Denier weirdness: On cutting CO2 emissions - Anthony Watts is a stubby short of a six pack

Sometimes Anthony Watts appears to be thick as a plank, a stubby short of a six-pack, a screw loose (archived here).  He thinks that the following are contradictory:

• Currently proposed CO2 emission cuts won't be enough to limit global warming to 2°C
• The only way to limit global warming is to cut CO2 emissions.

The statements are not contradictory. They are different aspects of the same thing. The very same message that we've been told for something like fifty years or more.

It's perfectly clear to a clear thinker. It should be perfectly clear even to someone like Anthony Watts, who does not excel at clear thinking (to put it mildly).


The first statement relates to an article that Anthony found from Reuters:

LONDON, July 9 (Reuters) – Even if governments strike a pact to curb greenhouse gas emissions next year, they will still exceed levels thought necessary to stand a chance of preventing dangerous global warming, a study by Thomson Reuters Point Carbon showed.
…
But the study published by Point Carbon analysts on Wednesday suggested the temperature goal is out of reach because the build up of heat-trapping emissions already in the atmosphere means far more drastic action is required than governments are planning.

Incidentally, Anthony left out this bit. I wonder why he did that?

The study mapped possible Paris outcomes against the maximum amount of the gases that a U.N. panel of scientists this year said the world could emit and still have a two-thirds chance of keeping to 2 degrees.

It found that to keep within 2 degrees, global emissions would need to decrease by at least 3 percent year-on-year, well above the 1.9 percent annual rate proposed by the European Union.

So what the article is saying is that unless we cut emissions by 3% each year, there's little chance of limiting global warming to 2°C.

Anthony reckons that the above article is contradicted by another article he came across. Anthony wrote:

What is interesting though is that just a couple of days ago there was this story from real climate Raymond Pierrehumbert that said the exact opposite:

Exact opposite? See for yourself. Anthony copied a passage from another article he came across, this time from Tim Radford on the Climate News Network:

New research backs up the growing body of evidence that the only way to limit global warming in the long term is a serious cut in carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels.

Nope, not the exact opposite. In fact it's saying the same thing as his first article. Both articles are about the need to start getting serious about cutting carbon emissions. Perhaps Anthony OD'd on science denial at Las Vegas or maybe he went out in the hot Nevada sun and it scrambled his brain more than usual. He made it clear as day that he can't see the two articles as complementary. He wrote:

My personal viewpoint is that none of these people seem to have any real understanding of what they’re doing when it comes to carbon dioxide and what we should do or not do about it.
With such diametrically opposed publication in the space of three days, seemed little more than an educated guess flailing.

Diametrically opposed? How dumb is Anthony Watts? Both articles are about exactly the same thing. Both of them are about the fact that if we want to limit global warming we have to stop pouring gigatonnes of carbon dioxide into the air each year.

From the WUWT comments

WUWT seems to be now catering only for the utter nutters. Many of the comments are from greenhouse effect deniers. Have the vaguely skeptical people given up on Anthony?

What's really weird is that out of 45 comments to the article, there was only one, from Nick Stokes, who observed that the articles were not contradictory. There were a lot of people who either didn't read Anthony's article and just wanted to see their comment appear on Anthony's blog; or if they did read the WUWT article, they are even stupider than Anthony Watts himself. And that would take quite some beating.


Dave says:

July 9, 2014 at 6:35 pm
Arghh!
There is no proof CO2 drives changing temps. Why does that fact get overlooked? Why doesn’t the target audience for these studies ask for that proof?
Science…Yeesh.

Col Mosby says (as always, copied verbatim):

July 9, 2014 at 7:05 pm
y experience is that when an otherwise intelligent person makes a huge blunder, the reason
is almost always not in their logic, but because their assumptions are wrong, and they never
think to question them. All these folks are totally convinced that “their scientists” are right. Bad assumption. Really, really bad assumption.

bushbunny says:

July 9, 2014 at 7:14 pm
I just remembered? Getting old I suppose LOL. Plants gave oxygen to the atmosphere when there was non. Oh dear – and we are carbon based living organisms, and have to breath in and out CO2 to live. Like plants, but really we are nitrogen junkies as this and water vapor make up the bulk of greenhouse gases. I hope they don’t see N as a dangerous gas or we are stuffed. 

Steve Case says:

July 9, 2014 at 7:21 pm
CO2 is not a problem.

JimS says:

July 9, 2014 at 7:23 pm
What happened to “settled science?” Are peer reviewed papers contradicting themselves?

Nicholas Schroeder doesn't understand the carbon cycle and says:

July 9, 2014 at 7:45 pm
Why is it always fossil fuels? Non-fossil hydrocarbon fuels, ethanol, bio-methane, wood, also produce CO2 and please don’t tell me that contemporary foliage knows the difference and quickly completes/renews the cycle. 

Dave Wendt says a lot more of the same in a much longer comment - I'll just copy his first para here:

July 9, 2014 at 7:48 pm
, What I still find completely aggravating is that because I can’t bring myself to swallow whole this kind of self-contradictory BS(Bad Science), every celebutard and climate charlatan who can manage to get themselves in front of a camera and/or microphone feels entirely justified in claiming that I must be mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging, flat-earther moron. 

One of Judith Curry's protégés, Rud Istvan says:

July 9, 2014 at 7:55 pm
I have seen this sort of thing in my previous day job in corporations that were beginning to come apart at the seams.
It might not be too long before we see warmunist circular firing squads executing their own apostates.
Remember Holdren’s ‘unofficial’ White House opinion that the brutal winter just past was caused by global warming. UK climate expert Dr Viner also said children would not know what snow was.
Holdren versus Viner at ten paces. Somebody has to to shoot somebody for so gravely embarrassing the Warmunist movement. One way or the other. Best would be both.
Popcorn futures are rising. 

Curious George says:

July 9, 2014 at 8:03 pm
Once you embrace a false premise, there are no limits to what you can predict – or do.

rogerthesurf says it's Agenda 21:

July 9, 2014 at 8:15 pm
I cannot believe that these people actually believe the essence of their aims. Any physicist can see that the CO2 reduction aims are futile and any economist can predict accurately on the economic changes that will befall us all should we let these people have their way.
Therefore, if these people know these things, it stands to reason that they are malevolent and have a hidden agenda.

I believe that agenda is UN Agenda 21 which makes very few bones about destroying capitalism and sees AGW as an agent to do just that.

Read my blog at [redacted link]
Cheers
Roger 

Brute says:

July 9, 2014 at 8:31 pm
I can handle it. I grown used having contradictory yet absolute truths being constantly shouted at me. 

Mike Smith says:

July 9, 2014 at 9:34 pm
So can anyone tell me which of these two conflicting studies are endorsed by that 97% consensus of climate scientists?