Why do the Republicans bother with this crude pantomime? Why not just hang a sign around their necks saying "we want the world to burn"?
Judith is so looking forward to it. She wrote:
Well this promises to be quite interesting, it will be a treat to be in the same room with Ted Cruz and Mark Steyn.
Interesting - no. Not unless you are researching climate disinformers and defamers in the USA. There'll be nothing but "uncertain", "IPCC", "models", "delay", "defame", "deny", "send the world to hell...as soon as possible".
A treat? I can't imagine even a hard-core science denier thinking it a treat to be in the same room as that bunch of lying creeps. Excuse me, but I feel nauseous.
PS - Going by the HW blog stats, the readership of Mark Steyn's blog is at least an order of magnitude greater than Anthony Watts' / Eric Worrall's WUWT blog. His readers are about the same low intellectual calibre however. The other oddity is that the "free speech" advocate doesn't allow any free speech on his blog. That must be immensely frustrating for his keyboard-bashing defamation-prone denialati fans.
Added by Sou - 3 December 2014
A treat to be in the same room with an asshole and a crazy person? You assign the labels to the people...
ReplyDeleteEli has a really good critique of the UAH record up today from someone who actually has a paper published which critiques it. Lamar Smith calls it his "gold standard". Fools gold, maybe -- but then we always understood that. Ol' Lamar has no idea.
Could you link us to it please, Rattus?
DeleteMaybe the treats come in a brown paper envelope afterwards.
DeleteAs a Canadian, I am just happy we exported them both. Sorry USA :(
DeleteLike we need more.
DeleteLink to UAH TLT article at Eli's.
DeleteTed Cruz is an all-out climate denier.
ReplyDeleteFor Curry, it is obviously all about ego and ideology. She doesn't even care to pretend otherwise anymore.
This is outrageous! The world is melting! We must use RICO lawsuits to bankrupt these nasty deniers.
ReplyDeleteNothing says 'authoritarian personality' quite like including the word 'Freedom' in your handle.
DeleteYes, burn and never know why (except something will have to be done about me then, no?).
DeleteNothing says "passive-aggressive personality" better than a person with a lower-case moniker calling someone who's making an obviously anti-authoritarian statement an "authoritarian personality".
Delete(And to preempt the likely reply; no, I'm not a doctor. I just play one on the internet.)
I'm with Bill - Mark's fans would be predominately right wing authoritarian followers. The bottom 8%.
DeleteIs this entire site nothing but ad hominen sneering?
DeleteNo - don't be put off by the deniers from Mark Steyn's blog who have been playing fast and loose. I cut them a bit of slack because for most it's probably their first time here. It could be the first time they've ever visited a blog that is pro-science.
DeleteFeel free to look around. Most of the articles are explaining climate science and, in particular, pointing out the ridiculous on conspiracy blogs - mostly a blog called wattsupwiththat (WUWT).
"Is this entire site nothing but ad hominen sneering?"
DeleteWe sneer at concern trolls too if that helps you.
"Could you link us to it please, Rattus?"
ReplyDeletehttp://rabett.blogspot.fr/2015/12/uah-tlt-series-not-trustworthy.html
The TLT algorithm is based on theoretical calculations, using a model of the microwave emission and adsorption at each pressure altitude added together from the surface to satellite altitude. Spencer and Christy have never publicly revealed the method they used to create their algorithm, which is rather curious, as the assumptions used may be critical. Some of the microwave energy in channel 2 comes from the Earth’s surface and the TLT computation adds more surface effects, thus the TLT is not a pure measure of temperature. As the MSU instruments are retired, newer AMSU instruments are replacing them and Spencer and Christy have created a different algorithm in order to include the AMSU data into the TLT. They claim that they are simulating the TLT from the MSU, again without specifying the method used to do so. They have continued this lack of transparency with the latest TLT (version 6), which Spencer briefly described on his blog, but which has not been published after peer review.
DeleteWell worth bookmarking for the next time someone compares the 'adjusted' surface data with the 'pristine' satellites ...
http://rabett.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/uah-tlt-series-not-trustworthy.html
That can't be correct, all models are EVIL!
DeleteGee, perhaps you should erase Judith Curry from your thank you list on the About page.
ReplyDeleteSimmer down Sou. The world is not going to burn. What people are concerned about is that this climate change issue, that may not be even true, is being used to establish a totalitarian world government that won't care a thing about the environment. Look at the photo of Obama and cronies dining on Haute Cuisine at Paris the other day. Do they look concerned about the environment? Hardly. They are mostly concerned about ramming this through before the fraud is exposed. After that, they know it will be too late for the peons to do anything.
ReplyDeleteIf you care about the environment, plant trees, support capitalism, and insist on the rule of law.
Boy, that's a whole Crank Bingo line in one comment. You're not long for this blog, anonymous troll, methinks...
DeleteIt's already burning, Anon. While deniers, flat earthers and creationists reject science and you and other utter nutter conspiracy theorists mutter "fraud" and "algore", pre-fire season fires in South Australia and Western Australia have killed six people, badly injured more and destroyed scores of homes and livestock.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteThat's Australia for you, to quote the old line, 'a land of drought and flooding rains' (Dorothea Mackellar, about 100 years ago). Nothing to see here climate change wise.
DeleteDorothea Mackellar will be turning in her grave to think that her homesick ditty is being used by despicable science deniers to condemn her world to the sixth major extinction. She loved nature, deniers abhor nature.
DeleteIt's the new Australia for you, not the old one. There have been more and worse fires this century than probably the entire twentieth century combined. It's getting worse and will continue to do so, despite all the improvements in fire management, fire-fighting technology and communications.
Australia's not the only place burning either. There's Alaska, Canada, Siberia, western USA, Indonesia, Africa and more.
Anonymouse's comment has been shifted. It can be found at the HotWhoppery..
DeleteSou
Hi from Down Under! I happen to live within visual range of the smoke from the South Australian bushfire you are referring to.
DeleteThe cause of fires here have very little to do with any long term climate conditions and more to do with man made causes, such as the activities of farmers, or deliberately lit fires by pyromaniacs (not uncommon here) etc.
As for the statement that "There have been more and worse fires this century than probably the entire twentieth century combined.", Absolutely false! The Ash Wednesday fire of 1983 is widely acknowledged as one of, if not the, most devastating fires in South Australia. There have been equally bad fires in the thirties and fifties of last century as well. Fire intensity has diminished since European settlement largely because of land clearance and better management. It is also worth noting that indigenous Australians often burnt off vast tracts of land in an uncontrolled fashion for thousands of years, those fires were far worse than anything recently. No, bushfires in Australia have not been getting worse or earlier. There are seasonal variations of course and the main reason for early fires is ironically the result of extra rain leading to more vegetation growth leading to a higher fuel load in summer. Please, do some research and get your facts right
The Ash Wednesday fires of 1983 were very bad indeed. I was watching them from the Grenfell Centre as they burnt the Adelaide Hills. My brother-in-law's house in Anglesea miraculously survived while others in the street were burnt to the ground. They were toward the end of hot dry summer, not the beginning like the recent fires. In any case, they were not as fierce as the Black Friday fires of 2009, or the Canberra fires of 2003. And in Victoria arguably more acreage has been burnt this century - in 2003 (1.3 million hectares), 2006 (> one million hectares) and 2009 (killed 179 people, making it the deadliest fire in Australia's history) than the combined total of the 1939 Black Friday fires (between one and two million hectares) and the Ash Wednesday fires (around 110,000 hectares). And this century is barely 15 years in. (There wasn't anything like the fire preparedness, fire-fighting technology, or communications for the 1939 fires, nor the 1983 fire, and still the fires this century have been worse.)
DeleteYou can be prepared for worse to come and accept the reality that the world is warming, that Goyder's line is moving south, that much of southern Australia will be drier and hotter, and that catastrophic fires will become more of a threat in coming decades. Or you can believe that God created the world 6,000 years ago and that climate science is a hoax. Your choice. Just don't use this blog to spread your denial. That's a warning.
The Canberra fires - the Victorian fires - South Australian fires.
DeleteWhat we can look forward to.
Two things.
DeleteFirst, Sou, might you consider a policy of banning anonymous posters who expect to have an ongoing conversation without at least the very basic manners of providing a semblance of a handle with which to refer? This profoundly low level of intellectual and social laziness on anonymous's part is grating.
Second, wildfire frequency is increasing, despite better protection technology and more personel, and less forest area in may parts of the world. Why might this be so, eh?
I'm losing my patience with this level of genetic stupidity in the gene pool. Still, the planet will chlorinate soon enough...
Yes - these climate science deniers preach about facts but don't bother with facts themselves.
DeleteThe Ash Wednesday fires were significant in South Australia and Victoria because they burnt out towns on the edges of Melbourne and Adelaide and because they were fierce and deadly, not because they were so large. (They were large enough - a total of around 418,000 hectares - 210,000 ha in Victoria and 208,000 ha in SA. The fires this century have been a lot bigger and some have been a lot fiercer.)
They arguably wouldn't have been so deadly if the radio announcers in Adelaide didn't urge people to return to their homes (Yes, I was appalled at the time to hear that on the radio.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ash_Wednesday_bushfires
They also occurred toward the end of a drought at the end of a hot summer. The conditions then were bad. The conditions that occurred in late January - early February 2009 were way worse, and resulted in 179 people being burnt to death.
And there will be worse to come in the near and far future with global warming.
I think the rubbish put about by people like Anonymous from Down Under is not just contemptible, it's dangerous - and insensitive. (I'm sure I'm not the only one whose family lost friends and relatives in the fires this century.)
Speaking of wildfires, for those interested, from a newly released report from the American Meteorological Society we have chapter 2:
DeleteEXTREME FIRE SEASON IN CALIFORNIA: A GLIMPSE INTO THE FUTURE?
“The fire season in northern California during 2014 was the second largest in terms of burned areas since 1996. An increase in fire risk in California is attributable to human-induced climate change.”
See:
EXPLAINING EXTREME EVENTS OF 2014 FROM A CLIMATE PERSPECTIVE
Special Supplement to the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
Vol. 96, No. 12, December 2015
https://www2.ametsoc.org/ams/index.cfm/publications/bulletin-of-the-american-meteorological-society-bams/explaining-extreme-events-from-a-climate-perspective/table-of-contents/
"They are the numbers the experts use to tell them, and everyone else, just how dangerous bushfire conditions are anywhere in Australia.
DeleteThey are called the Fire Danger Index, or the FDI.
And around Esperance on Tuesday, about 2pm, they were the highest they had ever been. Anywhere.
The perfect, petrifying combination of 40C heat, gusty 100km/h winds, and rock-bottom humidity pushed that FDI calculation up to about 260.
The trigger for a catastrophic fire warning — the worst there is — is 100.
The FDI around Kilmore and Kinglake where 120 people died on Victoria’s Black Saturday was 189, which is believed to have been the highest ever recorded until this week."
Re. "Well this promises to be quite interesting, it will be a treat to be in the same room with Ted Cruz and Mark Steyn."
ReplyDeleteThis is perfectly calculated/crafted to send any rational person into a rage. Don't let her do it. She's just sitting behind her keyboard waiting and chortling in anticipation.
It is also perfectly indicative of her political side that she would want to craft such a statement in the first place.
This is perfectly calculated/crafted to send any rational person into a rage.
DeletePrecisely
And Mark Steyn's credentials that qualify him to testify in front of Congress as an authority on the subject at hand are what, exactly? A journalist? Truly, the mind boggles.
DeleteIt's patently transparent that the only reason he's there is because he has a huge hate on for Michael E. Mann. He shouldn't be there, full stop.
Mark Steyn is not a journalist, is he? He was a columnist (ie a paid blogger), though I'm not sure he's got a column anywhere any more. Which just leaves his vanity publications, his personal blog, and the conservative speaker circuit.
DeleteWill Happer isn't a climate scientist either. He's on the denier speaking circuit too. Remember the GOP has called on the potty peer in the past, so they aren't interested in science, only theatre.
The only credential Mark has or needs is that he's arguably defamed a climate scientist, which suits the agenda of the disinformation brigade aka as the Republican Party.
There aren't many climate scientists who are willing to lie to a Senate Committee. Are Judith Curry, John Christy and Roy Spencer the only practicing US climate scientists who spread disinformation about science? Richard Lindzen's retired to take up science denial public speaking. John Nielsen-Gammon flirts with deniers but hasn't quite quit science yet AFAIK.
BTW Bernard, you aren't seeing all the comments from Mark Steyn's fans here. Some have been shifted to HotWhopper regular and HotWhopper Uncensored. The reason I've got moderation on at the moment is to spare HotWhopper readers from the worst of the worst of them. Some of his fans have minds like sewers. The rest are utter nutter conspiracy theorists.
DeleteIn case you're wondering - there's a rash of adoring RWA fans of an alleged defamer visiting today (a pustulous rash.) The wacky and nasty conspiracy theory brigade have donned their tinfoil hats and bravely ventured where deniers fear to tread - digits poised to attack their keyboards, mopping the dribble drooling from their multiple chins.
ReplyDeleteThere may be more when the USA wakens in a few hours.
I notice that among the topics of the hearing is "the ways in which political pressure can suppress opposing viewpoints in the field of climate science."
ReplyDeleteAfter Lamar Smith's crusade (and Curry's support for it), that sounds rather ominous.
I think she said she could not get a grant... presumably to study natural variation.
DeleteOthers get grants to study "natural variation" and climate. Bernard J did some digging and found out why Judith might not be very successful at getting grants. She's not done a whole lot of research in the past, compared to her peers. If you have a decent track record it can help in getting grants. Judith's is mediocre.
DeleteNote that what is "opposing viewpoints" depends on your perspective, making the topic ambiguous.
DeleteGlobal warming is a hoax. I am glad some people are brave enough to say so. It's just too bad that the Catholics like to hunt the heretics and punish them.
ReplyDeleteWhen did Lamar Smith get turned into a victim?
DeleteCurry, as quoted by Sou, "Well this promises to be quite interesting, it will be a treat to be in the same room with Ted Cruz and Mark Steyn."
ReplyDeleteWell Curry may get more than she bargained for. However, if she subsequently reports how nice was the reality, and as we already have had opportunity to study the machinations of Steyn, then Judith will have done nothing for her reputation by admiring the likes of Cruz. Even Judith may be shocked by the reality of Cruz:
Anyone but Ted Cruz from the New York Times.
This anon is new to climate revisionism. Will be away again pretty soon, judging by those amateur lines.
ReplyDelete... and the slow but certain degrading of those lines.
DeleteThe list of presentable contrarians must be getting very, very short if they are resorting to Steyn and Happer.
ReplyDeleteLet's see...
Roy Spencer: unavailable? or too similar to UAH colleague Christy
Richard Lindzen: unavailable? or too worn out
Willie Soon: too discredited and not a climate scientist
Roger Pielke Sr.: unavailable? or too unpredictable
Roger Pielke Jr.: unavailable? and a Ph.D. in Political Science
Pat Michaels: unavailable? or too tarred by paid association with oil and tobacco
Steyn and Happer could be easy pickings for Democrat members of the Science Committee if they focus on their glaring weak points, namely that they are 'experts' with no relevant expertise.
Q. Mr. Steyn, what are your academic qualifications? Is it correct that you left high school without graduating?
Q. Mr. Steyn, in your own words can you explain how the greenhouse effect works or is alleged to work?
Q. Dr. Happer, what is your record of peer-reviewed publications in the field of climate science? Have you ever conducted primary research in the field of climate science?
Q. Dr. Happer, you recently stated elsewhere that "97% of scientists have often been wrong on many things." Can you give us some specific examples of these?
The last time Roy Spencer and Roger Pielke Jr appeared before a Senate committee, they didn't do so well :(
DeleteHere is a list of the Democratic members on Cruz's subcommittee. Anyone here know if any of them have enough interest in climate science to try to take down the panel of deniers?
ReplyDeletePeters, Gary C. (MI), Ranking Member
Markey, Edward J. (MA)
Booker, Cory A. (NJ)
Schatz, Brian (HI)
Udall, Tom (NM)
-- Dennis
Ed Markey on mitigating climate change.
DeleteGary Peters on global warming as an election issue.
Cory Booker on sustainability and global warming.
Brian Schatz on clean energy
Tom Udall on bold action to address climate change
Ted Cruz - climate science denier and conspiracy nutter first class
My hope is for one of them to show up for the denier fest long enough to ask serious questions that get to the panel's lack of qualifications and how none of their ideas have support from the scientific community. Someone like Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), who has been active on the issue would be great, but he's not on the committee. -- Dennis
DeleteEd Markey was one of the authors of the Waxman-Markey cap 'n trade bill. I think he is fairly knowledgeable about climate change.
DeleteThe only point of this whole this is to raise Ted Cruz's profile in the media.
ReplyDeleteWhat we need is not for charlatans like Curry and Christy to parade their snake oil to politicians, but for the influential policy makers of government s around the world to bite the bullet and spend a week in the labs and offices of the best real, actual climate scientists.
ReplyDeleteAt least a week. Perhaps several. Nothing else that they do - even playing soldiers in the Middle East - is as important for humanity as learning the basic science of and solutions to the greatest problem that humanity will face.
And it is the greatest problem, even if the mayfly Denialists haven't understood this yet.
It's a travesty that too many lay people are complacent, or indeed wilfully-ignorant or willfully dissembling about global warming. It's a crime against humanity and against life, on the part of the too-many politicians who have chosen to remain ineffective against mitigating the emissions of carbon.
We're already locked in to over 2 degrees C of warming. That's catastrophic for many people, and for many species. The only question is how much more of civilisation and the biosphere our policy-makers are willing to cede for the benefit of short-term gain for a very small, very privileged few... and the stark answer that appears to be coming from the hollow words that I've heard so far from Paris is "quite a lot".
There is no more excuse for the destruction of our global ecosystem. We're each either complicit in allowing this destruction to continue, or we're doing something to try to reverse it. Everyone's had the warning: there is not more excuse.
So, are you a part of the problem or a part of the solution? That's you, every one of you, wherever you are in the world, whether you're reading this or not, as long as you are participating in a society that could otherwise choose a different path to the one of destruction on which we're careering.
What did you do to save some part of the world? And when your time comes, will your efforts appear to that flashing-before-your-eyes to have been enough?
Will your last thought be "oops"? Because "oops" is not enough.
Not nearly enough...
"
DeleteWe're already locked in to over 2 degrees C of warming.
"
And what many folks seem to conveniently forget is that the 2C target is the globally averaged temperature increase.
Even if we manage to achieve that target (already very doubtful), the average increase of the land surface temperature will be considerably higher, e.g. the average temperature increase over North America will be 4-6 C, and probably more than that after 2100.
Cruz, Curry, Christy, and their conspiratorial blather are the least of our problems.
Even President Trump will not be able to change the laws of physics.
@ The Very Reverend Jebediah
DeleteSomeone on CBC, yesterday, was pointing out that Hudson's Bay was up somewhere in the neigbhourhood of 3C already.
Local polar bears apparently are not all that happy.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteJAR's comment has been shifted. It can be found at the HotWhoppery..
DeleteSou
I've added a postscript to the main article, with two curiosities.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteThis anonymouse's comment has been shifted. It can be found at the HotWhoppery..
DeleteSou
Not at all sure that summarily dismissing Steyn on the basis of his lack of academic credentials is reasonable, nor wise. Many examples of non-credentialed people making worthy contributions to science, innovation, exploration, etc. Sometimes seminal contributions. Steyn is 'biased' to the extent that circumstances have obliged him to assemble whatever support he can find for his legal defence. And he has found quite a bit. The court (eventually) must consider both his defence and his credentials (Including those of experts who support his defence, directly or indirectly). He will not be dismissed by the court because he has only a high school education, and I would not wish to live in a world that would so dismiss him. Likewise, this Senate Committee will not, must not, dismiss Steyn simply on lack of academic qualifications. He puts his testimony, and the Committee members decide if it is persuasive. I doubt that Steyn's testimony will hinge on his personal academic credentials, so attacking them is trivial and ignorant.
ReplyDeleteThe point is that Mark Steyn has done nothing at all in regard to climate science. It's not a matter of summarily dismissing him on the fact he did or didn't finish high school - it's that he's never written a single thing that added to knowledge about climate. He knows not the first thing about any science let alone climate science.
DeleteSo why is he testifying to a US government committee? It makes a mockery of the US Senate and the Republican party. (The Republican Party has been working hard to make a mockery of itself for a long time now.)
Sure he needs to rack up "support" wherever he can find people of equally low morals to send him money. But that's got nothing to do with climate science. That's about whether or not the US people support unfounded defamation or not. And some do, as long as they are the ones doing the defaming not the ones being defamed, presumably.
Showing up his ignorance of climate science is neither trivial nor ignorant. Showing up his immorality and seedy character isn't trivial or ignorant either.
Mark Steyn is a high-school dropout, defamation 'artist' and professional rabblerouser. He is as far from being a gifted self-taught amateur with useful contributions to make to science or public policy as it is possible to be.
DeleteAh! I see we have different agenda. Mine is that every person is entitled to express their opinion and argue their case, without prejudice. Especially when invited (or obliged) to do so. Yours appears to be something less than that. A position to which you too are entitled. Lucky you, to live in a world where dissent is possible.
DeleteYes, we know that Mark's fans have a different agenda. Not an agenda that anyone of good character would support - that of wrongly defaming scientists and destroying as much of the life on earth as they can, as quickly as they can.
DeleteSou, surely you must see that your characterisation regarding 'good character' reflects unflatteringly upon you? My argument in not in favour of Steyn, nor of the anti-Steyn position. My argument is that ad hominem attacks by definition miss the point, and are unworthy.
DeleteYou're kidding, right Paul?
DeleteHe's got to be kidding. Anyone who defends a lowlife like Mark Steyn has to be of low moral character themselves. It is the point.
Maybe Paul is just trying to distract readers from the point that not only has Mark Steyn behaved in a contemptible manner on multiple occasions, he knows zilch about science or climate and the Republican Party have no business wasting taxpayer's money on calling him to testify for purely theatrical purposes..
Certainly everyone is entitled to express their opinion and argue their case; however, the qualifications of the opiner are important to assessing the value of the views expressed by the individual. This is especially important when serious policy decisions are being formulated. To not qualify such experts is inane or in this case obviously a sign of the committee having a political agenda versus running a true information gathering exercise. Why is this so difficult to understand?
Delete"Mine is that every person is entitled to express their opinion and argue their case, without prejudice. "
DeleteHmm. So the folks that think that they're subject to telepathic mind control from aliens should be invited to testify before Congress?
Why not? A person who think they are a member of the UK House of Lords has been invited. Again not one of Congress' or the GOP's better days.
DeletePaul Martin.
DeleteSurely you can see that the very fate of the world is at stake here?
And the Sou and her followers are the true saviours?
They'd have already saved us all by now, except that dreaded deniers asking questions somehow completely negate their earth saving superpowers, leaving as their only recourse mumbles about future witchcraft trials to punish the sinners.
She will be always remembered as "Holier than thou Sou".
Or, more likely, 'Sou who believed the science and was right, as opposed to all the way-more-arrogant-than-intelligent anonymous scoffers who simply refused to credit anything they didn't want to be true.'
DeleteLong-winded, sure, but way more accurate...
Oh I don't know, Bill. "Saint Sou" has a certain heavenly ring to it :)
DeleteSteyn's "readers are ... low intellectual calibre." Like many of my colleagues, I've happily read Steyn for a couple of decades now. I have four degrees, including a PhD from Cambridge University. I don't have a fetish about academic credentials, but your line of attack is well wide of the mark. If you have a substantive argument -- let's hear it. If you're capable of nothing more than ill-informed insults, you need a new hobby.
ReplyDeleteThe evidence is here in this thread, and at the HotWhoppery.
DeleteIf you really have that many degrees, then I'm surprised you haven't noticed the low intellectual calibre of the comments from Mark's fan club. I expect you don't often get the opportunity to see what his readers are like, since he doesn't allow them to post comments on his blog, from the look of things.
https://archive.is/e7feI#selection-699.0-703.1
A "free speech" advocate who doesn't give his fans the opportunity to speak on his blog. Not that he understands the meaning of free speech. (It doesn't give one the right to tell lies about other people.)
PS For the lurkers - just because Rosie makes claims of degrees, it doesn't mean he or she has any.
DeleteI am always a bit chary of people who rush to give their qualifications. Especially when they claim they do not have a fetish for credentials. Of course you must remember that Cambridge gives out degrees like corn flake toys- going rate is about £20.
DeleteWhat worries me though is how with four degrees you can waste two decades reading Mark Steyn. Sounds a waste of an education.
Using an accusation of ill-informed insults in the defense of Steyn?
DeleteSomething about Steyn linking a well known Distinguished Professor of Penn State to child molestation gives your rhetoric an extremely distasteful bovine smell.
"I have four degrees, including a PhD from Cambridge University."
DeleteThat's funny because actually you are so stupid you think an anonymous poster can make an appeal to authority.
A professor I know has degrees from major universities, is widely read on the side, has substantial research contributions in his field, has been faculty or research staff at top research institutions, and thinks Steyn is a great read. No accounting for taste.
Delete(He also was a great supporter of Bush until it became unfashionable, thinks torture is horrible but defines is such that the US did not commit any torture, and basically doesn't care about global warming -- not exactly denying it, just finding it overwrought.)
Rosie, his accusation of fraud against Mike Mann is sufficient evidence of Steyn's low intellectual caliber.
DeleteI'd guess that Steyn was advised by his lawyers to avoid hosting possibly libelous comments on his blog, since he is still being sued for libeling an eminent climate scientist, and anything he publishes could be used for evidence of malice or whatever.
DeleteMaybe he's started to listen to his lawyers, or has he stupidly criticized any more judges lately?
according to very reliable measurements made at my doctor's office today, I have 97.8 degrees (F). so what to think of anyone with only 4 degrees? hey, most corpses can manage better than that!
Delete-- Xavier Onnasis
Xavier Onnasis.
DeleteTry adding 4 degrees to 97.8 degrees...
One could also try adding 4 degrees to 37 Celsius. Then try adding 6 degrees to 37 Celsius - that's if anyone could survive to a fever of 109.4 Fahrenheit.
DeleteHumans would survive the addition of 4-6 degrees to 37 Celsius as well as humanity will survive by adding 4-6 degrees C to the mean global temperature.
DeleteIt's that simple.
William Happer compares climate science to Stalinism “we have seen it before—for example, in the frightening period when Trofim Lysenko hijacked biology in the Soviet Union.”“ and Nazism, “The demonization of carbon dioxide is just like the demonization of the poor Jews under Hitler.”“
ReplyDeleteJudith Curry, not to be outdone, compares Mann’s supporters to the Charlie Hebdo killers and states “In the climate wars, those that use pejorative names for people that they disagree with are the equivalents of racists and anti-semites, and deserve opprobrium and disrespect.”
https://tamino.wordpress.com/2014/01/24/the-rise-and-fall-of-judith-curry/
Mark Steyn is a homophobe “I understand his devoted Mini-Me, Greg Mann-Laden, prefers to wear [the hockey stick graph] as a novelty tramp stamp: The shaft runs straight across the top of his left thigh and then the blade shoots up his butt.”
John Christy at least doesn’t go in for homophobia or Nazi allusions (at least as far as I’m aware). He confines himself to misrepresenting climate science to congress. http://www.skepticalscience.com/christy-once-again-misinforms-congress.html
Something which Prof Curry has also indulged in before:
https://tamino.wordpress.com/2014/01/24/the-rise-and-fall-of-judith-curry/
What a team.
Sorry, Judith Curry link should be http://judithcurry.com/2015/01/11/charlie-challenging-free-speech/
DeleteVTG -
ReplyDeletePersonally, I think the best example is when Judith describes people she disagrees with as "deniers."
That said, I think that Sou's assertion of "morally depraved" is no better than Judith's selective "concern" about pejoratives.
It's obvious from the comments that some people don't regard ugly defamation of climate scientists as immoral, or spreading disinformation about climate change as immoral. I do. (And I've got the Pope in my corner.)
DeleteJoshua,
DeleteDenier might be hypocritical from JC but it's a perfectly respectable word in common use.
"Equivalent of a racist"? Not so much
Just to be clear, I'm not offering a defense for what Judlth is doing. I don't agree, however, with reverse engineering from how people reason about climate change or other polarized issues to judge morality; in part, that is because so often people wrongly judge my morality on such a basis.
DeleteIn the headline, the 'morally depraved' refers to the people Judith regards as treats: who she sups with. In one case it has nothing to do with "how people reason about climate change" - it's about Mark Steyn's defamation. In the other it is not to do with how Ted Cruz reasons, it's the disinformation that he spreads. As an elected leader it is reprehensible of him to lie to the American people.
DeleteVTG. Point taken
DeleteThe chairman of the Science and Technology Committee is traditionally a science illiterate. Remember William Proxmire?
ReplyDeleteThis is still being demonstrated. What scientist would only invite people to testify who will tell him what he wants to hear, not what he needs to know?
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ReplyDeleteChuck's comment has been shifted. It can be found at the HotWhoppery..
DeleteSou
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ReplyDeleteJamesHalifax's comment has been shifted. It can be found at the HotWhoppery..
DeleteSou
One wonders, does Mark Steyn have anyone *but* right wing authoritarian followers that wallow in his trash talk? His main claim to fame is that he has been brought to court for defaming a famous climate scientist, and that qualifies him to testify before Congress on a topic he has absolutely no expertise in?!
ReplyDeleteI weep for the current state of my country: America, the best politicians corporations can buy.
They aren't limited to Steyn. Over the years I've noticed they are very strongly overrepresented in blogs such as WUWT and the like as well as in general media comment forums. The latter can be more instructive since depending on the forum software used one can read what 'skeptics' think about a range of political and social issues. Generally speaking they are on the nastier side of social conservatism, ranging all the way to full-fledged RWNJ.
DeleteThose authoritarian follower traits may explain the high levels of cognitive dissonance needed to credulously support the ever-more-rickety framework of the fake skeptic narrative of a global conspiracy ranging all the way from obscure researchers to the Oval Office, plus a mash of scientific contradictions too long and tedious to note.
In contrast, top climate scientists have to watch their words and hypotheses like hawks, knowing that even their friendly colleagues will take great joy in ripping weak ones apart.
I believe Mark Steyn was successful in challenging some Canadian repressive speech laws. This is a good thing. People should have the right to talk about unpopular subjects and ideas. (As long as they don't lie about others.)
ReplyDeleteI'm not so sure about that. I did read he successfully defended himself about a complaint by others but I can't see anywhere where he took the initiative in challenging any speech laws. (We have our version of Steyn in Andrew Bolt, who thinks he should be free to vilify people too.)
DeleteJust crazy that he would be considered to talk before congress... His ability to slander others and get away with it isn't much of a qualification. I think it will end up working against their cause.
DeleteYeah, God Forbid you guys actually have to defend your words against opponents. In your world, an ideal debate features only one speaker - and just coincidentally, that one speaker is always yours. You are such chickensh*ts when it comes to having to defend your views. You're nothing but a bunch of whiny schoolgirls.
ReplyDeleteI let this go as an example of the whiny comments that have been appearing. I'd say that a lot of Mark Steyn's fans are not used to anyone writing about science or climate.. They expect everyone to agree with them that climate science is a hoax, that scientists are criminals or worse, that the world is flat and was created 6,000 years ago, and that gravity is only a theory..
DeleteIt would be so nice if you or one of your friends could manage to come out with an argument that didn't rely on some pathetic worn out denialist meme that was already debunked years ago. You know: something that might constitute worthy material for a debate among grown ups. Could you do that for us Andrew?
DeleteAndrew you have encapsulated your cause and values with such precision and economy, I'm sure most must mistake you for a poet.
DeleteYour talent is wasted here Andrew, so do be a good chapie and fuck off.
Andrew ought to go to Specsavers. He seems to have had difficulty realizing that Sou has gained a reputation for defending her position with an idea that seems lost on Andrew and his ilk: evidence. If the denier position defensible in the same way, we would all be sitting on that side of the fence. But since the evidence doesn't support Andrew, he is reduced to stamping his foot and using grown up swear words.
DeleteAndrew Turnbull.
DeleteI'll happily defend any aspect of the science behind climate change. Take your pick and we can dissect the subject at great length:
1) there is no such thing as a 'greenhouse' effect
2) CO2 is not a greenhouse' gas
3) atmospheric CO2 is not increasing
4) if atmospheric CO2 is increasing humans aren't the cause
5) even if humans are the cause of increasing CO2, temperature is not increasing
6) if humans are the cause of increasing CO2 then temperature is increasing due to natural causes
7) if warming isn't due to natural causes the climate sensitivity is less than 1°C
8) if climate sensitivity is closer to 3°C or more then warming is good for us anyway
9) if warming isn't good for us then it's too late to do anything about it now
10) if it's too late to do anything about it now it's all the scientists' fault for not telling us about it in the first place.
Come on big fella, step to the plate and put your scientific cred on the line.
And bring your peer-reviewed references with you...
Bernard, you missed 10.
Delete10. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but our efforts to measure the average global temperatures in the very recent instrumental era are a concoction of instruments, individuals, timings and authorities, and lack substantial data about ocean heat content where 90% of the incoming energy resides. Furthermore the scale and even the direction of some feedback mechanisms are largely guesswork ..... paleoproxy climate data is as varied and wonderful as the instrument record. Leaving proponents of the cause in the position of using forest fire events as definitive proof of global warming.
Bernard has a 10)
DeleteAnonymous's 10) could be 11) "Make up any old non-reason so as not to "believe" all the evidence that the world is warming"
https://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/
http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/
Wow, an anonymous argument from incredulity! That's always most persuasive...
DeleteIf 'varied and wonderful' is the criteria for hand-waving dismissal, we dont really know nuffin' abaht nuffin' paleo, do we? Or historical, for that matter.
Are we being graced by the presence of a heroic phenomenologist in our midst, or just another cynical hack who refuses to believe anything he doesn't want to be true, boys and girls?
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DeleteAndrew Turnbull.
DeleteMy sympathies - I wouldn't have put a challenge to you if I'd known that you were innumerate. I see now that you're a victim of an insufficient education, which would explain why you also do not understand the capacity of science to measure that which you believe is not measured.
And if you don't trust thermometers or high-falootin' science, you could simply look at the planet itself. Ice-melt, phenological and ecosystem shifts, sea level rise - each is a direct indication that the planet is warming. And indeed some of these are very elegant proxies: you might usefully learn from this link and from this one.
Of course, I'm assuming that Andrew Turnbull went anonymous to respond, but it could well be the regular anonymous or indeed a separate one who's spilled logical fallacy all over the thread.
DeleteI suspect that whoever is this anonymous, deep down s/he knows that they're speaking crap, which is why they're too embarrassed to append even a nom de plume to the junk they post.
Well that would make an ass out of u but not me, because I'm not afraid to put my ENTIRE name - not just a last name abbreviation, Bernard J. - to my opinions.
DeleteLook up "projection," Sou. It's utterly laughable that you would call MY comments "whiny" when the OP was replete with whines. Let me refresh your inconvenient memory:
Delete"...along with some other climate science deniers and at least one scientist defamer. The others testifying are from the rogues gallery of science disinformers...So they reached into the science denier bag...Why do the Republicans bother with this crude pantomime? Why not just hang a sign around their necks saying "we want the world to burn"?"
Nearly the entire post is one long whine. And the whine is because you have to face opponents! You don't get carte blanche to give an unopposed one-sided position, and you can't handle that! You're a bunch of sissies, afraid to debate.
And there's more! "...Not unless you are researching climate disinformers and defamers in the USA...I can't imagine even a hard-core science denier thinking it a treat to be in the same room as that bunch of lying creeps. Excuse me, but I feel nauseous."
You're a bunch of adolescents, so immature that you wet yourselves from the prospect of having to face opposition. Man, if I were truly convinced by my position, I would relish the opportunity to face my opponents.
Come to think of it, that's exactly what we on the Right do! We relish a fight in the arena of ideas.
But you pantywaists know you can't win on ideas and reason and logic, so you seek to shut down the opposition.
Insecure, adolescent crybabies. That's what you are. And everyone knows it...even yourselves. And THAT'S what gnaws at you most of all.
@Andrew Turnbull
DeleteI expect that diatribe would convince me, it is so passionate. If only I could work out what you are trying to convince me of.
Looks as if Andrew is under the illusion that the Democrat minority asked me to appear at Ted Cruz's denier pantomime and I turned them down.
DeleteOtherwise his comments make no sense, since it's patently clear to anyone who reads HotWhopper that this blog is all about demolishing the disinformation put about by deniers and replacing it with science.
Could be he's just a passionate tone troll, if there is such a beast.
This whole thread is emblematic of the Left's pathetic reading comprehension skills and the pathetic critical thinking skills of some of you.
DeleteFirst, Bernard J. chides me because he thinks I went "anonymous." And yet that paragon of courage is anonymous himself! Look at his Google+ profile - there's NOTHING there. What, does he think he's the only Bernard J. on the planet?! What a tool.
Second, NOTHING in my original comment challenged ANY of the Left's AGW arguments. I ONLY took the Left to task because of its palpable fear of having to defend its views in a public forum. Mark Steyn's views are available publicly. EVERYONE knows what they are, everyone knows what his arguments are. If you've got a better argument, you should welcome the opportunity for the smackdown. But instead, you wail and whine and wring your hands over having to face opposition to your views. THAT is chickensh*t. THAT is adolescent. THAT is totalitarian - the suppression of any and all views with which you disagree, ostensibly because you KNOW you cannot refute them. So you seek to disparage and ridicule and marginalize those who hold them. You know you cannot defeat Mark Steyn in the arena of ideas, so you prefer to silence him.
As I said before, you're all a bunch of pantywaists. Pantywaists with weak critical thinking skills and weak reading comprehension skills.
Can you understand my points NOW, Jammy Dodger?
DeleteNo, I still cannot understand any of your points Andrew Bull. But I feel the passion. Do try again.
Andrew, your "problem" is that you don't understand the HW article - or pretend you don't. Once you get over your huffery and puffery, try reading it with a critical thinking cap on your head, if you have one handy.
DeleteIn Andrew's puerile worldview, AGW "arguments" seemingly only come from the "Left". As if AGW is simply an ideological war between the Left and the Right, and there's not tens of thousands of peer reviewed papers and mountains of evidence backing up the science of AGW.
DeleteAndrew do you know what projection is, you very intelligent learned butch alpha male? Bert
DeleteAndrew forgets that even if AGW doesn't pan out, we still need alternatives for non-renewable fossil fuels as they become more and more scarce.
DeleteAndrew and his right-wing brothers typically view fossil-fuels as renewable, and that calling them non-renewable finite resources is a left-wing conspiracy.
Andrew gives us his 'leave Britney alone' style overwrought 'you're all pantywaists and little girls' speech. Completely well-adjusted and not-at-all-indicative stuff!
DeleteWhat he doesn't give us is responses to Bernard J's points.
You are, Andrew, pretty representative of the Right, at least of the type that has hijacked the Republican Party, and is currently destroying it. You see, all your stuff about other people being overwhelmed by their emotions is what's referred to as 'projection', petal.
We have the science, you have the angry.
"...Pantywaists with weak critical thinking skills and weak reading comprehension skills."
DeleteSo pick a number from one to ten* and put your reasoned critique of the science on the table, for all to see.
Clock's ticking.
All the rest is fluff, except that it's worth pointing out that you are under a slight misapprehension about the meaning of the word "anonymous" - unless of course you want to be able to identify me to the point of being able to send threatening mail, which is why I've used a truncation of my name for many years. And if you had half a clue about the online climate change discussion community you'd know that I am fairly well known to many of the regulars, even if they don't have my 'phone number and map coordinates...
[* If the numbers 1 through to 10 are too scary to face, perhaps you'd prefer a supplementary or two...
S1) Human carbon emissions are acidifing the oceans.
S2) Ocean acidification is a Bad Thing.
I'll leave it at that for now, because anything more obviously renders you overwrought and incapable of making a choice.]
Man, if I were truly convinced by my position, I would relish the opportunity to face my opponents.
DeleteTalk about hoist on your own petard: apparently Mr. Turnbull can't be much convinced of his own position, as at the first sign of having to tackle the actual issues, he scarpered!
Sadly, Andrew, by your own 'logic', the verdict of history is in: seems you're a 'pantywaist'.
We see this all the time. Andrew wishes it was just a debate of words. The problem is there is this little thing called science getting in the way where the only debate is how bad will it get, especially since several tipping points are behind us now.
ReplyDelete"Science," huh? Yeah, you on the Left are the sole protectors of "science." What a crock. Perhaps you missed THIS little ditty:
Delete"But there is a third possibility: that it is real, man-made and not dangerous, at least not for a long time.
This “lukewarm” option has been boosted by recent climate research, and if it is right, current policies may do more harm than good. For example, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and other bodies agree that the rush to grow biofuels, justified as a decarbonization measure, has raised food prices and contributed to rainforest destruction."
Where's that from? The anti-science people at...Scientific American. http://bit.ly/1Qrtj9c
Answer me this: What would have to happen, what would it take, for you to conclude that AGW isn't real?
Mr Bull. Not sure it is worth bothering trying to engage with you but I will see.
DeleteFirst, why are you so obsessed with polarising this into a Right/Left issue? Could it be you cannot deal with science?
The phrase "... at least not for a long time" is a crock. Of course it is a "third possibility" but that does not mean nothing should be done. How long is a long time? 50 years? 80 years? Take your pick. Quite important to know don't you think? Not to mention that we may be lucky and have more time than we think but the same steps will have to be taken.
What makes you think that it is not accepted that biofuels are problematic. From what I remember it was your nemesis the "Green Left" who banged on about this for years.
What would it take for me to conclude that AGW is not real? For the science in about a dozen areas to change and be overturned.
What would have to happen for you to show some rationalism and consideration of the science?
Answer me this: What would have to happen, what would it take, for you to conclude that AGW isn't real?
DeleteIf the surface temperature fell back to what it was in the middle of last century for an extended period, with no explicable cause - and if glaciers and ice sheets began to grow over the next few decades, and/or the sea level did an about face and fell consistently for several decades - all while greenhouse gases were increasing, and without any other forcing (such as a super-volcanic eruption or an all out nuclear war or an asteroid strike) - then I'd say that atmospheric physics and chemistry would need a re-think. But it's not happening is it. Instead we've got two hottest years in a row, and next year might make it three in a row.
Current policies to mitigate global warming neither prove or disprove science.
The "lukewarm" position is highly unlikely given the speed with which the planet is warming.
Ahhh, so surface temperatures would have to fall back "for an extended period" to rebut global warming...but "two hottest years in a row" is all you need to conclude global warming. Nice self-serving criteria ya got there.
DeleteAnswer me this: What is the earth's ideal temperature (and where do you measure it, since it's a bit colder at the poles than at the equator)? Or if this is easier, what is the ideal temperature at each region of the earth? And, how did you arrive at your "regional" designations or borders? And, how did you arrive at your "ideal" temperatures? How do you know that a warmer planet isn't better - for rainfall, for growing seasons, for feeding people?
And it's comforting to know you can so easily dismiss a lengthy article from Scientific American with the wave of a hand - your rebuttal of "...is highly unlikely..." is so...scientific.
ROFL, Andrew is quoting the GWPF's SciAm article.
DeleteIs that the best you can do Andrew? How come you are reduced to quoting a fossil fuel industry front group? Where are the real scientists?
Mr Bull
DeleteYou complain of others having poor reading comprehension skills. Where did anybody, but anybody, claim that two hottest years is all that is needed to conclude global warming?
I spoke of a dozen areas in science. Sou was a bit more detailed listing sea levels and so on. Try improving your comprehension.
As for your list of questions about ideal temperatures. You are joking, aren't you? How do I know a warmer planet isn't better? Because all the science says it is not and it gets progressively worse above 2 degrees. What is the basis for your excessive optimism?
And "highly unlikely" is so...scientific because it is a scientific statement. It is more scientific than your apparent certainty.
No Andrew - (this is like trying to teach the theory of relativity to a two year old. In this discussion, a two year old would understand what Andrew fails to understand.).
DeleteTwo hot years in a row don't prove global warming. It's decades of very rapid warming. It's the consistent rise in sea level, and the ongoing melting of ice. It's the consilience of multiple lines of evidence that supports the scientific theories.
You do know that the greenhouse effect was first demonstrated in a laboratory in the middle of the 1800s - more than 150 years ago.
The earth's ideal mean global temperature is the one that civilisation has adapted to.
In the Arctic, people are having trouble because they can no longer drive on frozen roads - it's too warm. Wildfires are changing the ecology, too. And fisheries are shifting, which affects the livelihoods of fishers.
As for the article in Ssientific American - I've already dealt with that. (Matt Ridley is not a climate scientist, he's a spectacularly failed banker who also owns a coal mine). He used to write about science, but did an about turn some time ago:
http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2015/11/is-this-what-you-want-matt-ridley.html
No!! He wasn't talking about that article was he? The Matt Ridley article?
DeleteAs Millicent says: ROFL get up fall over ROFL
Well you know, if you want science you could go to the Royal Society.
DeleteOn the other hand you could go to a Tory politician, a social anthropologist, and the bloke who broke Northern Rock.
But I saved the funniest bit for last:
There is no connection whatever between Central Europe Trust Co Ltd, of which I have been Chairman since 1990, and the Global Warming Policy Foundation, of which I have been Chairman since its inception in 2009.
Andrew, matey, can you spot the connection?
Andrew - your question is ill-posed, there is no ideal global temperature; it all depends on extremes and distribution.You can have the same 15C average with daily temps ranging from -190C to +220C as you do if they range from 0C to +30C. One of those would work pretty well for us humans, the other would not.
DeleteNow, I've read your comments here and realize you're not the sharpest knife in the drawer and the question you ask appears to be quite popular these days among pseudo-skeptics. The fact you ask the question, without realizing that it's a meaningless question, reveals the depth (lack thereof) of your critical thinking ability.
Can anyone explain why Andrew asks *us* what it would take us to believe AGW is not real, when he cites an article of Matt Ridley, who openly states AGW is real? Why doesn't he ask Matt Ridley that question?
DeleteAn obvious answer would be that the political position of Ridley (we don't need to do anything much) is to his liking, but maybe Andrew would like to answer?
More questions for Andrew might be:
DeleteWhat would persuade you that humans are causing global warming?
What would convince you that AGW isn't the biggest hoax ever perpetrated?
What would make you doubt the conspiracy theory that every single scientist and science journal editor, most science journalists, almost every leader of every country in the world and the majority of ordinary people - is either fudging data or knows that data is being fudged by tens of thousands of climate scientists, volunteers who collect weather data, and even machines (automatic weather stations, automated instruments on buoys)?
what it would take us to believe AGW is not real...
Delete... some evidence.
[Part I]
DeleteOthers have already responded but really, the pearlers here are too extraordinary to not have another poke at them...
"Ahhh, so surface temperatures would have to fall back "for an extended period" to rebut global warming...but "two hottest years in a row" is all you need to conclude global warming. Nice self-serving criteria ya got there."
As Sou notes, we're not basing our observations on two years of data. It's many decades of data, with the lst two being the most extreme in the century and more of temperature records. This is indicative of a trend entirely consistent with huge amount of work underpinning the science of 'greenhouse' gases and of global warming, and entirely inconsistent with claims that there is no 'greenhouse' effect or that the planet is not warming.
You protestation is naught but logical fallacy. A gold star if you are able to name it/them.
"What is the earth's ideal temperature (and where do you measure it, since it's a bit colder at the poles than at the equator)? Or if this is easier, what is the ideal temperature at each region of the earth? And, how did you arrive at your "regional" designations or borders? And, how did you arrive at your "ideal" temperatures? How do you know that a warmer planet isn't better - for rainfall, for growing seasons, for feeding people?"
Again, others have pointed out your fallacious thinking here, too. First, "ideal" is contextual, and you didn't define what you regard as appropriately ideal.
However we can ignore that and apply two basic criteria: that which is "ideal" for the continued maximum benefit of the planet's biodiversity, and (although not separate, no matter how much the arrogance of anthropocentrism imagines otherwise) for the benefit of the continuation of human civilisation.
Human culture developed during the Holocene, a period of remarkable global climate stability and mildness. We're not equipped to handle excursions of more than a degree or two from a planetary mean of around 15°C, despite the fact that local temperature variations a magnitude greater occur in different parts of the planet and at different diurnal or annual times.
Those who do not understand this are usually succumbing to another logical fallacy, or more usually to several, which include the ignorance of the fact that a small shift in the mean of a normal distribution can result in huge increases (or decreases) at the tail ends of the distribution. There's also the fact of fundamental shifts of equilibrium in bioclimatic parameters, where a state changes from one condition to a completely different one.
For each region on Earth the "ideal" temperature for the biosphere today is essentially the temperature that existed there before the Industrial Revolution. That's assuming of course that one would like to retain maximum biodiversity and human habitability for as many extant and future individuals and species as is possible. Too much warming and polar and alpine ecosystems are squeezed out of existence, and too much cooling (though that's not going to happen for a long time...) and the warm temperate and even some of the tropical ecosystems are squeezed into a corner.
Further, even if particular climatic conditions themselves are not completely removed from somewhere on the planet, the shifting of zones may not be compatible with the geology and/or diurnal/annual light regimes of the regions to which they shift. As one (anthropocentric) example of the consequences of this, there are farmers in the North American continent starting to wonder where their grandkids might be able to farm as they have done, at least on the scale that has been possible to date...
[Part II]
DeleteAnd quite aside from issues of "better" rainfall, or "better" temperatures, or "better" ocean pH, or "better" simplification of ecosystems, or "better" [other things], there's the small matter that humans are mammals, evolved to survive in a climate that is already close to the thermal physiological limits of homeotherms. This is exemplified by the fact that we evolved to be naked apes. Ramp up the thermostat a few degrees and it's not the increase in mean temperature that's the issue, it's the occasions of extremes - and when it's sufficiently extreme and the homeotherms (including us) drop off their twigs, they can't come back to life once the extreme "moment" passes.
But it's not just heat extremes that are the problem, or indeed even the main problem. To reiterate, there are many extrmemes in climate parameters to which life on the planet is vulnerable, and that vulnerability is starting to become apparent even in humans:
http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2015/12/wild-weather-report-early-december.html?showComment=1449582140431#c6024348771741556597
But if you disagree Andrew Turnbull, you have but to point to the science that supports you. And if you can't find the science that underpins the comments that I've made here, I or others here would be happy to hold your hand and wipe your bottom, if that's what you really need. Just pick a topic and let's dive in.
Hi Sou, Came here from Mark Steyn, naturally. All I can say is wow. Just wow. And I don't surprise easily, working with a guy who gave up butter to help save the world from you know what. Cheers.
ReplyDeleteJohnnyD
Yes, the Mark Steyn fan club is an eye-opener. We're not unused to seeing denier nonsense on the climate conspiracy blog WUWT but deniers don't often flock here in such numbers. For the most part they stay in a "safe" environment. It could be because Mark doesn't allow comments there that they've decided to vent here.
DeleteCheck out the HotWhoppery if you want to be really wow-ed by his fans :(.
Steyn's blog, as well as denying others the right to comment (because Freedom™ and Freedom Loving™), is an extraordinary mess of clunky, half-arsed design and blatant kitsch! Consistent with his ideas, certainly, but what's intriguing is that's also a pretty consistent feature of denial, and the lunar Right generally...
DeleteSome people need to take their pills and get off the internet. "Totalitarian world govm'nt". Confusing international treaty with world government?? The mind boggles. Where do these wing-nuts come from?
ReplyDeletePersonally I think it's gone downhill since the Congress of Vienna. We barely escaped 'world government' then and the Illuminati have been growing more powerful with every decade since.
DeleteClearly COP21 is their best opportunity yet to impose their socialist/fascist agenda on the world.
PS. Rumours of Maurice Strong's death are just a smokescreen. He is staying in the background plotting.
Here's hoping this hearing is as successful for the Republicans as the Benghazi! hearing at which Hillary testified. It'll serve them right.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately the "show" in the Hillary hearing was supposed to be her destruction which she rather strongly failed to provide even under great provocation. The "show" in the upcoming hearings is not to provoke anything or anybody but rather to give a supportive platform to a group of deniers. Less likely to blow up in their faces, I fear, though it is still possible, one could hope.
Delete
ReplyDeleteSteyn got off. I am sure that neither he nor MacLean's expected to be hauled up before the BC Human Rights Commission and end up in court.
I don't think there was the slightest intention of challenge any repressive speech laws. MacLean's, the magazine where the articles were published, just misjudged the articles impact on some sections of Canadian society.
Sorry, but I think I just tried to publish an anonymous comment. If something shows up about not thinking being with Cruz a treat since he thinks evolution is a lie, then that's from me. Not worth retyping if it doesn't show up. Sorry again.
ReplyDeleteDan, don't apologise - it's me who has to apologise. Other people have sometimes had difficulty trying to comment as well, so it's not just you. I don't know exactly what the problem is. Hopefully Google will fix it eventually.
DeleteYour point is well made, by the way.
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ReplyDeleteChuck's comment has been shifted. It can be found at the HotWhoppery Uncensored version..
DeleteSou
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteThe anatomically confused comment from Anonymous has been shifted. It can be found at the HotWhoppery Uncensored version.. I wouldn't normally bother, but "Rosie Gig" wondered why I said that the intellectual capability of Mark Steyn's readers is as low as that of WUWT.
DeleteSou
I see yet again that the denialist sector of the population is peopled by idiots too stupid to append any sort of handle with which to provide an identity of any sort, and that theire only tool of defence is puerile, vulgar offence.
DeleteIt's an immediate disqualification when one's argument against the science of climate change is schoolkid sexual innuendo. It speaks to the abject inadequacy of both the troll's ability to address the science, and of their misapprehension that ad hominem attack against a person somehow invalidates entire fields of science.
One of the few dubious benefits of the havoc that climate change will wreak is that the planet will eventually be heavily depopulated of the genetic dead-end that results in this sort of logical fallacy.
If only it could have selectively happened a few centuries earlier.
Heh, its pretty obvious that viagra is no longer working for our anonymous friend.
DeleteSou, if I understand Anon correctly, seems you've given up bacon? It's probably best for your health. Might want to cut down on beef too -- both for health and for the climate impacts.
DeleteCurry is a ratbag:
ReplyDeleteDr. Curry [responding to Dr. Denning’s post, ‘Cause and Effect‘]: Since 1998, 25% of the post-industrial CO2 has been emitted, and there has been little to no increase in global surface or atmospheric temperatures. The issue is not just sensitivity; it is the timescale of the response.
Dr. Scott Denning.: Judy, since 1998, atmospheric CO2 has increased a mere 8%, for a total forcing of about 0.4 per square meter. Temperatures have continued to rise, but as you point out the time scale to reach an equilibrium response is uncertain. It seems unwise to base estimates of climate sensitivity on such a small forcing over such a short time interval. Much more reliable estimates are available from larger changes in forcing over longer times.
Dr. Judith Curry: Scott, yes 8% of total CO2, but 25% of the total anthropogenic CO2. The main period of temperature rise is 1976-1998, a very short time also. .
Dr. Scott Denning: Judy, the whole point of the article is that expectations of future climate change are NOT based on recent temperatures! We expect a warmer future for the same reason we expect summer to be warmer than winter, or day warmer than night. We believe in the First Law of Thermodynamics. The reason we expect a warmer climate under 2x or 3x preindustrial CO2 is that we expect the added heat to change surface temperatures. Solar fluctuations of even a few tenths of a Watt per square meter seem to cause noticeable climate perturbations. At deglaciation, global temperatures warmed about 5 degrees for a 6.5 Watt per square meter change in forcing, and sea levels rose by hundreds of feet. Natural cycles prove that climate can change, has changed, and will change again if several Watts of additional heat are added to every square meter.
I suppose there are people who “believe” that the climate system can discriminate between “natural” and “anthropogenic” photons. But those people are not called “skeptics.”
Dr. Judith Curry: The issue is ‘how much’ warming. Inferences of ‘how much’ depends on climate models that don’t agree with observations, with the inference that the fast thermodynamic feedback processes are too strongly positive. .
Dr. Scott Denning: Judy, perhaps you didn’t read the article you’re commenting on? It’s not about models. It’s about physics.
- See more at: http://climatechangenationalforum.org/what-climate-scientists-are-saying-about-the-global-warming-hiatus/#sthash.xjNf6xv1.dpuf
Judith is hopeless at arithmetic. All she seems to do these days is latch onto a denier meme that she likes and regurgitates it. I don't think I've ever seen her bother to check her denialist talking points without being pushed. On rare occasions she has been forced to admit she's wrong when several people corrects her. (One correction isn't enough - like most deniers she'll ignore it.)
DeleteFrom 1998 to the beginning of 2014 (the year of the interview), CO2 increased by 8%.
Another way of looking at it is human emissions were responsible for 31% of atmospheric CO2 in 1998, and at the beginning of 2014 was responsible for 41% (an increase of 11%).
Neither way of looking at it will yield 25% of emissions from 1998 to 2014.
Her picking 1998 as the start year, the year of the big spike in temperature from the El Nino (anomaly of 0.63C), is another denier trick.
In 1997 the global mean surface temperature was 0.48C above the 1951-1980 mean, in 1999 it was 0.42C above it, in 2012 it was 0.63C above, in 2013 it was 0.65C above, 2014 it was 0.74C above and the year to date now is 0.82C above.
Scott Denning speaks science. Judith Curry just tells fibs.
Curry's first reply to Denning indicates she does not understand his point.
DeleteI see. I missed her clarifying further down that it was 25% of human emissions only. That's about right - but is disingenous because she starts her "rise in temperature" in the anomalously hot year 1998, rather than looking at the trend.
DeleteAlso because it's the change in CO2 overall that's important - it's not as if waste CO2 is going to behave any differently from the CO2 that's there because of natural processes.
There are two issues the commenting about "since 1998".
DeleteFirst, Curry should know that we can't take the instantaneous global temperature in 1998 as a point, but rather we should use the regressed-to-mean temperature over a span of decades. (I've just noticed that Sou has said essentially the same thing, but I've typed it now... ;-) ]
Second, we can't attribute the warming in the 1998-present interval as resulting from the last 25% of CO2 emitted by humans, as the retention of heat resulting from that contribution has yet to be more than partially realised. The volume of CO2 that has resulted in the warming from 1998-present (and especially around 1998...) will be a smaller volume, largely emitted earlier than the period to which she refers.
I am aghast that Curry is as sloppy about her comments as she is. Having recently spent a lot of time looking at her and her co-authors' outputs I am forced to wonder how many of her colleagues are comfortable with her current claims, and whether they would endorse them.
It's almost worth asking them. Or perhaps I might revisit her publication list to see if her collaboration half-life with her co-authors has changed since she started spouting scientific nonsense - that would be an interesting proxy for their thoughts on Curry's antics...
Second, we can't attribute the warming in the 1998-present interval as resulting from the last 25% of CO2 emitted by humans, as the retention of heat resulting from that contribution has yet to be more than partially realised. The volume of CO2 that has resulted in the warming from 1998-present (and especially around 1998...) will be a smaller volume, largely emitted earlier than the period to which she refers.
DeleteSpot on, Bernard. And, of course, Dr. Curry should know that, but she chooses to conveniently forget such things. So much wrong, you don't know where to start :-\
Metzo, it's a point that many deniers assiduously skirt, but that should be placed front and centre in any discussion. It's atrocious that Curry completely ignores such a basic thing.
DeleteStill, it's not surprising. I had a look at the comments in her thread from yesterday, discussing the senate committee testimonies, and the level of scientific rubbish that she permits to be posted with no attempt at correction at all is staggering.
Oh, I'm sure that she would argue free speech and non-repsonsibility for the comments of others and that she doesn't even get to read the comments (evidence would suggest otherwise), but the fact remains that she set up Climate Etc to be the vehicle for an "honest broker" and a conduit for scientific correctness, and she stakes her claims very much on the stance reflected by her running of the blog.
If this doesn't place an onus of responsibility on Curry to call out the scientific guff that floods her board then I doubt that anything could - and in this case she can claim no scientifically-credible high ground in the discussion.
Not sure what threat put this in, but it is definitely boggling.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.smh.com.au/environment/un-climate-conference/paris-un-climate-conference-2015-tony-abbott-was-brought-down-by-the-un-christopher-monckton-says-20151207-glhtco.html
AnotherJames
Yeah - he's nuts.
DeleteThis one will stump both biologists and creationists. Christopher claims that we have "survived 4 billion years of quite complicated and dangerous evolution...".
Adaptable creatures, we humans, aren't we.
Tony Abbott was brought down by... Tony Abbott.
DeleteBut thanks for the crazy, Monckers!...
Holy Mother of Parallel Universes!
DeleteLord Monckton said Mr Abbott was a "Mahatma – or great soul" who should rise above Australian politics and even climate change issues and devote himself to eradicating world poverty.
Priceless.
Sou, you say "This one will stump both biologists and creationists. Christopher claims that we have "survived 4 billion years of quite complicated and dangerous evolution..."."
DeleteAs a biologist, I am not stumped by it so much as find it plain wrong. One of the ideas behind evolution by natural selection is that the species that didn't adapt became extinct. But adaptable is not the same as adapted.
I think we can add does not have a clue about evolution to the Monckton charge sheet.
+1 - what struck me as odd was Christopher's strange notion that we humans have been around for 4 billion years- hence my "adaptable" comment :)
DeleteCatmando, 99+% of all species that have ever lived can't be wrong, surely?!
Delete+1 Bernard
DeleteThere was an interesting piece on peer reviews by gwpf types and on certain academic parties willing to hide the sources of their funding..
ReplyDeletehttp://energydesk.greenpeace.org/2015/12/08/exposed-academics-for-hire/
Here's a link to the YouTube of the whole Senate hearing:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KVTmo2Vxnk
The Rabett Run did a humorous blow by blow:
http://rabett.blogspot.com.au/2015/12/senate-hearing-live-blog.html
Titley points out that the greenhouse gas mechanism is "cutting edge 19th century science" :D
DeleteLOL. I like it.
DeleteRear Admiral Titley USN (ret) has a short way with nonsense and a pithy delivery to match. Eli captures the highlights well. Recommended.
DeleteI laughed at that too.
DeleteCruz seems to just parrot rubbish and present deceitful graphs from anti science bloggers like the fake 'Steve Goddard' so try hearing could have been called 'Blogma or Science?'
Next time someone tries the 'No warming for X years in the satellite data', you might want to refer them to this:
Deletehttp://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/waleed-aly-takes-on-andrew-bolt-over-climate-change-let-me-nip-this-in-the-bud-20151210-gljuj1.html
The embedded video is quite long, but look at 3min in and he pulls in Carl Mears to comment.
AnotherJames
Judith Curry seems to have a 'tell' when she's lying or obfuscating. A breathy sniff. She sniffed every time she spoke.
ReplyDeleteSteyn's 'tell' is acting like a pugnacious pouting pre-pubescent.
DeleteTo my mind, she was channeling another professor: Dolores Umbridge.
ReplyDeleteSou, this forum disappoints me, as do you.
ReplyDeleteSteyn's primary argument is about free speech, not climate change. Had he not been sued by Mann, Steyn's views about the climate would have remained of no consequence to orthodox thinkers like yourself. I am not a climate scientist, and all I know for certain about the subject is that my views will eventually turn out to be just as wrong as yours will.
But free speech is another matter, and one about which we can know the future with far more confidence. If you restrict what people may say, what they may think, on pain of prosecution or public denigration, you do humanity a greater harm than even the most appalling coal baron.
Let me offer you a short lesson on rhetoric. Assuming your intent is to win over less-well-informed people to your point of view, you're doing it wrong with your silly generalisations and characterisations regarding your opponents. Your every utterance has the opposite of your intended effect. You impress only credulous acolytes, and repel everyone else. You have something worthwhile to say? Then simply say it, rather than smearing everyone who thinks otherwise. Or thinks at all.
Paul, there is a point at which free speech has a price and that is the point at which an assertion is made that a person has performed some wrong doing. If I were to accuse you of a criminal act in a widely disseminated publication, you might seek redress since you would know it not to be true. You might ask for a retraction and an apology. You might wish to seek damages to your reputation and/or career through the courts.
DeleteWhat Mann is doing is the latter. What Steyn didn't do was admit the mistake and give the former, which he easily could have done. The case is non, repeat, not about free speech but about the truth - has Mann committed a criminal act or not? You are entitled to your opinion. You are not entitled to your own version of the truth.
Paul, I am not at all sorry to disappoint someone who'd excuse a journalist falsely accusing him of pedophilia, embezzlement and fraud on the grounds that the journalist can write whatever lies she pleases about anyone, no matter who they are, on the grounds of free speech.
DeleteI'm not at all upset that I disappoint someone who has no sense of self worth. Someone who would let his family suffer the ignominy of a ruined reputation, not defend themselves, and either go on the dole or sell his home, move to another town, change careers and give up his livelihood - rather than defend himself against false accusations.
I have no qualms about disappointing someone who wrongly thinks that free speech means they have the right to tell lies, wrongly defame, and spread false information. It doesn't. There are defamation laws for very good reason.
As for the tone of this blog - if you don't like it there are plenty of other websites on the internet these days. No-one is forcing anyone to read HotWhopper. Lots do because they like it, hate it, or are entertained or informed.
""We have to talk to them about, maybe in certain areas, closing that Internet up in some ways. Somebody will say, 'Oh freedom of speech, freedom of speech.' These are foolish people.""
DeleteSorry, Paul Martin. Not even your hero Donald Trump agrees with you that freedom of speech is that sacrosanct.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/12/11/donald-trump-wants-bill-gates-to-close-that-internet-up_n_8780686.html?ncid=fcbklnkukhpmg00000001
Trump? Trump is a populist buffoon. Whatever possessed you to draw such an irrational conclusion about my heroes? I live in Africa. My heroes are Nelson Mandela and Thuli Madonsela.
Delete" I am not a climate scientist, and all I know for certain about the subject is that my views will eventually turn out to be just as wrong as yours will."
DeleteErm, it may come as news to you but "just" has a different meaning compared to "more"...
Or perhaps it's because you are not a climate scientist, or apparently even versed in the most basic fundamentals of climate science that are accessible to even a half-intelligent lay person, that you make such a statement.
Denialists will "turn out to be" far more "wrong" that those who understand the best science. Just as flat-Earthers are more "wrong" than those who accept that the planet is an ovate sphere, and Creationists are more "wrong" than those who accept the evidence for evolution.
If you don't understand why this is so it simply indicates your serious level of ignorance.
It's entirely possible that the physics of global warming are "wrong" in the same way that relativity is "wrong", but the fact that it can be used to describe with exquisite accuracy the way the planet works as human scales of space and time renders any such putative wrongness irrelevant. On the other hand, expecting the planet not to heat catastrophically if we double the atmosphere's CO2, and double it again, is no different to expecting to sail over the edge of the ocean if one keeps a straight bearing...
This is a climate blog. Not a free speech blog. Not a place for people like you who are in fact trying to give smearing slandering frauds like Steyn freedom of speech at the cost of same freedom for scientists, Sou and me.
ReplyDeleteYou are not a climate scientist - no problem, it means you can come here to learn some facts about climate and climate change. It does not behoove you to blabber about totally different subjects and chastisting Sou with that tripe.
If you are repelled, you are welcome to haul ass. You are free to go forever. You are not obliged to post your impertinance here at all. Use that freedom, please.
Yes, thanks folks. I reckon my point has been neatly underlined by your intolerant and intemperate replies.
ReplyDeleteIt's 'impertinence' BTW, Kampo. And I have it, either way. Shame on me.
Shame on you indeed, Paul, to support lying to the general public as "free speech"; to regard people who don't tolerate defamation as being intemperately intolerant.
DeleteBTW - it's impertinent of you to not refer to someone by their name.
Tone trolling is tedious.
ReplyDelete