In the comments here: E.M.Smith (Chiefio) responded to Paul Bain and then posted it on his own site. It’s very popular (thank you Michael!)
Response to Paul Bain
Dear Paul Bain:
First off, thank you for responding.
FWIW, I am a hard core skeptic. I’m the “target” of your analysis. As such, what folks like me think ought to be particularly important to you. So a bit of history on me and climate change.
I first came to the AGW issue thinking “Gee, this looks important, I ought to learn more about it.” At the Skeptic sites (like WUWT) I had generally kind acceptance and explanation of where I had parts missing from my understanding of the “issues” about AGW and where it was “gone wrong”. At “Believer” sites (an curiously appropriate term as it has all the hallmarks of a religious belief) I would ask simple and innocent questions and largely get derision in return. Simply asking “But doesn’t CO2 have a log limit on absorption effects that we have passed?” or worse, saying “But this article (on skeptic site) seems to have a valid issue.” would bring “Attack the messenger” responses. That, for me, was the first and largest clue about which side was indulging in propaganda more than in dispassionate examination of facts and data.
So I set about a long path of “learning for myself”.
At Believer sites, I’d have a load of links shoved down my throat with, effectively, “You idiot, read all this first or shut up”… At Skeptic sites I’d get “Well, here are some links, and the net-net is that the data are lousy and the models do not predict. But check it out yourself.” Hardly something to make one feel like Believers were doing decent unbiased examination of the facts.
But I read a lot of the links anyway. Most of them were of the form “Given the assumption that AGW is real, what bad thing happens?” Many more were of the form “Assuming the theory is correct, what does our model show?” While all of that is interesting speculation, none of it is really what I’d call Science. Where are the data? The analysis? The testable hypothesis? Etc. In short, where is the SCIENCE in “Climate Science”? (In most part it really ought to be called “Climate Model Storytelling” once you get to the end of the papers.)
At the core of it all, I found the general truth that there was Agenda Driven Politics. What published papers could be bought to support a pre-designed Agenda for political change. (Only much later did I find the Agenda 21 site at the UN and found the source of The Agenda… but it was nice to find that my earlier conclusion was supported by the facts.) The more I looked at the AGW “Science” claims, the more I found flawed and politically driven papers being written “for effect” with little in the way of actual unbiased search for truth.
On the Skeptic side I found a lot of folks who had no agenda. Often, like me, they just need everything to “fit”. And that “fit” must also fit with the scientific method we learned oh so long ago. (No ‘new age’ science here. No “moral relativism” and there IS an objective reality.) So when we find things like the GHCN temperature history being continually re-written to create a warming trend, it “doesn’t fit”. History is fixed. Temperatures were recorded once, by a known person, and written down. They do not change. And a big buzzer goes off… (One of the earliest users of thermometers was Newton. Another was Galileo. Do we really think folks of that quality could not read the instruments that they, themselves, created?…)
We get folks looking at the statistical methods used and finding them badly designed and poorly used. “Broken” comes to mind. I took it on myself to look into GIStemp (as I am a computer programmer who knows FORTRAN and after saying for 6 months “someone ought to look at it” decided “I am someone”.) What I found was a nightmare of crummy code and questionable methods. A complete lack of any kind of ‘test suite’ or ‘benchmark testing’ code. A level of amateurish code and testing methodology that would have caused me to stop the product from shipping in my shops. (I have managed software production commercially including software that got 4 patents and was used in production.) Eventually that lead to examination of the GHCN data set directly where even worse issues were found.
The result from the Believer side has largely been “We are right, shut up.” Occasionally “We are right, our friends tell us so and we tell them so.”
Then ClimateGate broke. In the emails was direct evidence in their own words of exactly those faults. Producing “science for effect” and manicuring the data and code to produce ‘desired’ warming results.
Along the way, the term “Denier” was coined (as noted in the links) directly to tie Skeptics to The Holocaust” and as a political term. Please read that twice and think about it.
Now, to your response.
Your first paragraph amounts a (or reduces to a) argument that “Everyone is doing it”. So, it is OK to use the N-Word because all your friends in the KKK us it? Is it OK to use ANY insulting degrading term “because all your friends” use it? Really?
Ignorance of where a term came from, or what it’s propaganda purpose was and is, is not an excuse. It is even a worse excuse in what is supposed to be a peer reviewed or carefully objective broad science context. Is it acceptable to just plead ignorance of, say, Einstein and Relativity in a paper on physics? Just say “Oops, didn’t know that, but I’m going to keep on ignoring it anyway.”? In ANY paper on the sociology of “Denier” one would reasonably expect the very first step to be looking at where the term originated, from whom, for what purpose and to what effect.
So here’s one free clue for you: I, like others, will now use the term “Denier” from time to time for ourselves. This is EXACTLY like blacks using the N-Word with each other to blunt the effect of it. Someone outside the group uses it, it is a red flag of bigotry. Similar to an Italian calling himself a “Wop” or any of a dozen other bad terms being used inside or outside the insulted group. So WHEN you use the term Denier, and you are not a Skeptic, you are waving a large “I Am A Bigot” flag. Got it?
Keep using it, and you are saying “I am HAPPY to be waving a large I Am A Bigot flag”…
Saying “All my friends us it” is saying “I’m Happy that all my friends are waving large I Am A Bigot flags”.
Just ask yourself “When is the N-Word” acceptable and you will have a decent guide to the proper usage and context of the term, and an accessible touchstone for the sociology of the term.
Now, ask yourself this: If you wish to convince Skeptics to join the Believer side, do you think calling them “The D-Word” will be helpful?
Your second paragraph, as others have pointed out, is mostly a ‘dodge’. “We don’t care to figure out if it is real, just how to convince folks to act on it.” If it isn’t real, acting on it is incredibly stupid. At the core of the “Skeptic Problem” you face is simply that we do NOT agree that “action” is needed and never will as long as the science is dodgy, the data are mutating before our eyes, and the “science” is politically Agenda (21) driven and of the form “Given these conclusions what assumptions can we draw?”.
So dodging the issue of “truth” is to simply ignore the basic problem. Skeptics are all hung up on that truth and accuracy thing. We are not so interested in “truthyness” and “feeling good”, but in what is actually and accurately true and correct. ANY proposed “solution” that does not recognize that will fail. What I like and what I want and what makes me feel good is entirely irrelevant. My ‘belief’ or ‘skepticism’ is entirely a function of the analytical side of the brain, of hard core real science based in data and analysis. No amount of “feel good” or “peer pressure” or “desired outcomes” will have any effect. Zero. Zip. Nada. Nothing. Got it?
Your third paragraph says, in essence: “Some Believers think we have to convince them. That hasn’t worked, so maybe if we focus on other presumed ‘benefits’ of the actions we propose then they will get on board anyway.” See my last paragraph.
But it is even worse than that. The Agenda 21 stuff comes directly from efforts by The Club Of Rome to foster panic and fear about “running out” as a means of social control. They have been at this for at least since the ’70s (when I studied “The Limits To Growth” by Meadows et. al. Yes, studied. I had an entire 3 unit class at University focused just on that book, promoted by The Club Of Rome). They have now updated The Big Scare (since Limits predicted Doom In Our Time for the ’80s and ’90s and those have, well, kind of passed by without incident…) to be the AGW Scare (and with ongoing ‘resource shortage’ scare sprinkled in for effect). Now I’ve devoted several years of my life to looking at resource issues. The bottom line is, we are not running out, we never run out, and the Big Scare is a political tool.
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2010/08/08/everything-from-mud/
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/05/08/there-is-no-shortage-of-stuff/
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/03/20/there-is-no-energy-shortage/
So, you see, attempting to convince me that we need to destroy Western Industrial Economies to support a political agenda that is based on misdirection and error is not going to be a very productive path either.
Make no mistake about it. Cutting CO2 emissions to 1990 levels means little things like no iron production (coal is used a coke in reducing iron ore from the oxide, and putting out CO2 in the process), no steel (that depends on iron), no aluminum (that uses massive amounts of electricity of a sort not available from solar panels. It needs cheap and concentrated electricy, not expensive and diffuse.) It means no shipping of goods by trucks, ships, or airplanes. (You can make a marginal electric car, but not an effective electric truck or ship. They need energy dense fuels.) It also means a dramatic reduction in food production and the attendant deaths. (Modern agriculture largely turns fossil carbon sources into fertilizers, ploughing and harvesting, and processing and delivery. It is not possible to change that and produce the food needed by the world). BTW, my degree is in Economics and from an Ag School in Ag country. I’ve helped raise cows, grow corn, pick fruit and nuts. This isn’t a hypothetical.
So while the Believers have what looks like a “Fuzzy Bunnies and Fluffy Slippers” view of the economy, where it’s always simple, easy, and has no consequences to do things like substitute solar cells for nuclear and coal; ask the engineers and farmers who have to make it work. Ask the business owners who have to make a profit to keep folks employed and fed. They can tell you that it isn’t all Fluffy Bunnies and Fuzzy Slippers…. It’s hard work, often just barely worth it at the margins.
That means that your “maybe we can convince them it’s just a good idea anyway, even if it’s wrong.” approach is going to run headlong into reality. The only question, really, is “Before or after the economic collapse is realized in the economy?” That is going to be a very hard sell. Especially to folks trained and experienced in avoiding The Bums Rush and The Fairy Tale Story and Yet Another Bright Idea That Implodes. In essence, the Skeptics tend to come from the group that is expected to make things work, and they can see that the proposed “solutions” just don’t work.
A specific note on oil:
The Peak Oil Theory is just that, a theory. Right now oil prices are in freefall as supply is well ahead of demand. Even IF Peak Oil is true, it’s a bell curve. We’ve taken 200 years to get here, so even if this IS the peak (and that is very much not demonstrated, what with Brazil finding more oil faster than they can produce it and with at least a Trillion Barrels in shale oil in the USA coming into production) but even if this IS the peak, it will take 200 years to slide down the backside of the bell curve. So given that we have a few hundred years of coal, and at least 200 years to the last of the oil, exactly what is the urgency, what is the “emergency” right NOW to do anything, if not AGW and manufactured panic?
Read all of Chiefio’s thoughts on peak oil at his site….
Now think about that.
You want to sell me a “bill of goods” that has destruction of electric generation while my transportation is made dependent on electric generation. You want my electric costs to rise from 10 cents / kW-hr to 50 cents kW-hr at the same time. You want me to buy a new $50,000 to $100,000 e-car instead of a $30,000 gas car (or just keeping my old Mercedes Diesel running at about $2000 / year) and you want all of us to do all this buying inside 5 years.
Can you see how “nutty” that is? (If you can’t; I strongly suggest some time spent with an engineer who can ‘do the math’ for you and perhaps a business major who can show you the costs). By putting Coal and Natural Gas ‘off limits’ you assure that there can be no effective conversion away from OPEC oil. Not now. Not in a decade. Not in my lifetime.
So, in summary: Social POV, meet Engineering Mindset and Reality Constraints.
Want to convince me? Then show an Engineering solution that makes business sense.
Until then, the Fluffy Bunnies live in the back yard… (Which reminds me, I need to go check their feed and water… I really do have bunnies…)
Source: http://chiefio.wordpress.com/
Outstandingly put!!! I’ve said it before on this forum and I’m sure I’ll say it again.
ANYONE that is a proponent of the CAGW scare fits into one of three possible categories.
1. Stupid – they are not smart enough to differentiate between evidentiary truth and unsubstantiated supposition.
2. Willfully ignorant – they are smart enough, but can’t be bothered investigating to see if what they believe is actually based in fact.
3. Complicit – They know what they are doing, they know the evidence doesn’t exist and they know that they are perpetuating a lie. These are the worst.
There are no other choices that I know!!
Of the trolls on here I would catagorise Maxine as a 1 or 2, Mattb as a 2 or 3 and John Brookes as a 1!!
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4. They have: “I’m a hero, because I’m trying to save the planet, or I’m supporting others that are trying to” syndrome
5. They have fun scaring people
I’d say most alarmists I’ve seen/heard fit criterion 4, although they probably also fit criteria 1 and 2.
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Unworthy and uncharitable. There are advocates who are merely ignorant and uninformed- not willfully ignorant, just not blessed with a working bullshit filter because education systems don’t value independent enquiry.
Help them, don’t abuse them.
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There is a level of ignorance when combined with a sufficiency of OBVIOUS evidence that equals evasion of the facts of reality. I am totally unwilling to be charitable toward anyone who fits that criterion. It cannot be innocent ignorance. When combined with the demand that mankind give up all those things that make modern technological civilization and man’s life possible, it is not only not innocent, it is willfully evil! They are beyond help and if they are going to recover from their evil, they will have to do the work for themselves.
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The irony is there is a strong link between the Green ideology and totalitarian movements including Nazism.
Indeed the quality of misanthropy from the pro-AGW believers is very pronounced in the ‘debate’ about AGW.
No doubt there are some well meaning people who support AGW even though I have not personally come across any of them; Paul Bain may well be one of them but after seeing the ACTUAL damage caused by AGW believers and realising the potential damge yet to come I am no longer willing to be charitable towards these folk; I think all of them, including the best of AGW supporters can be summed up by this.
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I have already given thanks to Chiefio (EMS) for his efforts and his thoughts.
I like the comment at the end about asking an engineer but make sure it is a professional engineer who complies with a code of ethics (ie firstly knows and understands what he/she is talking about,secondly does not deride other professional engineers who may have different interpretations of difficult technical issues and finally are active in continuous learning- there is always something new such as string theory in physics, the forces generating gravity etc)
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I would say that the active participants in the AGW scare come from that (increasingly large) group of people who can only make themselves feel good by telling other people what to do, and controlling their behaviour.
Given that, what better way to feel good than to construct a planetary emergency (literally out of thin air) to act as a justification for your lifelong vanity project?
That’s why Rio+20 has simply swapped planetary emergencies (global warming -> sustainability), while the slogan (“We must act now!”) remains the same.
The real planetary emergency is how this immature and narcissistic mindset now dominates the power levers in Western countries, and hence is being actively encouraged to flourish in all parts of our societies, not least in the educational system.
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This is a great summary – so much so that I just can’t understand that the believers still don’t get it (though if it was me, I wouldn’t have written that statement that goods can’t be transported by ship without high density fuels – mankind has done exactly that for thousands of years…)
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This to me is logical:-
Believers should be asked to explain why a Coolgardie Safe keeps foodstuffs cool.
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Absabloodylutely! The latent heat of vapourisation is sufficient to reduce the temperature of many times the amount of evaporating water by several degrees. I just do not understand why the warmista’s do not see the gaping hole in their logic and quantitative analysis. And then there is the small matter that evaporation, updrafts, cloud formation ( re-releasing of that latent heat) at high altitude provides a physical conduit for heat radiation back out into space from above the greenhouse layer.
That said, I have read Paul Bain’s various replies ( here , at WUWT and Judith Curry) and he has been polite and apologetic at all times. I emailed him directly and we had a brief and respectful exchange so I accept that he realizes he and his team made a real error of judgement. Remember he works in academia where as you might expect the warmista’s are thick on the ground and the ‘d’ word bandied about like the ‘n’ word at a KKK rally. I think he saw an opportunity for his school to get research funding and took it without fully realising just how polarised and vitriolic the debate really is and without having earned his dues. That someone from a NYC, LA or Washington ‘hood’ might use the ‘n’ word would not give any licence for a young, hip but naive fair skinned person to throw it about thinking it was just part of normal patois. I think Paul et al made much the same mistake. I do not think they really understood how much venom the likes of John Cook (also from Uni of Qld) puts into his ‘contribution’ to the ‘debate’.
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Simple really, they aren’t looking. One need not construct any more elaborate an explanation than the simple fact that they are not looking because they do not want to know. The answers were given them from on high which is sufficient. Blind acceptance requires no thought, no effort, no scrutiny. If they took a closer look, with their eyes open this time, they might not find the answer they want. Facts have never had anything to do with it.
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Actually that is not quite correct. There is not much liquid water during the daytime in the desert because it has all been vaporised by the heat of the sun.
But at night, the temperature in most deserts drops dramatically and, if you know the techniques, you can condense sufficient water vapour from the air to give enough liquid water to last you for the next 24 hours.
So during the day there is water vapour in the atmosphere. The question is, is the temperature differential between the water vapour and the desert surface sufficient for it to act as as a greenhouse gas?
I don’t believe it is, but I lack the maths to prove it one way or the other.
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theres no GH effect…………………………..
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because that ain’t no darn roof !! 😉
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Yeah, those climate “scientists” are so dumb! They never thought about this one! It really is amazing that people who are otherwise pretty bright can overlook the most obvious of flaws in their pet theories.
What, of course, is unforgivable is that their peers know that these flaws are there, and they choose to pass the flawed papers for publication, and then howl down (thanks RCE Tosspot) anyone who dares to point out the truth.
When science has descended to such depths, it is time for an all out assault on the castle by the common man, who may not know much, but he knows when he’s being lied to!
(There, I tried it, and its quite fun…)
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How I miss those thumbs down -.-
But maybe further lecture can help you:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/06/22/a-response-to-dr-paul-bains-use-of-denier-in-scientific-literature/
http://judithcurry.com/2012/06/22/science-held-hostage-in-climate-debate/
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That’s a helluva response. Well said Chiefio.
On a very simple level, climate alarmism is all about making dire predictions of what’ll happen in the future. The bijou problemette they’re increasingly having, is that the predictions are simply failing to materialise.
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2012/06/15/our-secret-weapon/
Pointman
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No Pointman they are not quite at the “What’ll Happen” stage just yet.
They are still working through the “could,might and maybe” stages. 🙂
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The more this scam drags on the more I am convinced that the frauds perpetuating the lie never considered that others might actually question them. For many years most of us thought “they are scientists and they know what they are doing”. It’s relatively recently when their smuggness allowed them to promote an Al Gore that folk started seeing flaws in their propositions. And in the last few years nature failed to perform as predicted and many more became sceptical. Now the wheels are really falling off and the fraudsters can’t come to grips with their failure. Some of them have spent their entire professional life convincing themselves and others they were right and now they are starting to realise they were wrong all along. What a blow to one’s ego; twenty years wasted and one’s reputation so thoroughly trashed that early retirement is the only choice. or pumping gas at the local servo.
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But that would mean working for Big Oil – oh the Horror – the horror…..
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I agree Pointman, another peerage for you old son!
This whole scam is based on something that is not happening…
…the polar bears are alive!
…north pole is still there.
…temp is not increasing.
…there is no hot spot (besides my wife`s knickers) heh heh…
I believe it is only a matter of months before this comes falling down in a european flame of discourse bent on debt and guilt.
What will the Red Dalek say then?
Will she even be there?
We have approx. 7 days till D-Day….
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M’lud Edmund, your patronage knows no bounds. I think we can add Rio+20 to the not happening list …
Pointy (soon to be Sir Pointy of Walawoora)
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Whats Rio?
What about Black Caviar?
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I think Chiefio has delivered a classic synopsis.
Nuf said.
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Let Paul Bain answer that – if he can! But, like so many warmists, he will probably ignore it, so smug and self-assured are they.
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Murray, I do not believe Paul Bain is a true ‘warmist’ and I accept he made an error of judgement re the use of the ‘d’ word. See my post in reply to Kevin Moore above. He has apologised at WUWT and Judith Curry as well so I think it appropriate to return to a more respectful posture regarding him. If he has seen the light he may become a quiet voice in academia counselling against the warmista extremists.
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We have seen what he considers an apology. Very few consider it anything more than a “sorry I upset you, but I’m going to keep doing it anyway” type of response.
In other words, while you and he may consider it an apology, there are more who don’t. As such until he demonstrates he actually means anything he claims by doing something such as removing the offensive word from his paper etc. he does not deserve a “more respectful posture.”
Respect must be earned by actions, his actions thus far have earned him none.
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I plan to spread this widely… Chiefio ought to be one of the top four (make that, Five!) well-read Skeptics (many may disagree, but I believe those to be McIntyre, Nova, Watts and… Ok, so what is TallBloke’s name again?)
In regards to OverseasInsider, an alternate for #1: Infantile. That’s the kind of response I get from trolls. Cue brooksie!
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Sorry Otter.
I have just heard on the grapevine…
Brooksie was last seen at Rio 20+ chatting up a girl with a large adams apple….
Hmmmmmm….:)
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See my comment above. Don’t really know what to make of all this. Mainly just wait and see who turns out to be right. Most “skeptics” predict cooling in the near future. Lets see how it turns out.
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Mr Brookes, Some of the comments I have seen coming from you suggest an inanity that is far from normal. Your sceptisism of real science that portrays AGW as a fraud and is proving to be more real than the AGW non sense must be a real worry to you.
Your sarcasm is showing, this interglacial we currently enjoy is the coldest of the last few and the temperature record from the proxies indicates that we are at the end of it.
One glance at the ice core records shows how quickly we can plunge into a glacial period, warming is a bonus at this time and the CO2 PPM may not be high enough in a new glacial period and may fall below the limits of plant and animal survival. 600 to 1000PPm at this time would be a target for good survival.
I would like my descendants to survive, how about you.
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Jo, this is awesome.
May I add, that in addition to calling us the D word, they also are hijacking the S word, and claiming to be the “consensus of Scientists”, thus according to them anybody who does not “believe” is not a scientist.
Well, I suppose, if they can “believe” in AGW, they can also believe and claim that they are “scientists”, when in fact they are priests of the new religion.
Obviously, substitution of the term is willfully done to achieve the greater aim, where the end justifies the means.
Stuff of utmost horror such as GULAG and Auschwitz have the very same roots, where idealists at the top inspire masses using gigantic lies (but that is ok because their aim is worth it), and reality is raped to look like it is conforming with their sick views.
That is why I find the AGW movement really very scary. Most of Europe in the very recent past spent following one mad bloody theory after another, sometimes a few at the same time, sacrificing tens of million of their own lives to achieve their dreams (and in China scores are 10 times that). Arrogance of the AGW movement shows that they have not learned, and ready for more sacrifice…
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I just did the maths for somebody on Facebook singing the praises of algae for CCS.
The relevant parts of the conversation from a public group on Facebook
Have we real a denier? 😉
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Should close:
P.S.: Jo, While in proof-reading mode, I noticed that “i” comes before “e”, even in Chiefio.
[Fixed them! Thanks] ED
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Bernd, What amazes me is that Mr Facer doesn’t think that there are any Gigawatt power stations in Australia. I live in Central Queensland and there are three stations producing between 1.4 and 2.0 Gigawatts each within 100 klm of me. This would put him squarely in either the stupid or wilfully ignorant class.
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And therein lies the rub.
Just counting coal fired power alone, there are 13 plants of 1GW Nameplate or greater.
Then try and explain about the CO2 emissions from them.
I’ve lost count of the number of looks of absolute incredulous disbelief when I mention the emissions from an average large scale coal fired power plant.
Mention that a plant of (on average) 2000MW (2GW) burns around 6.5 Million tons of coal a year and emits close on 18/19 million tons of CO2, and the response I get is usually derision, or told outright that’s not true.
People will just NOT believe how much CO2 is emitted.
Tony.
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I will Tony! If you have a plant burning 6.5 million tonnes a year (sorry, I’ve gone metric), that turns out to be 200kg every second, or 740 tonnes per hour.
Rather incredible things, power stations.
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The data sheet cited by Marc Facer (as “proof that algal CCS can scale) says that the Tarong power station has a 1400 MW gross generating capacity. Perhaps he thinks that that’s less than a gigawatt.
Even when you do the arithmetic for some, they still question the results. And as you may have observed, ask where you got the numbers; which they provided.
I’m not surprised by the unwillingness to do the arithmetic. Far too many can’t because they are functionally innumerate. They never learnt or felt the need to understand how to tackle such challenges. They are flummoxed by the simplest numerical challenge as if the numerical value had no physical simile.
If you do the arithmetic for them, they’re bedazzled as if by a magic act.
The inability to do even the simplest, ad hoc arithmetic seems to me to encompass more than half of the adult population in Australia aged between 25 and 50 years. And I reckon that probably 80% couldn’t solve an ad hoc problem that can be represented by 2 simultaneous, linear equations.
Please don’t ask me about the other 30%. 🙂
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Thanks for the discussion, Bernd. As a newly repurposed CCS engineer of 4 years ago, I was responsible for examining all of the algae/CO2 capture schemes that wound their way into our utility. I soon came to realize that there was no way algae could practically remove the CO2 output of even one medium large boiler. And it doesn’t work when it’s dark! When I brought that up, people said, “Just put lights on the algae.” Oops, what does that take? Electricity. Round and round we go.
And Tony, I found a way to characterize the amount of CO2 coming from a power plant in this way: it is twice as much weight going out as coal coming into the plant. Think of all the infrastructure we have getting coal into the plant and then just double that to take out the CO2, just ignore the fact that it will have to be removed in a supercritical pipeline that costs over $1 million/mile to build.
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too F@$#%ing right.
Time for a few more engineers to be in charge of things.
That’ll reduce the bullshit.
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Yes indeed! Engineering: where science meets reality.
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Whats the bottom line? get RID of his criminal CO2 TAX………………….HOW..cultural revolution?
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This has got to be the best, most concise explanation of the skeptics point of view I have ever read.
I don’t believe my view (The denier view) can be better stated!
Hooray for Jo!
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Extremely well said. My hat is off to E. M. Smith.
Mark H.
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Well said E.M.Smith
I eagerly await the next installment….
…The end of Consensus!
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I have over the years read many articles by this very articulate, level-headed, and logical man on his blog. (chiefio.wordpress.com) But this is a true tour-de-force of the many arguments against the so-called green agenda.
Well said E.M.
When science and logic are not only properly applied but seen to be correctly applied in the climate change debate, then rational decisions will be made. Until then it’s all smoke and mirrors.
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Pure Pwnage!
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Great, just great.
I wish I had the skills to word it this way.
Unfortunately, they will not read it or understand it.
Harry
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‘No amount of “feel good” or “peer pressure” or “desired outcomes” will have any effect. Zero. Zip. Nada. Nothing. Got it?’
just love it.
Harry
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In 1986 I planted my first 20 hectares of trees on ground which was no longer able to sustain farming. At the time I was told by the Department of Conservation and Land Management that the most appropriate tree to plant was Radiata Pines. Since then I have added many more hectares of native Australian Blue Gums because I learnt for myself that they are much better for the environment, and the soil, and I have used a salt tolerant variety in an attempt to reduce soil salinity and lower the water table.
The trees were planted leaving strips of natural vegetation between intensive plantation blocks. Native flora and fauna has returned to the area.
I did this in an effort to combine conservation and environmental ambitions with long term investment to produce saleable timber. A system now called sustainable timber production. Perhaps I believed in sustainability even before the UN invented it?
In 1991 I made my first investment of seed capital into a technology company which was developing DC power storage systems, solar power generating plants (with diesel generator back-up) for remote communities and defence, and wind turbines. This is called ‘green energy’ now. I continued feeding capital into this venture which won various Government and Industry awards, and made some successful installations in the Asia Pacific area and in remote Australian communities.
After various periods of mergers, and dropping the far too expensive wind power generation altogether (as there was no government money for that), the company itself was still not financially sustainable. Some technology and rights were sold to a Chinese company by the administrators to pay out secured creditors leaving unsecured creditors and shareholders like me with nothing by 2007.
I believed that one day we would need to find an option to fossil fuels and I believed in renewable energy. That is why I invested in this area. I knew it was risky and so I wasn’t bitter about losing money but it was my money to risk and lose, and no-one made me do it.
In the early 1990’s I became involved with The Orangutan Project which is involved in the rescue, raising and when possible release of Orangutans in Borneo and Sumatra, and also with the protection and reforestation of Orangutan habitat.
Since the late 1990’s I have been a contributor to Rainforest Rescue which has been involved in a number of reafforestation projects in NSW and Queensland and most recently has been purchasing vast tracts of native rain forest in the Daintree to protect it forever, and has also been involved in similar projects with like minded organisations with South American rainforest areas.
I am involved in these projects because I believe in the protection of species and biodiversity and the protection of natural habitats where possible, but I realise this cannot be done without cost, either to put aside land, to purchase land from existing owners or to compensate those who currently make their living from the land and/or to find them alternative means of living.
So knowing this background about myself, people may have described me as a conservationist, a ‘greenie’ and someone who believes in the future of renewable energy. I was fortunate of course to have the resources to put my money where my mouth was and back up my convictions in these areas.
The problem with Bain and others like is that he believes most sceptics are ideologically motivated and do not want to take action to ‘save the planet’ because they are simply anti-left wing.
He thinks that instead of telling us we need to reduce ‘harmful’ CO2 emissions it would be better to treat us like children who can’t really understand the ‘real’ reason for doing something. Instead, frame the activity in a different way to encourage us to be good. In other-words, treat us like idiots while still claiming among themselves that human CO2 emissions is responsible for causing dangerous climate change.
Bain assumes sceptics do not already take action which benefits the environment just because we believe it’s the right thing to do. The fact is, most sceptics I know are quite environmentally responsible, they just aren’t hypocrites.
The problem sceptics have is with being told we need to do things to reduce CO2 emissions because CO2 is causing dangerous climate change without providing the evidence. It has nothing to do with ideology!
What is ironic is that Bain and his ilk don’t consider the possibility that it is the ‘believers’ who are the ideologically blinded ones. They simply accept climate alarmism because it fits their left-wing ideology of man is bad, development is bad, Government should control everything!
Bain’s reply claiming he wasn’t really taking ‘sides’ in the debate lacks credibility. He really does think sceptics are idiots!
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Dr Bain deserves praise for attempting to engage here. He didn’t stick around, I notice.
Dr Bain cites with approval a feature in the NY Times narrating how activists essentially “trick” Kansans and Christians into accepting “green” policies.
He suggests that’s the point. Even if you don’t agree there is a problem, you SHOULD agree on spending your time and money doing things that MIGHT address the problem, anyway.
Let me suggest that should be a two-way street; and if activists truly want cooperation, if not agreement, on solutions to the problem they describe there are some simple things they should be doing, “anyway”.
Stop flying to Rio or Copenhagen or other resort. Hold your conferences via the web.
Stop demonizing people like Patrick Moore; (a Greenpeace founder) who propose solutions such as
genetically modified crops (better nutrition “anyway” as well as drought or temperature resistant) and nuclear power.
Help beat swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks by allowing nuclear weapons to be decommissioned and the fissile material repurposed. Recycling plutonium and uranium makes at least as much sense as recycling steel and aluminum. Allow the technology to solve this real problem, “anyway” and maybe some fossil fuel electrical power plants can be replaced by fissile fuel powered plants.
Agitate for the opening of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. We have waste, from hospitals, old power plants, old weapon systems, and industrial equipment. It needs to be disposed of, “anyway”. Making a safe solution available to those wastes also allows a fossil to fissile fuel conversion later this century.
Note that the biggest nuclear accidents in history have all occurred at OLD plants — TMI, Chernobyl, now in Japan. Allow new, safer, plants to be built to take the old plants down, recycle the fuels, and dispose of the wastes. This needs to happen “anyway” whether the climate is warming or not. Support it.
The coal mining industry is arguably the most dangerous to its workforce of any large scale operation in the world. But the technology of digging caverns a mile underground has not advanced in half a century. New technology, and wider deployment of known, safer, technology, would save lives — and make coal more expensive. We should save lives, “anyway”, and this increased cost of coal would go to deserving workers rather than commodity traders (and scam artists) in financial centers. If you support workers’ rights, workers’ safety, and oppose profiteering among financial speculators, you should do this “anyway.” Why do you not?
For over a century we have harvested where we have not sown, and gathered what we have not winnowed. Now we are able to put iron, phosphorus, and other minerals BACK into the oceans, promote plankton growth, and rebuild the fisheries and whale pods that were raided in our past. Incidentally this re-fertilization effort would pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. But we should be repaying our debt to the ocean, “anyway.” Why are such mitigation efforts opposed?
I could go on for a week.
Dr Bain says skeptics should join the hockey team in pursuit of their policies, whether we believe in their version of science, or not.
Uhm, sir, with all due respect: no.
I, and many like me, will do what we have to do, anyway, without necessarily dragging you, the UN, or multinational corporations into it. Just, if you please, keep out of the way.
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pouncer
Bankers are the people who hate manual labour and collect the winnowed harvest simply by sitting on their arse playing with numbers called dollars on a computer screen. They have the ignorant world enslaved through their lending of this make believe money at compound interest. Such interest ensures that the loan is a non repayable debt as only the principal is issued into existence.
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Okay, so you despise bankers. Fair enough. I don’t agree, but I understand.
Join me in making mine workers’ safety a priority? Raise the price of carbon — not via taxation which benefits politicians with power of waivers and favorss; not with the cap-and-trade scheme that enriches the bankers and speculators — but making the process of extracting that fuel safer?
Or would you shut down the mines entirely, and put the workers out of their jobs?
Here’s another thought. About 1/3rd of energy usage is simply heating homes and offices. About half of that use is electrical (resistive and “heat pump” compressiv). And the majority of coal mined is used to make electricity.
If the coal could be converted to liquid or gas fuels, and that fuel combusted on site to make the heat desired to keep our homes and offices livable, the amount of coal actually used could be reduced. Do the math yourself, but anywhere from 1/10th to 1/5th of the coal usage could be elimated by coal gas-or-liquification.
So coal converssion is a “green” technology. Join me in efforts to make it happen? Or do you insist on your bird-choppers, desert-pavers, and river-flooders (windmills, solar arrays, and hydro-electric dams)?
Either way, of course, we’ll be dealing with banks and bankers to get the financing to make the technology — yours or mine — happen. Sorry about that.
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Pouncer, wish I could give you the ‘Thumbs up’ but as you probably know it’s not working. Very well put!
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Very well stated.
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Jaymez,
You should get thumbs up yourself for taking the effort to lay out what so many of us really do believe. You’ve stated my sentiment exactly as I quoted from your post at #22.
The voice of wisdom has become the object of scorn and derision. We must work to change that. I’m angry about it and I suspect many readers here are angry as well. We must become more politically savvy and start to work against them with the truth.
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Elegantly articulated by Chiefio – thank you Jo. Required reading in all schools henceforward.
Why do elected politicians collectively demonstrate such profound reluctance to engage in meaningful discussion or to read around the issue and develop a basic understanding of the science? I realise that they may sense that no amount of science can derail belief, but they rarely appear to even try. Why is this?
Well articulated perspectives based on sound science are compelling.
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I came to the debate in much the same way. I was previously employed in a fix it role and one of my nick names was the fixer, some people asked me to look at it.
Previously, basically I sat down and looked at the issue as an issue, wrote down questions that could be tested in real quantifiable terms and got the client to identify the problems and then of course solution/s no matter how unpalatable were present.
I looked at the graphs and asked questions, this was a non believers blog by the way. People were courteous and even as dumb as my question/s were people courteously supplied me with answers (courteous in blog terms). What helped me as a BASC Maths I had met these eco stat models before seen them misused before.
Oh and by the way, name calling and emotion was always present in my previous profession, which has a name high risk reconstruction using strategic action planning and plain language face to face were the tools.
Needless to say the first thing I saw was non linear increase ie a plateau from 1998 and the second thing global warming in the physical temperature record was a northern hemisphere mostly US thing.
People like Watts and the M&Ms will likely be remarked in history on this issue with great science people on the science method protection like galileo and former people
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Actually there are so many that go unremarked among us.
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[…] June 22, 2012 § Leave a Comment We get folks looking at the statistical methods used and finding them badly designed and poorly used. “Broken” comes to mind. I took it on myself to look into GIStemp (as I am a computer programmer who knows FORTRAN and after saying for 6 months “someone ought to look at it” decided “I am someone”.) What I found was a nightmare of crummy code and questionable methods. A complete lack of any kind of ‘test suite’ or ‘benchmark testing’ code. A level of amateurish code and testing methodology that would have caused me to stop the product from shipping in my shops. (I have managed software production commercially including software that got 4 patents and was used in production.) Eventually that lead to examination of the GHCN data set directly where even worse issues were found. chiefio at jo nova’s […]
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Slightly O/T (mods: erase if too far off-topic):
There is another response at WUWT to Bain; even E. M. Smith weighed in on the newer post at Anthony’s site.
Mark H.
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Why don’t the thumbs work?
By the way, they were disfunctional before the big move. It just got worse. Internet Explorer has been giving me, Errors on page,” as well.
🙂
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Very late on Thursday night I wrote a 950 word response to Mr Bain’s reply to Jo’s article. I spent probably 3 hours writing it. At nearly 2am Friday morning I was about to click the Post Comment button and then decided to hold off on it. I wanted to sleep on it to see if it was a wise move. Don’t write when you’re angry, as they say. Was I going over-the-top? Was it too nasty? Was it too long and boring? Would anyone notice?
Chiefio’s wide-ranging reply weighs in at 2448 words and got put on a pedestal, so I’m certainly not going over par on word count and since responses to Bain & Co seem to be the flavour of the week, I figure there’s room on the Internet for this response too. Rather than a general skeptic summary it is quite specific about Mr Bain’s text. Without further ado…
Bain Climatic Sociology.txt 6.6KB Fri 22 Jun 2012 01:48:53 EST— — — -8<– — — -8<– — — —
Mr Bain,
There are a few junctions in your thought train's track that I feel have thrown you off the path to Enlightenment Station.
Perhaps, but not here in Australia if RMIT’s humanities journal database is any indication. A search for “Climate change OR global warming” in article Abstracts after 1990 shows 546 hits. A search over the same period for “(climate OR warming) AND (denier OR denial)” gets only 4 matches, all after 2007. (Including the Australian Rationalist, no less.) Even an article about the political effect of Ian Plimer’s first climate book did not use the word “denier” in its summary.
I understand sociologists are under pressure to be poor at statistics so that the rare and marginal phenomena they study can be claimed to be of great significance when low relative risk ratios are the norm, so I will assist you in calculating the percentage of that last survey figure. The word “denier” and its synonym appears in less than 1% of the Australian humanities abstracts about global warming published since the IPCC’s first assessment report.
On that evidence I infer that the term “denier” has no de facto acceptance or respectability in connection with climate change.
That’s easy, Mr Bain; a non-interventionist policy.
You assumed that government would put policies in place, but did not question whether Government should put any policies in place, nor whether there was in reality any problem to be solved by the Government or the free market or anyone else.
Perhaps the worst charge that can be levelled here is merely that which befalls many academics – solving a contrived problem in studied ignorance of the problem’s practical irrelevance; assuming unnecessary constraints just to make the problem more intellectually interesting.
Yet, really, what sense is there in assuming a policy will be put in place when you do not assume it will be the actual policy that has already been put in place, and which will arrive in your letter box after July 1 in the form of a higher electricity bill? If you will not contradict the government’s actual policy then why assume an optimal policy is yet to be bargained? If the policy is already socially optimal, what problem is there yet to solve? The whole endeavour is nonsensical.
There are no contradictions in reality.
When you understand why, you will know why you should direct your humanitarian analytical skills towards describing how belief in a man-made global warming disaster is maintained in spite of it being unsupported by evidence. Much has been written about the origin and evolution of folklore, urban legends, and the like. I encourage you to look at the global warming legend through those same coloured glasses and you will surely find the hue of the thing hardly changes.
Oh I heartily agree.
You surely know already that this conclusion is acceptable to skeptics for a reason exactly the opposite to the warmist case. The tangible cost of “climate action” policies exacerbates social stratification with ineffectual policies such as Australia’s, and with effective policies would nearly crush the health-generating core of today’s civilisation. The CO2 emission traders and the government’s creditors would be the only beneficiaries. These predictable results betray the true intent of the policies, which therefore have nothing to do with the climate nor even the environment generally. To switch targets (to peak oil or ocean acidification) so as to claim there is some other excuse for exactly the same policy only compounds the evidence that neither the original aim nor the substitutes are the true agenda.
You might also like to have a think about why these debates about the reality of CAGW are so intractable. Is it because the public are too lazy and ignorant to think about the climate facts properly? Is it because too many intelligentsia with perfectly good brains in their heads choose to remove reality from the debate?
Your chums may well already be helping to disprove a statement by one of the most famous CAGW “deniers” who does not shy away from the term “denier”, Richard Lindzen. In a phone interview for a Canadian radio station last year he once stated [at 40 minute mark] that it was quite amazing that none of the sociology majors will dare touch the subject of how cohorts of like-minded believers collectively keep the global warming disaster meme alive.
Perhaps you can mention that to John Cook next time you bump into him down at Wordsmith’s. Rubbing shoulders with the international warmist glitterati AND removing reality from what is claimed to be a real problem AND disproving Lindzen at the same time. You’re doing great things for The Cause. The Team will be mightily impressed.
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[…] post on the subject and E. M Smith responds to Bain in a very nice, straightforward […]
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The most confusing part of this discussion (argument) is that top prevent/reduce “Global Warming” we must stop using energy that produces CO2, and to that end we must use Wind and/or solar and Electric cars. Well, it does not take a genius to determine that Natural gas still produces 60% of the CO2 as a coal fired power plant. That, Wind and Solar are unreliable and MUST be backed up with power produced at a power plant. That it will be generations before wind or solar is cheaper (with no government subsidies) than coal, gas or nuclear. So why on earth when Nuclear can provide power for the next 100 generations and produce less CO2 per kWh than even wind are we not building nuclear power plants instead of wind/solar generators? There is only one logical conclusion – AGW IS A SCAM. Why do we need “80% Renewable Energy” when we can have 100% Nuclear?
I have been looking into the use of solar or wind since 1960. The reasons I am still looking into it is that it STILL has the same problems it did in 1960, – unreliable, expensive, high-maintenance, not ready for prime-time yet. But they always say that in 5-10 more years with more government help it will be more efficient, cheaper, better, etc. so I have waited for this “better” system. Here is a web site by a college professor in a prime solar area and his experience. http://www.csudh.edu/oliver/smt310-handouts/solarpan/solarpan.htm Would you want this on your roof? If you live north of Washington DC (or comparable lat. in Australia) you only get 75% of the energy he is getting and have to deal with scrapping off the snow in the winter. Can you climb up on your roof and clean the panels? How many will fall off? How much to pay to have it cleaned? How much are the maintenance costs (More than for your furnace/air conditioner combined I would bet.) At those latitudes it would never pay for itself! It sure would make the salesmen rich though.
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