised by the Times editors, was that the average mean temperature at the Earth’s surface in 2014 was “the highest in recorded history.”
Wow, the highest in recorded history! Unprecedented! Like going back to maybe… Sumer?
Within a day, the headline had been changed. 2014 had the highest temperature in the “recording history” of global temperature taking. That meant back to 1880, not 6,000 years to records from ancient Sumer, because 1880 was the first year an acceptable recording of global temperature had been made. Okay, so, not “recorded history,” just about 130 years. That span doesn’t mean much in the history of climate going back hundreds, thousands, and millions of years—except if you can tie the temperature rise to carbon dioxide emitted and accumulating since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in 1740. That is the entire premise of the global warming/climate change movement.
But the proof, as we have seen, is not so easy even for a thousand scientists working on 10,000 papers for 50 years. I will get to those numbers later.
For example, the centuries from 1400 to 1700 were the “Little Ice Age.” It was a tough time for humans, but, then, as even “deniers” admit, Earth’s climate changes constantly, and, to cope with climate change, such as steadily recurring ice ages, will require all the adaptability and preparation available to the human race. Climate scientists who, up until recently, studied the sun for changes in global temperature by reference to its orbit, axial tilt, distance from Earth, and sunspot activities, used these solar changes to explain the beginning and end of the Little Ice Age. (Willie Soon chapter, Climate Change. Dr. Soon, an astrophysicist who worked for decades at the Harvard-Smithsonian Astrophysics Laboratory, was hounded out of his position by Greenpeace.) When warming began in the 1880’s, they attributed it to a rebound from the Little Ice Age back to the temperatures that prevailed before it—and were far warmer than today’s.
Well, jeez, but at least 2014 ended that nasty, unaccountable cooling period, right? It turns out that the best recording of 2014 is that the global average mean temperature had increased a recorded 0.01 of a degree Celsius. Unfortunately, for the Big Climate alarmists, the margin of error in the recording system that reported this result was 0.05 of a degree Celsius—that is, five times larger than the record temperature increase. This was meaningless.
Climate scientists who, up until recently, studied the sun for changes in global temperature by reference to its orbit, axial tilt, distance from Earth, and sunspot activities, used these solar changes to explain the beginning and end of the Little Ice Age. When warming began in the 1880’s, they attributed it to a rebound from the Little Ice Age back to the temperatures that prevailed before it—and were far warmer than today’s.
At last, in 2015, the National Centers for Environmental Information could report a warmer year than 1998, indeed the warmest year in 136 years, 0.90 of a degree Celsius above the 20th Century average, and edging out 2014 by 0.13 degree Celsius—although a NASA press release called it “shattering” the mark set in 2014. At last, the 17-year vacation taken by “global warming” was over—maybe. As the report went beyond the headline, however, it said that in 2015, as in 1998, an extremely strong El Nino activity—the warming phase of a recurring climate pattern over the southern Pacific Ocean—had been at work. There is no known connection between El Nino and CO2 emitted by human activities.
Big Climate alarmists have high hopes for 2016, reporting one “hottest month” after another as the year goes on. With any luck, for the activists, 2016 will take us back on the road to climate catastrophe.
In my next article for Savvy Street, I will offer a concise list of the reasons that make me a “denier” that climate changes should alarm us—and panic us into yielding what is left of our economic freedom, industrial strength, and prosperity to an economic dictatorship that promises to save us.
To create such a list is not easy, given the sprawling, ever-changing, opportunistic advocacy of the Big Climate alarmists. Meanwhile, pick up a copy of Climate Change: The Facts. Maybe we can discuss it over dinner. My wife would be impressed that someone still wants to have dinner, with us.
-
Can We Profoundly Affect Other Souls in Brief Interactions?
-
Can Social Planning Enhance Individual Flourishing?
-
Has Australia become “Authorataria?” (An Audio Podcast)
-
Freedom in a Global Context: What Japanese Individuality and American Groupism...
-
Ayn Rand’s Aristotelian Philosophy of Human Flourishing
-
Ayn Rand, Aristotle, and the Ethics of Flourishing
-
Could This Be the Most Startling News of the Pandemic Yet?
-
How the Destruction of Property Rights Made Indigenous People Vassals of...
-
Geologist Ian Plimer On the Science and Politics of the Anti-Scientific...
-
Is Chinese Culture Opposed to Individualism?
I typically start with some historical facts:
1. About 15-19000 years ago, much of North America was covered by glaciers.
2. It was cold in North America
3. Then the climate shifted
4. North America warmed up and the glaciers melted away
5. The Earth survived
6. Humans adapted and survived
So what caused #3? Was it natives burning coal to generate electricity? Were they driving huge trucks to and from their hunting grounds? Did the big yellow thing in the sky have anything to do with it?
If that’s not enough, I ask why is Greenland called “Greenland” when it is mostly covered in ice? Why are old settlements being found in areas where the ice has retreated?
“If that’s not enough”
No, it is nowhere near enough. There are many causes of climate change and they do not make any difference to the causes of climate change in the here and now.
No, you are right because the actual “cause” in the “here and now” is the redistribution of wealth and the control of population.
The redistribution of wealth and population control lead to climate change? Perhaps you should have a discussion of your ideas with TheOldMan, as by his logic that would therefore be the cause of climate change 19000 years ago.
Don’t be obtuse. Fake arguments conveying you don’t understand my words only convey the insincerity of your “cause”. Do I have to talk DOWN to you so that you will understand? Okay. Since you want to convince everyone that PEOPLE are the “cause” of climate change, it is also a given that PEOPLE are the cause of intended redistribution of wealth and population control.
I only reflected back exactly what you said and linked it to TheOldMan’s ideas. So it is not a fake argument but a perfectly sound one. He thinks the causes of climate change in the distant past was not people and therefore, I think he is saying, people are not causing climate change now.
I think I do understand your original words. Perhaps you could point out where you think I have misunderstood them? Though perhaps you could rewrite that last sentence in your last post so it makes more sense.
The Sahara has been shrinking (i.e., greening) for decades.
Hello Walter. Permission to repost a portion of your article to my journal on Deviantart, where I work the climate skeptic side of things(?)
I have asked the editor, Vinay Kolhatkar, to respond. I think it should be possible and I thank you very much for your interest. I find your site interesting, by the way.
Thank you both! I shall be doing it up in the next day or so.
Deviantart is an art site (I write science-fiction/fantasy and do some drawing) but there is a lot of politics, apparently that can’t be escaped 😛
Will visit your site soon. Thank you, Otter, for picking the Samaria-Sumer error, and we have since fixed it.
Hello, Otter, yes, with an acknowledgment that “this essay/ section of the essay” was first published on Savvy Street (link to this URL), which is the market norm, and is also the way we permit reproduction. Could you also, within that, introduce the writer as — Walter Donway, author of a newly-published book– ‘Not Half Free: The Myth that America is Capitalist,’ which traces America’s accelerating loss of economic freedom? (The URL for that, if you wish to embed it, is https://www.amazon.com/Not-Half-Free-America-Capitalist-ebook/dp/B00YWLUZSK#nav-subnav)
Thank you for your kind consideration.
Yes sir, of course! I shall make certain of the link back to your original and to Walter and the link for his book.
Walter – I am not trying to nitpick you but warming did not start in 1880 as they tell you. Cooling started in that year and lasted until 1910, well into the beginning of the twentieth century. People publishing these data are so arrogant that they take the liberty to draw a straight line through real temperature changes that go up and down. This is not the only such case – their variations on this theme continue when their straight line ignores the warming between 1920 and 1940. From 1880 to 1940 is sixty years of global temperature data ignored by their supposed average temperature curve. If you ask them why, they tell you that such differences are only random deviations from a true warming curve. That means that first a thirty-year cooling is thrown out and next a thirty-year warming is lowered. What comes next you might want to know. What comes next is a precipitous temperature drop in 1940 that brought us the bone-chilling cold of World War II. There have been complaints about the way the temperature curve is used with the result that some big shots now admit that anthropogenic global warming first becomes observable in 1950. But what about their previous claim that global warming started at the beginning of the industrial age in 1850? Oh, that is easy to explain away. Global warming signs are part of the temperature record even though we can’t see them because they are too weak to see. That technically still leaves their earlier claim that warming started with the beginning of the industrial age intact. Except that you and I can’t see it.. To me they simply don’t exist. But if there is such a thing as anthropogenic global warming we must advance its starting point by 100 years, from 1850 to 1950, to bring it in line with observations, if any.
I will check that. What I read is that there was an overall slight warming from 1880 to 1998 “most of it before 1940.” As I say, I will check.
“What leads an objective non-scientist, examining the arguments, to reject “global warming,”
Believing you understand the science after getting the “arguments” from debunked sites? Believing scientists don’t understand the science despite being part of a global community studying it? Being brainwashed by the oil industry who learnt from the tobacco dealers? Shall we move on to possible personal failings?
One of the ‘200 scientific organizations’ which ‘recognize’ AGW is the American Psychiatric Association. Perhaps you can tell us how many climate scientists are in that organization? And if one Objectively scans the list, they find that there are a LOT of such organizations in which the most knowledge the members have of climate is what they see when they walk out the door each morning.
The Royal Society, US National Academy of Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Science. American Physical Society, American Chemical Society … and every scientific institution and society on the planet and you want to discuss the American Psychiatric Association. Mind you, you do need help I suppose.
The leaders of these organizations support the ideas. The rank and file are not queried, for a reason.
Reason, yes. Incredulity and ignorance.
*laughs* Yes, please DO ignore the fact that many of the organizations on that list don’t have a climate scientist to their name, rendering their opinion meaningless. Or that a number of those organizations have had massive internal arguments on the subject and many members do NOT agree.
The statement “clear evidence and incontrovertible science” from any one of the societies named would be enough for a rational person to see where the truth is. But good you know about the psychiatrists.
Yes…move swiftly on to ad hom attacks.
Get your medical advice from “objective”the unqualified and crazy too do you?
Believe everything your doctor tells you, do you? Believe medicine is never wrong—except about ulcers, of course, where consensus was very, very wrong and kept people sick? Believe salt is bad for you? Good for you? What if journal A says eating sugar is bad and journal B says it’s not? Ignore all the conflicting medical opinions? Must be exhausting blotting out all those things that might cause doubt. Maybe your doctor has a prescription for the fatigue…..
The qualified might be wrong some of the time but the unqualified are wrong all the time, even when they are right for the wrong reasons.
Fourier started the science of CO2 in 1824 and nearly two hundred years later we have a wide, broad and deep scientific consensus of many tens of thousands of climate scientists plus, the Royal Society, the US National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Physical Society, the American Chemical Society … and every scientific institution and society on the planet.
Versus what? A few oil billionaires and their lackey right-wing politicians, a few cranks and contrarians and a whole pile of useful idiots. Being duped out of any prospect of a decent future for their grandchildren.
The question about what leads an objective non-scientist to reject mainstream science is interesting, not for the face value question, but for the inclusion of the word “objective”. There have been quite a few cognitive science studies about why people (who presumably all regard themselves as being rational, objective people) reject or embrace notions that aren’t supported by fact. One common finding is that a person’s world view is so entrenched that it prevents them from being objective. See if you can find papers about “mental models”, “world view” and “motivated rejection of science”.
Of course one’s world view and mental models may also cause one to reject cognitive science as well as mainstream physics, chemistry, (climate), and biological science.
Surely the whole point of this article was that the author was embracing mainstream science and that the catastrophist misinterprets it? Did you read more than a paragraph?
No. The way I read the article was that the author rejects mainstream science, only picking out the bits he feels he can cope with, and gets a lot of that wrong. He probably thinks of himself as a “lukewarmer”, which is akin to being “just a little bit pregnant”.
He doesn’t read science, favouring instead disinformation from a right wing lobby group in Australia. He gives no evidence of being the least bit skeptical of the nonsense, despite all the science disinformers listed as authors. Instead he’s impressed, claiming them as “scientists, economists and politicians” and ignoring that many of them are mere denier bloggers of a very ordinary “climate science is a hoax” variety. There’s no evidence he’s gone to original science sources. On the contrary there is ample evidence he hasn’t. (Fake scepticism.) It looks as if there is a limit to what his own view of the world can encompass, and his world view is not flexible enough to accommodate new facts that come to his attention. Instead he rejects much of science and promotes a variation of the “climate hoax” conspiracy theory. He is “right” and all the scientists are “wrong”.
Of course, the politically correct scientists could be wrong and believing in what they do ONLY because of their political beliefs. That “belief because of other factors” is just as much true for the ones who believe in CAGW as the ones who don’t. It’s quite amazing how those who believe never, ever see that the very behavior they denounce in others applies equally to them. They are blinder than blind to that reality.
One will also note that anyone who disagrees “never went to the sources”, even if the person has a PhD in physics and publishes in journals. There is NO way to disagree with these people. Every point is WRONG if you disagree. CAGW is, by faith alone, the only answer. There can be no other gods before it and no one may disagree, even with what would have been science if it didn’t disagree with the god of global warming. Remarkable how science became faith.
That’s number two in the telltale techniques of climate science denial – the logical fallacy. It’s a straw man fallacy – used more than once.
The claim that there is “no way to disagree” suggests that you have no concept of scientific research. (Shouting the word “no” only serves to emphasise this.) The use of the words “these people” suggests a binary rather than pluralist view of humanity.
Your bringing religion into it reminds me of evolution deniers.
Your suggestion that the author has a PhD in physics is wrong, from what I can gather. Even if he were, that wouldn’t make this article any more “correct”. There are some physicists who are also climate science deniers, though only a tiny, insignificant proportion. There are also engineers who reject climate science, and TV weather announcers who reject climate science. Again, only a tiny insignificant proportion.
Just the mere fact that the science scare-mongers are threatening legal pressure on people who question the theory makes the WHOLE PREMISE suspect. This is enough for even a layman to see. There can be no REAL scientific enquiry if the climate alarmists have not enough confidence in their theory to argue the subject.
Are you referring to Lamar Smith and his endless sub poenas? Or perhaps Senator Inhofe wanting to prosecute climate scientists for doing research? Or are you confusing the investigation of Exxon allegedly paying organisations to push out what it knows to be disinformation, presumably to delay action on phasing out fossil fuels.
Ordinary science deniers and disinformers won’t be prosecuted in most countries. Or at least not until/unless in future years public opinion turns against them so much for misleading the public and delaying intervention. Even then I can’t see it happening.
Would you have opposed the Snopes trial? And did you oppose the investigations into the shenanigans of tobacco companies? Or any penalties for a public company that knowingly misleads its shareholders and the general public?
“Snopes trial” LOL
Yeah, typo. Good catch. But you were too late in refreshing the screen. I’d already fixed it.
Of course you had.
Oh, Sue, you’re following that book!!!! The one believers use because they are incapable of independent thought. How cool!!!
I never suggested that climate scientist fake data for political purposes—you suggested that in your comment.
I brought the religion of Global Warming in, which is in no way related to evolution. In fact, global warming denies the validity of evolution by claiming things should NOT change. Interesting, don’t you think? It also seems to deny that humans are part of evolution, which is more toward the traditional religions. Humans are “special” or “different”. Personally, I am shocked at how global warming demands evolution stop and stop now—no more extinctions, no survival of the fittest, just survival of everything here today. It’s odd.
I did not suggest the author had a PhD in physics (again, you did that in your comment). I stated some skeptics do. It is interesting that you consider science to be by “vote”, stating the portion of physicists that do not believe are tiny and insignificant. Actually, the number is probably closer to 40%, but that really won’t matter to you, I suspect. Your dismissal of the “tiny, insignificant portion” would explain why the people who discovered ulcers are cause by bacteria in many cases, the man who dared suggest that doing autopsies and then delivering babies could result in women dying of infections was institutionalized, etc. It only takes one person who can show the majority are wrong to change science. If you deny that, you are the science denier, not me.
Sou: “There’s no evidence he’s gone to original science sources.”
Alice: “One will also note that anyone who disagrees “never went to the sources”, even if the person has a PhD in physics and publishes in journals.”
Alice: “I did not suggest the author had a PhD in physics”
Er, OK.
“even IF the person has a PhD in physics” Note the small, two-lettered IF in there. That means the person may or may not. It does not speak to any specific person.
Just for clarification, should I have meant a specific person, I would have said “when they have a PhD in physics, such as Will Happer. If I was talking about those with physics degrees who believe, I’d have used Michael Mann.
“It only takes one person who can show the majority are wrong to change science.” – and deniers are waiting, hoping, 200 years on, for someone, anyone to prove that climate science is a hoax. Just like they are expecting an ice age to cometh any day now.
If it were true that 40% of physicists think climate science is a hoax (it’s not), why hasn’t even one of them proven that 97% of climate science is wrong? (Poor Will Happer could only find 49, not even 50, retired NASA scientists and (mostly) engineers, out of something like 50,000 people, to support his “climate hoax” hypothesis.) Surely disproving climate science is not beyond a physicist’s capabilities. Or could it be that’s just more wishful thinking, like that it’s going to cool dramatically … any decade now.
J S Carlton, Rebecca Perry-Hill, Matthew Huber, Linda S Prokopy. The climate change consensus extends beyond climate scientists. Environmental Research Letters, 2015; 10 (9): 094025 DOI:10.1088/1748-9326/10/9/094025 (open access)
Again, you’re rewriting what I say to match your own biases. That’s dishonest.
No, skeptics are not waiting for an ice age—at least not all of them. I suppose there are a few. Most are just waiting for good science on climate, the removal of politics from science and for people to realize climate is a complex, nonlinear system that probably defies understanding at our current level of knowledge. It may defy understanding no matter what the level. Chaos is like that.
Again, I did not say 40% of physicists think climate change is a hoax—is it possible for you to actually stop writing your own beliefs as if they were mine? There is no 97%. It was a lie from the beginning. If you keep calling all of this a climate hoax, that will indeed get maybe 95%. But ask if people are primarily the cause of climate change—what percentage they believe we are, ask if the person thinks it’s catastrophic, and you get different answers. The wording determines the results in most surveys—that’s a proven fact. So what precisely were the 97% agreeing to? The 97% of the Cook study were never even asked—his raters assigned a “yes” or “no” based on abstracts of a paper. That’s not science. Clever marketing, maybe, and totally dishonest, but not science.
As to your study, some of the cited papers have been discredited, which is a red-flag for the current research (The Cook study has been very widely discredited—he blantently lied about his methods). I note the surveys were in universities, which have a very liberal bias. Since political beliefs can sway belief, shouldn’t the study have been in the general public?
“Those who believed that mean temperatures had risen had significantly higher levels of trust in climate science, were significantly more egalitarian, more communitarian, and more liberal than those who did not believe temperatures had risen. “ So being egalitarian, communitarian and liberal are why people believe? This does not ask about actual science. You’re still appealing to authority—and you would have been one of those who demanded the man who said ulcers are caused by bacteria SHUT UP and crawl of to his science denier corner. Same for not doing autopsies before delivering babies in a day and age where hand-washing was non-existent. You would have been very, very wrong, but would you even care? Science is not God, consensus can be and is often wrong. Science is a process—one that looks for errors and does not vote on truth.
I’ll only say this. The Cook study has not been discredited. That’s another false denier meme of the “hockey stick is broken” and “climate science is a hoax” type. If any denier really and truly was sceptical of the findings, they could have done their own research and written it up a dozen times over by now. The fact they haven’t speaks volumes. The rest of your comments demonstrate logical fallacies and inability to read critically. They don’t merit any further response.
(I don’t accept that hard core, long term deniers and disinformers are dupes or have been led astray. Sure, some are just not capable of digesting science, and that combined with not wanting to accept what’s happening has them believing all sorts of weird and wonderful notions – see up thread for an extreme example. Most of those who’ve been trawling denier blogs for years are what I refer to as the wilfully ignorant, with many of them better described as deliberate deceivers. It’s not as if they couldn’t have spent some of those years they spent protesting science, working through the science for themselves.)
I’ll only say this: The Cook study been discredited and he did lie about his methods. Pure and simple. He lied. (His paper with Lewandowsky was retracted—Recursive Fury due to procedurial errors. That’s the quality of work he does.) It’s not a denier meme—academics who are believers have stated Cook lied about his methods. Skeptics do not do surveys because science is not by vote. Your ignorance on this is quite evident. You believe science works like a presidential election. It does not. By your rules, the man who discovered h. pylori causes ulcers should have been drummed out of science, vilified, called a denier and a misinformer, and never allowed to sully the consensus of ulcers being caused by excess acid. That’s what you’re saying. Very clearly and loudly.
Long term skeptics understand science very well, which is why they are skeptical. Many have spent years working through the science and they find it not convincing. In your mind, anyone who disagrees with you is wrong and stupid and doesn’t care—you don’t allow for yourself being wrong, yet you say deniers have closed minds. It’s not skeptics who have locked shut minds. It’s the true believers. They refuse to say they could be wrong, even though it’s very possible they are.
You speak of closed minds as if yours wasn’t. You are wrong, Alice. Dr Cook didn’t lie about his 97% research and neither did any of the other authors. Recursive Fury wasn’t retracted because of any errors. It wasn’t retracted on any scientific (or ethical) grounds. The journal withdrew it because it (shockingly) caved in to threats from some science deniers. It has since been republished in expanded form, with additional experiments and two additional high calibre authors, proving the original work is robust.
Now I could give you the benefit of the doubt and think you are merely ignorant and angry enough at climate science to spread this sort of nonsense that you picked up from some dim dark corner of cyberspace (or made it up out of your imagination). Or I might not. It is just as likely that you know full well what you are writing is wrong, a despicable act, and defamatory. If the latter then you deserve whatever bad comes your way. If the former then you are behaving like a typical science denier. When deniers don’t like the facts they accuse scientists of fraud and fakery. It’s the “climate hoax” conspiracy theory all over again. It is disgusting behaviour and even a site like this shouldn’t tolerate defamation. (You aren’t even aware that the Cook survey wasn’t a poll. If deniers wanted to find out how much science supports the fact that it’s us who are causing warming, they only need to do what real sceptics do, and examine the literature. That’s what Cook et al did. And they checked their findings with the authors, which confirmed their results.)
That you prefer to defame award-winning scientists to checking facts for yourself means you are impervious to reason, incapable of understanding the work of the authors you defame or too lazy to bother (you show no sign of having read or understood any of these works), or have no morals, and quite possibly all of these.
You are right, Sou, global warming and the prospect of extreme climate change are now the mainstream in climate science. And I am a layman, not a scientist. I did spend my career in two foundations supporting biomedical research, environmental medicine, epidemiological investigation, and, later, advocating for the importance of neuroscience and educating the public about brain research. I began and edited, for the Dana Foundation, a quarterly journal, “Cerebrum: The Dana Forum on Brain Research,” and we did make a persistent attempt, there, to publish and debate the opinions of some dissenters–in addition to the Nobelists we usually published. I am in the position of reading, literally every day, in “The New York Times,” the “Economist,” and dozens of other “mainstream” publications reports consistently and insistently pushing the hypothesis of potentially dangerous global warming and climate catastrophe. So, I must make a deliberate choice to seek out dissent. In that search, I came upon the book by the Institute of Public Affairs, a think-tank in Melbourne, Australia, that does, indeed, have a point of view. It advances principles of Nineteenth Century liberalism and of capital–free men, free ideas, and free markets. Their collection is carefully divided into three parts: the science, the economics, and the journalistic controversy. The essays in th first part are by scientists only and all are affiliated with leading, mainstream institutions. When I discuss the science, as I understand it, as a layman, I cite only this first section and scientists. As you know, leading the charge for global warming/climate change has been the U.N. International Panel on Climate Change and its major periodical reports involving hundreds of scientists reviewing thousands of papers. But, as you surely know, the explicit, articulated mssion of the IPCC is to explore the anthropocentic causes of global warming. In other words, their brief is limited to the thesis they are to prove. And the head of the IPCC has said, in a clear quotation, that we are a government organization, with a government mandate, and we follow it. If governments want us to do something else, we will. Check it out, though I am sure you know it, since you seem very knowledgable, here. But there also, now is a non-governmental Panel on Climate Change (NiPCC), which has many scientists involved and puts out a report in depth exactly as does the U.N. IPCC. The scientists and economists writing the essays in “Climate Change: The Facts” are involved with this NIPCC. So we are talking about two completing organizations of scientists making a systematic investigation of climate change. The advantage of the NIPCC is that its scientists are not all in government “pay” and depending upon government for their continued work. You don’t know me, but I really am quite sceptical. I have no axe to grind on climate change, do not work in the field, do not work in the energy industry, do not have relatives involved in the work. You are right that I do not rely mostly on primary sources, the articles in the journals, although I have read some of them. But I am reading essays by the same scientists who writer the primary articles. I can accommodate new facts. At the age of 73, retired, in pay of no one, with my time my own–and bizarrely, spending it trying to establish the truth about climate sicnece for the world in much my son must live–I am Citizen Donway trying not to get banged up by my government and “just a little pregnant.” If you will forgive a crouchy comment for a “senior”: I have been screwed too often.
Walter, I appreciate your response, but it only indicates you have *not* investigated this subject on which you have such strong opinions (opposite to the evidence). I suggest that before you claim that 97% of scientists over at least sixty years have it wrong and your less than 1% have it right, you do take the time to read the actual science, not filtered by politics like the Heartland Institute and the IPA. If you are as skeptical as you claim (which as you point out isn’t much, I accept) then you owe yourself that much, and your readers the same, not to mention the reputations of the tens of thousands of scientists whose work you thoughtlessly dismiss. Thinking that being paid by political lobby groups is less likely to be biased compared to decades of scientists of all political persuasions who have devoted their lives to their work, strikes me as absurd, to say the least.
If it’s too hard to do that, then should you be boasting an opinion on the subject? It’s fine to have an opinion but an opinion that has little to do with reality is worthless. (Unless of course you *are* solely motivated by politics and ideology. In which case wouldn’t it be better to be up front about that, and say so plainly.)
“So we are talking about two completing organizations of scientists making a systematic investigation of climate change. The advantage of the NIPCC is that its scientists are not all in government “pay” and depending upon government for their continued work. ”
Giving equal status to the NIPCC and the IPCC is just an example of false balance. The IPCC is an organisation that is funded to make an assessment of the state of all the science. The NIPCC is a political organisation funded to spread uncertainty about the science. The idea that scientists are all in the government and dependent on that for their next pay cheque is just a nonsense. Do you think that “scientists” paid by a political paymaster are any less dependent for their next pay cheque? To believe that you would have to believe that “government” is that organised and speaks with one voice. Clearly not a sensible conclusion.
Read the damn charter of the IPCC. It is a political organization tasked with selecting and summarizing scientific research on the “human” causes of global warming. It does NOT examine the state of all climate science. Further, its Summary for Policy Makers is written by the political appointees of each participating country with the advice of a few political appointees chosen by the IPCC to help them summarize the IPCC scientific reports. The SPM makes all the news, and there have been numerous examples of it completely rewriting and/or ignoring conclusions in the scientific reports. The IPCC is most definitely a political arm of that most political of organizations, the United Nations. It is NOT a scientific or unbiased entity.
Thank you for your comment. The substantive comment I made was that it was that it was a false balance to give equal weight to the NIPCC vs the the IPCC. And that it was not logical to claim that the scientists in the pay of the NIPCC did not have any more integrity because they were being paid by a non-government organisation. I was not making a point about the precise nature of the IPCC and its purpose.
Have you read the damn charter of the NIPCC?
The IPCC is charged with making an assessment for politicians on the state of the science so that they can understand it and make policy. That seems correct and proper to me. Do you have a better way to do that? I do not think the NIPCC would do a very good job at all as they are completely biased from the start. If you want to believe that a right wing propaganda unit paid to protect fossil fuels would do a better job then carry on being that naive.
Thank you for your comment. The substantive comment I made was that it was that it was a false balance to give equal weight to the NIPCC vs the the IPCC. And that it was not logical to claim that the scientists in the pay of the NIPCC have any more integrity because they were being paid by a non-government organisation. I was not making a point about the precise nature of the IPCC or its purpose.
Have you read the damn charter of the NIPCC?
The IPCC is charged with making an assessment for politicians on the state of the science so that they can understand it and make policy. That seems correct and proper to me. Do you have a better way to do that? I do not think the NIPCC would do a very good job at all as they are completely biased from the start. If you want to believe that a right wing propaganda unit paid to protect fossil fuels would do a better job then carry on being that naive.
What I find interesting about your position is that you’re having to use modern cognitive social studies to explain how “deniers” have been misled and have lost their path while I only need groupthink to explain how “warmists” have been led astray. Not only that, but this is a very comparable example where groupthink lead to quality science being buried and careers destroyed.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/07/the-sugar-conspiracy-robert-lustig-john-yudkin
I particularly enjoy this rationale: “the author rejects mainstream science, only picking out the bits he feels he can cope with, and gets a lot of that wrong”. The author (and implicitly all deniers) is simply not emotionally intelligent enough to cope with the conflicting aspects of the science and their world view. Thus he rejects certain pieces of the puzzle and pretend they do not exist.
I say it is groupthink.
Occam’s razor : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor for the win
Your example of science being rubbished is interesting. But I noticed this in the article:
“Prominent nutritionists combined with the food industry to destroy his reputation …”
Does this ring any warning bells for you? That is industry sabotaging the science for its own advantage?
Obviously it brings to mind the tobacco industry sabotaging the health link to smoking. The CFC producers sabotaging ozone hole ideas. DDT producers ridiculing the concerns of environmental groups. The power industry resisting measures to reduce acid rain. The fossil fuel industry …
Green advocacy/industry…Name well respected “denialist” scientists. You can’t. As soon as you attach the prefix, they are out of the herd.
I do not understand your reply to me. What is your point?
If I get your point, you are suggesting that you need 2 groups to play the game. First you need the scientists and then you need industry to promote a portion of the science.
I also gathered that you did not find the second group (industry) to be present in directing climate science off in a direction that excludes “deniers”. I believe that in climate science that missing second group is Green Advocacy/Big Green.
This is why I said “Green advocacy/industry”
The “name the well respected denialist scientists” part was to demonstrate that green advocacy and green industry have attacked scientists that are working against them and labelled them “deniers” which is exactly what happened to nutritional scientists that were against the demonization of fats.
In short, I find the parallels between what happened in the 70’s to nutritional scientists and the 90’s to climate scientists to be very strong, thus solidifying my point that groupthink is at the core of the problem, and not some fancy cognitive social studies papers that relies on many people being willfully biased.
Sorry for being unclear.
What I am saying is that the science can be subverted by the industry for their own narrow interests. We have seen that in the tobacco, power and CFC industries. We are now seeing it in the power industry again to protect fossil fuel interests.
You suggest that Green Advocacy is a second group that excludes “deniers”. A couple of problems with that for me. There is still the group called scientists that try to be objective. And you need to be clear about what a “denier” is. Either way you have to turn to the the science and try to evaluate that. By definition “denier” is not someone who is being objective.
Your answer to this is that respected scientists have been demonised as “deniers”. I guess that on the edges there may be a couple of scientists that have been unfairly criticised by Green groups. But the overwhelming evidence is that the scientists who earn the soubriquet of “denier” have allowed themselves to be subverted and deserve the criticism. And that may be what happened in the sugar/fat example you give. (I have to add I know little about that).
Psychological studies are scientifically more bunk than the 90% of all scientific papers that are most likely false. Several published studies have shown that most published papers cannot be reproduced. Psychological papers are especially suspect because firstly, it is very, very difficult to do psychology studies. Psychological responses are highly variable which requires large numbers of respondents- very difficult to get. Even with a sufficient number psych results tend to be in the r=.5 range, explaining a mere 25% of the correlated observation. In contrast, large scale physics experiments(the Large Hadron Collider) routinely get r values of .999995 and higher. r=.999 is taken as a hint there might be an effect. The second reason psychological studies are so hard to do is that they are extremely subject to confirmation bias. Everyone old enough to do scientific studies, including psychologists, already has an entrenched world view that biases their studies and the results. Who else would publish a paper based on studying the thought processes of 50 college students using questionnaires and extrapolate the conclusions to people in general?
I love the way you made an informative article, also humorous! I have been there, making people who want to recite talking points during a meal, tell me in their own words about global warming, which they seem never able to do. The kids in school are brainwashed into reciting this mantra. Their parents are fed the same stuff by well meaning, but uninformed community leaders. I minored in science, and had discussions about the topic with the head of our university’s science dept., who did not buy into the alarmist attitude. In the 80s, disgusted with what was going on in schools, I contacted Tom DeWeese, who went to my high school. He explained the bigger picture of the UN wanting to sell the whole topice, as a route to global control. That was about 20 years ago now, and I have never stopped researching it. I am always fascinated that the alarmists blame cows, industry, people, but never the apx. 50 weather warfare installations, private and government owned, in this and other countries, which each work on the jet streams and do actually cause a certain amount of climate change. The reason they are ignored, as it is us, the people, they want to control. The UN now says they don’t care if global warming is true, as long as people believe it is (so they can use it to control us and the economy). Hillary has called for making dissenting discussion about global warming a crime. When in history has science advanced without back and forth discussion? And what about freedom of speech. Undeterred, they are planning to implement UN Agenda 32/2030 in the US, as they have in Europe. I had first hand wake up call when a member of law enforcement in the South asked our senior group, what UN Agenda 21 was, because he was starting to have a bad feeling. He said, during training, they were asked if they would be willing to use guns against US citizens to enforce UN Agenda 21! We immediately sent him much information we had on hand.If this was about climate change, guns would not be needed! This is about control, about taking private property rights away, getting rid of A/C, refrigerators, cars, rural housing, and controlling every aspect of life. This is not abut saving the planet, this is about enriching a few ruling class socialists. They banned freon because of a flawed NASA study, and did not reverse it when NASA went back to Congress to admit their error. Now they act as if every A/C until is spewing puron into the air. If that were happening, my cooling bill would be enormous, which it is not. One thing that is ridiculous is pushing green cars on the public. No one considers that Calif, in 2017 will shut down their last nuclear power plant, to be replaced with windmills and solar panels. Not going to provide for all those cars plugged in every night! The carbon footprint of a green battery i far larger than just running the car on gasoline, it does not net out! It seems as if politicians assume the public is brain dead, and we buy their rhetoric, or else they are just stupid, like Gore, and hope we won’t notice until they get richer.
Hey, thanks for taking the time to make such an extended and very interesting comment. As you know, I intended this as part one of a two or more part article. In the second part, I intended to state my reasons for “denying big climate alarmism. So I have not even gotten around to a formal statement of my reasons.
“The UN now says they don’t care if global warming is true, as long as people believe it is.”
Really? Have you got a reference for that?
Personally I was quite taken with the bits about enforcing Agenda21 at gunpoint (does he know what Agenda21 is?) and ‘enriching ruling class socialists’ 🙂
First time to this site. Enjoyed the article very much.
Thank you. there’s much more you might enjoy. Just browse around. It’s all free.
Walter – you may want to check your statement about “Samaria” – I think you mean ancient “Sumer”. Samaria was in Israel and didn’t come into existence until about 900 BC. The Sumerians lived in what is now southern Iraq about 3,000 BC.
Believe you are right, now that you mention it. Thanks. Will change.
Indication of an open, thinking mind! A willingness to change it if it becomes apparent that there is a reason to. Thank you so much for the article — perfect summary of the current state of affairs.
“Oh, so you’re a denier?”
The answer I always give to that is: “A denier of what?”, or variations on that to fit the question.
Followed by:
“That CO2 is a greenhouse gas? Nope.”
“That the world warmed over the last 150 years? Nope”
“That humans may be playing a part in climate change? Nope”
But then:
“That the measures we are taking to ‘combat’ climate change are urgent, necessary and effective? Yes.”
“That climate change is catastrophic? Yes”
“That sea levels are rising at an accelerated rate? Yes”
“That extreme weather events are increasing in number and intensity? Yes”
Because I sure as heck am ‘denying’ all of them.
It all starts with Virtue Signalling, the Left’s way of establishing “Are you one of us?”
As you are not “one of us” you must be the enemy and so you experience:-
The Attack:- “Oh, so you’re a denier?”
Your Defence:- “Well, there are no deniers…”
The problem with defence to any attack is that the bully views defence as an act of weakness.
Try instead:-
A Counter Attack “Oh, so you’re an insulter?”
Never answer their questions, instead always counter by asking more questions.
It’s no good presenting facts to a closed mind – “There are none so blind as those who will not see” Jonathan Swift 1738.
You cannot alter belief with reason, to change a belief you need experience, the sort of experience which only comes with living.
Later on you say “They urgently needed something to do.”
The perennial cry of the political activist is this “We must do something”.
Code for “I must control your lives, because I am a leader and you are too stupid to be allowed to live free.”
“Never answer their questions, instead always counter by asking more questions.”
Yes, that sounds like a typical exchange with a denier.
The people who believe in CAGW and deny scientific method, right?
No, that is not what I meant. It does not matter who.
It applies to anyone who advocates just sabotaging the free exchange of information and ideas just to prop up their narrow worldview. Perhaps Philiip Mulholland does not understand the irony of following up with “It’s no good presenting facts to a closed mind “. Or his sense of victimhood if he meets someone who offers a different viewpoint.
You’re describing those who believe in CAGW. They are the ones who shut down debate. Virtually every skeptic is willing to discuss the science of the matter, but it generally devolves into name calling by the CAGW believers. Science is based on disagreement. It’s how it progresses. Stopping the disagreement stops science. It’s not skeptics stopping science.
“You’re describing those who believe in CAGW. They are the ones who shut down debate.”
There are hundreds of examples of debates being shut down by people of all persuasions . If you think it is just “CAGW believers” you are being blindly selective.
When was a debate shut down by a skeptic? Names and dates, please. Some skeptic sites will ban trolls and those who are disruptive, but most allow open debate. You have to be really obnoxious to be banned—and some banned are actual skeptics.
I was referring to those who believe in CAGW, which obviously does not include Philip Mulholland. I see no evidence he is shutting down opposing views. Your comments have been allowed. He addressed many of the points of CAGW. What do you mean by “shutting down debates”?
Philip Mulholland said “Never answer their questions”. That is advocating shutting down debate. That means stopping the meaningful exchange of ideas and information and discussing in good faith.
I do not know whether PM “believes in CAGW”. I just asked if you would bet on it and clearly you would not.
You really believe no debates have been shut down by “skeptics”? Either by moderation on websites or by individuals derailing discussions. (e.g. by not answering questions and just introducing more questions.) If so you are being a bit naive.
Philip Mulholland said “Never answer their questions” because what follows is not debate. If there were a meaningful exchange of ideas, that would be different. But when a conservation starts out “Oh, you’re a denier” there is no exchange of ideas. The speaker will not listen to other ideas and will in the end attach the “denier”.
PM does not appear to believe based on his posts elsewhere.
No, I don’t believe that no debates have been shut down by “skeptics”. There are mean, arrogant, nasty people on both sides. Moderation is far less severe on most of the major skeptic sites than the AGW ones, in my experience. “Skeptical Science” (which is neither skeptical nor science) will not allow any disagreement and tends to delete comments they disagree with. They will not link to sites they do not “approve” of. On the other hand, major skeptic sites seem much more open. They allow links to sites they disagree with most of the time. Smaller sites are more prone to shutting down debate. I’m not naive—I read both skeptic and believer sites. However, consider that skeptics by nature seem to be more interested in debate, whereas AGW and CAGW believers tend to be more interested in convincing everyone they are right. When was the last time a CAGW site asked if they might be wrong? I have never seen that. Perhaps you have and can show me a link.
OK, thanks Alice Cheshire. That reply is quite constructive.
However. 🙂
“But when a conservation starts out “Oh, you’re a denier” there is no exchange of ideas.”
It seems very unlikely a conversation would start out this way. There would have been some previous discussion. If a conversation took this turn and the alleged denier was looking for a constructive conversation then he/she would explain why they were not a denier and explain their point in more detail. Not, as PM suggests, refuse to answer questions and introduce a gish gallop of questions.
“Moderation is far less severe on most of the major skeptic sites than the AGW ones”
Not in my experience. I might agree that “AGW” sites tend to be more abrupt at shutting down people who are being disruptive or repetitive or off topic.
“They will not link to sites they do not “approve” of. ”
Yes, I am not sure of this as a policy. Though I understand it as a counter to people who just endlessly link to the same websites without adding anything constructive to the discussion. Especially the extreme websites of very questionable ideas.
“However, consider that skeptics by nature seem to be more interested in debate,”
Again not in my experience. Not scientific debate at least.
“whereas AGW and CAGW believers tend to be more interested in convincing everyone they are right. ”
That may be right! After all, they tend to think it is a major concern.
” When was the last time a CAGW site asked if they might be wrong?”
I have seen sites admit to mistakes. There is plenty of dissension between scientists about the details of climate science. There is plenty of examination and questioning of the evidence. A problem is that the people who reject the science completely tend to see it in black and white.
No, conversations don’t start out as “Oh, you’re a denier”. I have to ask—if I at this point said you’re just an hysterical chicken little, would you consider that to be an opening for discussion? I don’t necessarily agree that introducing a gish gallop of questions is appropriate nor just not answering questions. It depends on what went before. One should try to have a discussion. This is not always possible, however.
In your experience, what have you seen for “severe moderation” on skeptic sites. I’d like to see what you mean. An example of moderation that removed a polite rebuttal.
Again, you need to provide examples of skeptics not wanting to debate. I understand AGW people think they are right and it’s a major concern. So do the anti-vaxxers, the Big Pharma conspiracists, the liberals, the conservatives, etc. People have passionate beliefs. That does not make the belief correct.
Examples, please, of discussions by AGW scientists over details of climate science. Evidence of questioning the evidence. Your claims have no backing and I have not seen what you say you have. I need to see that to which you refer. I am not saying these do not exist—I just don’t know that your definition of disagreement and questioning is the same as mine. The climate scientists who spoke up and said the science has problems, etc are called deniers by many. That seems to me to be an indication that questions and disagreements are not allowed. These are climatologists, etc, who questioned the level of temperature rises, etc. They did not say humans weren’t partly to blame. (Note that Sou calls these people fringe and dismisses them. Is it just Sou or is it part of the global warming philosophy?)
“if I at this point said you’re just an hysterical chicken little, would you consider that to be an opening for discussion? ”
Again, that is unlikely to be an opening for discussion. There is some to and fro that has gone before and I would have an idea why you called me a chicken little and discuss it. If you just repeated it without addressing my points or just refused to answer questions or just raised a load more questions I might come to the conclusion you were not discussing in good faith.
“I don’t necessarily agree that introducing a gish gallop of questions is appropriate nor just not answering questions. ”
That is where I started – criticising PM’s strategy for discussions.
“In your experience, what have you seen for “severe moderation” on skeptic sites. ”
Yes. WUWT moderation used to be awful. It has improved a bit lately and is not so harsh. I think that is driven by the dwindling number of hits it gets. I gave up there because of being blocked, comments not coming out of moderation and unbalanced moderation. The moderators used to give certain people free rein to abuse people but the tiniest retaliation was stamped upon. Anything too scientific was definitely hounded.
“Again, you need to provide examples of skeptics not wanting to debate.”
I have tried many times to have serious discussions with “skeptics” on what they are saying. I usually run into the gish gallop problem. Often abuse. I have seen it on websites, climate change MOOCs discussions, YouTube video comments, Facebook, Twitter etc etc. You cannot miss it if you look.
Or perhaps when you say “skeptics” you really do mean skeptics. If so, I concede, real skeptics will debate. I am talking the denial type of “skeptic”.
“That does not make the belief correct.”
True. I did not say it did. I just agreed they try and persuade you they are right.
“Examples, please, of discussions by AGW scientists over details of climate science. ”
Please. You can read the science for yourself.
“Evidence of questioning the evidence.”
That is what scientists do. You would not ask for evidence that dentists drill teeth, would you?
“Your claims have no backing and I have not seen what you say you have.”
Have you watched a dentist drilling teeth? Seriously, I do not understand this line of yours. Do you really think scientists do not question their evidence?
“I am not saying these do not exist …”
I struggle to understand why you would entertain the idea that scientists do not question the evidence and discuss the details.
“I just don’t know that your definition of disagreement and questioning is the same as mine.”
Perhaps.
“The climate scientists who spoke up and said the science has problems, etc are called deniers by many. ”
A few scientists are called deniers. It is not so much they spoke up as they continued pushing their ideas well after they had been disproved or shown to be wrong. That is what denial is.
“That seems to me to be an indication that questions and disagreements are not allowed. ”
No, all ideas are taken seriously and examined. It is just when the ideas have outlived their worth as a catalyst to further research they should be quietly dropped. Unless of course they can be modified to keep up. Certain scientists just keep pushing the same disproved ideas for years. They are in denial or are promoting denial.
“These are climatologists, etc, who questioned the level of temperature rises, etc. ”
And still do. All of them.
“Note that Sou calls these people fringe and dismisses them. ”
Because they continue to push ideas that are not viable any more. And some of them because their ideas are just ridiculous or even dishonest. They have put themselves on the fringe.
WUWT gives its supporters a licence to lie and cheat.
There is no debate to speak of amongst climate scientists. That’s a myth. There is a handful of contrarians who rarely get any work published and when they do it’s widely debunked. Because of the quality, not some vast conspiracy. If anyone could show the science wrong they would win a Nobel Prize. What scientist could refuse? The thing is, the science is too robust to bust.
You are wrong, DennisHorne or whoever you are. It is a conspiracy, not quality that keeps them from publishing. And dismissing opponents as a “handful of contrarians” is just part of this conspiracy, not to mention bad manners and bullying tactics. I have to admit that your activists have done a great job convincing the global science establishment to keep their opponents’ work unpublished. Apparently this includes the editorial clique of science journals as well as the top leaders of scientific societies. If the head of the National Academy of Science and the leader of the Royal Society jointly publish a propaganda piece favoring the global warming myth we have reached the nadir of real scientific communication. For your information that global warming theory is complete B.S. because the moving force behinf it – anthropogenic greenhouse warming – simply does not exist. This is very easy to prove – all you need is publicly available data, namely a global temperature chart from GISS or NOAA and a good copy of the Keeling curve. Both should go back to the year 1850 and extend to the present day. Pay attention now because you must show that you are a scientist. Put these two graphs together on the sane graph paper and what do you see? The temperature graph goes up and down and has periodic peaks in it. One of them is at year 1940. It is the peak of temperature starting from scratch in 1910. Have you heard that in order to start greenhouse warming from scratch you must add carbon dioxide to the air? If not, make a note of it because we need iut. Likevise, have you any idea how to stop greenhouse warming? No? You must remove every absorbing molecule from air to stop that greenhouse warming. We observe that warming did stop in 1940, hence, if this is greenhouse warming, something must have cleared the air of carbon dioxide to make it possible. How do you explain that? If you can’t explain it we know for sure that this particular warming cannot possibly be greenhouse warming. This is the warming that stopped in 1940.. Lets go to its beginning in 1910. To get greenhouse warming started you need a source of carbon dioxide. The Keeling curve contains a record of all the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, measured and recorded by a hundred observatories all around the world. Do you see any dent or bend in the Keeling curve starting bexactly in 1910? No? If that is the case the Keeling curve sure contributed nothing to get that warming started. We come to the same conclusion as before: that 30 year warming from 1910 to 1940 cannot possibly be greenhouse warming. Now check out the entire Keeling curve. What you find is that it is absolutely smooth and has no counterparts to any of the twists aand turns of the temperature curve from NOAA or GISS. It follows that no warming shown on these temperature curves can possibly be greenhouse warming. Since these are the standard temperature curves that are used to measureanthropogenic warming and since none of them show any anthropogehic greenhouse warming climate science tells us that in our planetary atmkosphere there is no greenhouse warming whatsoever. Q.E.D.
P.S. It follows that no amount of mitigation can change the climate. Hence, the contributions to Copenhagen and Paris conferences are a complete waste and should be returned to the states and organizations involved.
There is no debate and contrarians never get published because of the corrupt peer review process and media toads. It’s completely politicized and all about the money: https://townhall.com/columnists/pauldriessen/2018/12/29/lets-do-follow-the-climate-money-n2538182?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=12/29/2018&bcid=8f9321326acb6329e767ed6aa61fca1f&recip=17927505
Very interesting comments, Alice, and much appreciated. My article in this journal, “Another ‘Climate Denier’ Stomped,” gives a sense of how the Greenpeace activists do their business and the, even to me, shocking subservience of the press. Scientists have never claimed–well most of them–to be pure and perfect and above other mortals in their pursuit of narrow self-interest, capacity for self-deception, and concealed motives. But science, today, especially climate science really is done VERY differently from what it was a few decades ago. Many scientists have been thoroughly co-opted by the ruthless activists and what they can get away with, as in the case of Willie Soon, in my article, is still difficult to believe.
Of course, the evidence still suggests that most scientists, even in Climate Science, have some professional integrity. And most, if they cave in to the BiG Climate alarm machine, do so by failing to speak out, saying less than they know. Because Climate Science is not “hard science,” when it comes to any of its major proposition, it is easy for scientists to tell themselves no one knows the answers, and no one can prove the chief proposal, either way, they should not speak out. Except they then let themselves be represented to the public in any way useful to IPCC and its string pullers among the activists.
Okay. The short story on this is that we are in an interglacial period during which it warms, and warms, and warms then quits warming and you are back in another ice age.
One phrase might benefit from slight editing: “the ‘greenhouse effect’ catalyzed by CO2.” “Catalyzed” suggests that CO2 increases the rate of a chemical reaction, rather than merely absorbing and radiating heat. The term also hints that a small quantity may have a very large effect. “The ‘greenhouse effect’ to which CO2 contributes” would be more neutral phrasing.
Good point. I was referring to the alleged interaction of miniscule amounts of manmade CO2, as compared to natural CO2, with the really big and essential globl warmer, water vapor. I should have said the “alleged” catalytic effect, since, as I understand it, the attempt by global warming modelers to explain the huge effect of anthrogentic CO2 on climate depends on exaggeration of the role of water vapor. At any rate, I will check and re-check and thank you for your percise, targeted comment.
“miniscule amounts of manmade CO2, as compared to natural CO2…”
Man’s emissions of CO2 have been more than enough to increase the level of CO2 in the atmosphere 40% from 280 to 400ppm since the Industrial Revolution. And yes, water vapour is an important positive feedback. But aside from the fact it condenses out fairly within a couple of weeks, and CO2 lasts – in human terms – forever, how much water vapour would there be if Earth were at -18Celsius, the temperature calculated without the greenhouse effect? (Which makes it an average 15C.)
“as I understand it, the attempt by global warming modelers to explain the huge effect of anthrogentic CO2 on climate depends on exaggeration of the role of water vapor”
Oh, and where did you pick up an idea like that? Do you have a reference for it? Preferably a scientific paper that has been peer reviewed and not just some contrarian website that you are echoing.
If you stop and think about it. Why would anybody spend hundreds of hours trying to model the climate and then make it incorrect through “exaggerating” the role of water vapour? Climate modellers make the best model they can on the best science available. And they do it with different scenarios and values to produce a result with a range and an error estimate. Your understanding is just way off. You should do some proper research before spreading such misinformation.
“I had been studying a book, Climate Change: The Facts, published by the Institute of Public Affairs in Melbourne, Australia, in 2010, with a new and updated edition in 2015,”
________________________________
Hi, I went looking for the the referenced 2015 version of Climate Change: The Facts but couldn’t find it on the IPA website. Can anybody help me here?
Try http://ipa.org.au/publications/1957/climate-change-the-facts and https://ipa.org.au/library/publication/1321487125_document_moran_climatechange-thefacts.pdf
For the updated, 2015 edition, which is much expanded and more reader-friendly, just go to Amazon.
In this unfortunate situation, you should seek the common ground by getting them to talk about their understanding of fundamentals, things that you both agree on. Taking this tact prevents them from going all squirrely on you and not being able to understand your position (and vice versa as well)
Common ground:
– Importance of scientific method
– Hypothesis and hypothesis testing
– GHGs and Basic Physics
– ECS
– Importance of effective policy
At a high level everybody can agree on the above. I then would recommend a discussion based around ECS, it’s importance, it’s history, how it calculated, it’s current estimate. Even at this point, the conversation should still be quite civil as the ground covered is shared and not controversial.
The scientists are dealing with people who will do anything to bury the truth.
Not much hope for civilisation, then.
For those who want to know more about the ruthless persecution of scientists who challenge Big Climate alarmisn, and what are the tactics of these attacks, see my article listed at the top of the Home Page, “Another ‘Climate Denier’ Stomped” about the incredible attack on Willy Soon, an astrophysist, who has been extremely strong and consistent in producing peer-reviewed scientific papers that undercut the supposed case for Big Climate alarmism.
What a crock. Won’t allow references that expose Soon.
“its been shown it isn’t”??
What nonesense.
The sun constitutes 99.8% of the mass of the solar system, all the rest constitutes 0.2%. The human race, as a percentage of this 0.2%, is a number with so many noughts in front of it that there is not space enought here to print it.
The sun has been the primary driver of climate for ever. Volcanic eruptions come and go, meteor strikes come and go, the presence of the Sun is constant.
But not today! Today the Sun means nothing because the most questionable science ever invented discovered that we humans are now in charge and that 43,000 bureaucrats in Paris will fix the problem.
If you believe that, I have a beach front property in Alice Springs that will be of interest to you.
What has the mass of the sun and the solar system got to do with anything? Let alone the mass of the human race!?
And obviously the sun is the main driver of climate. But we are talking about climate change which, in the present period, is not down to the sun. Try a read of this:
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/09/26/dont-blame-the-solar-cycle-for-global-warming/
If you think it’s bad that someone (Willie Soon is not a climate scientist) gets called out for not declaring their funding sources (and for writing bad science), you should be much more disgusted by the attacks on decent hard working top quality scientists. Ben Santer, Michael Mann, Stephen Schneider (RIP), Andrew Weaver, Shaun Marcott, Phil Jones, the NOAA team, even Katharine Hayhoe and Kevin Trenberth – and many more have been subjected to years of targeted, deliberate attacks including defamation, misquotes, misrepresentation etc in right wing US media, in “documentaries”, on blogs and elsewhere, and/or FOI attacks, and/or court cases etc. All designed to stop their research and make gullible willing dupes think that climate science is a hoax.
Look up the Serengeti Strategy. It’s a key plank in the disinformation campaign against climate science still being waged by vested interests in the USA, Australia and Canada and a few other places. Sometimes because of misplaced ideology, usually supported in part through fossil fuel funding, and disseminated more broadly for free by people of low morals or inadequate intellect. The USA is about the only place in the world where disinformers have managed to make disbelief in science a badge of honour politically. It’s weird (and dangerous) for a country that is regarded for getting rich from its scientific discoveries to now find itself with a major political party that prides itself on scientific ignorance. Worse, it despises knowledge. That path will not leads to anything good.
Anyone who thinks Walter’s article is bad, it’s only bad science adopted because (or this is how it reads) it’s the right thing for a right thinking right winger. Try reading some of the appalling nonsense in the darker dungeons of deniersville.
The many people I know, some scientists, some not, oppose the catastrophic global warming hypthesis out of sheer respect for science. In general, they respect science; there are few areas that rouse their profound scepticism I am an advocate of free minds and free markets, which are inseparable. The reason that a segment of “Right” opposes Big Climate Alarmism is that it motivated at root by an attack on capitalism and, indeed, the industrial revolution. The science is being used and abused for that end. Catastrophic global warming is a purely political issue, now; it is all about shutting down the world’s primary energy sources. I am asserting this, here, of course, and not proving it. To do that requires a lot more space. But I think that the case has been made. It certainly is the view of Greenpeace co-founder Dr. Patrick Moore, who now spends his time opposing Greenpeace on such issues as their blocking the spread of Golden Rice.
Appreciate you clearing that up. Walter, though it was fairly obvious in your article that you reject science because it doesn’t fit your ideology. You might rationalise it by saying you think the solutions to the problem will be difficult in a free market so you prefer to shoot the messenger and hope the issue will go away. You don’t have much faith in human ingenuity or willingness to survive, and you don’t like governments helping to shape economies. (If you ever get tempted to indulge in some introspection, try reading Bob Altemeyer’s The Authoritarians, though it might make you a tad uncomfortable.)
The specific reasons you’ve given aren’t a surprise. Research has shown free market ideology is a predictor of climate science denial. That’s not to say everyone who is pro free markets is closed to scientific knowledge. Far from it (obviously – or you wouldn’t have so many conservatives around the world accepting climate science). What it does show though is that there are more free marketers (or so they regard themselves) who *do* reject climate science than more moderate conservatives, or liberal/progressives. In fact the more extreme free marketers probably reject any science that they think will require some help from policy makers to address a problem identified through scientific research. (Anti-vaxxers are one exception to this. They cut across ideological boundaries. Not sure about the extent of free marketers’ opposition to road safety, public transport, schools, law and order, defense, communications infrastructure, water supply, national parks etc)
This site doesn’t like links much, so I’ll just give the name of one piece of research: NASA Faked the Moon Landing-Therefore, (Climate) Science Is a Hoax: An Anatomy of the Motivated Rejection of Science. There is other research that found much the same. I’m not aware of any that had contradictory findings.
By the way, on that last paper, a popular climate conspiracy blog ran an almost identical survey wanting to disprove the findings. There were close to 2000 responses IIRC. More than ample. An astute “denialist” blogger (a “lukewarmer” like yourself but with a somewhat better grasp of science) grabbed hold of the results before anyone else could get access to them, and buried them. That was years ago. They’ve never seen the light of day. One doesn’t have to have much imagination to figure out the reason.
Some of my previous (highly informed and informative :)) comments have been rejected for some unknown reason, so the one above probably won’t make a lot of sense.
Dear Sou,
No comments have been rejected. Disqus has a spam filter that accidentally grabs some long comments and we have to manually approve those. If that happens they are delayed by a few hours. There is nothing in our Spam or Pending filters; everything in the Pending filter was approved. If you can’t find your comments below, please re-send them. We delete what is actually spam, abusive, or defamatory, but this is very rare and we have found none on this essay’s comment board.
Editor
Thanks for that Vinay. I figured it was Disqus (hence the smiley). One of my comments above is showing on my screen as “awaiting moderation” and another I unmarked as “spam” but that didn’t seem to work. However I’m not really concerned. I can be longwinded, plus I’ve written more than my share already and don’t want to wear out my welcome. Thanks again.
I located the two comments. They were in the Spam filter, even when the filer’s count was supposedly zero. Both are approved now. Disqus unfortunately just assumes that a comment of greater than a certain length is spam.
Thanks Vinay.
Because the hypothesis of dangerous global warming seems to lead to policy recommendations that call for governments to intervene in markets with regulation, taxes, infrastructure plans, and subsides, many who believe laissez faire capitalism is the only system that consistently protects human rights and, also, is the most productive, may oppose the global warming hypothesis because of its policy implications. But to argue that the policy implications are unacceptable, therefore the science that undergirds them is wrong obviously is a logical fallacy. I do not like the policy implications of this hypothesis, therefore the hypothesis is wrong. The science can and must be judged base upon the evidence; the policy recommendations, separately, may be opposed.
Suggesting that I am not introspective, not aware of my underlying motives, is a gratuitous speculation.
You offer statistics and surveys that correlate free-market ideology with “climate change denial.” Suggesting, perhaps, that I have reversed cause and effect, as described above: I reject the policy prescription that rest upon the science of global warmig/change, therefore I reject the science. Not so. I could accept the science, whole-heartedly, and reject the policy prespcription based upon free-market principles and opposition to government intervetion. Interestingly, I recently noticed that science commentator Ray Kurzweil rejects predictions of global warming threats not based on the global warming but that we have not the faintest notion of what technology will be available to man 50 or 100 years from now. He seems confident that I will deal with any potential climate changes. Interesting suggestion; I am neutral on it. But it is one example of accepting the science and rejecting the policy prescriptions.
We “extreme free-marketeers” believe that by “extreme” you mean consistent in our principles. At least in my ideology, the philosophy of Ayn Rand, yes, the principles woud be that government must do nothing that requires the initiation of force (coercion, mandate, regulation) because the fundamental human right is the right to life, which means freedom of action and the right to keep its productive results (property). Therefore, a government wholly consistent (extreme) is protecting human rights would restrict itself to the retaliatory use of force against criminals and foreign invaders. This naturally is a highly general, abstract statement. Essays and books have been written to spell out its implications.
Patrick Moore? I cited him only for his assessment of the change in ideology he observed at Greenpeace, as, in his view, it morphed from anti-nuclear testing and peace to viewing “man as the enemy of the Earth.” In my view, which would require exrended esposition, the essential environmental movement is anti-reason, anti-man, anti-economic growth, and in favor of an anti-Industrial Revolution. Sweeping claims, I know.
There’s an enormous difference between rejecting science without reading it and learning what it is and what it means, and accepting science but thinking that humans will shift away from fossil fuels in time. (I’m hopeful for the latter, but we need to make it happen). If your Patrick Moore can change (I doubt he has since adolescence), perhaps that provides hope for you to at least consider considering finding out what the science says before you continue telling the world how you reject it? (You might be surprised with what you learn.)
Ah! Phil Jones, the man who emailed his trick to alter the data to hide the decline.
I find it effective to say that there are many proficient respectable scientists who tell us the planet has entered a cooling phase. That in 2015 we had record low temperatures on every continent in both hemispheres for the first time, just as predicted. That the Sun is doing something today that no one alive has ever seen before and It could be that we are entering a Maunder minimum. If that happens the results will make AGW look like the proverbial vicars tea party for mass starvation will be the order of the day.
One way or another It generally shuts the Jammy dodgers up. (see Below). And its fun.
Ding Ding Ding a LingNo bell prize
Does your mother know you are using her computer?
What is interesting about these scientists is that they come from different disciplines, mathematics, oceanography, solar astronomy, geology, et al, and yet all arrive at the same conclusion, the planet is in or is about to enter a cooling phase. The proof of the pudding is course the result. So all you to do is google record low temps NZ, or AU, or south america etc, etc, etc, and see what you get back. Reports of record low temperatures everywhere.
Its really happening and I’m really enjoying it.
Those unfortunate people who fall into the “you can fool some of the people all of the time” group will continue in denial for ever, trolling these forums, contributing nothing but their ignorance.
All of these charges, put in their context, are addressed in my article for this publication: “Another Climate Denier Stomped.” I did not ignore any of the issues brought up there. What I did was supply the context for understanding. As for the Wikipedia article on Soon, it is astounding that it could drafted so obviously by Soon’s enemies and that Wikipedia could say Soon’s paper was “refuted” and not “rebutted” or “criticized.” This single article turned me off to Wikipedia in a big way. In a chapter of an article in the book I mention in my article, Dr. Soon, an astrophysicist studying solar irradiance, has his own say. Before anyone dismissed him, it would good to read that one chapter.
Your response suggests a sensible dialogue is possible. If you want to correspond with me I am happy to help you. Please watch these videos:
Richard Muller: I Was Wrong on Climate Change.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTk8Dhr15Kw
Climate Skeptic Richard Muller Admits Global Warming is Real and Humans are the Cause.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqPuKxXUCPY
Richard Muller at Climate One,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOfsSYsvQnI
Prof Muller started his own department at Berkeley because he though the science was wrong. He is a reformed denier. So am I! I am living proof an old dog can learn new tricks!
“Scientists should be valued on how good their work is. “
And if they have been subverted their work is not very good. Useless in fact.
“According to people who wish to demonize them. “
No. Scientists who have been subverted, or corrupted as you prefer, are not being demonised. They are just producing bad science.
“And if they have been subverted their work is not very good. Useless in fact.”
Actually, you just need to evaluate the quality of their work. If it is good, who cares how it got funded? I certainly do not.
“No. Scientists who have been subverted, or corrupted as you prefer, are not being demonised. They are just producing bad science.”
No, you evaluate the quality, that is all you need to do. You can’t simply passing judgment on their work based on how it was funded.
I don’the think your point is very meaningful. Of course you judge by the quality of the work. It is clear that if the science has been subverted it is not good science. What you seem to be missing is that these scientists are still being judged on the quality. And all science is judged on its quality. But clearly there is an extremely high correlation of the type and nature of poor quality work and the organisations these scientists are associated with. If these organisations have an agenda to subvert science then it is perfectly justified to make that connection.
If there was such a rarity as good work being produced by a scientist connected to Heartland then their work would be perfectly acceptable. But there just isn’t.
“It is clear that if the science has been subverted it is not good science.”
No it isn’t because “being subverted” is subjective. What warmists do is first claim it was “subverted” then they ignore the rest. That is incredibly unscientific. All science has to be funded so by which standard can people judge the funding. (they judge it by their standard of course)
For example what is the premise of #Exxonknew? It is that Exxon scientists knew AGW was a threat and ignored it. On the other hand we also know if science comes from Big Oil it is corrupt. This is called having your cake and eating it too.
“But clearly there is an extremely high correlation of the type and nature of poor quality work and the organisations these scientists are associated with.” According to the people that support #Exxonknew right?
“If these organisations have an agenda to subvert science then it is perfectly justified to make that connection.”
Everybody has an agenda. What kind of scientists who needs funding dollars will publish the opposite of what his funding is based on? They are incentivised to publish what they said they would publish and that is science that strengthens the consensus which is needed to get increased funding.
Follow the money. Refusing to see the obvious problem will only waste more money and more time.
“If there was such a rarity as good work being produced by a scientist connected to Heartland then their work would be perfectly acceptable. But there just isn’t.”
Judge jury executioner. Want proof. Name well respected climate deniers. Now name bad climate deniers.
And just to demonstrate the real ongoing issue I present Bad Science and the reason why Bad Science is so common.
New ECS Estimate 7-13 deg C
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature19798.html
Why Science is full of Crap
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/sep/21/cut-throat-academia-leads-to-natural-selection-of-bad-science-claims-study
“What warmists do is first claim it was “subverted” then they ignore the rest. “
No “they” don’t. I do not think you have any basis to make such a sweeping claim. We are discussing scientists and science, not “warmists”.
“It is that Exxon scientists knew AGW was a threat and ignored it. “
Exactly. Not only did they ignore it they dropped any research and funded misinformation organisations. No cake needed.
“According to the people that support #Exxonknew right?”
Who are these people that “support” #Exxonknew? Another sweeping statement that is a bit hand wavy.
“Judge jury executioner. Want proof. Name well respected climate deniers. Now name bad climate deniers.”
You have gone into teenage text mode again. I am not a mind reader. What are you saying/asking?
“New ECS Estimate 7-13 deg C”
No, this is not a new ECS estimate. But you probably know that.
“Why Science is full of Crap”
And this proves what exactly? That science is not perfect? That it constantly examines itself? That there are bad scientists around? So what.
“No “they” don’t. I do not think you have any basis to make such a sweeping claim.”
Remember when I asked to you to name well respected skeptic scientists? There was a reason.
“Exactly. Not only did they ignore it they dropped any research and funded misinformation organisations. No cake needed.”
Yet any science that is funded by big oil is not valid remember? So why was their research considered valid now?
“Who are these people that “support” #Exxonknew?”
Based on your response? You are one. You are of course aware of what is going on with #Exxonnknew as well.
“No, this is not a new ECS estimate. But you probably know that.”
Umm, it is a new estimate, published by a highly influential journal too. It is not “the” new estimate, but it is another piece of science that supports alarmism.
“And this proves what exactly? That science is not perfect? That it constantly examines itself? That there are bad scientists around? So what.”
You seem to missing the point, and most people do, so this takes a while to wrap your head around. It has nothing to do with science, rather it is about the process that generates science. These are two vastly different things.
Think Toyota vs AMC. Both produced cars. One produced good ones, one produced bad ones. How they built the cars was ultimately what determined their success. In this case, we have very close to a monopoly on the creation of science. If the process is flawed, what happens to the quality of the science? The paper with the outrageous ECS is an output of the process.
“Remember when I asked to you to name well respected skeptic scientists? There was a reason.”
And what was that reason? Remember when I did not answer that question? There was a reason – it is a nonsense question. All respected scientists are skeptics. What you are confusing is with fake skepticism.
“Yet any science that is funded by big oil is not valid remember? “
No, I don’t “remember” because I never said it or agreed to such a statement. It is just a strawman premise stated by you. And now being resurrected by you as proof of, er … something or other.
“You are one.”
Huh?
” It is not “the” new estimate,”
Exactly, you know. So you probably know most of the climate science community have criticised it. You might like this article which is a good analysis of the paper:
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2016/09/26/new-paleoclimate-paper-longest-detailed-reconstruction-plus-possible-bad-news/
“You seem to missing the point, and most people do, so this takes a while to wrap your head around.”
I am lucky I have you to explain it! You are missing the wood for the trees.
“All respected scientists are skeptics. What you are confusing is with fake skepticism.”
Yes, I have heard that before. Deniers who are critical are bad scientists, but Scientists who play ball are good scientists. Do you consider “playing ball” to be skeptical? Can you name a “skeptical” (your definition) scientists that isn’t playing ball? What paper did they write that was skeptical?
When I mean you, I mean you folks. You see, #ExxonKnew is a political witch hunt. It is a absolute joke.
“Exactly, you know. So you probably know most of the climate science community have criticised it.”
Yes they have. That of course didn’t prevent it from getting published. It is a result of a flawed process that encourages these kinds of results.
So IMO this, in general, is not a debate about science, it is about the process that creates it. People that are narrowly focused on science are either ignorant of the importance of the process or trying to ignore it.
You tend to set up strawmen arguments and misunderstand the meaning of “denial”. Yes, deniers who are critical are bad scientists. Not because they are critical but because they deny – that is deny the evidence and the science. They know what answer they want so they drop real scepticism and only consider what they want to hear. Scientists who play ball are not good scientists either. Because they must be denying as well. What you seem to be confusing is who falls into which category.
“That of course didn’t prevent it from getting published.”
No, and why should it prevent it getting published? There was plenty in the paper that was worthwhile and this was a minor point that was consistent within the scope of what was being studied. Papers get published all the time that are subsequently criticised. That is how science works. To demand perfection is just another case of setting impossibly high expectations that cannot be met,
“Yes, deniers who are critical are bad scientists. Not because they are critical but because they deny”
And who gets to determine they are “bad” and what they “deny”
Deniers have said that the satellite data is a problem for the consensus. So they are deniers.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2016/oct/14/climate-scientists-published-a-paper-debunking-ted-cruz
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-16-0333.1
Opps, the satellite data is a problem for the consensus, but “new improved science” proves it isn’t really a problem at all any more. So who exactly denied the science? That would be the warmists. Theyre really is a problem.
“They know what answer they want so they drop real scepticism and only consider what they want to hear. ”
That sound an awful lot like people who adjust the data, then adjust it some more, and then some more until it no longer looks like it did 30 years ago.
Demanding perfection is not the problem. Publishing bad science because a bad process lets it happen is the problem.
“Yes, deniers who are critical are bad scientists. Not because they are critical but because they deny – that is deny the evidence and the science.”
So if deniers raise concerns that are ignored, yet those concerns are real, who is the denier?
Publishing bad science is in part related to the process. If papers that push the agenda forward get published, but papers that pull it back are not how will science provide the right answer?
Here is a reply from a major player in Climate Change, it is about data access:
“We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it.”
That is not how science should work, but things like this are normal because the process encourages it.
You are making this a lot more difficult than it is and I think it stems from your misuse or misunderstanding of the term “denier”. If a scientist raises a real concern then, at least in that context, he or she is not a denier. Deniers do not raise “real” concerns. They subvert the science to manufacture fake concerns and generate fake scepticism. As long as you keep insisting deniers are somehow generating good science that is being ignored you will get this wrong. So, yes, if someone ignores a “real” concern they are being a denier. But this is not what happens. Scientists address all real concerns.
The idea that scientific papers have an “agenda” is just conspiracy thinking. How does science “provide the right answer”? Like it always has – put up ideas – have them challenged and torn down – rinse and repeat until there is a consensus that grows harder and harder to shift because the theory and the evidence grows more and more certain. It may not be a very efficient process but it is the best we have. Your deniers with their “real concerns” are just rehashing the same tired ideas that have been shown to be wrong, unfounded or misplaced. They may have had some valid concern once upon a time but denier scientists refuse to move on and just keep re-cycling them to produce doubt and uncertainty. Some of them have wagered so much reputation on them they appear unable to let go because they are clinging to a last vestige of respectability afforded them by being listened to, albeit by a rather nutty minority.
“We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it.”
Of course, if you look at this quote in its context it does not have the significance you wish to see in it. If you start with the idea of nefarious intent that is all you will find.
“Deniers do not raise “real” concerns.”
Like the satellite-surface divergence for example? https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2016/oct/14/climate-scientists-published-a-paper-debunking-ted-cruz
The linked article discusses a paper that “debunks” the concern that was not really there.
“The idea that scientific papers have an “agenda” is just conspiracy thinking.”
Do you know how funding works? You submit a proposal, it gets funded. If your proposal is to study natural climate change it is not likely getting funded. That was the mandate of the IPCC of course, which they had to modify recently to include natural climate factors.
“How does science “provide the right answer”?”
You have to have competing views and the best science wins. At a high level, climate science use to have three views. Real and a problem, real and not a problem, not real. The last one never had much merit, that left two. The first one is what the scientific establishment is invested in, while the second is what “deniers” support. Since the widely held opinion is that “Deniers do not raise “real” concerns”. There is no competing view and therefore we can’t know if science is providing the right answer. Do you have an example of the view that challenges the establishment that is a real concern?
“Your deniers with their “real concerns” are just rehashing the same tired ideas that have been shown to be wrong, unfounded or misplaced. ”
Like the “pause” for example? First identified in 2007, this competing concern was almost totally ignored in the IPCC 2013 AR-5. When the community recognized the oversight, they flooded the domain with many competing ideas as to why the pause was there. Then out came Karl et al, 2015 which “proved” that the pause was just a data issue as never really existed. Fyfe 2016, written by warmists, trounced Karl et al, but they did not bother to withdraw the impacts of Karl et al. 2015 and the “pause” never existed.
As for the quote, it is quite clear. We will not give you our data because we have to protect it. It is a good way to prevent competing views isn’t it.
Quick question: What is the scientific rationale for the cooling of the past?
As well, what does George Orwells quote in 1984 mean? “those that control the past control the future and those who control the present control the past.”
http://www.enotes.com/homework-help/what-does-george-orwells-quotein-1992-mean-those-461322
Please try and understand what “denier” means. Then we may start to have some common understanding. By definition a denier cannot do the things you suggest as they do not engage with science.
Why do you quote that guardian paper as an example? It seems a quite robust debunking of some denier points.
As a retired scientist of 45+ years, yes I know how funding works. And not the way you describe. The idea that climate scientists do not study natural climate change is just plain ridiculous. It is probably 99% of their work. If you do not understand natural climate change you cannot begin to understand man-made climate change.
The paragraph saying there is “no competing view” is just a string of unfounded assertions. Of course there are many competing views. You just want to polarise it into black and white and create some sort of equivalence with pseudoscience.
The “pause”. Oh please. Even the Guardian article you cite debunks that even for the satellite data.
The quote? No, He was a scientist who was being harassed by many deniers flooding him and his department with FOI requests and he had had enough. If you gave the whole context it is clear he was sick of having his time wasted by irritating troublemakers.
Quick question: What is the scientific rationale for the cooling of the past?
Quick answer: I do not know what you are referring to. (Or why). Milankovitch cycles?
Do you realize what the word denier implies? I am speaking socially. It is similar to the “N” word in terms of it power. Now clearly you don’t get this unless you are comfortable with bigotry, which I assume you are not.
It means “that person is a fool, stupid, and should be ignored. Anything they say is a lie. They are morally bankrupt, are greedy and bad”. Bigotry comes in all sorts of flavours. This is simply ideological bigotry.
As you say “By definition a denier cannot do the things you suggest as they do not engage with science.” That is bigotry, you just don’t see it.
So, having said that you say “Then we may start to have some common understanding” … as defined by you. As long as I agree with your understanding we have reached common ground. Do you understand the cornerstone of freedom of speech? It can be boiled down to this simple phrase … I will defend to the death your right to be wrong. You simply lack any respect for my position. Not only do you not defend the right to have a different position, you persecute it.
I love science, I respect science and I respect different opinions. That is my position
Logic beats data which beats science That is my position.
Climate science is incredibly complex. That is my position
The IPCC says the climate can’t be modelled very well. I agree.
The IPCC does not know Climate Sensitivity with the high end of their estimate being 300% greater than their low end. I agree
Is that common ground? Or do I have to start including things like “dangerous” which is not even supported (as in confidence level) by the IPCC?
“The idea that climate scientists do not study natural climate change is just plain ridiculous.”
Could you tell me the ratio of spending between the natural and anthropogenic climate change? I ask because you are correct, they do fund it. But then again, both Elon Musk and I have money, he just has more than I do. So in a binary world you are right. Reality though? Not even close. Oh, and if you try to figure that out, I only know of one study, so you will have trouble finding anything to show you. Of course , you could just peruse the literature, which is a reasonable proxy.
“Of course there are many competing views”
Really? You can say that with a straight face? You are certain it is real, caused by man and dangerous. I say it is real, caused by man and is not dangerous, but I am a “Denier”, so I am a liar… right? Can you tell me where the competing view is?
In regards to the “pause” Read about the history of it. I do not care if you agree it exists or no. Simply understand it’s history. The short cut is to ready what I wrote.
” If you gave the whole context it is clear he was sick of having his time wasted by irritating troublemakers.”
Do you believe in open science or not? Once you make the data available, how many more time do you need to make it available? The answer is never.
I apologize for my lack of clarity regarding “cooling of the past”. What I was referring to is the simple fact that over time, the temperatures from the past have continually gotten cooler. Specifically, I am referring to the surface temperature record. What is the scientific rationale for the global change? Were the thermometers all running hot? Were they all situated near heat sources? It seems to me that removing data bias is required, but results can be either cooler or warmer. Obviously this is not the case because that is what the data says. Why is it cooler and why does each change make the past even more cool that the last version? So since this is the case (which you are most welcome to research yourself), what is the scientific rationale behind the cooling of the past in the surface temperature data? Or am I not allowed to ask that question, even though anybody with data from the 80’s, 90,s 00’s and the present could show in Excel.?
Yes, I do know what the word denier implies. It is you that keeps misusing it to describe people who have a rational approach to science. But its very definition is that the person denies the science and that makes it difficult to discuss with you. No, it does not mean they are stupid and should be ignored. It just means they have another agenda and it is not a scientific one. That is not bigotry and it is you who “cannot see it”.
Next paragraph. Blah, blah blah … freedom of speech …. defend it to the death … blah blah blah. OK, we have dealt with that irrelevance.
Do I know the ratio of spending? We appear to be back to money again. No, I have no idea and it is not an interesting idea or even one that makes any sense. Let’s see. Say we spend a million dollars extracting an ice core that is 800000 years old. 150 years at the top involves non-natural human influence. That appears to be 0.01875%. There is a ratio. Or we could do it for palaeoclimatology …
Do you want me to stop yet? I hope you get the point.
And why should I not be able to say that with a straight face?
I have read the history of the “pause”. Moreover I remember it. I remember many years of deniers being told that it was not statistically significant but they still insisted on endlessly banging the drum. It always was and still is very boring. You still want to flog that dead horse?
Yes, I believe in open science. Do you believe in scientists not being harassed and intimidated?
Your last paragraph is just conspiratorial. The temperature record is complex but all the adjustments are well documented. Go and read them and understand them. Some of the adjustments are up. Some down. Even without the adjustments the trend is up.
Thanks for the conversation but I will stop now.
“Yes, I do know what the word denier implies. It is you that keeps misusing it to describe people who have a rational approach to science. ”
So, your position is this. The science is factually correct, deniers disagree with the science and are therefore wrong. Calling them deniers is not bigotry, but simply a statement of fact.
So what is the value of the ECS? I want the number, not an estimate, because an estimate means you can have different opinions and you say there is no room for opinions.
Now, I will use the IPCC here. They say that it is between 1.5 and 4.5. I think it is low. That is my opinion.
Why are there many climate models if the science is factually correct? That being the case, we only need one model because it is right.
So, back to square one. It is my opinion that science is not factually correct and that there are plenty of room for opinion in climate science. Tell me why I am wrong.
You state…. “freedom of speech …. defend it to the death … blah blah blah. OK, we have dealt with that irrelevance.”
So, let me get this right…. you don’t believe in the importance of freedom of speech. Given your other statements that certainly is the face you are presenting. I am just trying to understand what underpins your position.
Regarding amount of funding: “No, I have no idea and it is not an interesting idea or even one that makes any sense.”
Simple question. Does a well prepared student fare better during a test that a poorly prepared one? The answer is blindingly obvious. The connection to funding is blindingly obvious. You do not care. If you want science to reflect reality, you should.
“I hope you get the point.” Well your point seems clear, you do not consider funding to be relevant to the discussion, but like I said, you should.
“And why should I not be able to say that with a straight face?”
I present a competing view, you say i am a denier, rejecting my view and you also say you accept competing views. All with a straight face.
“I remember many years of deniers being told that it was not statistically significant ”
Exactly, so why was 2014 spent publishing dozens and dozens of papers explaining the pause if it did not exist? Why would scientists studyy unicorns, who would fund such nonsense? You can’t go back in history and pretend those papers were not published. They did study the pause, they researched why it existed, but thankfully, the oft quoted GISS now “proves” it never existed. Who cares about any other research. GISS is the only true source right? Well not according to Fyfe et al, 2016:
“Making sense of the early-2000s warming slowdown”
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v6/n3/full/nclimate2938.html
So which is it? Did the pause happen or not? Oh, thats right, you claim it never happened, which can only mean that the vast majority of climate scientists are deniers because the “pause” is still reflected in their work and the data.
This is surface data, not satellite data. Clearly this is garbage because there is a pause from 1998 to 2014, the timelines we are talking about.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1979/to/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1998/to:2014/trend
“Yes, I believe in open science. Do you believe in scientists not being harassed and intimidated?
This is mutually exclusive. Open science means that the data is publicly available. If it is available you will not be harassed to make it available.
“The temperature record is complex but all the adjustments are well documented”
Umm, they are not documented at all, but
“Thanks for the conversation but I will stop now.”
It has been a truly revealing experience. I actually find you quite patient and respectful compared to most.
“My wife’s friend says, eyes closed, “I don’t want to discuss it, anymore.”
I’ve had exactly that same reaction from my sister, a Toyota Pious-driving CAGW true believer, when I pointed out some inconvenient facts. It is a belief system, one may as well be arguing with a Jehovah’s Witness, they are impervious to facts and data.
Walter Donway, I came back to my comment two months ago and have a few observations to add. First, there are two versions of the nineteenth century temperatures out, one showing cooling from 1878 to 1910, and one showing warming for the same period. I assume the difference comes from whether ocean temperature is included or left out but I am not certain about it. It is followed by a warming period from 1910 to 1940 in all temperature sources. They have tried to connect it to carbon dioxide but found it impossible to do. The huge temperature drop that ushered in World War II can in from the Finnish Winter War and till Battle of the Bulge despite the warm peak shown on official temperature curves. After the war global temperature slowly recovered but did not reach the 1940 level until 1080. At that point temperature becomes horizontal and a hiatus developed in the eighties and nineties. It lasted from 1979 to 1997 or 18 years, a lot like the one in the 21st century. But unfortunately, you cannot see it in official temperature curves because the IPCC gang has decided it wipe nit out and substitute a phony warming. This way they can show warming as a straight line rising to the end of the century. Fortunately, they still don’t control the satellites and the satellite records still show that hiatus in place. It gets more complicated with the new century. There us a step warming that starts in 1999, in only three years raises global temperature by one third of a degree Celsius, and then stops. It is not greenhouse warming. It is highly probable that it makes use of the warm water that the super El Nino of 1998 carried across the ocean and then left behind when it retreated. This pile of warm water now underlies the twenty-first century and lifts all 21st century temperatures that follow above the twentieth. As a result we get a lot of “warmest ever” claims. Hansen was quick to notice that nine out of ten warmest years all happened during the first decade of the twenty-first century and triumphantly told us that greenhouse warming did it. If this warming really is from leftovers of the super El Nino of 1998 as I assume it cannot be replenished like El Ninos are. Checking its status I see that cooling really has started and runs from 2001 to 2012. After that warming returns because the buildup to the El Nino of 2016 has started. Looking to the future I see all the stored warmth depleted by summer and a high probability that the base level of the hiatus will will become the future temperature base. P.S. I can’t send any more without email
Very informative blog.
I would like to thank you for the information.
Dunno about a catastrophe. That sounds like a good Sci Fi novel, though. But what about the cooling of the stratosphere? That seems to indicate that the atmosphere is holding more heat close to the surface these days (cue Twilight Zone music)…
BTW, the proper experimental control (an Earth in which the CO2 has not been produced by industry for 200 years) is missing from this experiment. The real question is: what is the temperature of our earth, compared to that (hypothetical) one?
write an essay for me http://dekrtyuijg.com/
Nicely put, Thanks!
Great article. I’ll add that book to my “to read” list.