Picasso-Brain-Strikes-the-Climate-Debate: Can’t think. Can’t reason.
Stephan Lewandowsky’s ABC article on climate change was headlined “Opinion Versus Evidence“. Then with dead-pan delivery, he lists the “evidence” but it’s all … opinions.
The question of “delusion” is looming. I mean really, is this a cry for help? There are not many laws of reason that Stephan leaves unbroken. He appeals to authority, attacks the “man”, and talks about everything bar the evidence on climate change. Is he serious? “Trust me” he says, the world is warming because AIDS is real, mass-murderer Ivan Milat was guilty, Lord Monckton is only a non-voting member of the House of Lords, a few skeptics are burko, 97% of paid climate scientists agree that we ought to be worried and keep paying them, and someone has discussed the actual money that climate scientists earn (how could they) and to top it off, the IPCC report is 3000 pages long (!).
Not to mention that Google Scholar (“I’m so technical”) finds lots of hits (thanks to Vice President Al Gore who arranged for the US Government to pay billions of dollars to his favorite researchers, and who also is on the Google advisory team), plus the world has got warmer in the last 150 years. So carbon must have done it then eh?
Shock me. This is science by smear, confusion, obtuse topic, and irrelevant points. Not that we haven’t seen that before, but it’s coming from a professor. He’s really going a long long way out on a limb with baseless, unsubstantiated bluster, and lit up in a neon sign that says–“Reason Free Zone”.
Apparently all the skeptic’s arguments have been falsified multiple times:
“Instead, the very fact that many of the roughly 100 falsified “sceptic” talking points are continually reiterated in public draws a clear dividing line between healthy scepticism and arrogant denialism”.
Lewandowsky lists exactly no specific examples (who needs examples when you just “know”?). Oh, but he must be right, because an editor at what was once a notable journal has been channelling the giant Rotarex in the sky, and has “seen” the true label on the foreheads of the critics, and they are not people:
The world’s pre-eminent scientific journal, Nature, therefore refers to those who cling to long-debunked pseudo-scientific conspiracy theories while dismissing the findings of thousands of peer-reviewed studies by their true label — denialists.
The Picasso-Brain-Syndrome is when a cortex has all the semblance of “normal” in that especially Picasso style– two eyes, two ears, four higher degrees, and no continuity. Massive one sided funding has created an entirely predictable consensus, and it’s creating a mental implosion in some cerebrums — people are simply unable to cope with following the evidence against the opinion. Some people are born to follow authority. It’s a shame when it happens to professors.
Make no mistake, Lewandowsky thinks he’s writing science, and he thinks he knows what evidence is–it’s headlined. So what is the evidence to convince the 40% of the nation’s unconvinced souls? It’s not thermometers, ocean sediments, ice cores, boreholes, or even crop migration of bananas–it’s a pile of brains (or rather emissions from those brains).
Stephan Lewandowsky thinks that opinion IS evidence. We want to know if the climate is going to warm due to anthropogenic emission of a trace gas. Lewandowsky thinks that if he piles up enough brain-discharges in one spot that tells us something about the climate. His graphs (if he had any) would record a rise in brains aligned with the hypothesis of man-made global warming.
But those graphs are eerily reminiscent of all the other times similar graphs appeared. Not so long ago, the opinions of many rich, smart people thought “DOW 14,000” was an accurate portrayal of reality.
He’s not just going down in flames, but he’s advertised, invited a crowd. The tenets of science are being publicly carbonised (pardon the pun) in supposedly professorial “informed” writing that embarrasses both our taxpayer funded mass media and our taxpayer funded universities. This is my former faculty of science. I cringe. The whole crowd winces. The taxi drivers are laughing. Then they realize they pay for this man, this online “forum”, and they cry like the rest of us. Blind children in Eritrea could have been cured…
Lewandowsky almost discusses some evidence in one paragraph, but gets confused.
It must be of concern when segments of the media echo the meme that “global warming stopped in 1998” when in fact all years since 2000 — that is 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009 — are among the 10 hottest years ever recorded since 1880. The probability of this happening by chance is small.
Actually they’re both true at the same time, and the probability of this is highly likely. Not only is the chance of this happening not small, this is the most ordinary outcome of all. When a rising line flattens off (like the summit of a hill) all the points at the top are.. um.. at the top. Not to state the bleeding obvious, but things have been so flat lately that even Phil Jones (head of Britain’s main climate research unit and leading alarmist scientist) admitted that there’s been no statistical rise since 1995, and every graph (except fraudulent hockey sticks) shows temperatures have been rising uphill for 200 years. Hence we are right now sitting at the top of a 200 year hill, and so unless temperatures fell shocking fast (like, off a cliff) average days now must be “records” in the bigger scheme — because the first point on the summit was a record, and the rest are all…not that different.
Climate Science is testing some human brains to their limits. Not because it’s a multi-variable, unsolvable, non-controllable-experiment with no do-overs, but because some humans appear to be hardwired to follow a leader, and therein lies the story of the impossible dilemma for the born-believer-of-consensus. What does a brain do when it has to follow the evidence and follow the leader, and the two are going in different directions? In Lewandowsky’s case… just pretend the “leaders” ARE the evidence.
————————————————————————–
*No disrespect intended to a ground-breaking artist.
Post-hoc: Brad helpfully suggested that cerebrum is more appropriate than cerebellum. I think there was an extra pointed barb there, but perhaps it’s too much.
The greenie weenies are so smart. They claim a ton of vegies that are organic create no CO2 on the way to the local market but a ton of beef does create several tons of CO2.
The carbon offsets come in when we factor in the beef cattle created cow manoo that was used to raise the vegies in the first place.
I” I wouldn’t believe in global warming if it wasn’t true”
In fact as we speak, on Joe Romms CLIMATEprogress Joe who is funded by convicted Felon George Soros tells his adherents to vote on Treehugger for his blog. He asks them to cheat and vote many times.
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Another great post. Interesting that the professor refers to:
Nature is a British publication that is owned by a German publishing company. So why did this bastion of pure science believe it was appropriate to run an editorial endorsing Barack Obama during the last US presidential campaign?
That one act tells me all I need to know about Nature. The folks in charge there these days pretend to speak with the authority of disinterested science. Instead, they’re looking far more like politicians in disguise. This has implications far beyond climate science.
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Jo,
It seemed to me that for some reason, quack Psychologists specialising in useless psychobabble is what the Scientology crowd has had to resort to.
Yes, Stephans drivel on THEIR ABC was just that, a load of baseless, unsubstantiated Drivel from a media organisation here in Australia which is nothing more than a left wing puppet for fringe ideas and ignorant, sheepish thinking.
This is not just related to the AGW discussion, it is obvious from the many other topics covered via the ABC unleashed website.
It is NOT OUR ABC.
It is THEIR ABC.
No questions, no arguments, this is a statement of fact as far as I am concerned.
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The same old story, with the same old “explainers” and “apologists.” Lewandowsky knows nothing other that what Hansen and some others tell him; he’s incapable of arriving at an independent judgment on his own and can therefore be understood if not excused.
The people I have no idea how to reach, are those who are capable of understanding why AGW is falsehood but cling to the notion anyway – for no other reason than they will feel stupid admitting they reject something they once supported. Having gone through a lot of effort rejecting “denialist” claims and making analysis in support of bogus “theories,” it is nearly impossible for them to accept defeat or exhibit any willingness to admit they were wrong.
Besides, there are so many they can stand along side and not feel ashamed for having convinced themselves of something stupid.
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Great descriptive term Piccaso Brain Syndrome!
Love the artwork too.
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Lewandowsky is not the only absent minded professor delving the depths of Climate Change. Brian G’s question how to reach the capable but clinging struck a chord with me. Climate skeptic sites are growing exponentially and the industrious TWAWKI takes user friendliness to a new level with youtube links and pop ups.
The way to reach more people that can be reasoned with is to better utilise available networks, especially with a dose of humour like Jo’s cartoons which have grabbed the attention of many.
I believe we are at the end phase of the alarmist era, benchmarked by desperation. Those who bleated loudest and longest are now standing in it for all to see. The old alarmists are the new deniers and the new shame will be on the shoulders of those who took the longest to be convinced!
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It continues to befuddle me how alarmists can use the label “denier” while continuing to claim there has been only one error found in AR4.
Too much irony in their diet, methinks.
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Brian G Valentine:
March 26th, 2010 at 5:18 am
The same old story, with the same old “explainers” and “apologists.” Lewandowsky knows nothing other that what Hansen and some others tell him; he’s incapable of arriving at an independent judgment on his own and can therefore be understood if not excused.
The people I have no idea how to reach,
May I offer a sort of rough plan of approach, about how to show who was involved, and what they did in the building of the false science of AGW.
Gavin Schmidt – Misinterpreting a radiation flow as a heat flow from the atmosphere to the earth’s surface, ie “back radiation” – therefore the present versions of the so called “greenhouse effect”.
James Hansen – Assuming a very strong positive water vapour feedback initiated by CO2 rising concentration in the atmosphere – therfore the warming blanket as modelled in all climate GCMs.
Micheal Mann – Tree rings, and the last thousand years of global climate “reconstructions” contratary to all known human history covering the same period – illusion recent climate variations are “unnatural”.
Phil Jones – Adjusting most of the global temperature record (HADcrut) AND, aiding MET office to provide the required cooling factors (after the fact) for the GCMs, because James Hansen’s warming mechanism produced too much warming.
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You can be sure of the ABC. They come through every time!
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The Picasso Brain Syndrome is a good example of the consequences of Post Modern Philosophy applied to Post Normal Science. According to that set if ideas, truth is nothing but a social construct.
They, as good followers of Kant, believe reality “in itself” cannot be known. The only reality that can be known is the story that can be told. Those in power get to tell the story. We mere mortals who are not in power must believe, submit, and pay.
They actually believe they need only tell stories to get paid. Especially since their story is that no matter what happens it’s our fault. We are simply to be what we are not and can’t be, produce what they want without using or needing energy or resources, and then go away and stay quiet until their next deman. Since we don’t, they feel it’s doubly our fault because we are being maliciously uncooperative. We are not trying hard enough.
I know I once said that they are at war with reality. I think I was wrong. They are not engaged enough with reality to be at war with it. They are attempting to float off into a disconnected alternate universe where their whim rules just because its THEIR whim. They have the mentality of an out of control two year old on steroids expecting his parents to stand and deliver to his every unspoken and unspeakable wish.
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I can’t see how you are going to alter the mindset of what is really a political point of view and has nothing whatsoever to do with the science. It has been quite obvious for a long time that data has been interpolated, homogenised, and omitted, but AGW blogs are still as alarmist as ever. Facts don’t matter. Politics is personal and in a lot of ways is defined by your family and where you live. Its mostly us against them. The losers in the climate hype are manual workers but the problem is that the sceptics are mainly on the right hand side of the handrail – diametrically opposed to the interests of the less fortunate. I see no chance of this resolving itself in the near future
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The weirdest thing about this syndrome is how climate scientists, media, Nature, and many other otherwise reasonable people believe in the stereotype of the evil, oil-funded climate denier, even though anyone with an internet connection can debunk it. Forget the science for a moment; you have to understand some science to be skeptical of the science. But no specialized knowledge or expertise is required to read the blogs and discover that climate skeptics seem to be mostly normal, mostly well-intentioned, and certainly no less polite or more one-sided than the alarmists. There are crazy and nasty people on both sides, but it’s hard to imagine that anyone could believe that all the character flaws belong to the skeptics if they actually check it out.
Maybe it’s just too simple. People believe that scientists check elementary facts, but sometimes they don’t.
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“People believe that scientists check elementary facts, but sometimes they don’t.”
Spot on, Dagfinn! The notorious Phil admitted as much before the UK parliamentary enquiry, but the operative word is always rather than sometimes. If you don’t immerse yourself properly in the collection of basic data, then you are wide open to be misled. There is enough evidence that the terrestrial data are compromised by faulty metrology, let alone shonky manipulation by non-statisticians, another admission by the equally notorious M. Mann.
The real worry is the alleged majority of scientists who have swallowed the party line rather than apply themselves to valid scientific practice.
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Ah, Professors are not (necessarily) what they were.
A long time ago (~mid ’80s) I realised what passed for a Professor in the US seemed much the same as a Dr. (ie PhD) in the UK.
That’s not to diminish in any way the value of a PhD or Professorship, but one cann’t help thinking that it’s become a very broad term.
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Lionell Griffith #10
“I know I once said that they are at war with reality. I think I was wrong. They are not engaged enough with reality to be at war with it. They are attempting to float off into a disconnected alternate universe where their whim rules just because its THEIR whim. They have the mentality of an out of control two year old on steroids expecting his parents to stand and deliver to his every unspoken and unspeakable wish.”
I concur entirely Lionell. As I’ve said laughingly before something very strange indeed seemed to have happened to a lot of supposedly intelligent people somewhere between Generation Vee Dubya and Generation Ex.
I subscribe to Nature Geoscience and there again it is possible to read the most blatant non-scientific stream of childishly emotive language and ad hominems in the editorial pages, viz Vol. 3 January 2010):
“It would be EASY for climate scientists to BECOME PARANOID following the exposition of thousands of PRIVATE messages in one climate researcher’s inbox. The ILLEGAL hack into the computers of the WORLD-RENOWNED Climate Research Unit in Norwich, UK has brought the DWINDLING FRINGE of climate Change DENIERS a RARE FLURRY of media attention.
…..
Nevertheless, the story – BIG BROTHER meets climate change – was too good to let go, and the timing, just before the Copenhagen climate conference, was perfect.”
Clearly this was written by someone who:
Thinks it is very easy to become paranoid (OK, this could be reasonable in a post-marijuana age I guess).
Is purportedly convinced, for whatever reason, that all emails are, by definition (?) private.
Asserts sceptics are a ‘dwindling fringe’ (or more correctly fervently wishes they were).
Has clearly never actually read George Orwell so never realised that Big Brother was the Ruling Party. Maybe they think ‘Big Brother’ refers to a chaotic household of over-sexed young people? By all accounts that would describe Copenhagen quite nicely.
Vale John Maddox! Karl Popper must be spinning in his grave.
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Great, Joanne.
The writeup by Prof. Lewandowsky left me pretty speechless, how would you respond to such an outburst? But you did that very nicely.
Greetings from Hamburg, and good luck!
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Lionell Griffith: #10
If I can be allowed the indulgence of paraphrasing your statement …
They, following the scientific method, create hypothesise to describe reality as they observe it. These hypothesise are then presented in the form of stories. Those in power get to decide which hypothesis they wish to fund, and thus define “reality”, in terms of realpolitik.
As you rightly point out, we are mostly dealing with people who are emotionally and socially immature when it comes to meaningful debate.
But in my view, understanding or subscribing to Kant has little to do with that immaturity.
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You have a way with words Jo, great article.
Someone we know, right now, is either kicking his dog or is curled up in the foetal position.
The sad thing is, these people are teaching our kids.
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Steve Short: #16
Nicely put … have a thumbs up.
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Joe Veragio: #14
I was once told that the term, “Professor”, was originally applied to a person who “professed” to know the truth about a subject area.
It is interesting that the term “professed” now carries the implication of an untruth. All quite appropriate really.
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Rereke: #20
Indeed ,one is free to “profess” whatever rubbish one chooses, and once Lionel @ #10’s considerations about Post Modern truth are adopted, then why not ?
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What I’ve never been able to understand its how they managed to get away, with saying proof that the climate is changing, is proof that it is man-made. Pretty much all the so-called scientific proof surrounding AGW is simply proof that the climate is changing. Then with a quick sleight of hand, they say if the climate is changing, man must be changing it. They managed to get away with that, literally for decades.
The only parallel is with ancient religions, and sacrifice to the harvest gods etc. I guess it just goes to show, that the climate might change, but humans don’t
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Jo —
One of the most disturbing elements about this is the way early opinion coalesced, and has become so entrenched.
There are literally dozens of important variables involved, and they have varying degrees of inter-relation (as you would expect in a complex system on non-linear nature.)
The best you can do when trying to untangle that mathematical Gordian Knot is to look for a common thread, something that matches up enough you can isolate it. For whatever reason, carbon dioxide became the central focus. Sulfates, nitrates, water vapor, El Nino, sunspots, long-term climate trends, volcanic ash, true coefficient of albedo, barometric pressure (which until recently has been modeled as an absolute instead of a variable.) That doesn’t include measurement differences and assumptions that tree-ring proxies and weather balloons and satellites can be matched up without some manual adjustments.
My point is that as the observations continue to show the crumbling and fallibility of the model, the scientists behind the theory are SO far behind the theory they refuse to step back and start over. We have wonderful tools now to complete degrees of regression analysis we only would have dreamed of 20 years ago, when the consensus locked into carbon as the only factor that mattered. They were enabled by those who saw a vested interest in creating a market for carbon, because it touches energy (which touches everything with an economic output, period.)
Where are the scientists who are willing to admit that maybe they need to find a new Golden Thread to unravel the Knot? Other than locked away, prisoners of their own groupthink.
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From the link is this howler,keep in mind that this is a man with a doctorate degree.Yet he writes like a moron,as he seem oblivious of many more errors than the one he mentioned (and that one was incredible in itself)and that approximately 50% of the sources in the main IPCC 2007 report that are cited are not even…. he he…. “peer reviewed” at all.
Facts are opinions/opinions are facts apparently with this dude,who is not smart enough to realize that writing this gibberish is proving what a clueless fool he is.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
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[…] Picasso Brain Syndrome « JoNova […]
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Joe Veragio: (March 26th, 2010 at 8:06 am)
“Ah, Professors are not (necessarily) what they were.”
I had the same thought, and wondered what Mr. Lewandowsky was a professor of. Turns out it’s psychology.
Could it be that the Jadassohn-Lewandowsky Syndrome is named after him. [snip… I don’t think it is, so lets not go to far down that track ok? ]
http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/j/jadassohn_lewandowsky_syndrome/intro.htm
[snip]
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I fully support your reaction, Jo, to the Professor’s diatribe. What I find interesting is the difference in comments to The Drum and so far to your blog. At the time of writing there were some 2047 comments to The Drum, few actually having anything to do with the Professor’s subject but mostly OT, an opportunity to slag off about a pet subject. I could not find one comment directly critiquing the article in the fashion followed here.
I also looked for mention of Jo’s work among the comments by using the word “nova” in Firefox’s search function. I found about five direct references — and many to “supernova”! I rest my case.
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Climate Change is happening as it has been ever since there has been a climate to change.
The issue is what if anything we need to do about it.
Thusfar most of the world is focused on some sort of carbon abatement approach.
However there is little if any solid science to demonstrate the real role of CO2. Lots of number crunching and embarrassing revelations about the quality of the number crunching …plenty of statistical gymnastics but little solid physics and chemistry.
Can anyone explain in a quantified fashion , how CO2, at the molecular level, traps and redistributes energy in such a manner as to drive climate change?
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Call me sceptical, and perhaps it is an ad hom to a degree, but when the guy that has a CV that reads like this:
http://www.cogsciwa.com/
with no papers/publications whatsoever on climate science, why is he considered to be an authority on evidence? And he proves it by opening his mouth (keyboard) and removing all doubt.
What a chump.
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oops that link should have been:
http://www.psy.uwa.edu.au/Users%20web%20pages/cogscience/documents/SLvita.pdf
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Bryn@27
With 2000+ comments, it was probbaly easy to miss the salient ones.
In one of mine on the 11th of March I posted evidence that there was no consensus.
The Professor should know that it’s easier to fool yourself than anybody else.
He took the 97% at face value. Didn’t check where it came from and what the 97% figure means. Others did his homework in the comments: ScienceDaily article 10,000+ were invited to respond. The responses were self-selected. 3000 responded. With self-selection bias, one could decude no more than about 30% believing in AGW catastrophe.
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Rereke Whaakaro @ 17:
Please note that I said they were “good followers of Kant”. That does not imply they knowingly subscribe to Kant’s ideas as Kant’s ideas. Nor does it imply that they actually understand the consequences of such a following.
The ideas are simply passively and unquestioningly absorbed from their environment and are mindlessly followed. They use them as magical incantations to protect themselves from their great unknown, reality, and their much feared responsibility of being truly rational. In fact, that fear is their primary motivation for following them in the first place.
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A bit of “hot air” could be remotely on-thread?
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/23/meat-dairy-diet-not-tied-to-global-warming/
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Speaking from personal experience, by the 1970’s, here in the US, checking observations, looking at hand plotted maps and checking out the window to predict weather by a local forecaster was no longer widely practiced. Instead forecasting was done by computers using complex programs in large mainframes and based on voluminous weather observations of many types. By the 1990’s the USAF Global Weather Central (AFGWC) had over $100 million in computers on-site. The US Weather Bureau (later NOAA) also had a large suite of machines.
Automation of observations, including satellite systems, as well as upgraded communications, then followed to complete the complex of measurements and speed data flow. I feel certain that most other developed countries later followed this same general trend to automation.
Despite contentions to the contrary, NOAA and the USAF do a very good job on detailed spot forecasts (for aerodromes, see TAF’s) up to 2-3 days out, although the forecasts that most folks see are for larger areas, covering several hundreds of square miles, and are more generalized and therefore far less accurate. I suspect this also applies to many developed countries.
The point of all this is that I doubt very seriously if many academics now claiming to be climate experts have any professional, or even extensive amateur experience at either observing or forecasting weather. Nor apparently would many have the computer expertise to produce, critique, extend or refine commercial grade forecasting software. I would expect that even most folks at NCAR have very little or no REAL experience in these areas. Are any of these people forecasting climate in the U.S. certified by NOAA or other Wx agency? I doubt it.
It would seem obvious that if you have no background or experience in predicting day after tomorrow’s weather (a small slice of climate), then forecasting long range climate is far beyond your training, experience and capabilities, computer or no.
Worse yet, to try to make such forecasts based primarily on very sparse temperature reports – some (most?) manufactured – seems to me to be a complete and obvious absurdity. Neglected are reports of pressure, winds, cloud cover, moisture, etc. To my knowledge they have never even provided a detailed forecast for “next month,” or “this fall,” that could be used to judge their skills – or lack thereof.
Does anyone think these “experts” could sell their “forecasting skills” on the open market?
And yes, I know the term “forecast” isn’t used by these folks, but I like to call ‘a spade’ by its usual name. I don’t want to know which books you have read – rather what does your product look like? But, maybe I’m just too opinionated!
So be it.
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Rod —
I’m willing to grant weather and climate are different enough animals that the comparisons between the sciences don’t hold much merit.
That said, you have a distinct advantage: your models work, and have been proven to work.
Their models could end up ignoring a whole host of things that have significance for local events, because climate is more aggregate.
Let’s instead focus on:
– how sloppy their math is
– how deficient their programming is
– how loose their grasp of statistics is
When you make those comparisons, they are left wanting.
But don’t fall for the trap of criticizing their Climate Expertise because they can’t forecast the weather.
Remember — they have the burden of proof. All they’ve proven so far is they can manufacture the appearance of a consensus, and disguise their connection to vested economic interests.
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as always, follow the money:
24 March: BusinessGreen: “Mad scientist” talks up geo-engineering vision
Leading contributor to IPCC report calls for increased support for geo-engineering research, reveals European Research Council is considering funding pledge
The Royal Society produced a major report on the topic last autumn, which concluded that while geo-engineering would not provide a “silver bullet” for tackling climate change, it could play a key role and as such the government should invest £10m a year in geo-engineering research…
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2260083/mad-scientist-talks-geo
last night, tax-payer funded ABC TV, Australia, had the following. except for mentioning Jo Haigh was one of the geoengineering-panel scientists, ABC did not mention her other credentials, especially not her IPCC role:
Jo Haigh, Head of the Department of Physics, Imperial College, London, and Lead Author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Third Assessment. She is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and of the Royal Meteorological Society (see http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/naturalsciences/physics/newssummary/news_18-11-2008-10-47-20?nesid=49494 )
25 March: ABC TV Australia: Cartalyst: Geoengineering
It sounds completely crazy, but here in London geoengineering has taken on a new credibility. Its ideas have been seriously investigated by no less than the Royal Society…
This is its headquarters in London. And one of the geoengineering panel scientists, Professor Jo Haigh, gave me the official tour…
But back to geoengineering. Why would the Royal Society get involved?
Prof Jo Haigh: Well the Royal Society has been involved much more in the policy angle over the last few years and it’s been particularly interested in climate and climate change…
Prof Jo Haigh: I think thats the number one message is that we should do everything that we can to reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
NARRATION: Let’s hope, to save the world, we don’t have to use our last resort.
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/2856300.htm
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The evident “high-mindedness” of the “intellect-shual” such as Lewandowsky adds to the mistrust that the ordinary person has of AGW to begin with.
Such people are making it clear that if you don’t endorse AGW, then you don’t really have the capacity to comprehend it anyway. Which is exactly the response one would have from Lewandowsky if one were to (correctly) assess his own “research” as “bunk” driven by an effort to “make the obvious incomprehensible.”
This of course is the difficulty faced when trying, for example, to show one of the “theorists” that the “greenhouse” idea violates the second law of thermodynamics. The obvious defence to put up is to claim “you don’t really understand the Second Law anyway.”
So the media attempt to sell the idea to via the “world’s smartest scientists all agree” pseudo-validation to a public sceptical of it and “the world’s smartest scientists” in any event; unfortunately, the public’s doubtful perception of this is dismissed by many politicians who “know what’s best” for the public who put them in office in the first place
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eyes wide open: if u want to explain what’s behind the CAGW nonsense, namely a CO2 Bubble, or “subprime carbon” bubble, as mentioned in the article, send the following lengthy piece to everyone u know. it was written before Bloomberg/Business Week allocated around six writers/editors to every piece on CAGW so that it would be politically correct:
4 Dec 2009: Bloomberg: Lisa Kassenaar: Carbon Capitalists Warming to Climate Market Using Derivatives
The banks are preparing to do with carbon what they’ve done before: design and market derivatives contracts that will help client companies hedge their price risk over the long term. They’re also ready to sell carbon-related financial products to outside investors.
Masters says banks must be allowed to lead the way if a mandatory carbon-trading system is going to help save the planet at the lowest possible cost. And derivatives related to carbon must be part of the mix, she says. ..
As a young London banker in the early 1990s, Masters was part of JPMorgan’s team developing ideas for transferring risk to third parties. She went on to manage credit risk for JPMorgan’s investment bank.
Among the credit derivatives that grew from the bank’s early efforts was the credit-default swap..
Insurer American International Group Inc., which had sold billions in CDSs, was forced into government ownership, roiling markets and helping trigger the worst global recession since the 1930s. ..
“People are going to be cutting up carbon futures, and we’ll be in trouble,” says Maria Cantwell, a Democratic senator from Washington state. “You can’t stay ahead of the next tool they’re going to create.”
Cantwell, 51, proposed in November that U.S. state governments be given the right to ban unregulated financial products. “The derivatives market has done so much damage to our economy and is nothing more than a very-high-stakes casino — except that casinos have to abide by regulations,” she wrote in a press release. ..
Michelle Chan, a senior policy analyst in San Francisco for Friends of the Earth, isn’t convinced.
“Should we really create a new $2 trillion market when we haven’t yet finished the job of revamping and testing new financial regulation?” she asks. Chan says that, given their recent history, the banks’ ability to turn climate change into a new commodities market should be curbed.
“What we have just been woken up to in the credit crisis — to a jarring and shocking degree — is what happens in the real world,” she says.
Even George Soros, the billionaire hedge fund operator, says money managers would find ways to manipulate cap-and-trade markets. “The system can be gamed,” Soros, 79, remarked at a London School of Economics seminar in July. “That’s why financial types like me like it — because there are financial opportunities.” ..
Wall Street sees profits at every stage of the carbon- trading process. Banks would make money by helping clients manage their carbon risk, by trading carbon for their own accounts and by making loans to companies that invest to cut greenhouse gas emissions…
In 1994, Exxon Corp. needed a credit line after it was threatened with a $5 billion fine for spilling 10.8 million gallons (40.9 million liters) of oil into the ocean off Alaska in 1989. Masters asked the London-based European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to take on the Exxon risk in exchange for an annual fee paid by JPMorgan, according to “Fool’s Gold,” a book by Gillian Tett (Free Press, 2009) that chronicles the history of credit derivatives at JPMorgan. The loan would remain on JPMorgan’s books and be insured by the EBRD, an international bank owned by 61 countries that supports development projects in Central Europe.
The bankers called the contract a credit-default swap. ..
Subprime Carbon
Friends of the Earth’s Chan is working hard to prevent the banks from adding carbon to their repertoire. She titled a March FOE report “Subprime Carbon?” In testimony on Capitol Hill, she warned, “Wall Street won’t just be brokering in plain carbon derivatives — they’ll get creative.” …
Chan has an ally in hedge fund manager Michael Masters, founder of Masters Capital Management LLC, based in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. He says speculators will end up controlling U.S. carbon prices, and their participation could trigger the same type of boom-and-bust cycles that have buffeted other commodities. ..
“Wall Street is going to sell it as an investment product to people that have nothing to do with carbon,” he says. “Then suddenly investment managers are dominating the asset class, and nothing is related to actual supply and demand. We have seen this movie before.” …
Meanwhile, the industrial firms that would be affected by cap and trade are eager for the game to begin, says Lew Nash, a Morgan Stanley executive director and the firm’s U.S. point person on the carbon markets. ..
http://www.bloomberg.com.au/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aXRBOxU5KT5M
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Baa Hum bug #18
Wrote “The sad thing is, these people are teaching our kids.”
A friend who is studying to be a Teacher, sent me this info about a “workshop” titled:
Countering Climate Confusion – Mon 29th March
It would be interesting to see what is being ‘taught” to our future teachers. Unfortunately, I can’t go.
Jo, do you know of the people named here?
The Australian Institute of Physics (AIP) (Vic) Education Committee and the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI) (Vic) Chemical Education Group invite you to attend a workshop – Countering Climate Confusion – Mon 29th March @ Kew HS.
Climate scientists are becoming increasingly frustrated that their clear warnings about the danger of climate change are being lost in the noise of political and media nonsense.
“I’m frustrated, as are many of my colleagues, that 30 years after the US National Academy of Sciences issued a strong warning on CO2 warming, the full urgency of this problem hasn’t dawned on politicians and the general public.” Stefan Rahmstorf, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany
As teachers of science you are one important group in the community who have the skills to interpret the findings published by climate scientists and convey the impact of their meaning to the general public. How informed are you about the science of climate change?
You are invited to participate in a Climate Change Workshop the aim of which is to inform science teachers of the facts and encourage them to speak to the community about the need for curbing greenhouse gas emissions.
The opening speaker is Professor Neville Nicholls from Monash University. He was a lead author of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. His research interests include climate impacts on agriculture, human health and ecosystems, and developing data sets for monitoring climate. He will speak on the latest developments in climate science research.
Workshop Details
Monday 29th March, 9:30 am to 2:30 pm at Kew High School, High St, Kew.
Cost: FREE (Including lunch).
If you would like to attend the workshop, please contact Dan O’Keeffe by e-mail at danok@bigpond.com giving your full contact details, and also a short statement on why you would like to attend. Numbers are limited.
Dan O’Keeffe
Australian Institute of Physics (Vic Branch) Education Committee
PO Box 304
Glen Waverley 3150
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Annie: You can bet that this will be the usual line of b.s.. Nicholls even got a mention in some of the CRU emails. He’s on the team. “developing data sets” indeed. More like making them up to make them show what the paymaster wants.
According to the professor, he’s sure humans are the cause of climate change because he can’t think of anything else. Which says more about his cluelessness than anything else.
10
The only way AGW theory is going to be stopped is to refute the Venus runaway greenhouse effect. As long as that fallacy continues, opposition to AGW will achieve little.
Judging from Annie’s post above #39, these scientists really believe in the CO2 greenhouse theory, just as they collectively believe in the Venus RGH effect, and both are entrenched beliefs not based in empiricism.
It doesn’t get simpler than this.
10
I read the Drum message and it’s as crazy as described. Of far more interest were the responses to the professors diatribe. Most comments were of the denier kind and the discussion quickly moved to wind energy and peak oil. Wind was raised as an OPINED saviour but then demolished by “EVIDENCE” as gained from the Northern European reliance on coal fired generation this winter. Peak oil, that old chesnut, reared it’s head but interestingly enough I received an e-mail from Senator Inhofe in which a Congressional Research Service report stated that the US has enough local reserves for another 75 years without OPEC imports.
Am I the only one to think it passing strange that here we sit on 300 or more years worth of coal and the US has just as much and yet we are being told not to use it? Mind you the main drivers of AGW, the EUuropeans, don’t have much of anything so maybe they want to bring us down to their increasingly tragic level. The days of colonialism are over and the game has moved to the East. The Europeans have been side-lined.
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I think it was a line in George Orwell’s “1984”; Freedom is the ability to say two plus two equals four.
There are several parallels between 1984 and the IPCC system when you think of it – “The Inner Circle”, “Doubletalk”, “Doublethink”, Slogans replacing rational debate, demonisation of opponents, centralised control over every facet in life – it’s all there in the IPCC.
But above all, the love of power for the sake of power.
Rather depressing really.
Speedy
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“to refute the Venus runaway greenhouse effect”
That’s quite easy: most of the heat arises from the sulphur trioxide combination with water vapour (strongly exothermic) to form the sulphuric acid clouds that make the surface of Venus invisible.
The rather strong diffuse reflectance of the clouds make it unlikely that the surface of Venus is being heated too much at the surface by the Sun, wouldn’t you think?
Very naturally, those who are convinced of the Earth’s “greenhouse” will object vehemently to these statements.
Guess what? If the “greenhouse” effect is impossible on the Earth, it is impossible on Venus as well!
[Forty years ago these statements would all be considered obvious. Thanks to Stalinist revisionist theory, these statements are nowt but hedonism]
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I wonder if Professor Lewandowsky is aware that his op-ed piece posing as an essay on distinguishing “fact” from “opinion” has been selected by Ms Nova as prima facae evidence of such tactics commonly used today by editorial writers to “refute” denialism?
I wonder if he is aware that readers are stamping their feet all over his editorial?
I wonder if he is indeed aware, does he care?
10
For decades now I have envied the apparent immunity of the Sciences from the tidal wave of “postmodernism” (for want of a better term) – that weird mixture of nominalism, relativism, feminism and Marxism that has swept the Arts faculties in recent decades. It is so hard to find an adequate label for this polymorphic movement, but its defining quality is a resentful and morally-superior resistance to all Western values and traditions.
This movement has changed my discipline, English Literature, beyond all recognition. When I began my doctoral studies in literature in the 80s, the political aspect of a text was merely one element to be considered among many. Today it is almost the only aspect considered. Forget about aesthetics, for example, about the “beauty” value of a text – beauty is debunked today as a merely another tool of patriarchal oppression, and all that really matters is an exposition of the social effect of the text upon readers.
Texts are now seen as tools for social stasis or change, and need to be read (deconstructed) for their political implications only. This means that the teachers of such texts can use them to undermine or reinforce ideological points. The study of literature in our universities today has become merely an opportunity for overt or implicit political advocacy. A recent “Literature” course I had the misfortune to tutor, for instance, used near-illiterate diary entries from convict guards to score points against the “establishment”. The scribblings of these colonial officials were to be considered every bit as much “literature” as The Getting of Wisdom. All forms of the written word are now “texts” (including bill-board advertisements) and the concept of a hierarchy of quality ( a canon) is dismissed as “elitist” and “regressive.”
But now it looks very much as if some academics in the Science faculty, in apparent envy of their more socially-relevant peers in the Arts faculty, have moved into an advocacy mode. As to whether they are fully aware of the effects their ideological orientation on their work I can’t say, but I detect the same peevish tones of resentment and passionate commitment to the cause in some of writings of the science defenders of the AGW doctrine. And I have no doubt that it is a doctrine – an anti-western, anti-capitalist ideology shared with the Arts faculties. I really believed that Science would be immune to such an ideological take-over, but it looks like I was wrong.
[Thanks Mark — your comments are apt. I appreciate the cross-specialty contribution. Sadly, it’s so true. Powergrabs from everywhere. Every second postgrad wants power and thinks that they know better than everyone else. Without core, well-taught philosophies, I guess any subject at uni can be taken over by the post-modern-reality-is-what-I-say-it-is-crowd.–JN]
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Brian G Valentine @ 44
Yep, ain’t that the truth.
I remember doing routine wet chemical analysis on steel in the ’60s. Making up the acid solution was a touchy business, not for the careless.
200 mls of 36N sulphuric acid into one litre of water.
Hard to credit how much heat came out of that. Had to be left in a water bath for about an hour before anything else could be added. It would actually boil if the acid was poured in too quickly!
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How La Trobe University preaches its wild green faith
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/how_la_trobe_preaches_its_wild_green_faith/
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Lionell Griffith: #32
Thanks Lionell, I now understand the context of your reference to my old mate Emanuel.
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I am sat in the pub here in Shanghai (well it is Friday so I can have a Poets Day!) and close by me is a British Mathematical Professor who is currently lecturing at a University here. (I love the way he sits in the pub marking papers from PhD students in the UK whilst knocking a pint or two back but that a different subject).
He know my opinion on AGW so I just asked him to read the ABC article and give me his opinion. He read through carefully and then slowly closed my laptop lid down and said, “Is ABC the equivalent to the UK’s Sun newspaper”?
Anyway, back to the beer….
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Brian / Mark
You are absolutely correct H2O + SO3 => H2SO4 or even the dissociation of H2SO4 in water are both very exothermic reactions. But they are 2 – way reactions, much like the evaporation of water and its condensation as clouds or rain. So if we get the Venutian climate heated by sulphuric acid formation, then that’s a once-off event – the same heat is required to reverse that reaction to regenerate the reactants. Unless, of course, the endothermic reactions occur in the upper atmosphere (thus decreasing the planetary emissivity) and the exothermics happen downstairs.
It looks like I pre-empted this discussion yesterday with a Clarke-Dawe colloquay on the idea of Relatism. Michael Mann discovers objective reality the hard way!
Cheers,
Mike
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Ike: #35
I think this is a key point that Rod was trying to make.
Weather models work because the data, processes, models, and interpretation of results are all designed to work together in a mutually supportive way.
Most times the results are “close enough” for everyday activities in the locale for which they are intended. I mean, who really cares if the forecast says, “a high of 20 degC”, and it turns out to be 19 degC? And for specialist purposes – flight safety, for example – special targeted reports are available.
The climate folks have none of this.
They don’t have consistent “global” weather data because they don’t have the processes required to gather readings from every point on earth simultaneously. In fact, they need to borrow readings from the weather folks and then try to adjust them to “normalise for anomalies” (whatever that might mean).
They don’t have proven models that can take all of the weather/climate variables into account.
They are trying to work with an anomaly that is measured in hundredths of a degree.
And finally, they are not allowed to interpret the results, “how the facts may fall”, but rather are encouraged to interpret the results in a way that will protect the funding stream for their employer.
The two disciplines are totally different – should we expect to get a similar standard of results? I think not!
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Pete H maybe the professor would rather just nod and smile rather than enter debate with you after a few beers. How anyone could confuse an opinion piece by a professor with the content of the Sun is beyond me.
Did you ask him to read this blog?
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Are you sure you didn’t have your screensaver of a topless bikini model showing?
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MattB:
March 26th, 2010 at 5:46 pm
I think it was using HIV in connection with AGW that tipped him off Matt 😉
I first talked about my sceptic view with him some months back and he now checks out most of the blogs. He told me quite some time ago that over 90% of his Chinese students are sceptical. They have followed S.M. destruction of the Hockey stick with great delight and the R value seems to quite excite them! (More than a Page 3 girl anyway!)
Sorry to go off topic Jo… Back to the thread 😉
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Prof. Stefan has had a brain snap indeed.
Maybe Prof Stefan could explain to Geology-Prof. Cliff Ollier (one of the criminal denial gang) of the same UWA, that the years of “2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009 — are among the 10 hottest years ever recorded since 1880” (not recorded Prof Stefan, but homogenised, selectively filtered for bias and then gridded) are evidence of unprecedented warming in the 4 plus billions of years that the Earth has existed.
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MattB:
At #53 you say:
This is the first time that you and I have agreed!
I agree with you that the content of the Sun is clearly and unarguably superior to an opinion piece by a professor. Some contents of the Sun are verifiable facts while the opinions of a professor – or anybody else – are expressions of personal bias.
Of course, the Editorial in the Sun are expressions of opinion and, of course, they have the same worth as the opinions of a professor or anybody else.
But the opinions of a professor having as much worth as the content of the Sun? No! Clearly, they do not, and they cannot.
MattB and I agree on something. So, the Age of Miracles is not past!
Richard
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Even on ABC talkback radio, those that don’t follow the faith are open to non moderated abuse. While listening to Tony Delroy over night he brought up Earth Hour as a talking point, inviting callers to air their views. The first two callers both rated it as little more than a stunt, Tony accepted their view gratuitously and gave them plenty of time to express themselves, so far so good.
Then came the third caller, he went straight into the all too familiar diatribe about what sort of gooses the previous callers were and they should pull their respective heads in and go away. No caution on Tony’s part on the rights of all of us to hold a contrary view, as well as right to express it on “their” ABC.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/science/earth/26climate.html?src=me
The Cantwell-Collins plan is almost exactly what Mr. Obama proposed in the campaign and after first taking office — a 100 percent auction of permits and a large tax rebate to the public.
“He called our bill ‘very elegant,’ ” Ms. Cantwell said. “Simplicity and having something people can understand is important.”
===
So after getting elected, why is it that Obama is no longer looking at this option seriously, which is a much more taxpayer friendly option? Is it because he and his banker buddies won’t be able to make as much money from gullible taxpayers?
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The comments above confirms for me that sceptics on the whole are far more informed, intelligent, open and critical than the advocates of AGW. The warmers were always opportunists with very little grasp of their subject.
And as soon as they sensed that the sceptics were on a roll they increasingly started to blend AGW with sustainability. Get ready for a broadened message as the war goes badly. It will be seamless.
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A hectic week and finally a chance to read the ABC Drum article by Lewandowsky – Jo’s summary is accurate and no more need be said on that account.
Truly the political left have hijacked most of the educational institutions of the Western world – and control the Australian education sector, though I doubt they control the US private sector given the existence (and for how long) of independent thought documented on sites such as American Thinker, Lew Rockwell, the Mises website etc.
How Lewandowsky could write an op-ed on The Drum about “Opinion versus Evidence” while not providing any evidence for his opinions, strongly suggests the operation of an over-excited brain.
He conflates opinion with evidence, the hallmark of someone who is unfamiliar with the scientific method.
And he fits well into Thomas Sowell’s definition of an intellectual, one whose output are ideas not subject to external verification, but on peer-review.
For those readers here who are unfamiliar with the peer-review system in science, it exists for one, and only one reason – to stop plagiarism, and re-inventing the wheel. Unfortunately peer-pressure within the small groups modern science is made of, makes sure that any opinions, or scientific papers, follow the consensus; That means it isn’t science.
That professors of a social science feel compelled to wade into a debate over the physics of the Earth’s atmosphere is significant.
For a start it isn’t the science that is in dispute, but the reluctance by a small group of individuals who refuse to accept the AGW litany based on a specious representation of that science.
Lewandowsky obviously does not fraternise nor socialise with geologists at the University of WA, for if he had, he would not been writing from the Shenton Park Institution for the intellectually challenged, instead of his existing job as an educator of our youth.
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Jo
The Jan-Feb 2010 edition of “American Scientist” reprints a paper by Gilbert N. Plass from 1956 that solidly established human induced global warming.
That’s over 50 years ago.
There’s also an article in Scientific American from 1959 saying the same thing.
Your efforts are pathetic.
Give up, will you, please.
The science is well established and has been for decades.
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JM, If skeptic efforts are “pathetic” why is carbon trading so low. Are you angry because your retirement funds are in Carbon? All the skeptical thoughts circling the globe at the speed of light through volunteer efforts must really gall you.
Imagine for a minute why these good scientists have yet to agree to your claims. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming
Surely you have to admit that there is at least a half brain amongst them? Why is your thinking superior?
Give up? Give UP? How about you give up!
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Mark D: Why is your thinking superior?
It’s not my thinking, it’s the thinking of people from over 50 or more years ago (I can cite some going back over 100). Long before anyone had a “dog in the fight” economically.
And those ideas have never been refuted. Established science tends to be a bit stubborn that way.
(Your Wiki page references fringe figures with few relevant publications and/or little support. So there’s a few ratbags about? Who cares?)
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JM:
Remember on the last thread you had to acknowledge that carbon only causes 1 degree of warming, and water vapor does the “rest” (according to you-know-who).
So explain to all of us how that 50-year old paper has anything to do with 2/3rds of the proposed warming?
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Pronunciation: \ˈrat-ˌbag\
Function: noun
Date: 1890
chiefly Australian : a stupid, eccentric, or disagreeable person
(the above posted for the non-AU reader to save time)
JM you are unusually surly today. AND fallen back on the old Appeal to Authority too. (a classic Warmist move) And threw in a nice insult! good job……….
Co2 Warming is a theory. Isn’t proven, Isn’t dis-proven
The “measured” warming could be wrong
The “measured” warming could be fraudulent
The “measured” warming could be natural not AGW
The predicted warming that Co2 causes could be wrong.
The forcing theories that predict “runaway” warming could be wrong.
The THEORY with all the couldbees above:
Is being used as a political tool.
Is being used as a taxation tool.
Is being used to manipulate
JM, when I type it out, I’m still a skeptic (who feels more comfortable around the ratbags).
10
Jo, go and read it. Then come back.
Science is not fashion. It doesn’t go out of style.
Mark. “only a theory” is a give-away.
Followed up by “wrong”, “fraudulent”, “could be natural”, etc all need to be set up and supported by hypotheses.
Have at it, be my guest.
You’ll be joining the creationists next week I take it?
10
Good point. (did I say otherwise?) Also a point that everyone else here would agree with.
Of course if you substitute political pseudoscience bent around a religious belief that Gaia needs our help. That WILL go out of style.
Sorry, you’ll find I won’t bite on the bait you’re serving. Why don’t you try insulting my wife and family. That might get me going.
Maybe you are getting close to that final rage filled rant that Warmist trolls do their final sign-off with?
The classic troll death rattle
C’mon lets get it out…spill it….you know you want to….you know you are getting bored here.
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Mark, that’s not bait. That’s an accurate analogy of your position.
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Wow, Jo! Great take down on this article. Something that’s seen all the time…opinions but not “real Science”! This site is proof of this!!!
FYI, I’ve got another “Gate” in the works…It’s No. 13 and its called “CowGate”! Check it out on my updated article…
http://www.globalwarminghoax.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?2174.last
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For those who are still hung-up on the difference between weather and climate, I would point out that climate is composed of weather. All climates have temperatures, humidity, winds, clouds, etc., which can be used to describe them. If you do not accept such weather terms then what do you propose in their place?
But climate cannot be described (or forecast) by temperature alone. For example to describe the climate of San Francisco as “cool,” and the climate of Port Moresby as “hot” is not really very descriptive of either. But weather terms are commonly used to describe much of the climate.
Since weather is a slice of climate, it seems plausible to me to posit that if you have no skill at forecasting weather, there is little likelihood of forecasting climate accurately.
If you disagree, please tell me what part of climate is NOT weather. Some might say the sun, in which case I would point out that in my day of gathering weather observations — which I did for a number of years – we routinely handled and forwarded solar observations. I might also point out that synoptic code allows for reporting the duration of sunshine and the state of the ground.
I maintain that weather and climate are joined at the hip, and are inseparable, and that today’s self anointed climate scientists are really inexperienced. It boils down, I think, to we have amateurs pretending to be experts.
That was the point I was trying to make in yesterday’s post along with the idea that predictions (forecasts) are fine, but need to verify for the ones that follow to be believable.
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JM #67
That was a very stupid statement. You are trying now to discredit skeptics by associating them with a non sequitur. I know you have gone off the deep end in your debates with Richard, but it appears he has gotten your goat to the point you no longer can post coherant sentences.
My only surprise is that you are brazen enough to attempt such an assinine post on a non sycophantic blog. I expect them on places like Taminos and real climate. That appears all the sycophants have left in their dwindling armory.
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Correction. Jones did not say that there has been “no statistical rise since 1995.” What he in fact said was that the rise is not yet statistically significant, because the time frame is too short to achieve statistical significance, but, in his own words, “just barely.” There is a very, very big difference in those two statements.
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Sphaerica:
Harrabin: Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming
Jones: Yes,
What ever waffle Jones then went on with, you can’t pretend that yes means no.
10
@rod smith
I understand where you are coming from, but that’s not a defensible position.
Climate works on time scales and patterns that are agnostic to weather. Climate is a phenomenon that can be independently studied and observed.
Many of the inputs are the same, but the PATTERNS of those inputs are quite different.
To say that “you must be proficient at forecasting weather before you can claim to forecast climate” is akin to telling a goalie that he can’t stop the football coming toward the goal until he understands the interactions of the atoms and molecules in the leather.
There are MANY ways to showcase the rotten timbers that support the AGW platform, but yours isn’t one of them.
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Mark Allinson @ 46:
Thanks for that – brilliant summary mate. We are simply 20 years behind countries like England in this respect. I remember students doing political deconstructions of Magic Roundabout when I was in university (in England) over two decades ago.
More recently the PC-group think is best illustrated by my two nephews going through university. One was studying robotics (I forget the exact description of his PhD) and the other Gender Studies. You can guess which got no funding and which one had to beat it away with a stick*.
* Correct answer is the latter got heaps funding.
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Quote from BBC Jones interview:
This is a dodgy answer at the best of times. Jones knows as well as I do that the trend in either direction over such a short series is very, very much dependent on the cherry-picked start and end points. Therefore most of his comment is disingenuous. Monckton showed how easy it is to get positive or negative trends over various time periods in the last 15 years.
Fact of the matter is, that if you are talking statistics there are one of two results you can report – the answer is statistically significant or it is not, at a given confidence interval (95% in his case). Two qualify that and say, but it was almost significant between date XXXX and date YYYY is extremely disingenuous. It implies that you know what the next couple of data points are likely to be*… if the temperature dropped it would go against his “case.” But he has absolutely no case in statistics.
What he said was not statistically correct in the true sense. But this is the kind of word-smithing I have come to expect from “scientists” deeply involved with the IPCC. In lay terms it is BS.
* Of course, if you work for the CRU labs, perhaps you do know what the next couple of data points are going to be :p
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Bob Malloy @ 74:
Oh but they can Bob. Real Climate has said exactly this about sceptics recently:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/03/up-is-down-brown-is-green-with-apologies-to-orwell/
I am not qualified to judge this particula debate as I am not familiar with the papers and their claims.
Problem I see with a lot of the conclusions i climate papers, however, is that they are often vague, and so proponents from both sides will take them to mean what they want. Pinker et al and the Lambert-Monckton debate is a classic example of this IMO. Multiple extended interpretations of the findings were possible, as I understand it, and hence each side picks their preferred version. Neither might be wrong if their hypotheses are sound.
What these debates tend to show is the lack of consensus the advocates claim is there.
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Bulldust
The resort to statistics occurs when the result is not self evident.
We don’t need to calculate the statistical probability of a Boeing 737 taking off into the air – it either flys, or it doesn’t. Firing a shell from a howizter also does not need a statistical calculation that the shell will hit the ground due to gravity after it leaves the muzzle.
It does rather seem like statistics or probabilitiies are being used to support a debating point rather than pointing to a real-world manifestation of the issue. Notice that use of statistics is to avoid doing an experiment, and if it’s to described the results of an experiment, then that experiment isn’t self evident, but because it’s significant at the 95% level, then you are forced to believe it.
I’s nothhing but verbal virtuosity.
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At what timescale does weather become climate? And why?
The problem being that surface temperature at a given spot on Earth shows variability at every timescale we can measure.
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JM: #62
March 27th, 2010 at 12:46 am
Are you serious? YOU NEED TO GO BACK AND READ that article. It is wrong in so many ways.
It is wrong about how a farmers greenhouse works and it is totally wrong about the effect of CO2 on T’s. If it was right, we’d have a climate sensitivity that’s much greater than even the high estimate of the IPCC AR4.
Remembering that it’s from 54 years ago, we should be at least 3DegC warmer by now LMFAO how wrong can it get.
Bad enough I wasted my time reading that tripe (one of the authors was Schmidt wouldn’t you know) if Ms Nova was to read every link foisted upon her by trolls like you she’d need an extra 6hrs in an Earth day plus a divorce.
JM you need to learn about physics, and fast.
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Bulldust @78
A point well maid, however if a branch of science was to start telling us a lifetime of education should be forgotten, black means white, may means will, possibly means definitely will, you would need to be weak minded to accept it.
Sorry my mistake, they are, and the masses are listening, It looks like my education was wasted after all.
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Louis:
That is a somewhat narrow scientific view of the world. Statistics are a valuable tool when you don’t have control of all the variables in an experiment or when systems are very complex. The economy and climate systems are prime examples.
You can never prove a relationship exists with statistics, only reject the null hypothesis that it is (extremely) unlikely that it occurred by chance. In this way it can be a useful tool to eliminate variables that don’t appear to influence a system, more so than prove that relationships between variables exist with certainty (i.e. 100%). The latter is the real of pure science and experimentation.
I have travelled both sides of the statistics line… as an engineer and an economist, so perhaps this experience gives me a more balanced view of the capabilities and limitations of statistics. I know for a fact that when it comes to forecasting (as in the IPCC models) statistics are virtually useless. Such models are very, very sensitive to the input parameters and you can forecast anything you want by tweaking them slightly.
Two examples:
1) I forecast several trend models (some based on economic relationships and some purely trend) for a single data set for a university course (aluminium consumption in the US). The 9 models predicted anything from the consumption doubling or trebling over the forecast period to droppiing down to near zero. All the models fit the past data extremely well (statistically speaking).
2) Statistics can prove to be an extremely valuable tool (if applied honestly) for determining likely relationships such as the link of smoking to cancer. Most health-related studies involve statistics to try and deepen our knowledge of those factors that influence our health. But again, it doesn’t take a lot for an unscrupulous individual to misuse the statistics (incorrect methodology) to try and get a drug approved for the FDA for instance.
It is all a question of applying statistics with integrity and a critical/sceptical mind.
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Apologies: My comment at 83 refers to Bulldust at 79 not 78.
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@Tel (81)
Weather is variability.
Climate is baseline.
Weather is what tells you to wear today.
Climate is what tells you what to keep in your closet.
Weather is about reacting to the unexpected.
Climate is about reacting to the expected.
I am merely pointing out the difference in an informal way, but in the more formal mathematical way, you’re dealing with derivatives instead of formula.
The math of derivatives is very different, and it’s quite possible one could manipulate the given derivatives to discover trends, direction, range, and a whole host of metadata (without having a clue about what the original data represents.)
For what it’s worth, I do not buy the Strong-AGW proposals. Those require a belief in a very fragile system, and that’s just way out of character for non-linear dynamics. I just don’t believe in handing the Warming Proponents a series of weak arguments, so they can shoot down the easy marks and paint us all as mis-informed.
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Bulldust
Basically agree with your explanation, but I don’t think I’ll fly in an airplane that has a 95% chance of flying, just the same.
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Yep neither would I – but remember that statistics are used in transport too. Did you saw the explanation by Tyler Durden in Fight Club about vehicle recalls? It was quite sucinct. That is all based on statistics… yes the car you drive everyday might have a statistical chance of failing catastrophically under peculiar circumstances, but you still drive it. And the automobile company doesn’t recall it if the probability of court settlements costs less than the repair bill from a recall.
Our lives touch statistics everyday in many ways we are not aware of.
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BTW slightly O/T but I love this video presenting statistics in an astonishing way:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHmwZ96_Gos&feature=related
I am not sure how accurate the numbers are, but many of them seem to be in the right ballpark. My wife and I met through the internet 🙂
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BH @81
I have read that article – yesterday as a matter of fact.
Yes its estimate of climate sensitivity is no longer the accepted value, but so what? The important take-away, and the thing that remains valid, is the identification of CO2 over water vapour as the most important driver.
Secondly although the effects are similar a “farmers greenhouse” is a metaphor. It’s unimportant whether the description of a glass greenhouse is right or wrong.
What is important is whether the description of the behaviour of the earth is accurate. It is.
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Speedy,
the reaction has two parts, endo and exothermic.
The heat for the endothermic reaction is volcanism, which is the source of the SO2 and the water vapor. SO2 is oxidized to SO3 in the Venus atmosphere (exothermic) and H2O and SO3 combine to form sulfuric acid droplets.
The oxidation of SO2 is probably catalyzed in the atmosphere on vanadia and other transition metal dust; the dust stabilize the droplets as liquid (the vapor pressure of the droplets increases because of the droplet curvature and drops can stabilize from an impurity).
Impure sulfuric acid collects on the surface (boiling point elevated due to impurity), Venusian-thermal heat decomposes the sulfuric acid and the process cycles.
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JM: #89
March 27th, 2010 at 12:35 p
No it is not. A farmers greenhouse warms due to trapping of the air, i.e. warming air cannot rise away and cooler air cannot replace it as is the case in the open. So the glass does it’s job by trapping air, nothing to do with LWR. Or have they discovered a way to store limitless amounts of energy by just building glass domes?
No this is wrong. Even their statement that the H2O spectrum and CO2 spectrum does not overlap substantially is WRONG.
If they were right, Mars would have a very different climate, it wouldn’t have such large variation in T’s. Heres the proof..
EARTH THERMAL RADIATIVE SPECTRUM
note the overlap.
MARS THERMAL RADIATIVE SPECTRUM
There is 9 times more CO2 on mars than on Earth. If CO2 was the driver of T’s it would show up in the spectral notch. IT DOES NOT. The alarmists hypothesis (and that’s all it is) is falsified, oeriod.
Like I said, you need to
brush up onlearn physics.10
Humbug these people don’t care if they even get the details of AGW right from the advocates of it, neither do the advocates, all that matters is that they believe what they’re told.
They’re hopeless
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OOppps naughty naughty me. I should have acknowledged the origin of the charts in my post #91
They are from The Hockey Schtick
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Bernd Felsche (#31): “… with self-selection bias, one could decude no more than about 30% believing in AGW catastrophe”
With all due respect, Bernd, I feel you are here guilty of making the same confusion you are accusing others of. The answer is not the answer to the question that was asked. If we are talking about “… the most recent survey of thousands of Earth scientists around the world revealed a 97 per cent agreement with the proposition that human activity is a contributor to climate change”, then this is a very different concept to “believing in AGW catastrophe”. I am not surprised by 97% agreeing that human activity is a contributor to climate change, and in fact I would have to scratch my head to wonder why the other 3% apparently didn’t understand the question. But let’s ask them the really important questions, about the consequences of increasing atmospheric CO2, and whether these consequences are dangerous or beneficial, and see what they say then.
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I am very disappointed to learn that Bing will acknowledge Earth Hour by putting up a darker home page. They do not claim this act in itself will make any practical difference. But it reinforces the mass psyche where the relentless adherence to a false belief in the face of contrary evidence marches full steam ahead.
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http://blogs.news.com.au/images/uploads/6a00e5520b72ea883401310f5dd3b6970c-800wi_thumb.jpg
…don’t forget.
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Brian Valentine,
It’s easier concluding Venus is hot because it is young and was recently formed. Well that’s what our ancestors reckon, though their beliefs have been dismissed as primitive myths by modern academics.
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SamG (#96)…
and http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=337342719801
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[…] Picasso Brain Syndrome « JoNova […]
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From Gilbert N. Plass, James Rodger Fleming, Gavin Schmidt (the 50 year old science):
As has been pointed out many times, R. W. Wood in 1909 demonstrated experimentally that whether a greenhouse is opaque to infra-red or transparent to infra-red has no influence whatsoever on the heating inside said greenhouse (that’s 100 year old science). Plass, Fleming & Schmidt would have had no excuse whatsoever to not be aware of this and their explanation for what happens in a greenhouse was known to be wrong well before the time they first published.
As ever, AGW advocates just never seem to tell the truth, there is always something significantly deceptive about their explanations and this is one example amongst many.
FWIW a greenhouse heats up by restricting convection.
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Since we know from measurement in ice cores that variability exists on the 100000 year timescale, I must conclude that climate is anything on a longer timescale than 100k years.
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BH @91, I did say @89 that “greenhouse” is a metaphor and that the parallel between the earth’s atmosphere and a glass greenhouse is not exact. We’re in agreement on that I think.
Like I said, you need to brush up on learn physics.
You need to read the paper. The overlap is not the important point, it’s the vibrational modes that matter. That’s its central point. Go back and have another look. This is settled science, settled a long time ago.
And don’t tell me to learn physics, I already know it – you apparently don’t (and neither does Richard for that matter if his incoherent rants on the other thread are any indication).
Tel (and others):- for your objection re. glass greenhouses to make any sense you would have to argue that glass greenhouses don’t work. I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t argue that.
What the metaphor is using is a radiative balance argument where there is not free transfer from the “inside” to the “outside”. For a farmer the glass performs that function, for the earth the opaque to IR property of CO2 does it.
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Another thing BH @91, you also need to learn how to read a graph.
Your first graph shows a notch at about wavenumber 650 or so, that is exactly aligned with the absorption range of CO2. Even though water is wider, it doesn’t have as much effect.
Your second graph for Mars shows the same notch at 650.
In other words, your own graphs completely destroy your own case.
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JM # 102
And don’t tell me to learn physics, I already know it – you apparently don’t
??? Vibrational modes? Please explain.
(and neither does Richard for that matter if his incoherent rants on the other thread are any indication).
Well they do,by stopping convection. D’oh.
What the metaphor is using is a radiative balance argument where there is not free transfer from the “inside” to the “outside”.
Que?
For a farmer the glass performs that function, for the earth the opaque to IR property of CO2 does it.
Que????
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JM: #103
March 27th, 2010 at 8:08 pm
Obviously you just don’t get it. Do you see the peak wave length on the earth chart? That’s at 671cm-1 Do you see the same thing on the mars chart? Yes.
What that means is that the band width is very NARROW, it doesn’t take much CO2 to capture resonant energy at that band width. Additional CO2 captures energy that’s further and further from the peak wavelength. The Mars spectra proves this.
Put SIMPLY, you can double, triple or even 9X the level of CO2, it won’t make much difference. That’s NOT what your cited paper says. IT IS WRONG ON MANY ACCOUNTS, plain and simple.
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Tel and Louis
Yes restriction of convection is the major means by which glass greenhouses work, but IR still plays a role. Here is pamphlet regarding the economics of heating fuel usage in commercial greenhouses. Note the second paragraph:
IR and Anti-condensation Treated films
On double poly covered green houses use an IR treated film on the inside to reduce thermal radiation loss by up to 20%.
IR film is widely available for greenhouse – examples here
Money talks.
Secondly, Tel, Woods’ experiment is now understood to have been flawed.
Thirdly, Wood did not actually disprove or disbelieve IR effects, all he said was that he didn’t think they were the major effect. in fact he noted that:-
As a matter of fact I am of the opinion that a greenhouse made of a glass transparent to waves of every possible length would show a temperature nearly, if not quite, as high as that observed in a glass house
This was confirmed by his actual – abeit flawed – result, which noted that the “glasshouse” box was about 1 degree warmer than the other.
Fourthly, the “greenhouse” word is understood to be a metaphor, not an exact parallel. Convection is important for the working of a glass greenhouse, it is absolutely irrelevant to the earth.
Louis regarding your questions:
“vibrational modes” is explained in most elementary chemistry textbooks – like my daughter’s. She is in year 11 and I was helping her with her homework a few weeks ago on exactly this point.
Radiative balance is a simple physical argument, that is derived from, but not identical to black body radiation.
The comment about glass and CO2 relates to the transfer function. Both the earth and the glass greenhouse have an “inside” and an “outside” and energy is not totally free to radiate between them. The glass blocks IR. CO2 blocks IR. Incoming visible light hits the ground in both cases and is reradiated as IR.
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BH @105
Additional CO2 captures energy that’s further and further from the peak wavelength. The Mars spectra proves this
WTF??? Further? What do you mean?
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Hissink, Humbug, et al,
You’re either arguing with a troll (somebody who is just trying to get you angry), or a lost cause, in either case, you will not win this
forget him
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Steve Schapel: Post 95,
Steve and for those who would like to make a statement; at 8:30pm to 9:30pm your time, you are suppose to shut off your lights for Earth Hour…Well, I’m going to do the opposite! I’m turning ALL my lights on, outside and in, for that hour to dispute Earth Hour and how much a Fiasco it is…Hope you join me also and spread the word!!!
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SamG: Post 96,
Yes, Human Achievement Hour, very good cause! Love it! Thanks Sam G.! 😉
Yes, I’ll be that bright speck in Northern Ohio, USA…:-)
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Steve@94
My point was that the self-selection bias turns the entire poll into a joke.
The poll result should have stated; we asked more than 10,000 scientists about it and the majority didn’t respond to the 3-minute questionaire.
As for the purported rise in CO2 due to anthroprogenic effects and the long-term cyclic fluctuations of weather being arbitrarily classified as “climate change”; it’s all bollocks. Or near enough. The tiny anthroprogenic contribution to climate change via CO2 is insignificant. It hasn’t been detected. The theoretical “signature” isn’t present in the real world.
Attributing anthroprogenic influence to a difference between observed and expected observations is argument out of ignorance. It is the same form of argument as proof of divine intervention. If you don’t know why there’s adifference between what’s observed and what’s expected from known natural factors, it only indicates that you don’t yet know enough.
The real world has much bigger problems; which the UN has been unable to tackle successfully for the past 60 years. The UN is more experienced in perpetuating problems than in fixing them. And the UN sensed that it’s growing irrelevance in the real world back in the 1980’s (if not earlier). So it grasped the imagined doom of global warming (as sold to them by Maurice Strong and fellow merchants of doom), from which the UN could save the world; ultimately by taking over control of everything and running it very, very badly.
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Brian @108, I’m not trying to get BH angry, I’m trying to understand his point.
But it’s very difficult because he seems to be unwilling to explain it. The fact is that the notch in the Earth’s spectrum and that of Mars occurs at exactly the same wavelength (which is what I’d expect from elementary physics), yet he insists that CO2 captures energy that’s further and further from the peak wavelength, which is – prima facie – entirely unphysical.
He seems to be saying that additional CO2 molecules will not have “room” to absorb because of the previously existing CO2 molecules and will therefore change their behaviour. This proposition – if I’ve understood it correctly – is just nuts. A CO2 molecule is not conscious and doesn’t know if it’s in a crowd. The last CO2 molecule added will behave exactly the same as the first.
And now I”ve seen and followed his comment @93 where he references his source, I have to say that exposition is completely wrong-headed.
All I’m trying to do is understand what he’s saying. But if he can expound on his point, or point me in the right direction then I can respond.
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@Ike: I just came in from outside where I experienced BOTH weather and climate – simultaneously. We will just have to agree to disagree.
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BH @81 (one of the authors was Schmidt wouldn’t you know)
No. Plass was the sole author, he died in 2004.
Schmidt and Fleming are currently active scientists who are much younger. Schmidt was born in 1968, 12 years after the paper was published. Fleming was born in 1949 and would have been about 7 years old when it was published.
Schmidt and Fleming appear in American Scientist as commenters on the paper, not as co-authors.
Try to get basic facts right.
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As soon as you get to the end of the second paragraph, you can see where it is heading. I am not a professor like the good Prof Lewandowsky, but have been a student of science, and in a small way law. In neither field is consensus an acceptable means of establishing what is a matter of fact. Nicolaus Copernicus is perhaps one of the best examples of how no matter of fact can be solved or “settled” by consensus.
This guy is a hack.
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JM, he is reiterating the Beer-Lambert law
Absorbance = log(Io/I) = kc, log of ratios of some reference intensity Io to an intensity of transmitted radiation I, which proportional to the concentration c. The relation is entirely linear at dilute concentrations of an absorbing species.
Note that Mars, with an atmosphere some 98% CO2 at a total pressure of 3-5 mmHg, exhibits a diurnal temperature variation of up to 250K in difference, which is exactly what one would expect from a planet the size of Mars with a surface heat capacity of about clay dust.
In other words, JM, there is no “greenhouse” effect at all, none
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Anything that wants to argue with that, JM, gets ignored
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JM
“Secondly, Tel, Woods’ experiment is now understood to have been flawed”
For which you produce zero evidence.
I’ve pointed out in a comment on Quiggin’s site that the reason Jones, and the Team believe humanity is the cause of the observed temperature is because they limit their inputs and outputs to solar radiation coming in, and radiation going out, and rightly note that the variation in solar radiation is insufficient to explain the Earth’s thermalbehaviour.
What they don’t realise is the fact the Sun is known as a variable star and that it has widley energetic output in the non-visible spectrum. It is that energy source which is ignored but which is part of the earth system energy balance. Include the energy supplied by the massive solar Birkeland currents reaching the earth via the polar regions (and when the currents rise in power the auroras light up) as well as the energy coming in from the Van Allen belts, the Earth’s plasma torus.
It’s pretty easy to explain the Earth’s themal behaviour when all the energy inputs are used. It becomes difficult, however, when only solar radiation is used.
You climate changers are still stuck in Victorian Era gas light physics theory – the Plasma model explains it all quite simply.
Climate science ignores this energy.
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Hi, Louis Hissink!
”
The same laws of physics applies to Earth and Venus, but conditions in both planets are totally different, making any comparison between them useless. Anyone invoking Venus greenhouse effect to predict a runaway warming in Earth makes a fool of himself or shows his utter ignorance or gullibility. That fallacy has no scientific base whatsoever. But scaremongers love it!
Starting with Venus rotation around its axis takes ONE year. The surfacce gets continuosly scorched almost six months every year; even Mercury is cooler than Venus.
But as I said many times, the term “greenhouse” is a misleading one, as there is no trapping of heat by any gas. Three or more molecules gases are helping Earth (or any other planet) to cool as they send their absorbed energy immediatly to outer space via radiation. And the vast majority of gas molecules are carried aloft by strong convection currents cooling the surface much faster than by radiation alone from the surface.
We should replace the concept of “Greenhouse Effect” by the correct one: “Heat Redistributing Effect” (HRE)over Earths surface, as that’s the job gases (even O2 and N2) are doing. “Global average temperature” is a statistical artifact, completely artificial and without any physical sense or meaning.
But I know you knew this already -but perhaps many other don’t.
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OK first I only looked at your 2nd link #62, the authors are,
Regards the “Greenhouse”. Here is a quote from the Schmidt article that you wanted us to read..
No mention of convection. At #106 you say…“Yes restriction of convection is the major means by which glass greenhouses work.”
But they don’t say that do they? They omit the major reason why a farmers glasshouse works and has worked since long before IR film was developed. According to you, the authors are wrong by omission. We agree.
Because most layman understand that a farmers greenhouse is warm, by using that “metaphor” it’s easy to convince people that “earths greenhouse” is the same. It’s not. You can add all the IR film you like, open the doors at either end of a greenhouse and see the temp drop sharply in minutes.
Regards CO2 spectra.
The 2 charts I posted are informative. They show that CO2 has “captured” nearly all of the energy that it possibly can at the peak wavelength. Here is what Schnidt article says about this..
If the highlighted portion of the quote was correct, it would show up on the Mars chart, it doesn’t. Hence my comment..“Additional CO2 captures energy that’s further and further from the peak wavelength.”(However, I’m not claiming to be an expert, merely conveying my interpretation and am ready to be corrected.)
Adding more CO2 makes no appreciable difference, otherwise it would show up on the Mars (9X more CO2) spectral chart.
In fact, adding more CO2 to Earths current atmosphere helps COOL the planet. I’ll bet that’ll get a few people jumping.
At #89, you also say…“Yes its estimate of climate sensitivity is no longer the accepted value, but so what?”
But in fact, the Schmidt article says (pp12)…
So in fact his headline number is within the accepted value by the IPCC
Now, you say…“But it’s very difficult because he seems to be unwilling to explain it”.
You know what happens when you ASSume don’t you? Although I spend a fair bit of time on this blog, I have other things to do as well, sleep and work being 2 of them. Just because you don’t get a response whilst you’re waiting with fingers poised on your keyboard, doesn’t mean I’m unwilling to explain.
Now regards both our tones in our comments.
At your very first post on this thread at #62 you said..“Your efforts are pathetic.
Give up, will you, please.”
What was pathetic was your rude attitude from the beginning so you thoroughly deserved my deragotory replies.
If you have a mind to convince people to your way of thinking, a better attitude may help.
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[…] Picasso Brain Syndrome « JoNova […]
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My post at #121 was getting very long so I cut it short. However i would like to add the following..
At #62 JM started with something akin to this..
JM added nothing of his own, no comment and no interpretation of his understanding of the papers he cited.
Do you realise how many links are provided by people on this blog? Do you really expect Ms Nova and bloggers to chase up every single link posted by commenters, especially ones with rude remarks?
I post lots of links as well, but I usually preface them with something like “bloggers may be interested in this,” or sometimes I ask bloggers to help me interpret the paper/article I may have found. (Most recently my request to Tel to help me understand an article on statistics).
What’s pathetic is the pathetic commenters who say we’re pathetic.
This type of behaviour seems to be common among the alarmist bloggers. I suspect it’s because of the lack of evidence supporting their cause, so they rely on bullying. And wasn’t that a revealing aspect of the climategate emails?
Maybe someone has a different interpretation?
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Hi Eduardo #120
Yes I do understand but the crucial fact is James Hansen did his post grad study on the Venus GH effect, hence his dogmatic belief that us burning coal, oil and gas on earth will cause a similar result, or at least a climate catastrophe. This is the basis of the AGW belief and where it needs to be nipped in the bud.
The goal is to show Hansen’s belief to be scientifically untenable and plainly wrong. Unfortunately most don’t seem to understand this specific issue, and the discussions get side tracked into technical point scoring over trivia.
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The problem is that the article you cited, the “50 year old science”, gave a detailed description of the operation of an actual glass-walled greenhouse that was completely wrong. Sure the infra red might make a difference at the level of one part in 100 or there abouts, but anyone reading the article cited above would be misled by the description of how a greenhouse operates. They would go away with a wrong-headed understanding and then apply that wrong headed understanding to other systems (such as the atmosphere).
What’s more, using a metaphor to explain a significantly different mechanism of operation is a bad metaphor. Suppose I was to say, “A rocket flys in much the same way as a bird flies,” most people would accept this is just wrong.
I might also point out that for most objects on the surface of the Earth, convection and evaporation are the most significant ways to lose heat and radiation is only a lesser concern. If you read any survival manual talking about cold climates the first rule is to stay dry, second rule is stay out of the wind. If you don’t follow those rules you will be dead, regardless of radiation. The greenhouse example is consistent with this, and for that matter you might consider that gardeners who cannot afford a greenhouse still pay close attention to convection because plants put in a sheltered position (near a wall, behind a wind break, etc) invariably handle the cold better than plants out in the open.
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Venus has so many differences to Earth that any comparison is fraught with difficulty. To start with, Venus has about a million times more CO2 in the atmosphere (by weight) than Earth does. Making any comparison across six orders of magnitude when you have only a small number of sample points is a useless exercise.
Moreover, the atmosphere near the surface of Venus is highly stratified, it effectively has no troposphere. The surface is also very dry and there is a shortage of available liquid water. Thus, the primary cooling mechanisms of evaporation and convection are not available at the surface. The surface can ONLY cool by radiation, which is completely different to Earth’s surface.
It is worth nothing that higher up above the surface there are stratified layers of atmosphere where temperature is below the freezing point of water, but this cold air has no ability to circulate down and cool the surface.
Furthermore, if you still think that surface temperature on Venus is driven by the concept of “visible light comes in and warms things, infra-red cannot escape” then try and explain why the dark side is close to the same temperature as the sunlit side. Why does it make no difference whether the sun is pumping in visible light or not?
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BH: If the highlighted portion of the quote was correct, it would show up on the Mars chart, it doesn’t. Hence my comment..“Additional CO2 captures energy that’s further and further from the peak wavelength.”(However, I’m not claiming to be an expert, merely conveying my interpretation and am ready to be corrected.)
Adding more CO2 makes no appreciable difference, otherwise it would show up on the Mars (9X more CO2) spectral chart.
The highlighted portion is correct and the effect does show up in the chart. The notch for both Earth and Mars appears at exactly the same wavelengths, it does not move “further and further” away. Furthermore the quote is relevant because it is a direct refutation – 50 years old – of your contention that adding more CO2 has no effect.
Go and read the graphs, ignore the blather that your source blogger gives you, he’s completely bone-headed.
In fact, adding more CO2 to Earths current atmosphere helps COOL the planet.
Friggin’ nonsense. The atmosphere-free temperature of the Earth is 255K (about -18C), you’d be frozen to death right now even without CO2’s “cooling” effect.
And BH, complaints about my “attitude” just show that you’re obviously unused to debate in the physical sciences. My “attitude” is perfectly normal and very common.
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tel: Why does it make no difference whether the sun is pumping in visible light or not?
1. Because the atmosphere on Venus, unlike the one on Earth, really does act like a greenhouse: no atmospheric convection nor phase change mechanism that can mediate transfer of energy into outer space.
2. Venus is a “young” planet and has not yet lost all of its initial load of heat of formation.
3. The CO2 on Venus really does trap heat.
4. NASA has cooked the books to hide the fact that Venus is a tropical paradise. They want to keep it as their own private vacation spot.
5. The immortal unicorns on Venus don’t want visitors so they project mind control rays to convince us that Venus is too hot for we mere mortals.
Take your pick. It doesn’t matter which one. Nothing will change the minds of the AGW alarmists anyway.
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Tel: @125 “The problem is that the article you cited, the “50 year old science”, gave a detailed description of the operation of an actual glass-walled greenhouse that was completely wrong.”
Tel, he did not give a detailed description at all. He simply made a passing comment, to introduce the concept to the reader, that the effect of gases in the atmosphere had often been compared – note, “compared”, not “equivalent” – to a greenhouse. So there are differences, big deal.
Secondly, Wood is now known to have been wrong. IR has significant effects in a greenhouse, not the majority effect, but significant. So much that there are commercial products (IR film) sold to commercial operators to take advantage of it.
[On Venus] there is a shortage of available liquid water
I’d be astonished if there was any liquid water – the surface temperature is over 400C
The comparison with Venus is not made because of similarity of atmosphere now, it’s made because of the similarity between the two planets before Venus suffered a runaway greenhouse effect.
try and explain why the dark side is close to the same temperature as the sunlit side.
I would have thought that would be very adequately explained by the density of the atmosphere and thermodynamic effects.
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I don’t ever think I’ve seen people shoot themselves in the foot so often and with so little awareness.
Brian @117
he is reiterating the Beer-Lambert law
Absorbance = log(Io/I) = kc, log of ratios of some reference intensity Io to an intensity of transmitted radiation I, which proportional to the concentration c. The relation is entirely linear at dilute concentrations of an absorbing species.
….
In other words, JM, there is no “greenhouse” effect at all, none
a. What do you think the word “absorbance” means? Perhaps it means that the earth’s atmosphere does absorb heat and that there is a greenhouse effect?
b. I agree that the relationship is linear at dilute concentrations, like dilute CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere perhaps? Have a think, and then pass your conclusions on the Jo so she can withdraw her nonsense that additional CO2 has “no effect”
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JM: #130
“The comparison with Venus is not made because of similarity of atmosphere now, it’s made because of the similarity between the two planets before Venus suffered a runaway greenhouse effect.
Based on what evidence?
Incidentally you still have not produced any evidence supporting your assertion Wood got it wrong wrt greenhouse theory.
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Sorry Louis, I forget sometimes that common astronomical knowledge is not widespread in the broader community.
From the wiki page on Venus:
“A younger Venus is believed to have possessed Earth-like oceans,[8] but these totally evaporated as the temperature rose, leaving a dusty dry desertscape with many slab-like rocks.
The evidence that Wood got it wrong is the existence of IR films as commercial products for greenhouses. (There was a bit of discussion amongst real scientists about Wood’s note a couple of years ago when the denialsphere first latched onto it, but I don’t remember much of the details, something to do with failure to consider conductive effects I think).
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JM:
You have produced zero evidence for Venus, (and Wiki is not considered a scientifically valid citation in any case). All you have shown is a belief that Venus might have had earth like oceans, but this is not evidence at all – just speculation. Soi your statement has to be dismissed as nonsense.
As for Wood getting it wrong – you made a non-sequitur with that statement.
Basically you are writing nonsense here.
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Louis, you’re impossible.
Is this Journal of Geophysical Research, Planets 113: E00B24 (which is reference [8] on the wiki page) good enough for you? Last sentence of abstract:
Since formation of a large body of granitic magmas requires water, the presence of granitic terrains would imply that Venus may have had an ocean and a mechanism to recycle water into the mantle in the past.
A more popular presentation (although it quotes peer reviewed research) is here:
Water molecules are thought to be the principal contributors of hydrogen in the upper atmosphere of Venus. The solar ultraviolet radiation breaks water into electrically charged ‘atoms’, turning it into what scientists call a plasma, and this plasma is then accelerated into space. Thus, two hydrogen atoms should be escaping for every one of oxygen.
….
ASPERA finally established the composition of the escaping plasma and measured that the escape of hydrogen to oxygen is, indeed, in the same ratio as water: two hydrogens for every oxygen.
“you made a non-sequitur with that statement.”
I don’t know what you mean.
“Basically you are writing nonsense here.”
No I’m not. You on the other hand are blathering on in barely comprehensible fashion about things you clearly don’t understand and simply resorting to low grade abuse when you have nothing better to say.
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JM: #135
I’m impossible? No, I don’t confuse empirical facts with speculative guesses.
How do they know there is granite on Venus? Pure guesswork. It is true that granite needs water to form, but water cannot be recycled into the mantle because that is a physical impossibility – less dense matter cannot descend into a volume of more dense matter. Granites formed in the Earth are not the result of subducted water into the mantle.
Water primarily comes from the mantle and is the by-product, at least in the earth, of the biogenic oxidation of mantle derived hydrocarbons by the deep hot biosphere proposed by Tommy Gold.
In any case we don’t really have the surface geology of the earth right either, so if we can’t get the Earth right, what makes you then assume we have Venus right? Showing that two hydrogen ions are escaping with one oxygen ion does not then mean Venus had surface water in the past. All it shows that the plasma contains disassociated water.
Non sequitur? Stating the existence of IR film disproves Wood’s greenhouse theory makes it a non sequitur. Much like stating that by putting window tint on my car proves that it does not heat up by restricting convection.
Blathering in barely comprehensible fashion about things I clearly don’t understand…that a speculative opinion about Venus’ surface is not hard physical evidence of that surface? Sorry if you can’t understand that, not much I can do to make it simpler.
And I would never resort to low grade abuse, I only use abuse of the best and highest quality.
It’s only in the intellectual domain of the verbally skilled that speculative opinions become established as facts.
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Louis: How do they know there is granite on Venus? Pure guesswork.
Spectrometers. Light (infra-red as it happens). The same stuff your eyes use. Emission spectra. The word is in the title of the paper. There is granite there, the only uncertainty is if it is on high ground or not.
And water comes from oil? ROTFLMFAO. There is water all over the universe, it now looks like water could be fairly common. Does it all come from oil? (Even the energetics of that proposition are brain-dead, yeah sure long chain hydrocarbons spontaneously decompose into simpler molecules not containing carbon. Yeah, I’ll buy that. Not.)
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Much like stating that by putting window tint on my car proves that it does not heat up by restricting convection.
Louis, do you have a problem with logic? I said that IR film is used to improve the efficiency of greenhouses. ie. Substance A that has effect B is shown to have measurable economic effect C. IR film (A) blocks IR (B) and is shown to reduce heat loss – aka IR radiation – from greenhouses (C). Notice? A,B and C all have something to do with IR.
You propose hypothetically that window tint restricts convection. ie. Substance A which doesn’t prevent effect X, is shown (or rather not shown) to have effect Y which doesn’t have anything to do with the properties of substance A. Notice? A, X and Y have nothing to do with each other (or very little apart from the tint reducing incoming light). Nobody has ever suggested that tint prevents air flow.
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JM: 138
“You propose hypothetically that window tint restricts convection”
No, you did with your non sequitur.
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jm:137
Again evidence please – spectrometers? We in the mining industry are just now getting to grips with spectral analyses of rocks, and I would not bet the bank on them presently.
As I am a professional exploration geologist, your instructions are most interesting. Learnt from Melvin the Martian?
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JM,
Jupiter is about 90% hydrogen and 10% helium (by numbers of atoms, 75/25% by mass) with traces of methane, water, ammonia and “rock”. This is very close to the composition of the primordial Solar Nebula from which the entire solar system was formed. Saturn has a similar composition, but Uranus and Neptune have much less hydrogen and helium.
So your comment: “There is water all over the universe”, is somewhat problematical.
But then facts have never been allowed to interrupt the annointed when delivering their solutions for humanity.
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Someone told me 2012 Mayan calender predicted global destruction
‘We are all going to die!’ Dead serious they were. Well – another proof of Earth’s global warming was that Pluto was warming.
It’s an ice planet for goodness sake, if it warms it might encourage some life form to develop.
GMP. (Give me patience!)
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Louis @139 you’re hopeless. I did not. I said that IR film restricts IR emission from a greenhouse and that the market has spoken – the effect contributes substantially to the economic efficiency of greenhouses.
I’ve found that farmers are generally a pragmatic lot and not given to adopting trifling measures let alone mystical ones. They buy the stuff because it works.
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Louis @141 re spectrometers.
Pretty much all of astronomy is the analysis of electromagnetic radiation (ie. light, IR, radio etc) and spectrometry is the major means of analysis. It’s not rocket science at all (well perhaps it is, but in the field it’s bread and butter). If the mining industry is taking a while (over a century) to catch up, then that’s because their application and needs are different.
Spectrographic analysis is just fine for understanding what’s happening in the universe when you’re unable to actually go there and hit a rock with a hammer.
Bush Bunny @142, the point about Pluto is that it appears to show an increasing atmospheric density in recent years as it moves away from the sun. This is counter-intuitive (to say the least). We don’t know what’s going on there, but the point is raised as a retort to “but Mars is warming at the South Pole, therefore there’s warming on planets without humans, therefore humans aren’t responsible for what’s happening on the Earth, it must be the Sun getting hotter”. Pluto shouldn’t be warming, it’s moving further from the Sun; but it appears to have a more dense atmosphere now than it did a couple of decades ago. No-one knows why (or even if the effect is real).
Basically, planetary behaviour is complex and rhetorical debating points are not a substitute for understanding.
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JM #144
And the spectral signature for a black hole is…….?
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Trying to compare the solar system and the planet’s moons to Earth and our Moon, is like comparing the evolution of reptiles or dinosaurs to Homo Sapiens. In fact worse.
All living organisms on this planet requite H20 – O – N (particularly) and CO2 to survive. Plants need photosynthesis
and of course it all started with chemosynthesis, that could well
be observed on other planets and moons. Chemosynthesis in our deep oceans is still apparent around submarine hot spots.
But interplanetary atmospheric temps where they can be proven, have nothing to do with earth and the conditions that exist here.
Or in fact on their planet or moon. Europa seems a likely moon of Jupiter that could have some life forms beneath their ices.
Actually we are lucky to be alive. We can’t run very fast, we have no in built weapons like fangs, claws etc. Our babies require long term parental care to become physically independent and financially independent. Against other stronger animal predators we wouldn’t or have of course survived over the milleniums. We humans evolved in different environmental conditions but still survived. Mainly in the last 50 – 250k years for our ability to make tools and have better more innovative and adaptive brains.
Some of the Homo strains have died out. We in the last 10,000 years during our present interstadial or warm periods have succeeded in surviving. Bar catastrophic climatic episodes that have killed millions (plagues, wars, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis and global epidemics). We are a vulnerable species. But realise this vulnerability and some countries have made infrastructures to maintain the status quo.
In Australia people are a little more independent than say people
in UK.
That’s what we have to do now. Country by country, work out a sustainable way of living equally with our environment’s ability to sustain us. Food production, electricity particularly and communications.
The last asteroid missed earth by a mere 45,000 miles. It is due back in 2036… I’d be looking towards the heavens, because nothing humans can do can cause global destruction like an asteroid big enough to create havoc anywhere should it be coming from the direction of the sun, as we can’t see it coming. Or a huge volcanic eruption like Toba in 70k BC?
Maybe 2012 is correct. That’s as far the solar system could effect Earth.
Gee I’m being negative arn’t I. Back to my organic farming project eh?
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JM: Our planetary orbits change. Over thousands of years. We know the Sun is the primary factor that drives our planet’s climates (depending on where you live and the latitude etc) sub atomic particles are deflected by solar activity or sunspots, that help create clouds.
No one has talked about the moon? King tides at full moon? All these variables create our weather. I disregard big cities that
create their own microclimates (and pollution). We can’t do anything about them now, but invent possibly electric cars that don’t belch out pollution.
Whose saying the sun is getting hotter? Well without cloud cover
and CO2 we’d be toast by now.
There’s a good article you might like to read JM written by Emeritus Prof. Oliver K.Manuel. Who worked for the Nuclear and Space sciences and was Former NASA PI for Apollo.
http://arxiv.org/pdf/0905.0704
Very very interesting regarding the Sun. You might enjoy it? And others on this train of thought.
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Actually JM, you are wrong there. I’m sitting my Diploma for Organic Agriculture, having passed my Cert IV. Organic Agriculture last year?
They now have a broadcaster pylons, a 3 meter, pole, that is set in a paddock, with the farmers wishes in it, and certain other things, is supposed to work! Most requested rain, and got it! I’m not joking! They cost $2000 each, and have a range of about 5 square miles. Whose being mystical, eh! It’s to do with attracting paramagneticism. Don’t ask me, have yet to work it out myself!
But it works I am told. I think those who invest in this are also
environmentally conscious so … and are also organically motivated to other adjustments to their land like soil tests and organic fertilizers, cell grazing, and also conservation. etc.
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Louis @145
And the spectral signature for a black hole is…….?
I could be glib and refer to Hawking Radiation but that would be misleading.
We look at what’s happening around it. (Section Doppler Measurements) [my bold]:=
Direct Doppler measures of water masers surrounding the nucleus of nearby galaxies have revealed a very fast keplerian motion, only possible with a high concentration of matter in the center. Currently, the only known objects that can pack enough matter in such a small space are black holes, or things that will evolve into black holes within astrophysically short timescales. For active galaxies farther away, the width of broad spectral lines can be used to probe the gas orbiting near the event horizon. The technique of reverberation mapping uses variability of these lines to measure the mass and perhaps the spin of the black hole that powers the active galaxy’s “engine”.
(I’ve been naughty and included ‘water’ in the bolding to support my earlier point – water is pretty common in the universe.)
A maser is a natural microwave “laser” where coherent radiation is emitted at a particular frequency. We detect that through spectrographic analysis. “Spectral lines” speaks for itself.
BTW – the same maser emissions due to water are similar to those that make water an amplifier of AGW. If you want to keep water in your kitbag as the “villain”, you can’t deny the existence of these masers in the same breath. I think I already mentioned that the denier case is incoherent and would require the wholesale junking of modern physics didn’t I?
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JM and et al. I was referring to your post 143. Sorry to not be more accurate.
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Louis: LOL, What’s black ‘oles got to do wif it? And AGW or climate change? Great fun, eh? Next thing these alarmist will be arguing is that the Sun is about to explode, or implode and become a black ‘ole. We are gone then!
But look on the bright side of life (Monty Python) if we are to believe it, our DNA might one day reach some out space planet just
developing and form some algae or amoeba and we’ll in 4 billion years have a new species of Homo sapiens?
Life is eternal. Greed will kill us.
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Bush Bunny, I’ve just scanned this paper you refer to, but I notice from the text that it was apparently published in Energy and Environment, a not particularly reputable journal. (In fact, it’s basic editorial skills – like avoidance of typos and repeated paragraphs – are appalling) I also notice the paper has zero citations in CiteBase and only 10 (yes 10) downloads. I’m number 10 I think.
I was struck how the whole premise of the paper relies on a “new model” of the sun, ignoring vanilla nuclear fusion of hydrogen etc.
If the guy wants to rewrite modern physics he’s welcome to try, but an 18 page paper on arXiv is not going to do it.
I completely lost interest when it claimed that 57% of the sun’s luminosity comes from neutron emission. That’s visible light that wakes me up in the morning, not X-rays.
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If someone gave me a million dollars to prove AGW. I could. I’d
just tell ’em. The sun is getting hotter, earthquakes and volcanoes are getting more active and this is all to do with the amount of AGW. we are providing to activate all this unnatural
destructive activity that is causing Bangledesh to become sea inundated.
Yeah Bangledesh is sinking, as it was always below sea level like New Orleans. But because to make more agricultural land available they have removed their mangrove swamps. Reclaimed land etc.
All you have to do is corrupt the cause and effect syndrome. Agree?
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I’m tired, see you tomorrow or the next day, and keep those grey cells working without prejudice.
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Bullshit JM. I’ve read it and it sounds or reads quite articulate
to me. What you referred me to was an alarmist paper or blog that was out to discredit the writer. Termed as a denier. Same as some blogs are out to discredit Richard S. Courtney. All I can do is
look at it, read it and compare it to what I know scientifically.
Don’t bullshit me JM! Nor am I bullied by alarmists. Others read it and make an opinion too!
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JM: X Rays????????
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I’m not with you JM? What your referred to has nothing to do with
Professor (Emeritus)Oliver K.Manuel’s paper. Do you think we are stupid!
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JM? Would be a nom de plume for Mann. Oh yes, that would explain it?
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Sorry folks I am getting angry. JM you are the type of people who wish to foist on this world scientific gobblegook to prove that AGW
is a social political and will be an environmental disaster if the UN IPCC had its way, without any scientific foundation.
It disgusts me you would try to defame Emeritus Prof. Oliver K. Manuel. I don’t know why you would like to do this and I would question your academic and scientific qualifications too?
What are they? Come clean if you are honest? That I doubt you are!
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JM’s spat out the dummy.
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JM: The truth hurts sometimes doesn’t it.
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Again folks, look at Emeritus Prof. Oliver K. Manuel’s paper
and see what you think? He was Pl and former NASA for Apollo. And Professor in Nuclear and Space Science. Just Google and see his qualification.
http://arxiv.org/pdf.0905.0704 “The sun’s influence on climate”
This gentleman and academic is very vocal on disputing the UN IPCC
report on climate change saying it is politically motivated not
scientifically correct.
Enjoy.
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Bush Bunny, the reference I gave was to a discussion about Energy and Environments editing skills, nothing more. They clearly don’t read what they publish very closely, spell-checkers appear to be about their limit.
Secondly, the Emeritus Prof. Oliver K. Manuel claims that the Sun is a neutron star at its core. This is just wacky. A neutron star is pretty close to being a black hole and the photospheric temperature of the Sun – around 6000K – would not be enough to prevent the Sun’s collapse into the neutron core. In other words it would be about 10 km across, instead of the 1,400,000 km it actually is.
Neutron stars also are very hot and emit in the X-ray region, not visible light.
No-one has cited him, only 10 people (including me and presumably you) have downloaded his paper. I suspect fewer have read it.
In fact, I don’t even quite understand what your point is when you refer me to it.
He’s a loony.
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Same as some blogs are out to discredit Richard S. Courtney.
I think Richard S. Courtney has managed to discredit himself in recent days – on this very blog.
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JM:
March 28th, 2010 at 11:37 pm
I think Richard S. Courtney has managed to discredit himself in recent days – on this very blog.
JM – You have now discredited yourself, by that very comment.
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I think you’re missing the point, JM.
CO2 “absorbs” heat, so does dirt for that matter, the issue is, is there any “greenhouse” effect?
– Not measured
– Actually impossible (Gerlich and Tscheuschner)
Courtney is an admirable fellow, JM. I know him personally.
Which is more than you do, and if you like people slamming you on Web pages because somebody disagrees with you, keep it up, you have demonstrated nothing except you believe in ghosts because somebody you like does too.
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The Sun, by the way, has an apparent photosphere temperature around 5500 K, that’s just an appearance, obviously, the Sun is millions of degrees K at the surface – the Sun’s energy is dissipated in modes other that emission of radiation.
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I said: Sorry, you’ll find I won’t bite on the bait you’re serving. Why don’t you try insulting my wife and family. That might get me going.
JM please elaborate as to why that is an “accurate analogy”. I kind of think you have slipped some (You have such a keen grasp of both science and language you resort to analogy)…..Why?
Oh maybe because you foolishly thought I’d run off down another divergent, useless, banal argument? (Sign of a warmist troll)
While you are at it, every time you say something insulting, or with a tone that intends to provoke, then I am going to quote you and then add: JM is an IDIOT. Maybe then you’ll stop trying to get people to blow.
EXAMPLE:
JM is an idiot
JM is an idiot
JM is an idiot
JM is an idiot
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Actually Ed Brian’s issue was believing in ghosts just because someone you like believes in them.
p.s. there’s no such thing as ghosts.
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Thank you, Matt.
Now say what you really feel: “AGW is a myth.”
You know it, Matt. You know, in your mind, which way all the evidence is going (has gone).
It’s just a cooked-up explanation of some observations, based on what some people believed to be true; can’t fight the lack of evidence or “spin” it any longer.
This has happened before with AGW back in the 1920’s and this isn’t new, although some ways of making it “appear” sensible are.
Didn’t work then, doesn’t work now, and we might as well concentrate on ways of helping humanity instead of working an idea that won’t help anybody because it has no truth content.
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They don’t like it when you sling mud, so I understand.
Neither do I
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Brian @167
The Sun, by the way, has an apparent photosphere temperature around 5500 K, that’s just an appearance, obviously, the Sun is millions of degrees K at the surface
Don’t try and argue with someone who actually does know what they’re talking about. The photospheric temperature of the Sun is pretty close to 5800K so it’s perfectly acceptable of me to approximate it to 6000K. 5500K is slightly less defensible (and would get marked wrong in a high school physics exam, whereas 6000K would be ok)
The core is millions of degrees K, but the surface is only about 6000K
– the Sun’s energy is dissipated in modes other that emission of radiation.
Really? What would they be? Convection? Conduction? bzzzt – don’t think so.
What else is there? Ghosts carrying the energy away in immaterial wheelbarrows?
Courtney is an admirable fellow, JM. I know him personally.
I’ll take your word for it, on both counts. No evidence required. I trust you on that one.
But it doesn’t make him right.
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Brian @166
– [The greenhouse effect is ] Actually impossible (Gerlich and Tscheuschner)
Whoa! Did you notice we weren’t all freezing to death at -18C this morning? That’s the no-atmosphere temperature of the Earth, the greenhouse effect is what makes it habitable.
Secondly, G&T are long discredited. Although I particularly enjoyed their assertion that they wouldn’t believe in the greenhouse effect until they could see it proven with Feynmann Diagrams (tools for describing and solving the interaction of elementary particles like quarks) – ie. completely unnecessary. Basic physics and a bit of chemistry does just fine to explain it.
It’s a bit like saying I don’t believe in the internal combustion engine (even though it got me to work) because nobody has explained the workings of a thermal engine in terms of the light spectra (ie. color) of burning petrol.
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Mark @168
JM please elaborate as to why that is an “accurate analogy”. I kind of think you have slipped some (You have such a keen grasp of both science and language you resort to analogy)…..Why?
1. Because it is accurate. Denialism refuses to take a coherent view and mount a consistent case. Factoids (or worse total misconceptions) are plucked from anywhere convenient and plugged together in mutually inconsistent ways (that initially sound plausible) to come to a completely wrong conclusion.
People like me who disagree are then routinely derided by the adherents, and instead of having our arguments disputed in a sane and fact-based manner are just outright abused instead.
2. You used the phrase “only a theory”. That’s a classic of the anti-rational standpoint of creationists. Evolution is “only a theory”. AGW is “only a theory”.
3. You followed up by accusing me of only believing what I’m told and falling for some sort of “faith-based” view. That is also a classic creationist behavior
It’s also wrong, I don’t believe what I’m told. I have a background in the physical sciences, spent some time researching climate science and found it accords with what I know and can work out for myself
4. Why “analogy”? Because I don’t know how else to describe the very, very similar behavior of creationists and denialists. It doesn’t matter how carefully or how often anyone refutes their beliefs, they still cling to them and never abandon the nonsense that appears to animate their lives.
I could use the phrase “exactly the same” if it makes you feel better?
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JM # 177
“The core is millions of degrees K, but the surface is only about 6000K”
And you have measurements to subtstantiate this?
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And JM, also apply yourself to the temperature of the chromosphere which is also in the million Kelvin range before displaying foot-in-mouth syndrome.
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JM:
At #102 you say:
OK. I allow others to assess if my contributions here are lacking in knowledge, “incoherent”, and “rants”. However, perhaps you will answer my question to you on another thread as a method to demonstrate your knowledge and the “coherence” of your rants?
In the same posting (n.b. the same posting) on that other thread
(a)
you said you “dispute” my accurate statement that all the IR emitted from the Earth’s surface that CO2 can absorb is absorbed in the lowest 100m of the atmosphere,
and
(b)
you said that all the IR emitted from the Earth’s surface that CO2 can absorb has an average distance of between “2 and 5 m” before being absorbed.
I asked you to equate your dispute of my accurate statement in (a) with your statement in (b).
You have not answered that question.
It seems that your knowledge of logic is zero, your understanding of science is less than zero, and the coherence of your statements is zero.
And you attempt to overcome these failings by throwing insults at anybody who corrects your silly statements and assertions.
Your statements and assertions on this and other threads of this blog proclaim your ignorance and misunderstanding of radiative physics. But (above) you repeatedly assert that you do understand radiative pbhysics.
So, perhaps you will now answer the question that I have again put to you here? Thus, you can start to substantiate your repeated assertion of your knowledge and understanding that – at present – is repeatedly denied by your own arguments and statements.
Richard
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Louis @180
And you have measurements to subtstantiate this?
Actually yes. Neutrino emissions. Which can only happen as a result of fusion at that sort of temperature. And which we have now measured successfully to be completely in line with our models of the Sun’s interior. I know there was a problem for many years in that there didn’t appear to be enough of them, but we now understand that neutrinos have a small mass, and we’ve managed to reconcile the issue. (So don’t drag out old references on the “solar neutrino problem”, it’s solved.)
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Richard @182
Reemission?
Perhaps you could explain how purely semantic logic (aka word games) overcomes that?
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JM: #183
Circular reasoning – You propose the solar energy source is a fusion process, discover not enough neutrinos are being emitted, think about it, then decide that the number of neutrinos measured is wrong because we allocated the wrong mass to them initially, which then accepted proves that the origin of the neutrinos is the fusion process believed to occur in the Sun’s core.
OK, so we propose the solar core has a temperature of 20000K, gets to a sunspot and is < 5000K, then rises to the photosphere where its about 6000K, and then drops 500 km out, to then rise to 2million K at the chromosphere.
Bit like me standing in front of a fire and getting warmer the further away I am from that fire.
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So you don’t believe in strong and weak interactions JM.
I don’t blame you, that’s kind of phony sounding, isn’t it Miser Physics
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You think you know things that you don’t, JM
You’re a poseur, but you are the last person aware of it
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Anyway that “30 K greenhouse effect” is another myth.
There is a difference of 8 K between the calculated radiation temperature of exchange of the Earth with the Sun and the radiant temperature measured from satellites in space (i.e., where the maximum occurs in the wavelength distribution of radiation.)
Those 8 K do not correspond to a “greenhouse” effect as it is portrayed to occur.
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Louis @185 could you please at least put together a coherent argument that deals basic facts correctly, andactually makes a point
Brian @186 of course I believe in the strong and weak forces, don’t be a nit. And neutrino oscillation requires that neutrinos have mass.
Brain @188, if you think there is only an 8K difference, I give you … the moon.
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The strong and weak INTERACTIONS are responsible for the appearance of black body radiation of the Sun at 5500 K, JM. The Sun’s surface temperature is not reflected in the EM spectrum that we observe.
The 8 K temperature difference as I described above is true, JM. The 30 K or so difference is a myth.
You’re a victim of popular literature and hearsay.
You’re not alone, which is why the AGW idea is so pervasive
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OK whomever deleted a bunch of posts has caused a huge numbering problem.
I think you can and it is better to delete the contents and leave a blank post than to delete a post and have the numbers get out-of-whack.
Just a thought
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There is absolutely no doubt that our sun emits high velocity neutrons, it was measured on the International Space Station. It also emits high velocity charged particles. I believe that someone on Earth also measured the neutrino “ghost particle” emissions with large underground tanks of water (in Japan ?!? can’t remember exactly where it was done). The neutrons and charged particles have great difficulty punching through the Earth’s atmosphere.
There’s some of you energy right there, but we can argue about exactly how big the percentage is.
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What about the cosmic sub atomic particles they are deflected by
solar activity (sun spots)from reaching earth, they will effect the amount of cloud cover on earth. the sub atomic particles join with water vapor molecules and help form clouds. Hence when there is solar activity we get less cloud cover.
I mean this is first year University study! Greenhouse gases are
95% water vapor. Where as you remove them from the equation and C02 is the presented major greenhouse gas. But totally only .4% of greenhouse gases. 99% of CO2 is natural occurring.
I’ve got a thunderstorm coming so must get off the computer soon.
One big volcanic eruption in Indonesia will change the climate
don’t you worry. I suppose like some thought climate changers
caused the Haitian earthquake that we influence volcanic eruptions also? LOL
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JM: Bless your cotton socks, where ever you are.
Evolution is not a theory? Well tell me, before you were born did your mum and dad make love to beget you. Sex makes the world go around. And most creatures do it. But their natural environment and the climate dictate how they adapt and if they can’t adapt or become specialized – humans haven’t as yet specialized – if the climate changes they eventually die off.
Unless some natural disaster hastens their departure.
I’ve just acquired a book “When Nature turns Nasty”. Ever so often global warming creeps in… Bangladash and Tuvala being swamped by rising sea levels. True in a way, because their land mass is sinking, (Atolls have always been subjected to this)or they have reclaimed land that was below sea level anyway. Or removed the tree cover, diverted rivers, etc. There are some places in the world that are very vulnerable, generally poor nations, who still depend on subsistence farming.
Creationists, also believe AGW is a load of bunkum. As the world was created only 6,000 years ago. So they believe as Dr Pachauri is a hindoo (viz) and is a pagan, vegetarian, how would he know?
Yeah I read the above on a creationist site. I had a laugh actually.
Climate change as presented by UN IPCC, Al Gore, Mann, Jones, Hansen (particularly the last one) Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, WWF, was politically inspired. Their theory was a hypothesis and a bad one, using corrupted data. It happens, it’s just that it has gone so far that some will be finding their lies
are being found out by the media. Thousands of scientists including Hansens former supervisor have stated they and others
have been screaming for years …. it’s wrong…and who have tried to make money out of it… the UN IPCC, Pachauri (with his
TERI Europe and India and the chair person of an company who take over oil fields that are supposed to have dried up, to get more oil) Al Gore and his green energy. The poor EU with its trillions
invested in Carbon credits, now losing value. The poor BBC whose pension fund is invested in carbon credits.
The draft treaty to aim at global government. And CO2 is not responsible, sure with water vapor it keeps us warm or cool, depending on the season. Maybe it is my lack in human nature that tells me, that people were out to make money out of me and you basing the reason on a myth, or a fraud more likely.
So you agree with this crime against humanity, eh? Does that make you guilty by association. In my mind it does!
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“Denialism” Is it accurate? Sometimes, with some people, and from both sides of the climate debate. Hence sometimes accurate and always meaningless. I’ve already written about how mindless, derogatory, and vapid the term is in a science debate. It applies even more so to those who throw the label ad nauseum. Spot the Real Denier In the comments there, Richard Courtney set a beautiful trap for a real denier and almost had him complete the full list. I accidentally asked the real denier for manners, and as per usua, he couldn’t be polite, so Richard’s neat strategy was foiled somewhat.
Righto. You mean like calling people Deniers, conspiracy theorists, Do-Nothings, Oil Shills, and corporate criminals? AGW believers have turned bullying and insults into a reflex.
JM – you are not seriously suggesting AGW is a LAW??? It’s not even a theory. It’s a hypothesis.
That’s also classic “confounding” of a point. So what if two groups of people occasionally have the same behaviour? Hitler was a tee-totalling vegetarian. So what? How does any of that inform us about the physical universe? Stop with the creationist line of “thought”. That’s a different argument. Most skeptics don’t argue with evolution in any case, so it even fails as a mindless catergorisation. You are deliberately trying to smear us. You call yourself a scientist?
Are you really suggesting that the world is warming due to carbon because some skeptics use argumentative tactics which are also like the ones some creationists and some alarmists use? Seriously?
A scientist who doesn’t know what a hypothesis is? Are you kidding?
.
YES – Exactly the same as AGW believers. Even after the hockey stick was created with random data, even after 75% of temperature sensors disappeared, even after the medieval warm period was shown by hundreds of studies and thousands of boreholes, AGW believers deny the evidence.
This reasoning by “category of human” is a mindless path to nowhere, a logical black hole from which the conversation doesn’t recover.
JM – Either you have evidence we DENY or your don’t. You don’t. You can’t name a single paper we refuse to discuss, or that we can’t point out a flaw or inadequacy with.
You need to apologise for boxing us as deniers or denialists or any other permutation of the word deny.
Like all collections of humans, some skeptics have flaws, so do alarmists. Argumentum by “personality” is just an ad hom.
Your posts will be held until you agree that the term denialist/denier is logically meaningless as applied to skeptics since you can’t back it up. If you can agree to stop throwing mindless names and diverting the conversation off a meaningful track you may continue to post.
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JM:
Some of the idiocies in astronomy – fusion powered suns and magnetic reconnection.
Sustainable fusion reacts remain an impossible dream – the plasma as part of the process in the Tokomak keeps becoming unstable, killing the reaction – the reason is magnetic reconnection, which no one understands, and that is obvious since there is no such thing as magnetic reconnection. It came about when physicists reified the mathematical abstraction of magnetic field lines. These lines are cartoons used as an aid to understand magnetic field behaviour. They are no different in kind to topographic contours that are used to show 3D effects on a 2D map. Topographic contours cannot be cut and allow the ends to flap about in 3D space. Neither can magnetic field lines be cut to flap around in space.
The plasma phenomena called magnetic reconnection events are actually plasma double layer explosions, and its because of these that the fusion processs is unsustainable.
The sun does emit neutrinos but these are produced by the massive elecric discharges occurring at the photosphere. That’s why there are so few of them – the initial hypothesis of the sun being a fusion generator, or a neutron star, (one of Tommy Gold’s mistakes), are wrong.
Incidentally it is a scientific fact that a couple of years ago the solar wind shut completely down for 2 days. Zip, nada, zero wind. A fusion powered sun cannot do that.
Since these short lists of facts show we don’t really understand the physics of the Sun, it logically follows we cannot then assume that we understand what drives weather and hence climate on earth.
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An excellent and interesting post Jo.
You’ve completely picked the article, and the man, apart in your usual forensic manner.
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Jo #190
Ouch! That is turning the tables! And very nicely done! Thank you.
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JM “Moderated” sent this in. My reply below.
> Author : JM
> Comment: Jo, I think you’re being a bit precious.
>
> I’ve used a term you don’t like “denialist”, not far removed from
> something you prefer “skeptic” and label it an ad hominem attack.
> On the other hand I’ve been called an “idiot”, “a poseur”, “liar” and
> quite possibly other things I’ve ignored. I think they are
> definitely ad hominem and have no place in debate.
>
> Your response is to suppress my comment until such time as I agree
> with your view on a matter of opinion rather than fact – that
> denialism can be compared in some respects to creationism. Further
> it’s an opinion that I have backed up and defended when asked to.
>
> You quote extensively from my response to a request to defend my
> opinion when you didn’t object to the opinion itself.
>
> I find it interesting that “skeptics” are unable to handle skeptic
> opinions and questions. Particularly since I think I’ve got Richard
> and Brian on the ropes.
>
> Note I also think Brian believes he’s got me similarly on the ropes,
> but at the moment neither of us is ready to land the final punch
> because we’re not quite sure of what the other is saying and are
> still circling.
>
> I thought you liked and welcomed debate?
—————————————————————————————-
JM: I do like debate. But there’s no point debating with people who can’t reason.
Moderating the blog is a free service I offer. I’ve found the simplest rule is to insist on manners, and yes, in a perfect world I
would do it on both sides. Instead after 20,000 comments I have found that if I stop people from using denier, denialist, etc, (all false names, since you can’t name any evidence we deny), then I find both sides of the debate are polite and friendly. I don’t need to do much at all then, which means I can continue to offer a space for discussion. It’s very time efficient.
I’m surprised at how fast it weeds out faulty brains.
You agreed previously didn’t you – not to use the term denier (et al)?
I don’t ask much. If you are so delusional that you think you should be allowed to post baseless name-calling, and then expect me to stop people calling you an idiot, well, what can I say?
If the shoe fits…
If you were really interested in talking science instead of inflaming people and “scoring baseless points”, surely being polite would not be an effort, instead you would insist that it was essential.
I’m not suppressing your comment specifically, I’m merely stopping anyone posting who proves they can’t understand a simple logical point.
i.e. People who don’t deny anything are not deniers. Not too tricky eh?
It’s not that I don’t like the word, it’s just that people who use it against skeptics without justification are not mentally capable of contributing. I mean, they lack self control, reason, and judgement. When we explain why they are wrong, they don’t have the equipment to understand if we are right.
Honestly, you would never listen to a denier-scientist would you? (Who would?) So as long as you label us as that you are not here for a debate.
Jo
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JM’s behaviour can certainly be understood, if he frequents such web sites as “real climate” and “Deltoid” and “think progress.”
There, of course, the “deniers” are held up for ridicule routinely (I believe in fact it is the reason these web sites exist – for entertainment, not edification) and the if these sites were one’s only basis of experience or knowledge, then one would come away with the impression that none but a fool would “deny” something that is as obvious as existence.
Excepting for evidence supporting a belief in AGW, of course, which is a small detail hopefully overlooked by the faithful.
So if JM visits this site and implies that people are “fools” for not endorsing things that are “obvious” and receives responses to the effect that JM is the “fool,” then this is not the response that JM would expect if his web site experiences were limited to such as “Deltoid” et c.
Thus JM’s evident surprise in his missive to Joanne might be perfectly understandable
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JM:@ 174
March 29th, 2010 at 7:52 pm
The entire JoNova site is rather chock full of logical, coherent discussions demonstrating exactly that not only is AGW a theory but that theory is not supported by empirical evidence. Empirical evidence is the foundation of GOOD science. I have a very coherent and logical view of the situation: You have not yet convinced any of the “ratbags” here of your views. You hold that is evidence of skeptical incoherence, I suggest you lack the skills necessary to make that determination.
You come here to a skeptic blog site and from almost your first post are rude, offensive, impolite, arrogant and evasive. You expect better treatment than you give? THAT IS ILLOGICAL.
JM “man of science”, It is a true statement to say AGW is a THEORY (perhaps truer to say hypothesis but that takes longer to type). You can say that is anti-rational but stating that is simply, irrefutably FALSE. (anything other defense you muster of that absurd statement is prima-facie evidence of your DENIALISM)
JM YOU are the one behaving as a Creationist because YOU blindly support the AGW THEORY without EMPIRICAL evidence. Your statement that I should “join the Creationist movement” and that it is a correct analogy; is FALSE
Then use your background in physical science to answer this question: Where is the empirical evidence of AGW?
JM: LOOK IN A MIRROR! And read the above #4 out loud ten times.
I really don’t do any of this because it “makes me feel better”. The agenda of AGW supporters appears to be a reformation of all government. (yes I chose the word reformation on purpose). This is something that I am so vigorously opposed to, that I am bound by my conscience to fight at all levels and at all cost. Your nonsense arguments and pseudo science does nothing to make me feel better.
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Methinks the lady doth protest too much…..
Not really sure which is more pathetic. Banning someone for disagreeing with you (at the same time, without any sense of irony, using the label ‘alarmist’ as though this is in some way a non-loaded superior term… ), or the people who subsequently chimed in to get the last word in an argument with a banned personage. Why do you feel you get to claim the label ‘skeptic’, anyway? ‘Denialism’ at least relates to a POSITION. Why can one not be a skeptic and yet believe in AGW? You want to control the argument by controlling the language in this kind of Orwellian fashion, fine, just get away from the moral high ground.
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So what do you want her to do, Ox? You tell us.
Describe acceptable (to you) behaviour for Joanne right here.
Describe what to you is acceptable behaviour for everyone else.
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Jo:
JM used the term denier, and has shown willing to defend his use of the term. I’m not sure if he uses the term ‘conspiracy theorist’, but someone who proposes a theory of conspiracy kind of literally is one, aren’t they? If the term is deemed derogatory, well, that would probably be down to the usual standard of rigor people who propose conspiracy theories seem to display. To avoid the derogatory connotations I would suggest that, for instance, when asserting widespread data falsification and deception by scientific bodies, one should provide a case that can stand up to at least cursory scrutiny. I would submit that you yourself have committed the former and failed to do the latter. As for “Do-Nothings, Oil Shills, and corporate criminals”…. are you censoring JM because he used the word ‘denier’, or are you doing it because of perceived grievances against a “category of human” writ large?
That, Jo, is an OPINION (and it’s not like the distinction between ‘theory’ and ‘hypothesis’ isn’t rather woolly). In any case, the point JM was making was that the “only a theory” argument vs. say Evolution is that it is an empty claim. Of COURSE evolution is a theory. But to say ‘you have a theory, I have a theory too – they’re BOTH just theories and therefore equally good’ is silly. It goes to the point made in the article you have above subjected to some lovely straw-man regarding balance. JM was clearly not saying AGW was not a theory, any more than he would necessarily be implying it was a law if he was (theory and law at least DO tend to be mutually exclusive under most definitions, unlike ‘hypothesis’ and ‘theory’).
One would have much more foundation to question a science communicator who doesn’t seem to understand what a law is…..
JM was asked to expound on why he thought …. what shall we call them… AGW disbelievers were like creationists. This would necessarily involve listing similarities, no?
Are you seriously saying you saw him making this inference? Note, incidentally, your use of the word ‘alarmist’ there.
The politeness point is highly contentious…. and YOU are the moderator! You take the opinion that person X has a faulty brain and censor him. How very amazing that you see this as speedily weeding out faulty brains…
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But people who believe in man-made global warming DO in fact have faulty brains!
I thought this was common knowledge by this time …
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Oxspit, JM is referring to this full statement I made way back in this thread.
You said:
JM was not making this argument as you aver. He was insulting me by suggesting I was (or should be) a creationist.
Did I say equally good? Really? No I said what I said with explanation. JM has repeatedly stated that the theory behind Co2 caused warming is “settled science” In the correct context he IS suggesting my use of the word “theory” is to be ridiculed. Oxspit, Everything else you say about it is a waste of time. Unless you are JM, I’d suggest you do not defend his insults.
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Jo, for what it is worth, thank you for trying to keep rude or insulting comments to a minimum. I am not a fan of excessive moderation and I think you and the moderators are unusually patient. (considering some of the Pro AGW blogs as a comparison your site is a model of free speech).
You perhaps read my increasingly rude posts back to JM when ever he said something rude or offensive. I decided either he or I would get moderated. (I suppose both is a possibility).
For now at least (since I am still able to post) I think you used good judgment. 🙂
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JM and Oxspit: There is a different approach and political stance
and inexperience (I feel?) in how you go about explaining your point of view. I am sure that people who had faith in the so called science and the proof that AGW would/will cause devastating climate change in undeveloped countries is a settled science. You must feel absolutely shattered that the truth is being told for once.
Please note: denial, deny, denier: A person who refuses to accept the truth or logic of the situation – eg. That the world is 4.5 billion years old (archaeological, geological, palaeoanthropolical, paleoclimatology, palaeontology, ice core research, and deep sea core research suggest this (to name a few) and creationists who separate the science from their religious beliefs. i.e. The planet and humans were created in six days by
a supreme being (God) including humans. They don’t believe in
evolution and this happened in 4004 BC on October 4th.
Logic? Sad thing is if you don’t allocate the time factor i.e. One of God’s day is equal to an Earth’s human 24 hour day. The process described in Genesis is right, except one day should be translated in time to take millions or billions of years give or take a million or two LOL. Ironically I checked this up with a Jewish friend, and he told me Genesis was probably started about 6,000 years ago, but many writers through time like all that started with oral history.
Sceptic or skeptic: A person who instinctively doubts (through knowledge,education, life’s experience or just plain COMMON SENSE!) or disputes, questions, or disagrees with assertions and commonly held conclusions. Like the AGW so called settled science. And the socio/political/economic factors that are driving this.
For JM to ridicule and dispute the likes of Dr Richard S.Courtney and Emeritus Professor Oliver K. Manuel is rather a weak assertion that his or her AGW belief is correct and most skeptical views are stupid and unfounded.
You Sirs or Madames are the deniers in my point of view. This climate change and AGW debacle is one of the biggest crimes against humanity. And in my view you are guilty by association.
Wake up!
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Another point JM and Oxspit. The solutions to the AGW CO2 emissions
causing climate change are taxing CO2 emissions at the expense of people like you and me, and it won’t do one thing to change the climate or make it cooler. It is cooling naturally.
And to base the UN IPCC scientific assertions on this matter is beyond belief! Carbon Credit Trading in Europe is facing a gross
down turn in their economy as the value of carbon has devalued.
I noticed in this weeks International Express (produced in UK for Australia) that the UK government has turned down the development of a two billion pound Green bank! (Whoopee) They now accept that UK’s economy can not sustain a 340 billion to 404 billion (pounds!) expenditure it will take to make the country and the measures to cut CO2 emissions. Commonsense is shining through.
The lie has been exposed.
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What are you doing JM? You know this subject is far beyond your capacities. I could quote both of you but I’ll just quote OX-Spittle.
“Not really sure which is more pathetic. Banning someone for disagreeing with you (at the same time, without any sense of irony, using the label ‘alarmist’ as though this is in some way a non-loaded superior term… ), or the people who subsequently chimed in to get the last word in an argument with a banned personage. Why do you feel you get to claim the label ’skeptic’, anyway? ‘Denialism’ at least relates to a POSITION. Why can one not be a skeptic and yet believe in AGW? You want to control the argument by controlling the language in this kind of Orwellian fashion, fine, just get away from the moral high ground.”
Please no-one read the above. Its just not relevant to anything. Ox-spittle. Are you trying to push drugs on us? Are you engaging in some around-about drug-deal? If not a drug-deal is there someone here you are trying to seduce? Or turn? With your talents so strong you can make people change the basic nature of their sexuality?
No?
Well why are you beating around the bush? Just spit it out you lame dog.
You didn’t have evidence last time I was here? You would not formulate a relevant hypothesis then. Have matters changed? Are you now ready to submit an hypothesis for testing? Are you now ready to present evidence for that hypothesis?
If not you are just a stooge or worse.
Your starting point is that we are in a brutal and pulversing ice age. And, as far as I can make out, your irrational and primitive belief, is that we should:
1. Turn down an airborne free fertiliser.
2. Get uptight about warming too difficult to detect……… during a brutal and pulverising ice age.
Well if you are fine with all that, stop mucking about, and launch the hypothesis.
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Oxspit re your comments re 199. You are referring to terminology in the context of the theme of this blog. You defend JM. I in 203 and 204 tried to educate you and indirectly to JM to how to conduct without reverting to derogatory terminology or incorrect terminology to those who you perceive disagree with you on the AGW so called hypothesis. Therefore making the AGW seem like a crime against humanity perhaps? Well it is! And I think you might be one day seem to be guilty by association to this so called crime. How will you explain that to your children or grandchildren eh?
I actually am beginning to feel that the AGW hypothesis is another name for fraud, manipulation or corruption of the data or a scam literally.
I note you have like a rat (rodent) have come in given a few bites and run away. Not like a Staffordshire bull terrier for argument sake, who will stand up, stand its ground and give a reason for not withdrawing. Until the opposition relinquishes
presumed domination.
We won’t hear from JM or Oxspit again Jo? They’ve withdrawn beaten from the fact they were here just to not prove their AGW
hypothesis, but to argue. There are many on various sites who do this. Expect it. Undivided we stand, divided we fall. That’s from a political point of view. They the real deniers are frightened now, and look as if they have been conned by better scammers than they, and all they can do is insult us but have no substance to follow up their beliefs. Like rats. Leaving a sinking ship.
Personally I believe their hearts were in the right place, depending on one’s social politics. Just they couldn’t do their sums well but genuinely believed that cutting CO2 emissions would save the planet (plus stop eating meat etc as per Pachauri and Milbank) from climate change.
Rule one. Climate is what we expect – weather is what we get.
So many variables involved. Over the last 1000 years, we have experience a medieval warm period, then a mini ice age. These are normal fluctuations in extreme climatic phenomena. The planets now cooling for the next maybe ten years and so long as it
doesn’t cool any more we should be OK.
Environmental sustainability is another thing. Australia with its
varied microclimates has to start thinking about improving our soil fertility through organic or biological methodology. And they are doing the same in the US of A, Europe, India and UK.
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Oxspit #199
That shows you are science ignorant. She is correct. It is an hypothesis, nothing more. To state it is more is to not understand science or scientific method. You really should not barge into someone else house and insult them for being RIGHT.
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Just a question for our Oz folks. Is “being a bit precious” a slang term? Or did he just misspell precocious?
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Friends:
There is an important point here that directly relates to the true subject of this thread; viz. “Picasso Brain Syndrome“.
At #177 I repeated a question to JM that was:
At #179 JM responded with a single word. And he added a question. That entire post said:
There are two points here.
Firstly,
does “reemission” answer my question?
No, it does not.
The fact is that the reason
“almost all the IR emitted from the Earth’s surface that CO2 can absorb is absorbed in the lowest 100m of the atmosphere”
is because
“all the IR emitted from the Earth’s surface that CO2 can absorb has an average distance of between “2 and 5 m” before being absorbed”.
A little thought will tell anybody that this must be so.
If the average distance that the IR from the surface travels before absorbtion is 5m then little will reach 10m from the surface before getting absorbed and very little will reach 100m without getting absorbed.
This is not affected in any way by the absorbed energy being radiated from the molecules that absorbed it (i.e. reemission). Clearly, it requires ‘Picasso Brain Syndrome’ to think reemission could affect this.
Secondly,
the question posed by JM in #179 (and I quote in this post) deflects discussion of the effect of reemission.
It pretends that my purely scientific question is “semantic word games”. It posits that I should discuss semantics and not reemission. But the scientific facts are the important point to be discussed.
Most of the absorbed IR is not reemitted as radiation. An IR photon absorbed by a greenhouse gas (GHG) molecule raises the GHG molecule to an excited state. It can lose the energy of that excitation by emitting a photon or by collision with a non-GHG molecule (i.e. it can deexcite by either of two mechanisms). There are thousands of deexcitations by collisions for each deexcitation by a reemission. And GHG molecues can be excited by collisions with non-GHG molecules, too.
Deexcitation by collisions warms non-GHG molecules and the agregate of these warmed molecules rises by convection.
The important point is that almost all the IR emitted from the Earth’s surface that CO2 can absorb is absorbed in the lowest 100m of the atmosphere. It is not possible to absorb more than all, so adding more CO2 to the atmosphere cannot make much difference to the amount of IR that is absorbed.
But JM was not willing to address this important fact. On another thread I tried to explain the matter to him in as many ways as I could devise, and I told him to read the IPCC Reports that also explain the matter (I thought he might accept the IPCC view), and I told him to look it up for himself. He would not consider any of it. Instead, he claimed that I could not explain it, he complained that I told him to “look it up”, and Ms Nova reports (at #194) that he wrote to her saying:
So, JM gave us a clear example of “Picasso Brain Syndrome” in his post at #179. This is a pity because a serious discussion of IR absorbence in the atmosphere may have been interesting and useful.
Richard
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Thank you Richard,
JM is an example to be made of.
The subject at hand needs exploration and with patients could be educational.
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PhilJourdan: # 208
Just a question for our Oz folks. Is “being a bit precious” a slang term? Or did he just misspell precocious?
I believe in the context used “being a bit precious” was used, it inferred Jo was being thin skinned, not taking criticism well. Aussie colloquialism.
Not saying I agree but I feel this was the intention of the phrase.
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Bob #212: many thanks for the explanation. We all speak english – kind of. 😉
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Joanne: “So what if two groups of people occasionally have the same behaviour?”
Anti-evolutionists and climate sceptics share a good number of positions regarding their respective opponents. Among them are claims of:
• Media bias
• Evolution/AGW as religion/cult
• Evolution/AGW as groupthink
• No consensus
• Politically inspired science
• Educational indoctrination
• Lack of falsifiability
• Career prejudice against anti-evolutionists/climate sceptics
• Funding corruption
• Growing numbers of anti-evolutionists/climate sceptics
• Evolutionists/AGWers as nasty people
• Evolutionists/AGWers as censors
• Evolution/AGW as postmodernism
• Lists of anti-evolutionists/climate sceptics
• And of course, lies, hoax and fraud.
The shared behaviour is more than “occasional”. A few shared behaviours would be merely coincidental, but when there is such a marked convergence of views, one is entitled to look more closely.
The issue then becomes: what is the function of these shared behaviours? In my view, it is an attempt to explain away some uncomfortable facts, foremost among them that both evolution and AGW have become the dominant view among the scientific establishment and the major societal institutions.
Of course, none of this has anything to do with the science per se, but it has a lot to do with rhetoric and persuasion. If these types of arguments are invalid in the case of evolution, should they be valid in the case of AGW?
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Brendan H:
April 2nd, 2010 at 10:17 am
So you list a bunch of human behaviours and traits, so what?
I happen to be an evolutionist AND a dyed in the wool deep sceptic, so your generalisation is false.
You end your post with a question that you believe you know the answer to. What’s the matter? Too gutless to come out and state what you think? You want others to do it for you?
Here’s what I think..
You’re just itching to be able to say that sceptics are flatearthers, deniers, right-wing creationists who believe the earth is only 6000 yrs old, but you don’t say it directly because there is no substance to any of it and you know it.
You’re right about one thing, none of this has anything to do with the science. So what about the science? You got any evidence that CO2 has caused, is causing and will cause runaway warming that will be catastrophic for mankind? Got anything other than X-Box generated hypothesis?
p.s. How are things over at the Uni? Give my regards to Pitman, he’ll know what that means.
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BaaHumbug: “You’re just itching to be able to say that sceptics are flatearthers, deniers, right-wing creationists who believe the earth is only 6000 yrs old…”
Check my post again and you will see that I was replying to a poster who claimed that creationists and climate sceptics only “occasionally” exhibited the same behaviour. The reality is that the behaviours are more than occasional and cover a good number of shared positions.
That doesn’t, of course, mean that the two groups are the same. But I would argue that if two groups are making the same sorts of non-scientific objections to a scientific theory, it is reasonable to conclude that they approaching the issues from a similar mindset.
As for the question that ended my post, what are your thoughts?
“p.s. How are things over at the Uni? Give my regards to Pitman, he’ll know what that means.”
I’m sorry, I do not know a Pitman.
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Brendan H. The list you typed is humorous. Most of the items apply to most ANY CONTROVERSY (and nicely applies to political parties too). You have simply recognized human nature.
Now the question is: why did you post that? Because you too wish to insult the AGW skeptic? Why don’t you save all the careful, calculating thought and just say what you really want to say. Then we can deal with you as with JM.
And to repeat what Baa H. has asked: HAVE YOU FOUND ANY EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE of AGW yet?…….Didn’t think so.
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Brendan H:
April 2nd, 2010 at 1:49 pm
Thats just bullchit. I already told you that I myself am an evolutionist so how is my mindset the same as a creationist?
Regards “scientific theory”, AGW IS NOT A THEORY. Read the AR4, IPCC themselves say AGW is a hypothesis.
What are my thoughts? My thoughts are that your comments are offensive, contain nothing of substance regards AGW and that you are a hypocrit saying we make non-scientific objections when you yourself have offered not a scintilla of science in your comments.
Again, have you any evidence at all that CO2 causes runaway warming?
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Gosh, they both breathe air, and not just once or twice but every day! So did Stalin and Hitler too… all air breathers. Hmmmm, something deep going on here.
Just for the record I’ll point out that the study of Bayes Theorem is useful to help sort this stuff out. We often hear statements like, “80% of heroin addicts once smoked pot” but of course heroin addicts are more of those air breathers. Sheesh, all the bad people in the world are air breathers. Bill Clinton does breathe air, but he never inhales.
If we took away the air, there would be no bad people! Genius!!
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Richard Dawkins sees religion as a by-product of evolution, while the creationists see religion as the basis for belief in evolution. Both of them fervently insist that everyone else should see it their way… seems like a common mindset to me, my philosophy is deeper than your philosophy pissing match.
Here’s some quotes that might even be on topic, not w.r.t. AGW but for the Picasso Brain:
http://www.creationists.org/evolutionism-is-a-religion.html
http://www.4truth.net/site/c.hiKXLbPNLrF/b.2903955/k.8119/How_Darwinism_Dumbs_Us_Down_Evolution_and_Postmodernism__Apologetics.htm
Of course some people seem to be very well satisfied with knowledge and skills that work in a practical sense, others are deeply bothered by pragmatism and have a requirement for some absolute truth that goes beyond mere practicality. Quite likely there is something different in the brain that causes this division, possibly even something genetic, might have evolved.
By the way, absolute truth and falsehood do work very well within a limited abstract domain (such as mathematical proofs) but even this is bounded by Godel’s Theorem. The church manages to keep their absolutism and avoid Godel by merely trusting an authority (a strategy so simple it does not lend itself to recursion). The problem with the church’s strategy is that if all you ever do is follow established authority, how do you move forward?
And finally, anyone fully committed to a belief in evolution should also accept that by a criteria of success and self-propagation, religion is indeed successful. Evolutionists would only be in a position to look down on religion at some future date if mankind moves on to something better and more successful — an event which has not happened yet.
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Mark D: “Most of the items apply to most ANY CONTROVERSY”
Any controversy? Are you saying that accusations of cult behaviour and lies, hoax and fraud are the content of normal, everyday debate?
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BaaHumbug: “I already told you that I myself am an evolutionist so how is my mindset the same as a creationist?”
What I said was: “But I would argue that if two groups are making the same sorts of non-scientific objections to a scientific theory, it is reasonable to conclude that they approaching the issues from a similar mindset.”
The fact that you are an evolutionist is irrelevant to my argument, since I am not referring to anybody’s views on evolution, or any other subject for that matter. I am referring to people’s responses to their opponents.
So this is not necessarily about you or your views on evolution. But people who are prepared to believe in hoax on a massive scale share a mindset, the mindset of being ready to believe in hoax on a massive scale. The content of their other beliefs is irrelevant to that issue.
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Tel: “Gosh, they both breathe air, and not just once or twice but every day!”
All human beings breathe air, so air-breathing cannot differentiate one group from another. But not all human beings accuse others of peddling a scientific hoax.
The issue is the significance of the similarities. Both evolution and AGW are new scientific theories that overturn centuries of previous thought; both have potentially far-reaching social and political consequences; both have generated very strong resistance from groups whose views are associated with the conservative/libertarian end of the political/ideological spectrum.
Both theories have generated a similar set of responses by those who don’t accept them. In my view, these similarities are significant and not incidental.
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You might be starting to catch on here.
Sometimes they couch it in different words like calling people “deniers” or claiming their opponents are too stupid to understand, not qualified enough, not real because they don’t have peer review or a whole manner of other ways to deliver the same message — I think I’m smarter than you so you should shut up and do what you are told. I see the same message coming from religious zealots, and the same message coming from smug academics too. And I’ll agree that some of the skeptics are a bit overly pushy but they’ve been putting up with a lot (and I’ll get to that).
Well the most common response to not believing something is to say, “I don’t believe it,” or maybe, “can you prove it?” That’s the sort of response I would expect, and the only significance is that the person in question has a different opinion.
I personally believe fraud happens a whole lot of the time, so does groupthink, so does self-delusion amongst people wanting to wish hard enough to make Tinkabell real; so while I’m upset by things like the “Climategate” emails, I’m not surprised when I read them. You probably don’t agree, and you are perfectly welcome to read or not-read those emails, and come to your own conclusions. If you want to believe that most of the people in the world are deeply scrupulous, honest and incorruptible then I’m not going to stop you… just don’t expect me to believe it.
If you want to start making solar cells and wind farms and whatever else, you can do that. All I ask is that I don’t have to pay for it. Start a business, ask for investors, get the true believers behind you, maybe you will make millions.
Given that people have already decided to force me to pay for such things against my will, that’s generated a bit of hostility. Not because I don’t like your beliefs, but because I don’t appreciate having them foisted on me. I can well appreciate religious people also don’t much like having their kids compelled (by force of arms) to go to a school and learn about evolution and be forced to regurgitate this learning or flunk out of school. This will probably sound strange to you who seems to think that politics exists as nothing more than a left side and a right side, but I’m perfectly comfortable with the idea of not being religious myself and still letting other people be religious if it suits them — so long as they agree to truce and leave me alone.
What I’m getting at here is that it was the AGW “sky is falling” alarmists who started running around expecting everyone else to be obedient and start taking the whole climate change theory seriously. Your side of this were the ones who broke the truce of “live and let live”. You just don’t have it in you to let someone else go live their life in their own way in peace.
What choice do I have but to push back?
When I read about a “trick” to “hide the decline” and journal editors getting “ousted” for having the wrong opinions, it spells out fraud in the most direct terms… and yet I see article after article inventing excuses. Trying to tell me that “hide the decline” really means they were buying half a pound of broccoli.
So I see something I don’t believe and I say, “I don’t believe it, can you prove it?” and then I say “Get your hands out of my pocket.”
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For people who think fraud is rare or unusual, here’s an article about a sewer system that the EPA demanded be installed and then the local government got hoodwinked and bribed by bankers and now the whole operation is some billions in debt, no doubt hoping for federal bailout.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/32906678/looting_main_street/1
In my opinion, it’s an excellent example of why facilities like sewers should be private, why the EPA is way to big and powerful, government should never be allowed to borrow money, and trusting a banker is a massively stupid idea.
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I’m willing to believe that fraud happens, you are willing to believe that by not driving your car, and turning your lights out, the world will cool down and thus become a much nicer place to live. The real question is whether I get to take your money and spend it on investigating fraud, or you get to take my money and spend it on ways to force me to turn my lights out.
How about we make a deal? I’ll burn less carbon in my lifestyle than Al Gore does in his lifestyle. I’ll agree to that deal as long as I get to keep my money. Sound fair? If it’s unfair that I picked Al Gore then let’s just calculate the Carbon burned for the Copenhagen talkfest and divide it by the number of delegates…
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Tel @ 223
All human beings breathe air, so air-breathing cannot differentiate one group from another.
Tel, very nice!
I think what I said is clear enough for any skeptic to understand………..Say maybe you are on to something…….A a difference in the brain of a warmist……interesting Very interesting indeed.
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Tel and mark. Excellent responses.
Brendan, I guess you’re trying some sort of psychoanalysis? What the F is it you want? Do you not get it that we don’t like being lumped in with a labelled group? Do you not get it that we don’t think the world should stop spinning because of a HYPOTHESIS? At #222 you again repeat that AGW is a theory. Are you such a numbskull that you don’t understand the difference between a theory and a hypothesis? IPCC themselves say AGW is a hypothesis so stop upgrading a mere hypo into a theory. This is important.
Some of us, with some years under our belts, don’t readily believe everything that “scientists say”. Especially when our vast experiences says otherwise.
Tel made some very very poignant statements, but I’m guessing you wont accept those because “we’re affecting the future of your kids” as Hansen would say.
Well I say you can go to buggery. take your lemming alarmism and rot with it yourself. I’m with Tel 100% of the way. If you want to live in the dark ages and condemn modern man so be it, just leave me and my hard earned out of it.
p.s. So many posts still no answer to the one question that matters.
SHOW ME THE FU*#ING EVIDENCE THAT CO2 HAS, IS, WILL CAUSE RUNAWAY WARMING.
Until you at least attempt to answer that one important question, I still contend that you are a lemming troll no different to the many we’ve had come thru here from the Uni of NSW and Realclimate. You all crap on endlessly whilst dodging the only question that matters. GUTLESS ONE AND ALL.
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Topic Bump:
Bernd Felsche provided this link in another thread: The PDF “an engineer’s critique of Global Warming ‘Science'” is excellent reading and should be added to the mandatory skeptics library. Excellent graphs demonstrate how a talented “Graphster” can make anything look scary. Jo you might want to use some of them.
http://rps3.com/Pages/Burt_Rutan_on_Climate_Change.htm
He also has it in Power Point for any of you that can get it in front of an audience.
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Apparently post modernism has even affected reading skills.
Mark D: “Most of the items apply to most ANY CONTROVERSY”
and you ask: Any controversy? Are you saying that accusations of cult behaviour and lies, hoax and fraud are the content of normal, everyday debate?
Does the meaning of controversy equal debate? Oh yes considering your tone I suppose for you, “normal everyday debate” IS controversial.
From Wiki: Perennial areas of controversy include religion, philosophy and politics. Other minor areas of controversy may include economics, science, finances, and race. Since you are starting to separate groups in the above, even race applies here.
Yes Brendan I said what I meant and I meant what I said.
Also see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odium_theologicum
Brendan H. You are here because you want to irritate. That means you are a troll. Go away Troll
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Friends:
I am amused by the accusation that climate realists are akin to creationists.
I am a climate realist who is an Accredited Methodist Preacher (all are welcome to attend the joyous Easter Morning worship I am to conduct on Sunday) who has obtained all my income from practice of science.
One of my sermons begins like this:
“John starts his gospel by saying, “In the beginning was the word and the word was with God, and the word was God.” Today, with our modern knowledge, he could write, “Before the beginning was the word.”
Around 15 thousand million years ago there was God and nothing else; no time, no space, no thing. Then God said, “Let there be light” and there was light. In a flash never to be repeated the universe began.
It was the first beginning and God’s Laws Ruled.
Almost instantly primitive matter was formed. It exploded outwards and that expansion continues to this day. After 300,000 years the matter evolved in to hydrogen and helium; the simplest of atoms.
It was the second beginning and God’s Laws Ruled.
The matter began to clump together. The atoms fell towards one another pulled by their own gravity…”
So, I am a creationist? I think my congregation would disagree.
Science and religion are each methods that humans use to study and understand the cosmos and our place in it. But they are very different.
A scientists who lacks spirituality risks becoming another Mengele.
And a religious believer who lacks belief in the lessons of physical evidence risks becoming a Borgia Pope.
Is creationism right?
I don’t think it is because empirical evidence denies it. But some people adhere to it and promote it.
Is the AGW hypothesis right?
I don’t think it is because empirical evidence denies it. But some people adhere to it and promote it.
The strange thing is that some people who promote the AGW hypothesis say those who have my views are “like creationsists”.
As somebody much wiser than me asked in similar circumstances, I ask them; “Why do you complain that there is a splinter in my eye when there is a plank in yours?”
Richard
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brendan #222:
I see, so you are including those people against the theory that the world was flat, the earth is the center of the universe, and that we are surrounded by ether? Along with the other creationists like Charles Darwin, Galileo, Copernicus and Newton?
You basically are saying that if you do not believe the stated science of the day, you are a creationist. Interesting.
I can see why your field is not looked on as a legitimate scientific endeavor.
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Tel: “Sometimes they couch it in different words like calling people “deniers”…”
Name-calling is endemic across blogs. But not everybody is accusing scientists of deliberately fomenting fake science. Nor does everybody see a scientific theory as a hoax involving many thousands of people across the world. That sort of thinking requires a certain mindset.
“What choice do I have but to push back.”
By all means push back. But we’re talking here about similarities in behaviour between two groups of people who do not accept a scientific theory.
“I’m willing to believe that fraud happens…”
Yes, but the subject is hoax on a massive scale, involving scientists, scientific societies, politicians, the educational establishment, media etc. That’s not the same thing as localised fraud.
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BaaHumbug: “Brendan, I guess you’re trying some sort of psychoanalysis?”
I listed some behaviours exhibited by two groups, pointing out what I saw as the function of these behaviours: an attempt to explain away the fact that both evolution and AGW have become the dominant view.
Take this quote: “There is a powerful establishment and a belief system. There are power seekers and career men, and if someone challenges the establishment he should not expect a sympathetic hearing.”
This claim is recognisably anti-evolution, but it is also recognisably anti-AGW. So there is a shared view on the risks of tangling with the academic establishment.
“Do you not get it that we don’t like being lumped in with a labelled group?”
I understand that, but I think most of us recognise the behaviours I listed, so the similarities exist.
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Richard Courtney: “The strange thing is that some people who promote the AGW hypothesis say those who have my views are “like creationsists”.”
If you check my original post I spoke of “shared behaviour”, and I made a list of the shared behaviours I was referring to. If those claims do not apply to you, then you are not acting “like a creationist”.
But it seems that enough people here have recognised the behaviours to confirm my view that the behaviours are widespread among both anti-evolutionists and anti-AGWers.
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PhilJourdain: “I see, so you are including those people against the theory that the world was flat, the earth is the center of the universe, and that we are surrounded by ether?”
You would need to explain your reasoning here.
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http://www.greenpeace.org/international/news/dirty-money-climate-30032010
Yup, there’s that “shared behaviour” again, Greenpeace are clearly Creationists.
Hmmm, Greenpeace keep matching up with that particular mindset.
No doubt about it, logically Greenpeace must be Creationists, they have the same mindset.
Richard Dawkins was the one who claimed that teaching Creationism in schools was a form of child abuse. Oh no, now Richard Dawkins has the mindset too, so errr, he must also be a Creationist.
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Tel: “No doubt about it, logically Greenpeace must be Creationists, they have the same mindset.”
I don’t know whether Greenpeace is alleging in this report that virtually the all climate scientists are engaging in fraud and corruption, and you haven’t produced any evidence to show that.
And as I’ve mentioned, “A few shared behaviours would be merely coincidental”. As other posters have noted, disparate people often share some common behaviours. What matters is the convergence of evidence, so that the more evidence that can be shown, the more compelling the claim.
Sure, given that Greenpeace is an advocacy organisation, you will find some areas of commonality between them and their opponents. However, you have overlooked a cogent point, which is that whatever Greenpeace alleges, its case ultimately stands or falls on the validity of the mainstream science.
If the mainstream science turns against AGW, Greenpeace will have to follow suit or look foolish. No such constraints hold back climate sceptics. The hoax and fraud and other claims can be made whatever happens with the theory.
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So Tel has to provide evidence and you can just run off at the mouth??????
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Explain what is “mainstream science”. Is not science science???? Is there a substream science? is there minimal science? Is there sanity?????(you don’t show it)
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I think the word creationist is reserved to fundementalist Christian groups. Creationists do not believe in evolution. The equivalent brain set in my opinion with climate change believers. Is their whole religion is based on their faith. They can’t separate science from religion. I had a good friend who went into their cults. She cut off from everyone in her past.
When I eventually caught up with her, I didn’t know of her existence with this Christian City Churches group I thought she was C of E.
Within seconds she was telling me that evolution was the work of the devil. (They talk in tongues????? To prove they are touched by and in communication with the Holy Spirit) And we were not descended from apes as Darwin stated.
And there was no DNA evidence we were related even to them. I was so taken back I didn’t argue the point. I would have liked to
have mention, although higher apes (Chimps firstly) do share 98.5 % of our DNA so do to a much lesser degree do whales, pigs, and 40 other genus’ including fungi. All that proves is living organisms most probably sprang from a similar life pool at one time billions of years ago.
So I sent her a letter with a picture of a Chimp family. With the caption, scientists tell us we share 98.5% of DNA with this lot.
Thank God for the 1.5% difference…. Vive la difference!
The same goes with the church of climate change. The social/political/economic beliefs tie in with the global warming so called science, with their resolution is human egotism going terribly introspective.
So much money is tied up with Carbon Credits trading and green
energy, these poor climate change believers don’t know they are in the grip of the dollar, but not theirs. I see that they’ll try to discredit skeptics, because their general arguments won’t
stand up to scientific investigation. Same as my friend, As a
believer in evolution, to her I am also a worshiper of the devil.
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Brendan H:
I take severe exception to your comment at #234 in response to my comment at #230.
Your response is pure sophistry and is extremely offensive.
I gave a clear denial of your case that attempts to smear climate realists with a lie. Furthermore, I stated that your assertion is a truth (n.b. not a lie) when applied to AGW-proponents when I wrote (in #230).
You have ignored everything I said and have repeated the lie.
Apologise!
Richard
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Richard Courtney: “I gave a clear denial of your case that attempts to smear climate realists with a lie.”
My case is that climate sceptics make a number of claims that are similar to those made by creationists. A clear denial of my case would consist in showing that climate sceptics and/or creationists do not in fact make these claims, or that the claims are trivial.
As far as I can see, your post at #230 presented an interesting homily, but did not address the claims that I made. Therefore, your umbrage is misplaced.
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Brendan H:
My post at #230 made a clear demonstration that your assertion is misplaced and is appropriately leveled at AGW-proponents. My post at #241 repeated that proof (n.b. it quoted the proof) saying:
So, either you demonstrate that you have severe reading difficulties or that you compound sophistry with two lies when you write at #242:
Apologise!
Richard
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Richard, people like Brendan H. don’t apologize. Like JM and Oxspit, he is attempting to anger us with this discussion.
I have noticed several similar characteristics between supporters of AGW hypothesis and supporters of communism.
• Vanguard Parties/Green Parties
• Seizure and control of the means of production
• Planned economies
• Intolerant of criticism
• Claim broad support/representation of the masses
• Monopolization of media
• Authoritarian
• End justifies the means
• Willingness to use violence to maintain ideology
• Extensive use of propaganda
• Use of indoctrination
• Removal of religion replace it with doctrine
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Richard Courtney: “My post at #241 repeated that proof (n.b. it quoted the proof) saying…”
Your “proof” says nothing about the claims I made regarding the shared behaviours of anti-evolutionists and AGW sceptics. It’s a red herring to draw attention away from these uncomfortable facts.
“The strange thing is that some people who promote the AGW hypothesis say those who have my views are “like creationsists”.”
That would depend on your views about the shared behaviours I listed. You’ve been careful to avoid commenting on my claims, so to date the point is moot.
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Brendan H:
Your obfuscation will not do.
You are wrong. I clearly and repeatedly explained your error.
You are insulting. I clearly explained that you have made a false and untrue assertion. But you have repeatedly refused to withdraw the false and untrue asertion.
Your claim of “similar behaviours” is ridiculous. Louis and others have clearly explained that choosing behaviours” that disparate groups share is meaningless.
Apologise!
Richard
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Richard and mark
This troll Brendan is never going to apologise. He is from the same stable as JM and others we’ve had thru here. Just another LEMMING TROLL.
Brendan your attempt at psychoanalysing sceptics is offensive. So fight offense with offense I say.
Brendan, being an AGW alarmist means that you are BRAINDEAD. You can’t THINK FOR YOURSELF, you need to be SPOONFED obviously.
Anyone who believes that a climate hypothesis is “settled science” obviously is underdone regarding intelligence, obviously needs to be led by the nose like a dumb cow (sorry bovines) and as demonstrated clearly by your posts, you have nothing but offensive statements to make. No references to the science and refusal to answer a very simple question that was asked of you.
You can keep blathering on as much as you like you offensive little turd troll, the end is clear, you will make one offensive statement too many and will be moderated by Jo. Seen it before many times.
So keep posting you little turd, we’re enjoying the entertainment.
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Mark D: “I have noticed several similar characteristics between supporters of AGW hypothesis and supporters of communism.”
The AGW-communism charge! I’d overlooked that one. Must add it to my list.
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Richard Courtney: “I clearly explained that you have made a false and untrue assertion.”
You will need to refresh my memory. Which assertion are you referring to?
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I just re-read your posts you LEMMING TROLL. You need to clear up your comment below.
Firstly, I already told you twice that AGW is NOT A THEORY and that even the IPCC themselves say it is a hypothesis yet you repeat it. Repeating false claims just to get commenters angry is not acceptable. Read the AR4 WG1 pp98 (as usual, lemmings like you who can’t think for themselves need to be spoon fed like a dribbling baby)
Now you need to retract your falsely repeated claim that AGW is a theory or I will suggest that you are moderated and ALL OF YOUR COMMENTS ARE REMOVED rendering your pathetic efforts useless.
Secondly, you claim we make “non-scientific objections”.
State the science and the non-scientific objections we make to it or retract your statement and apologise or I will suggest that you are moderated and ALL OF YOUR COMMENTS REMOVED rendering your pathetic efforts useless.
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Brendan H states: “comparison of creationists and skeptics” @ 213:
Then Brendan H (wishing he is not a skeptic or creationist) states @ 248: “The AGW-communism charge! I’d overlooked that one.”
I think you are a bit conflicted Brendan H. It would seem you are a creationist.
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Oh very well, change the rules in mid stream if you must but now I challenge you to find examples where Creationists allege that “all climate scientists are engaging in fraud and corruption”, can you do that?
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Mark D: “I think you are a bit conflicted Brendan H. It would seem you are a creationist.”
You would need to explain your reasoning to show how you reach that conclusion.
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BaaHumbug: “I just re-read your posts you LEMMING TROll.”
I suggest you read the Guide for Comments above.
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Tel: “…but now I challenge you to find examples where Creationists allege that “all climate scientists are engaging in fraud and corruption”…”
I think you mean creationists alleging that evolutionists are engaging in fraud and corruption. That said, when you check some creationist sites, you sometimes get a double whammy anyway.
1.“But what will it take for the media to take up the exactly parallel case of scientists who question the ability of Darwinian natural selection to explain the origin of life and the development of species?”
2. “Global warming isn’t the only field in which we have witnessed this kind of brazen ideological corruption of science in recent years…My colleagues at the Discovery Institute face a similar buzz saw in their pursuit of intelligent design hypothesis, and then are taunted by the censors for not being published in peer reviewed journals.”
3. “…It is for that reason that Darwinists constantly manufacture false evidence. But their frauds are only short-lived.”
4. “The continued use of deceitfulness has continued by modern evolutionists.”
5. “That is the reason why Darwinists have resorted to fraud, speculation and countless propaganda techniques to keep this false religion alive for the last 150 years.”
6. Interesting comment on connection between AGW and evolution.
“But the Times story does at least correctly and helpfully quote John West of Discovery Institute on a way global warming and Darwinism are connected. “‘There is a lot of similar dogmatism on this issue,’ he said, ‘with scientists being persecuted for findings that are not in keeping with the orthodoxy. We think analyzing and evaluating scientific evidence is a good thing, whether that is about global warming or evolution.'”
7. Here’s another omnibus accusation:
“From global warming to evolution, from psychology to sociology, blatant corruption of science is running rampant.”
8. “It catalogues the deliberate corruption of climate science, several scientific organisations and several science journals.”
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With great respect guys. Like Garfield…. I’m bored, bored, bored!
Brendan H. You have the most awful argument and don’t answer the
real questions you don’t agree with.
I shutting off from this blog item.
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Hang on. Climate change… it is going on all the time. CO2 can become in highly congested urban areas a bugger. But mainly from
the amount of CO2 emitted from cars and trucks, OK! Pollution OK! However, Electricity production is another thing. Brown coal that
Australia has heaps of is not as bad as Anthracite.
But we need to produce food. Vegetables and cereal crops remove
nutrients from the soil. Animal husbandry replaces nutrients to the soil. So why don’t we pay farmers to replace nutrients per ha
with organic fertilizers until they they can over a period of 5 years be self sufficient, but they are monitored. Via soil tests
etc. It might be a start?
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Brendan H:
At #249 you demand:
Clearly, you have memory problems as well as reading difficulties.
I strongly commend that you seek medical aid as your sympoms suggest you may be suffering from dementia and it is a progressive disease.
At #215 you wrote:
As I and several others have explained climate realists do not have “a similar mindset” to “creationists”.
And your suggestion that climate realists make “non-scientific objections” to the AGW hypothesis is a simple lie.
It has been explained to you by several here that climate realists dispute the AGW hypothesis on the basis that all available empirical evidence denies the hypothesis and there is no empirical evidence – none, nada, nil – that supports it.
Furthermore, it has been explained to you by several here that your supposition that such a “similar mindset” can be concluded from comparison of behaviours is plain nonsense.
Your only comments here have been lies and smears.
Apologise!
Then, after having apologised, crawl back into whatever emitted you.
Richard
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Richard Courtney: “And your suggestion that climate realists make “non-scientific objections” to the AGW hypothesis is a simple lie.”
Are you saying that climate sceptics have never made statements claiming, for example, that AGW is a product of a political agenda, akin to a religious cult/Nazism/communism, that it is the result of deliberate, widespread corruption of science, that it is a hoax and a fraud?
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Brendan #235
The debate of today is more similar to the debates of yesteryear when small or lone scientists spoke out against the superstition of their day. Only a fool would deny that the proponents of AGW pretty much control the Politics, religion and the Journals (if the climategate letters did nothing else, it did prove the suppression of dissent enacted by the East Anglia mob). Much like the powers that be denied the counter hypotheses of Copernicus, Galileo and even old Columbus himself.
History has shown that indeed, those lone voices in the void were correct, and the powers that be have since been thoroughly discredited.
That is the commonality you seem to not be able to grasp. Instead you try to use a psychobabble to discredit the dissenting voices, without actually taking on the actual problems with the religion being chaired by the east anglia crew.
That is why whatever you call your attempts at pseudo science, is no more than snake oil and tarot cards. Gussied up to convince the weak willed that you may be a learned man.
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I mean what I mean, not what you somehow decide you would like me to say instead. One minute you are talking about a mindset that involves allegations of fraud, and when I point out Greenpeace making exactly such an allegation targeting Exxon and Koch Industries, you say it doesn’t count because Greenpeace don’t accuse any climate scientists. Suddenly only climate scientists are entitled to be victims of unfair accusation. Have you ever even slightly considered that more perspectives beyond your own might exist in the world?
Then you merrily trot off showing that the Creationists disagree with the Darwinists as if this was a deep revelation. Now if Dawkins was caught out sending emails to other atheists about getting together for a secret prayer session, and saying things like, “We can’t explain the flight of birds and its a travesty that we can’t,” then I’d be interested in a parallel situation.
Anyone can make accusations of fraud, but the CRU team basically spelled it out for everyone to read what they had been up to. Everyone who is willing to actually read it. You must admit it is rare to catch a fraudster quite so red handed as in this particular case.
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Brendan H:
April 4th, 2010 at 8:34 pm
I’m familiar with the guides you OFFENSIVE LITTLE LEMMING TROLL.
How many comments are you going to post without answering the simple questions asked of you? Indefinitely I suspect because you don’t have an answer do you? you weak minded, led by the nose troll.
You’re so inept at independent thought that you think just because one person makes a statement that all others necessarily fall in line with that statement. IN FACT THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT LEMMINGS LIKE YOU DO. Just because a handful of academics say the planets climate is out of control, LEMMINGS like you not only fall in line behind that claim, you defend it as best you can.
The claims you’ve made in your comments APPLY TO YOU, you are SELF ANALYSING. Your weak mind just can’t believe others have independent thoughts, you think they’re just like you. Then you come on a blog like this accusing others of WHAT YOU ARE.
LEMMINGS like you are told about the emissions out of cars exhausts, and you think “oh yeah, we can’t keep pumping that stuff out, it MUST affect the planets climate” and off you go meme’ing everything spoonfed to you. You are not capable of stopping and thinking for yourself, not even for a moment. You are not capable of thinking about things outside of your own experience, a classic case of the need for spoonfeeding.
If you had an ounce of functioning brain, if you had the most basic knowledge of how science works, then you would immediately have had the following thoughts regards AGW, ‘any study where a single team plans the research, carries it out, supervises the analysis, and writes their own final report, carries a very high risk of undetected bias.’ IF you had hat thought, you’d be a SCEPTIC.
The fact that you haven’t had these thoughts is proof that you are a LEMMING who needs to be SPOONFED and who is easily scared. In fact you are so scared, (being the weak troll that you are) that you refuse to accept any wrongdoing whatsoever by the very ones who are scaring you. An easy target for stand-over merchants. Do you have kids? family? Do they know what a coward you are?
But you’re also a hypocrite. You accept and use the benefits of modern society all the while complaining about “mans emissions”.
Bloggers here should feel sorry for you. In the “wild nature” that your kind wants us to get back to? you wouldn’t last. The weak are screened out by nature. You wouldn’t even last in a pre-industrial age. You should be glad of mans industrialisation, it’s the only thing that’s keeping weak ones like you alive.
There you go LEMMING. Thems my thoughts about you. You’ve been ANALysed
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PhilJourdain: “Much like the powers that be denied the counter hypotheses of Copernicus, Galileo and even old Columbus himself.”
Thanks, Phil. How could I have missed the latter-day Galileo meme? One more for the list.
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Tel: “…you say it doesn’t count because Greenpeace don’t accuse any climate scientists…”
Sorry, that was a slip of the keyboard on my part. It was meant to read: “I don’t know whether Greenpeace is alleging in this report that virtually the all climate sceptics are engaging in fraud and corruption…”
From a quick skim the Greenpeace report details money that Koch Industries and others have channelled to think tanks and the like that take a climate sceptic position. In regard to the science the report focuses on some specific studies, which is characterises as misleading and unsupported junk science.
That’s not the same thing as characterising an entire science as corrupt and fraudulent.
As I say, it’s possible to fund some points of commonality between opposing advocacy groups. What matters is the convergence of evidence, and to my mind the claims of anti-evolutionists and those of AGW sceptics about their opponents show similarities that are too numerous, too frequent and too significant to be coincidence.
“Anyone can make accusations of fraud…”
Accusations of fraud by climate sceptics pre-date by many years the CRU emails.
00
Here you go Brendan you LEMMING. I’ll SPOONFEED you (as you demand) as to why scaptics are sceptics.
Have you heard of the Drake equation? Frank drake came up with the equation at a SETI conference in 1960, to estimate how many other intelligent beings might exist in our galaxy.
N=N*fp ne fl fi fc fL
Where N is the number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy; fp is the fraction with planets; ne is the number of planets per star capable of supporting life; fl is the fraction of planets where life evolves; fi is the fraction where intelligent life evolves; and fc is the fraction that communicates; and fL is the fraction of the planet’s life during which the communicating civilizations live.
Now you’re not capable of comprehending what might result from an equation like this, so I’ll SPOONFEED you.
The answer is anywhere from many BILLIONS to ZERO. In simpler words (for your simple mind), the equation is meaningless, it’s worthless.
Now, that equation has a lot of similarities to climate science. Substitute Temperature for N, and for the other “lttle letters” substitute CLOUDS and their variations, the SUN and its variety of affects on this planet, the OCEANS and their circulations at ALL time scales, the affects of the BIOSPHERE, the CRYOSPHERE, and MICROORGANISMS not to mention ALBEDO and many other variables.
So in fact, the “climate equation” is quite a bit more complicated than Drakes equation.
And just like Drakes equation is meaningless, the climate equation is meaningless. The variables are filled with “GUESSES”. And guesses-just so we’re clear-are merely expressions of prejudice.
Intelligent people have an obligation to see the climate equation clearly for what it is-pure speculation in quasi-scientific trappings.
Now I know your tiny helpless brain will have difficulty understanding and accepting this, that’s why you’re a LEMMING. A FOLLOWER who can’t lead (think) for himself.
So I repeat what I said in the previous post. You would NOT have survived pre-industrial age. You should be glad you exist in todays society, not rail against it.
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Hey LEMMING, you said..
Exactly, sceptics had these fraudulent climatologists worked out long before the evidence came out. But LEMMINGS like you swallowed the whole fraud hook line and sinker.
That’s because YOU CAN’T THINK FOR YOURSELF, so you readily accept whatever the supposed authority tells you.
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Read your own post #213, Greenpeace are accusing the oil companies of “funding corruption” by funding skeptic groups. They honestly seem to believe that skeptics are only skeptical because oil companies are paying for it. It’s that certain mindset again.
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Tel: “They honestly seem to believe that skeptics are only skeptical because oil companies are paying for it.”
I don’t read it that way, rather that oil company funds provide sceptics with ammunition to maintain their scepticism. But I agree that Greenpeace is claiming that this type of science is politically motivated, and therefore they share a point with climate sceptics.
But again, what matters is the convergence of evidence, and to my knowledge Greenpeace does not subscribe to most of the points I listed. Granted, this is not necessarily to its credit. Greenpeace is an advocacy organisation which pushes at the limits of democracy and the law, and if it were opposed to the mainstream science, it may well have adopted the sceptic-style viewpoints I listed.
But as it happens, Greenpeace is on the side of the science for this issue, and for many people also has a “feel-good” factor, so its advocacy and paranoia tend to fly under the radar.
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Brendan H:
Read my post at #258 then read your non sequitor response at #259.
Yet again your behaviour is indicative of dementia.
I repeat my suggestion that you urgently seek medical treatment. Dementia is a progressive condition. It has very unpleasant effects and its progress can be delayed by treatment.
Please, for your own sake, seek medical help.
Richard
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Fiends:
At #268 Brendan H asserts:
Unless he has never heard of e.g. Brent Spar then his assertion is yet more evidence that Brendan H is suffering from dementia.
Please treat him gently because with each of his posts it becomes more clear that his mental condition is the reason for his delusions.
Richard
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Richard Courtney: “Read my post at #258 then read your non sequitor response at #259.”
You’re evading the issue, Richard. My question was absolutely on topic. Here it is again:
Are you saying that climate sceptics have never made statements claiming, for example, that AGW is a product of a political agenda, akin to a religious cult/Nazism/communism, that it is the result of deliberate, widespread corruption of science, that it is a hoax and a fraud?
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Brendan, so you agree that your belief in AGW is not scientific, but religious, and that you are now following the Church of the Middle ages?
There is hope for you yet. Not much, but perhaps some. Especially if you quit trying to hoodwink all with your 3 card monty.
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Brendan H. The co founder of Greenpeace resigned back in 2000s because he felt that Greenpeace were beginning to become political
that he did not approve of. Check out movie in answer to Al Gore’s inconvenient truth ‘Global Warming – the big swindle’ and take it In. dr Pachauri, actually is chairman of an oil exploration company in the US of A., concerned with milking oil drills that have presumingly gone dry. Well he is then associated with getting funds from an oil company, eh?
The accusation that skeptics tie in this scandal with nazis, and socialist tendencies is referring to the clean energy mob that attacked Lord Monckton et al at the Copenhagen summit. Interrupted their meetings. He called them Nazi youth. Well they behaved like them, so I see the connection. Where you one?
EU is mainly socialist, and they are in trouble, the same as UK
financially. However in International Express last week, under
Environment section. The two billion pound Green bank, ain’t going ahead. It seems the government said it would cost upto 404
billion pounds to clean their environment of emissions, and their economies (Like the EU with it’s voluntary cap ‘n trade schemes, that have now got a surplus of carbon permits unable to sell them)
can’t afford it. Well in my opinion that is a start… bit late
for some countries. But with Hansen who was pushing nuclear
in Australia, and being the first to get ETS, the writing is on
wall. Millions of our money is being spent needlessly on corrupt
schemes, when some are scamming the general public in believing
capitalism is causing all the problems in the world. Well if that isn’t political what is? And eating meat too of course!
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Phil at @242, exactly!
Thanks.
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Sorry, That is 272
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Bush Bunny: “The co founder of Greenpeace resigned back in 2000s because he felt that Greenpeace were beginning to become political that he did not approve of.”
Greenpeace has always been involved in politics, in the same way as other lobby groups of all stripes.
The issue I raised has nothing to do with the truth of the various claims I listed, although of course one can also contest their truth. The issue is that AGW sceptics make the same sorts of claims as do creationists. The question is, why?
My answer is that these claims act to explain away the reality that both evolution and AGW have become the dominant view among scientists.
And my original question still applies: “If these types of arguments are invalid in the case of evolution, should they be valid in the case of AGW?”
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Three card Monty,
You haven’t proven your claims, you have not defined “sorts” and you have not disproved the claims made by skeptics. (regardless of how similar the claims are to creationist claims)
What???
Which types of arguments, yours, the skeptics or the creationists?
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Hang on Brendan? The co founder of Greenpeace who resigned resigned over the position of GP took regarding climate change.
He felt it had been taken up by AGW extremists. I used to subscribe to Greenpeace, on whaling, and particularly nuclear. So what is political about these, other than we want to stop inhumane whaling practices in the Antarctic or Southern ocean. And cease nuclear testing at the atoll. When one of Greenpeace’s photographers was murdered by French agents in New Zealand?
Fighting for a good cause is one thing, but supporting false scientific reports by the UN IPCC even contributing to them is
not political it is aiding and abetting fraud. That’s my opinion.
CO2 is not contributing to climate change, it is a minor greenhouse gas. Unless you fudge the statistics, remove water vapor out of the equation, then CO2 does appear to be the principle greenhouse gas. The denser the population, the region they inhabit will have much higher CO2 emissions. And pollution in some areas.
Now the UK Met Office are reviewing their stats. This is a laugh? Only over the period of the last 160 years. Well of cause that
is not a true picture of the planet’s climate. Omitting the Medieval Warm Period (when it was hotter than now) and the Mini ice age that followed and ceased roughly in 1850. Although there have been years when the planet has cooled and become colder then warmed up again. Not through AGW but other natural occurring climate changes, including solar activity.
For example. This AGW mentality is like this.
On March 27th the sea levels rose alarmingly. More than experienced during the previous four weeks. And sea encroached
the main street of Darwin. Obviously climate changes has caused this and AGW is the main causation factor?
(March 27th was during the lunar cycle of a full moon. King tides happen during a full moon. But the previous four weeks the tides
were normal?)
Scientific reports must be comprehensive. Climate does change simplistically Spring follows winter, etc. You get some very odd
weather patterns, excessively cold winters, storms, heatwaves, droughts, and of course floods. But when you are dealing with
global temps one has to observe not the last 160 years but the last 2,000 years. Ice cores can go beyond this too. Take region by region, Southern and Northern Hemisphere, and climatic zones. Winter temps and Summer Temps.
And the reports as profited by the UN IPCC, I say profit, and the East Anglia University, Phil Jones, obviously were leaning towards
AGW as they were paid to research it, and couldn’t prove it. They did it knowingly too. And now evidence suggests that the planet is gradually cooling again. One big volcanic eruption and it will cool even more.
So let the UK Met Office spend another million pounds to research temps over the last 160 years and what does it prove. Nothing.
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Brendan, how can you compare religious fundimentalist creationists with AGW skeptics? Unless you wish to slander AGW skeptics. But it won’t work, you might feel better having a shot at some of us, but the science is on our side, not yours. Yours has been proven to be politically and fraudulently inspired. In fact from what I’ve read of your contributions, you are more interested in shooting the messenger than putting up a decent argument. Or insulting scientists who don’t agree with the UN IPCC as creationist thinking. I think you have burned out your argument on this blog. Do some independent research and do yourself a favor.
How about the 31,000 scientists who want to sue Al Gore, including
John Coleman. Hansen in Australia. Go nuclear, clean energy doesn’t work (the latter has some truth to it too) This is the man who was Al Gore’s chief scientific adviser and UN IPCC contributor with Stephen Schneider, who was yelling about a new ice age in the mid 70s? The man’s illogical in my opinion.
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Bush Bunny in 279: “but the science is on our side, not yours. Yours has been proven to be politically and fraudulently inspired.”
… that’s what creationists say too;)
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OT: Malcolm Turnbull resigned from standing in the next election,
maybe the rumour of him holding CCT investments was true, so whether he crosses the floor or not is still on the cards. That is he supports the governments ETS scheme with amendments.
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MattB: creationists are deluded religious fanatics, and the only
thing scientific in their cause, is that Dr Pachauri is a pagan, a liar, and the planet was only created in 4004 BC, including the sudden appearance of Homo sapien sapien (modern humans) by magic.
I’d rather believe in Battlestar Gallactia actually. LOL
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Mark D: “You haven’t proven your claims, you have not defined “sorts” and you have not disproved the claims made by sceptics.”
They are not my claims; the “sorts” are those listed at #213; I’m not trying to disprove the claims, merely show that they exist and are shared by the anti-evolutionists and climate sceptics.
“Which types of arguments, yours, the skeptics or the creationists?”
The arguments/claims made by climate sceptics and creationists.
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Bush Bunny: “Brendan, how can you compare religious fundimentalist creationists with AGW sceptics?”
Because they make similar non-scientific claims about their opponents. I listed a number of them at #213, and a couple of posters here have helpfully added to the list.
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Whose science books are you reading Brendan? You are still stipulating that AGW skeptics are claiming non scientific claims quoting your post 213? As do religious based creationists? As against scientific based evolutionists??? Can’t understand your logic in this one bit!
I’m sorry but what you quoted in 213 was your opinion without any
specific alternative scientific facts to base your contradictory opinion.
I think I have to agree with Richard, you are a sad person really
but I won’t be so elitist and give my opinion.
Jo this guy has to go. For his mental health more than mine?
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Go to bed Brendan, read a few science fiction books to calm you down. Because that is what AGW alarmists are all about. Or watch the movie 2012.
By the way ….. never mind… you’ll find out in time?
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Three card Monty, If a Anti-evolutionist and a AGW skeptic both turn on a light bulb that is the same behavior. It does not explain whether the power was coal or nuclear or if the light bulbs were the same wattage.
Your claim(s) are that there are similarities. You have not proven your claim (the similarities are really similarities) As in my example above (the source of power).
What you have done is made speculation or even gossip.
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This is something Brendan should read.
Got from a Honest Climate Debate.
‘After climategate, Should Savvy Investors Short Carbon Credits (PJM exclusive)’
http://pajamasmedia.com/?p=83734
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Brendan, the binary code coming from your keyboard is adding to global DisUnderstanding. No more posts from you until you convince me that you have a grip on reality. At the moment you are arguing that the climate is warming due to carbon because some people who say “it’s not” are wrong on a totally different topic. The term is “certified drivel”.
It’s so nonsensical it’s witchcraft. Follow your reasoning. What if there is one (ONE!) creationist who also says the earth is warming due to man-made global warming. Oh my, does that mean it’s only 99.9999999% “True” !!!! Howling Mango’s of doom. How enlightened. We can solve the problem of global warming, not by controlling emissions, but by asking 100% of believers of man-made global warming to become convinced of creationism! How simple. How cheap. How could you refuse to not become a creationist!
All your posts will hereby be held indefinitely in the moderation pit until you apologize for throwing logical pollution into this thread and promise not to make such an obvious basic error of reasoning again.
———-
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… that’s what the IPCC fans say too &-)
See how fast this kind of reasoning leads you to the black hole of nonsense?
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Still folks, thank you Joanne, but that last post other than this one is worth looking at. It might put some more understanding in
why weight has been put behind the AGW scam.
again worth a read… I got it from An Honest Climate Debate? ‘After climategate, Should Savvy Investors Short Carbon Credits (PJM exclusive)
http://pajamasmedia.com/?p=83734
I’ve forwarded this link to others including politicians and other anti-AGW blog owners. Including UK. I haven’t sent it yet to the media, maybe I will.
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Brendan #284 – Whether the Skeptics make claims similar to creationists is open to debate, a debate the skeptics are willing to make, but the AGW proponents are not. For it is they who are trying to supress debate much the same as creationists like to supress conflicting data. Indeed, if we look at each argument in its context, we see that it is the Jones/Mann/Trenbeth camp that is trying the same tactics as creationists. As are you. You are not debating, you are simply slandering. And trying to use a hockum science that even you do not understand to do it with.
Clearly you did not learn that creationists lost the debate because they could not debate. Much as the AGW alarmists are losing the debate because they refuse to debate or cant debate. Thank you for making the connecting between creationists and AGW alarmists.
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Brendan, you are trying to waffle your way out of it. (You are still wasting our time).
You are still trying to claim that AGW is right (and therefore the world is warming due to Man made CO2) because the other side make some claims that are a lot like the format of claims made by some overlapping portion of the group about a different topic.
You are using nonsense reasoning to reach a conclusion. The only way to know if AGW is right is to look at the evidence. Evidence from the climate, the planet and the universe. Evidence of social opinions can only ever tell you about social opinions. And as such, why bother?
Got any evidence that any warming causes positive feedback leading to catastrophic temperature rises?
No.
Hence, you dodge the question that matters, and focus on irrelevancies. So, not all skeptics are right on all topics. You are confounding the issue.
————————————————-
Alarmists and climate sceptics share a good number of positions regarding their respective opponents. Among them are claims of:
• Media bias
• Denial of the evidence
• Politically inspired science
• Lack of falsifiability (there is nothing you can say to a skeptic….blah blah blah)
• Funding corruption
• Growing numbers of anti-evolutionists/climate sceptics
• Alarmists/Skeptics are selfish people
• Alarmists/Skeptics as censors
• Alarmists/Skeptics as greedy
• Lists of Alarmists/Skeptics
• Alarmists/Skeptics are bullies
• Alarmists/Skeptics are environmentally destructive
• Alarmists/Skeptics will hurt the poor
• Alarmists/Skeptics are conspiracy theorists
• And of course, lies, hoax and fraud.
“What if there is one (ONE!) creationist who also says the earth is warming due to man-made global warming. Oh my, does that mean it’s only 99.9999999% “True” !!!!”
So why discuss it?
If I can show your argument applies equally well to the opposite conclusion, then your line of inquiry is a waste of time. It is Invalid.
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Joanne: “You are still trying to claim that AGW is right…because the other side make some claims that are a lot like the format of claims made by some overlapping portion of the group about a different topic.”
As I say, I am not connecting the various non-scientific claims being made with the truth or falsity of the science. Check my original post at #213 and you will find this statement: “…none of this has anything to do with the science per se, but it has a lot to do with rhetoric and persuasion”.
Therefore your claim above is incorrect. The issue as I have outlined it is the language of persuasion.
Furthermore, my original question also remains unanswered: “If these types of arguments are invalid in the case of evolution, should they be valid in the case of AGW?”
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Brendan,
yes you said “none of this has anything to do with the science… ” but you also said:
“Uncomfortable facts” meaning you assume the AGW theory to be correct and that we “don’t recognize the facts”. Yet you can’t name any “facts” that prove that man made CO2 produces more than 1.5 degrees of warming can you?
Besides, your whole post was in reply to a quote from me saying “So what if two groups of people occasionally have the same behaviour?”” which in it’s original context was my response to someone who was making exactly the fallacious ad hominem and confounding point I am objecting to you making. ie: you can’t weasel out of it now, you were continuing the thread.
My point, as always, is that discussing the “type” of reasoning on different topics is a waste of time. As I showed you earlier, there is always someone on any contentious point you can name who will call their opponents a liar, a paid hack, a cheat, a fraud,… blah blah blah. That in itself always proves nothing.
It’s a fact that a certain % of “believers” are creationists and a certain % of “sceptics” are creationists too. I say “so what?”. Exactly what percentage becomes “significant”? It’s not like there is a magic number “e” where if a particular percentage of a population makes the same logical error, then that tells us something about the topic they are making the error in. Take this point and run with it, it leads straight to a wall of stupid. “Look look, at the moment 21.22226% of all registered climate “believers” are calling the others ‘conspiracy theorists’, if 4 more people in the UK change their minds, they’ll cross the Zurg-Eigon line and the worlds oceans will warm.”
And if you argue that more sceptics are creationists, I’d still say “so what”.
The only “point” in pursuing this trail of nonsense is not about understanding the world, but about an attempt to smear and confuse.
Based on another wrong assumption.
You say those arguments are “invalid” (who says?). For example the argument “Evolution can’t be falsified” is wrong. After thousands of scientific papers, no one has reported a rabbit from the devonian (for starters). All animals didn’t suddenly appear concurrently in 4004 BC. Evolution could be falsified. AGW can’t. It’s cooler, it’s hotter, it’s stormier, then it’s not, the hot spot is missing, the MWP was there, the models are wrong, but the hypothesis won’t die. Team IPCC won’t even name the situation where they could be proven wrong.
But my position is always that only empirical evidence really counts. All the rest is dressing.
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rabbits in the devonian is ok (http://www.devonrabbits.co.uk/stock.htm)… it is pre-cambrian that would be the clincher popular culture leads me to believe.
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In the rubik’s cube of Brendan’s thinking, could we bring this to a blogworthy question? I, for one, want to know why Brendan appeared right after JM was terminated. Coincidence?
Brendan you have been rightfully battered here but you persist. I don’t doubt that you can think, I want to know WHY you think…….the way you do on this subject?
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MattB: #226 ?????????
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OT: The ETS bill with amendments is due to go to vote again? I would like to see a draft of the ETS with amendments as given by the coalition?
It appears the original won’t pass, but with amendments it might?
Anyone can they enlighten me?
Cheers
Bush Bunny from Oz.
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Brendan, I want to get you off the moderated list. Seriously, I don’t want to have to personally pay attention to these illogical lines.
You say the issue is “about the arguments and claims”. I say fine, yes please lets discuss logic, but if a form of argument is invalid, it’s invalid. Why do you keep trying to bring creationism into this?
This is like arguing with a spam-bot tied to a random word generator.
Say what? Since everyone uses the claim “liar” or “Greedy” etc etc form of argument sometime, the ONLY thing that matter is whether the claims are true or false.
Give me some reason, some concession, that you understand that comments about creationism are irrelevant here. I can’t see any point in discussing logic with someone who is a stuck in an endless GOTO loop, REPEAT “Creationism” Until….?
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Well it seems Germany and France are questioning the validity of
the AGW arguments. Europe and GB are nearly bankrupt partly because of the voluntary Cap ‘n Trade systems.
Australia has run out of solar panels and is importing solar from
the US of A. James Hansen was promoting ETS for Australia and nuclear energy as clean energy doesn’t work?
Al Gore is asking for clean energy volunteers. Why wouldn’t he he
has heavily invested in it.
And President Obama, is promoting clean energy eg. Nuclear, off shore gas and oil drilling,(and employing thousands in solar panel manufacture), therefore competing with Europe and China
in clean energy manufacture and investments. Bit of a turn around eh?
Maybe I am dumb or something, but there’s Jim Hansen who has been Al Gores chief scientific adviser saying clean energy doesn’t work? And promoting nuclear for Australia? And adopting the ETS bill.
Are we getting conflicting messages somewhere along the line?
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Another site recommended if possible you might like to peruse it too
Joanne?
http://green-agenda.com/index.html.
It was recommended to me and I think it is great… don’t know who the author is though.
Hi MattB, JM and everyone, well worth a look.
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THANK YOU Bush bunny.
That is indeed a very good site to understand what the present political version of “being green” really means, AND why..
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Thanks Derek, I sometimes feel I am banging my head on a brick wall.
But I have known (through Uni study) the AGW is so wrong, it’s a
crime against humanity when you consider the solutions advised by UN IPCC, Carbon credit investments (losing value LOL) Clean energy
investments.
Funny thing when Hansen was in Australia last month promoting his book, he didn’t receive much media attention. However, was quoted
as stating nuclear was the way to go, and clean energy didn’t work? But thought Australia should become the first to pass the
ETS (or Cap ‘n Trade) bill?
In my opinion, the man is suffering from lack of memory or what ever, (I won’t be rude to suggest dementia) however, he was Al Gores chief scientific adviser? And Al Gore and Obama are fronting up to promote clean energy. (Obama’s version includes nuclear, off shore drilling for gas and oil?)
Now Australia has run out of solar panels, locally provided, and buying them from guess who? Yes the US of A, that appears on record as saying during Obama’s speech STATE OF THE UNION.
We must compete with China and Europe and invest in clean energy
then quoted nuclear, drilling off shore, etc.”
This AGW scam is being exploited by investors in clean energy and
Carbon credit traders with the view of saving the planet from
so called AGW catastrophic events (not naturally created mind you)
They will not include the higher temps of the Medieval warm period, nor the Mini ice age. We are an ice planet enjoying on and off during this normal interglacial a warmer period.
However, if another ice age is imminent,(that I believe personally) the AGW alarmists are covering their bases well, the type of climatic changes will effect human beings more than a 1C increase in temperature.
I don’t know if you have read Colleen MacColoughs “Creed of the Third Millenium” Although I won’t commend this book to you, I find her prose somewhat pretensious, however (I did turn on my electric blanket reading her description of an ice age though in mid summer!In Australia) it is worth reading…The type of resolutions and precautions set by a global government are not dissimilar to those suggested in the Green agenda.
Now think, how can you tell people that in 100 years food will become a scarcity because the global temps (and precipitation)
have plunged. And you can only have electricity for 12 hours a day unless you have heat banks to conserve it.
Thanks for the encouragement Derek?
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Geologically speaking, the one thing “we” can say with some certainty, is that there will be another ice age.
It is only a question the question of when that remains unanswered.
It does appear that we are already overdue for the next ice age to start..
I have not read Colleen MacColoughs “Creed of the Third Millenium” but I think I will look out a copy.
I would rather read it than live it, but we may not have that choice soon.
I do not agree with the often expressed notion that AGW is “unfalsifiable” nor “unprovable”.
AGW is a lie, and all lies can be shown to be lies.
Sometimes however it just takes a little more time to expose the lie for what it is.
I hope we beat mother nature to exposing the AGW lie for what it is.
With this in mind I am trying to do my bit, ie,
http://www.globalwarmingskeptics.info/forums/thread-609.html
and,
http://www.climategatecountryclub.com/forum/topics/do-global-energy-aka-heat-or
I got that feeling you get when your told not to talk about something as a kid, you want to know about…
I get it virtually every time I try to raise discussion regarding heat flows as compared to
radiatiion / energy / photon flows.
The “all radiation is positive” rubbish is the straw that broke my back in this discussion area,
it’s complete imaginary rubbish. It’s pseudo science. But how to show it, that’s the problem.
Well, recently I think a major step has been taken regarding the present crop of radiaition plots
so many so heavily rely on. THEY ARE MODELLED……THEY ARE NOT OBSERVATION OR MEASUREMENTS.
So the question is how good are the models producing the line by line plots. ?
Apparently when W/m2 is used on the Y axis of such radiation plots,
then this is the product of a model’s calculation
that ESTIMATE line by line emission (HITRAN, LOWTRAN, etc.).
The model’s calculations will be presumably based upon
some version of the Schwarzchild equation, using an algorithm.
The algorithm used is generally
a) not realised to be used,
and,
b) unknown in what it actually assumes or actually calculates.
The end result appears to be that these spectra so calculated / modelled produce,
very high emissivity values for gases (ie 0.97)
when because gases do not behave as black bodies or grey bodies
(only applies to solids and liguids – NOT GASES ),
the emissivity of the gases should be very low (ie, 0.09)…..
The answer to the question regarding how good are these models appears to be.
Very, very poor, infact, pseudo science.
A lie is a lie, however it is told or hidden.
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Joanne: “Brendan, I want to get you off the moderated list.”
Much appreciated, Joanne, although I should point out that you placed me there.
“You say the issue is “about the arguments and claims”. I say fine, yes please lets discuss logic, but if a form of argument is invalid, it’s invalid. Why do you keep trying to bring creationism into this?”
I was responding to a comment made by you: “So what if two groups of people occasionally have the same behaviour?” The “so what” invited a response.
“Say what? Since everyone uses the claim “liar” or “Greedy” etc etc form of argument sometime, the ONLY thing that matter is whether the claims are true or false.”
There are many forms of argument. You will remember your example of the correlation between the rise in CO2 and the rise in the costs of, I think, postage stamps. You rightly pointed out that this was an example of a fallacious argument.
But the premise were, of course, correct, or I assume you were using actual historical figures. So truth or falsity are not the only things that matter in argument. The form of the argument is also important.
[ Sigh… Still no good reason to discuss “Creationism”, and no reason to use “forms of arguments as used by ill-defined-overlapping groups discussing other topics” as a method of understanding the world. You really don’t get it do you Brendan? You’re whole approach is illogical. It doesn’t make any difference what illogical forms of arguments some creationists use, (or skeptics, or alarmists). They are all wrong, and contribute to global logic-pollution. There is no point repeating illogical arguments and searching through them as if you’ll find the answer to atmospheric physics. You’ve dived in the trash can of thought, and are looking for something that makes sense by sorting and organizing rubbish. It doesn’t matter how much you sort the trash, it’s still trash.–JN]
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Do we have an agreed “judge” of what is “trash”. ?
Is human knowledge, or our abilities to understand / comprehend capable of deciding such in all subject areas,
no.
I’m sure there were appointed judges of what was “trash” back in the days that the flat earth idea ruled the roost,
but what they thought was trash, included a lot that obviously we now know was not trash.
As well as the fact that a lot earlier the Egyptian’s had already shown how round the earth actually is,
within the accuracies of the instruments they used. – This was obviously later thrown out as “trash”.
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Joanne: “Still no good reason to discuss “Creationism”…”
We’re not discussing creationism. We’re discussing what I see as important similarities in the claims put forward by creationists and climate sceptics about their opponents.
“You’re whole approach is illogical.”
The positing of similarities is an accepted form of informal logical argument. Therefore, my approach is quite logical.
“It doesn’t make any difference what illogical forms of arguments some creationists use…They are all wrong.”
Premises and conclusions can be wrong. But “illogical” forms of argument are not wrong. In the CO2/postage stamp example I cite, the premises are correct, but the implied conclusion (CO2 causes the price of postage stamps to rise) is wrong. The argument as a whole is invalid.
“You’ve dived in the trash can of thought, and are looking for something that makes sense by sorting and organizing rubbish.”
The sense that I make of it is that the arguments I listed are an attempt to explain away the fact that both evolution and AGW have become the dominant view among the scientific establishment and the major societal institutions.
In that sense, sorting through the “trash” can provide the basis for some useful analysis.
[Nope. Sorting through trash only tells you about trash. So – some people have brains that are still stuck in the stone age. That might be an interesting anthropological question, but it’s got nothing to do with the climate. Convince me that any thought pattern can change the weather… You’re talking about sorcery. And sure illogical forms of argument can be right but only by pure luck. Let’s leave gambling on random events to another forum.]
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Brendan!!!!!! The difference between creationism and AGW is similar in their denial of scientific and archaeology and palaeonthropology, and palaeoclimates evidence. They have willfully left this evidence out of their AGW equation.
They can’t divorce their faith and religious beliefs from scientific facts?
You in your faith in AGW is being perpetrated by those who were paid to prove their point but by doing so, they corrupted the data by leaving out evidence as stated above.
Now some British nut, is suggesting that the UN charge all denialists that includes scientists, coal, oil industries, etc and you name it who allow CO2 emissions that are definitely changing the climate that is effecting peoples health now? (Pollution does of course). So they say and calls it Eco-crimes, and they should be brought to task by the UN in the International Court of Law.
Our town, part of which is in a valley are cracking down on wood burning… however, quoting American studies. And the $200 fine
is less than a visit to the doctor???? Maybe in the States but certainly not in Australia most of us get bulk billed anyway.
Somehow this happened in the dark ages too, when the church labeled dissenters and heretics and burned some at the stake. (Including Jews) Anyone who didn’t support their brand of religion. Even some Christians who honestly believe in the 6 day creation ideology, feel those that don’t are not true Christians and are in league with the devil.
Even Prof.Bob Carter whom I feel is great suggests that AGW
is NOT evil but very wrong. So please don’t start comparing creationism with climate change policy skeptics. By all means apply it to AGW believers and Green ideology. Anyway must go
off to my Bonsai club meeting.
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O/T LOL Brendan opened the wood shed door, and saw something ‘orrible? What was it? Wood, potential CO2 emitter. LOL. And when someone said to him, “Brendan, that is to keep us warm dear!
He replied … “So you are a
denierof AGW, Shame on you?”Yes, well was the reply, the temps will go up in sitting room, so what, my neighbour won’t feel it!”
Must go and meet some peace loving people who are into a spiritual
hobby.
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