Sorting real journalists from sock puppets is not too tricky: real investigators tell you what the story is about; PR writers tell you what to think.
Do they “discuss” ClimateGate emails … without quoting the emails?
Who digs for details, and who hides the evidence?
The PR writers for Big-Government were quick to come up with excuses for ClimateGate II. Which is all very well, but it’s blindingly obvious where their own personal prejudices lie if they won’t print the emails that they are supposedly discussing. It’s not so much cherry-picking, but cherry-denial. “Don’t mention the radioactive cherries, but lets discuss how cherry farmers have been victimized, talk about the history of cherry tree farming, and hear their excuses and assertions that the cherries are an essential part of our diets. Don’t mention the Geiger counter. OK?”
The top 10 excuses for PR writers who pose as “journalists” to ignore ClimateGate emails
This is standard issue damage control for ClimateGate — protect the cheats and liars, attack the whistleblower, and use excuses and padding-fillers to cover a story without actually giving the public any information on the behavior of scientists who make statements that billions of dollars of public spending is guided by.
1. “The emails are old”
(No one has seen them before, and what makes two-year-old lies acceptable now?).
2. “The timing is suspicious”
(Alarmists release alarming stuff all the time in the lead up to big meetings, but look out, it’s suspicious when a skeptic releases alarming stuff about those scientists at the same time!)
3. “They’re out of context”
(We won’t explain the context, or quote the email, trust us, they just are, OK?)
4. “The emails show a robust scientific debate”
(But that is the whole point isn’t it? We were told the “science was settled”? It is dishonest to discuss uncertainties in private while you tell the public “the debate is over” and call anyone who questions that a “denier”.)
5.“They’ve been investigated”
(Even though the investigations didn’t have these emails, didn’t investigate the science, and were at least in one case, chaired by a windfarm expert, this point is supposed to have credibility?)
6.“They’re hacked” or “stolen”
(After years of investigation there is no evidence they were hacked. They could have been leaked. Police can’t or won’t say. Does this journalist “know” something the police don’t?)
7. “Aren’t the skeptics nasty people?”
(Crikey, imagine reading emails written by paid public servants on the job about their professional work? What victims! Those poor scientists can’t even threaten journal editors, conspire to ignore peer reviewed papers they don’t like, or discuss their ignorance in private… what’s the world coming too?)
8. “This doesn’t change the science”
(Since most of “the science” is merely a consensus of these same experts, whom we are told to respect, then actually it does change “the science” when they are caught cheating.)
9. The emails “mean nothing” according the scientists caught cheating
(The sock puppet earns bonus points if those same scientists also get to slur the whistleblower and skeptics with unsubstantiated implications that “they are funded by fossil fuels”.)
10. The public response is a “yawn”
(And given how few journalists are reporting the actual emails to the public, that’s entirely predictable eh? Circular reasoning strikes again.)
Real Journalists don’t try to hide the emails
Some journalists are not apologists for scientists who delete emails, hide results, talk about “the cause”, and try to get critics sacked. Bravo, and kudos to them and the news masts that invite coverage of both sides of the story.
Amos Aikman and Graham Lloyd, The Australian: Scientists’ quest for influence in emails
Graham Lloyd, The Australian: Politics muddies the debate
James Delingpole, The Wall St Journal: Climategate 2.0
Sock Puppet Journalists — Hide the evidence
Who are they sock puppets for? Take your pick: a political philosophy, their personal religion, possibly something more banal?
Richard Black, BBC: Leads the way in creative sock-puppetry , with the definitive whitewash within hours. Chalks up seven of the top ten excuses faster than virtually anyone else.
Associated Press (via The Australian and others): Does unabashed “damage control”. Publishes the responses of the accused without ever quoting the emails themselves. A.P. quotes the University of East Anglia spokesman, quotes Michael Mann, quotes Bob Ward (PR operative for the Grantham Institute). There is no effort to quote the hot-potato emails, to discuss their significance, or to phone up the people who might interpret the results differently from the accused. Associated Press (via CBC news) “‘Desperate climate change deniers’ blamed”.
Andy Revkin, New York Times. I think Revkin sincerely believes he is an investigative journalist, and he “investigates” in a half-hearted way: he links to a few skeptical sites, he asks “climate scientists” to respond to Pielke’s point, and asks the Norwich police how much they’ve spent. But there are no direct quotes of the emails, no phone calls to skeptics or people on the other side of the emails. By writing it all off as though the first emails were already “explained”, he implies that using tricks to hide declines is a reasonable scientific practice. If scientists distort the peer review process, bully and slur critics even as they hide their own debates and uncertainty, that’s apparently all fair too. Thus he is an apologist for corruption of the scientific process. His update relies on the intellectual vacuum of the precautionary principle: “You’re Driving a Bus Full of Kids With a Curve Ahead“.
(No Andy, just because we don’t know the magnitude doesn’t mean we automatically have to spend billions. We don’t know the magnitude of the next pandemic or asteroid hit either. Look up the phrase “cost-benefits”. The magnitude matters: is it 1, 3, or 5 degrees? We have to use the observations, with rigorous scientific process in the search for the best estimate we can make. The guys who lose data, delete emails, act deceptively and behave badly are estimating 3.3C. We can do better.)
Jason Samenow, The Washington Post also won’t quote those emails, and uses at least five of the excuses above. (He scores a point for linking to skeptical sites, though he thinks he’s demonstrating “cherry picking”.)
David Wroe, Ben Cubby at The Sydney Morning Herald: Both were writing on climate change, Durban, the carbon tax and politics (here, and here) but won’t let the SMH readers know what the lead authors of IPCC reports have been caught admitting in private. There’s a few paragraphs of whitewash-in-passing from Adam Morton. Otherwise it’s almost complete denial from the rest of “team environment”. The SMH can spare column inches to tell us what Desmond Tutu thinks about climate change, but not what Professor Phil Jones thinks about the models (“They’re all wrong”.)
The Age: It’s a carbon-copy of it’s sister, the SMH. Climate-gate was announced in one whitewash story copied from Bloomberg with four of the top excuses, but no quote. There’s the same few paragraphs of whitewash-in-passing from Adam Morton. But, as with other politically incorrect topics, The Age readers are in the dark. They get no clues as to what lead authors of IPCC reports have been caught admitting in private. If a junior Exxon secretary had said: “We need to get rid of global warming” it would be a headline story repeated in their columns for decades.
ABC (US news) Ned Potter: Not a single quote from the emails.
The ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation): I can’t even find any mention of the latest ClimateGate release on the abc.net.au site. Can anyone else? They have a dedicated “science” team, but like the SMH they seem to be in denial that their thought leaders could have broken the law, lost key data, lied about the “certainty” and the reliability of the models — or else, and it’s worse, the journalists know the scientists are behaving badly, but still think “the science is right”, they know best, and the stupid public need to be shielded from “confusing” information.
ABC News thinks Australians are better served by knowing the details of Tim Flannery’s tour than knowing what the IPCC lead authors have been caught saying, even though the men at the forefront of the supposed “science” disagree entirely with the Flannery-PR when they write emails to each other.
Australians may rightfully wonder why they pay a billion a year in taxes for this blatant censorship.
Australian Climate Madness summed the media response up so much faster than I have. 😉
Send in more examples of sock-puppet journalists. They need to be named and shamed, and real journalists rewarded.
Peter Lewis head of the Labor Party’s propaganda machine ‘Essential Media’ moonlights as a lead singer
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Jo, these aren’t whitewashes or excuses. These are all legitimate reasons. I know for a fact that none of the alarmists in the “scare the living bejesus out of children” movement had any problem when this WikiLeaks cable was discovered
——————–
Athlete! [snip Too good] Forgive me. I like your idea so much I want to run with it. I’ll email you to discuss a tweak and an idea. I hope that’s ok! Yes, I copied it all. Jo
Very Cool comment :-).
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Love the article! Just one minor gripe. In the section on Andy revkin, you state: he ask “climate scientists” to respond to
I think it should be “he asks”. I only notice it because I hear it so often and it kind of grates on my hearing. 😉
—–
REPLY: No, that’s definitely a typo. Do people do that deliberately? It’s fixed BTW. Ta! 🙂
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Do they do it deliberately? Unfortunately yes. Americans are very lazy speakers and if not careful, often start writing as they speak.
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Lets’ make the analogy more applicable to the situation:
“You’re at the wheel of a bus full of kids that you’ve never driven before, rounding a curve on a mountainside road you’ve never driven. It’s getting foggy and rainy.” There’s a pickup truck full of terrorists shooting at you from behind and every time you slow down another kid gets wounded. Several kids are already wounded and the hospital, police, and safety are miles away.
“Do you keep your pedal to the metal or do you ease off?”
Unlike the original analogy suggests, there are consequences to “easing off” energy production, lives.
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In Canada the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) has scarcely mentioned it. Meanwhile lots of stories about “unprecedented melting in the Arctic” “disappearing permafrost” and now of course our government’s imminent abandonment of Kyoto, pejoratively written of course.
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If people want to search you can try site:url-for-media-outlet climategate.
(Try it in “NEWS” as well as on the “web”)
If you don’t get anything try site:url-for-media-outlet climate. That ought to turn up a lot of stories so you can see that the search engine is working. It will also show just which obscure and irrelevant stories are considered more worthy than leaked emails from leading authors. That contrast is particularly useful. So if say, CBC, didn’t mention climategate at all, we can compare it to what they did say: ie Desmond Tutu makes a speech.
These media institutions need to know they are being watched.
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Also on most search engines you will find a ‘time range’ switch – on Google its at the bottom of the left column – so you can see exactly what they said in the last week.. I see the ABC are copying the Guardian, again & again.
Maybe we need a Golden Sock Puppet award for journalist ineptitude? I have some old socks I can glue to a board and spray gold…
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The CBC, as noted above, is predictably trying desperately to avoid mentioning Climategate 2.0. However, the National Post‘s Terence Corcoran was quick off the mark (and down the right path) On Nov. 22 with:
Followed yesterday by the first in a 2-part series by Peter Foster:
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LORD ANDREW TURNBULL
The unspoken scandal is that most of the scientists involved in climate research are personally committed to radical political ideologies that are both misanthropic and opposed to the global business system (capitalism). They are activists first and scientists second, having been raised by the Western secondary education system, in which science is not taught objectively, blinkered by anti-establishment bias.
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Sorry, forgot to mention that Corcoran (who was among the first in early Dec. 2009 to do an excellent 2-part analysis of Climategate 1.0) also followed up yesterday; during an incisive piece on Canada’s withdrawal from Kyoto, he wrote:
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Brilliant work, Joanne.
I think its great to make clear to [Self-snipped] journalists that its NOT free of charge to let down your obligations as a reporter.
Those cowards who dare not tell the truth, they have to know there is a price to pay.
Journalists and politicians will soon realise whats going on and how they where wrong and they will jump on top of each other to bring excuses.
Can you hear the excuses already?
What would be the top excuses?
1) We had NO way of knowing that scientists where lying. We believe that people in institutions always tell the truth. There where NO writing on the wall that we should be suspicious.
2) We had so much to risk if we suddenly went for the whole truth for our own jobsituaion.
It is not a repoters job to risk anything to tell the truth.
3) We were told that only right-wing fanatics believed in sceptics.
4) The group of 15-20 core scientists preferred by IPCC let us know that they where 2500 scientists, and we as reporters had no reason to check this out.
5) We ourselves saw that there where less snow in our gardens. At least until a few years ago.
6) We journalists simply feel more comftable supporting greenpeace and WWF than Big Oil. And when reporters are told that all sceptics are supported by Big Oil, how could we of all people possibly find out that this is not the truth?
(My wife would kill me if she knew i did not protect the panda and the Ice bear.)
7) Im simply way to stupid ever to figure out anything before at least 80% of the population already have figured it out.
K.R. Frank
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I would further suggest that a majority of newer reporters at the MSM have a clearly ‘progressive’ view of the world — probably did a soft degree at uni (media studies and sociology, perhaps).
I would guess that most of them have never held a productive job, and find the Left/Green narrative so entirely in tune with their worldview that they never feel the need to question the stories they are fed.
As has been pointed out, the BBC doesn’t think it is biased; the ‘progressive’ worldview is so deeply woven into the fabric of the place.
On AGW, the BBC has worked closely with environmental organisations, and centres of unbridled alarmism such as CRU, to shape its coverage.
According to one senior BBC journalist quoted recently: “As far as the high-ups are concerned, the [AGW] science is settled.”
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Wicked Job once again Jo!
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Yes, I have had to deal with an “investigative journalist” recently who expects us to verify his claims on our time and money. No concrete proof is provided, no names of who he spoke to or when, no documentation. In other words laziness in the extreme while we apparently are supposed to take his word for it (and if we don’t believe him we can check for ourselves rather than expect him to do his own work and provide hard evidence of his claims).
I get the impression that journalists expect us to trust them simply because they call themselves a journalist.
My observation is that the only people who trust journalists outright are either the mentally deficient or are themselves journalists. Although the cannibalism amongst journalists once they get going on one another can be quite entertaining…
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with links:
28 Nov: Tom Nelson Blog: Way to go, mainstream media: For commentary on Durban climate hoax meeting, PBS goes to Washington Post warmist Juliet Eilperin; there’s no mention that Eilperin’s husband is a global warming activist with the way-left-of-center Center for American Progress
http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2011/11/way-to-go-mainstream-media-for.html
i can hardly believe how i turn on ABC radio so rarely these days yet, when i do, i IMMEDIATELY get the entire Damien Carrick Law Report on so-called “climate change” being a “human rights issue” and could be a “terrorism” issue blah blah:
29 Nov: ABC The Law Report
Climate change: Indian Ocean
If sea levels rise by just 1 metre, 30 million Bangladeshis will be displaced.
Where will they go? What legal rights do they have? Are they refugees? And can big carbon emitting countries be held liable for their losses?
ProducerVerica Jokic
TRANSCRIPT
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/lawreport/
it seems last week would have been no different, from same url above:
22 Nov: Climate change: The Pacific
Climate change and rising sea levels. There are moves to relocate many people of the Carteret islands to other parts of PNG. But what about Kiribati?
One day the entire country could disappear under the waves. Where will the people of Kiribati go? And without territory or a resident population, can a country simply cease to exist at international law?
Presenter: Damien Carrick
Producer: Erica Vowles
TRANSCRIPT
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29 Nov: ABC The Law Report
Climate change: Indian Ocean
If sea levels rise by just 1 metre…………….
Other words for IF, stipulation, condition, rider, proviso, but…………….
Whenever you see the word
you know it has not happened yet.
If sea levels rise, if the moon blew up, if the sun did not rise, if scientists knew what actual science was.
Was listening to ABC radio this morning and Mr Panasonic was doing his best impression of that guy who walks around carrying the placards (the end is nigh) whilst ringing a bell.
He said we
heat waves and dengi fever is spreading but strangely Malaria was not. The interviewer just sat and nodded his head (well i dont actually know this as it was on radio) but metaphorically he did.
Cheers
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Meh, a mere bagatelle! If they rose by 8849 m, that would wipe out the whole Mount Everest Climbing Industry in one fell swoop. Now, that’s something to really worry about.
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Hi Pat, from what I here the Bangladeshi will be fine because apparently the land they are on is actually increasing in size. I think it’s a delta and they grow as more alluvial soil is washed down from mountains, who’d of thunk that!!!
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Sorry was supposed to be “hear” instead of “here”. My reading it didn’t pick it up. 🙂
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Jo,
Another great post. I linked it for tomorrow’s post on my blog. I also linked it as a response to Lambert’s post. Good job! Check it out tomorrow if you have time, you have the address.
Best wishes,
Rich Kozlovich
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I posted some possible reasons for the MSM blackout. They are similar to Frank Lansers above.
Despite the politicization of the AGW debate, I still do not understand how anyone can support the AGW scam. Everyone (except the perpetrators) loses. For example, wasting money on a climate change department when this money could be spent on your favourite cause makes no sense to me. If you are of the right we could simply not spend it, if you are of the left we could spend it on whale research. Tolerating such a blatant corruption of science simply means everyone loses.
Based on the “if you do not understand something, it is because you are not in possession of the facts” principle, what is the huge interest that the MSM have in supporting CAGW?
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Jo, shouldn’t Andrew Bolt be on your “real journalist” list?
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Of course, though I can’t find an article in the Herald Sun – there are many on his blog of course, and I’m happy to link, but it would be good to find an MSM link – article, or TV. Perhaps if someone else can find one and check that it fits the criteria above – it’s news, contains the emails quoted.
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Agreed. Bolt is excellent and wrote another great story about this CO2 scam.
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Sorry everyone, I seem to be struggling to link sites in my posts for some reason so I will try again…
“Warmist Gospel Setbacks Flooding in”
The link will be below if my next attempt at linking fails.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/warmist-gospel-setbacks-flooding-in/story-e6frfifx-1226209602647
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Here is an opinion:
The majority of news falls into five main categories: International Politics; Local Politics; Celebrity Gossip; Sport; and “Human Interest”.
International politics comes “off the wire”; usually via organisations like Reuters and Associated Press.
But international politics is really just local politics somewhere else, so all political news starts life as a local political story, somewhere (including the UN and EU).
As a newspaper, television, radio, or wire service, if you want to get the local political stories, you really need to have reporters close to the legislative process. But legislatures are not comfortable having just any old journalist turning up, oh no, they have to have the appropriate credentials – they have to be authorised members of the Press Gallery. So being up with political news means that you have to be accepted as an appropriate person by the very people you are reporting about. Nothing is ever said about this, but the unwritten implications are that you can only remain a member of the Press Gallery for as long as you are acceptable to the politicians.
You might wonder what this does to objectivity, and you would be within your rights to do so. Political journalists tread a fine line between the various political factions, so it is a brave person indeed who will report on anything that is at all contentious. It is much better to attend the regular press conferences, pick up the prepared Press Release, ask a few inane questions from the floor, diligently write down everybody else’s questions, and all the answers, and then report on what was written and said. It is never a good idea to have an opinion of your own.
Political journalists lend credibility to the media outlet they work for, in the eyes of their readers or viewers. (Why this should be so is totally beyond me, but there it is).
But with the exception of the “Business oriented” media, it is not political news that sells, but rather the Celebrity Gossip that sells. But this too is modelled on the same sort of accreditation process. To avoid being sued, the media outlet must ensure that the story is “authorised” by the subjects’ press agent.
Sports news is also a driver for sales, but only around big events, or when the local team has won. Sports reporting is probably the last vestige of true journalism, being based largely on a blow-by-blow account of the highlights, and heaps of interesting facts and statistics.
Nobody is really interested in “human interest” stories unless a) they are the subject, or b) they are totally puerile, or c) both. They do serve however, to fill in the spaces between adverts.
So the bottom line is that media cannot afford to have their journalists reporting anything about Climategate I or II, that has not been sanctioned by their respective political media minders. As a consequence, they will all toe the political line, and dutifully regurgitate the press releases.
But their readers and viewers are not fools. They can see what is happening. They will know that the media are not telling the whole truth, so newspaper sales and TV ratings will suffer in consequence. In response, the media will push more of the Celebrity Gossip stories over the next few months (until it all dies down). They will also give “more in-depth sports coverage” during the same period. You can also expect fewer cats to be stuck up trees.
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Rereke do you belive there exists the New World Order? The fascist regime that is part of the global military industrial complex, funded by the big banks whos “sockpuppet” in chief is Obama, that has a HAND in this..
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No.
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Surely you jest?
Are you seriously claiming that the NATO crusades throughtout ASIA, AFRICA and the MIDDLE EAST are for the sole purpose of catching AL CIADA?
Did you know as i type Russia has a couple of aircraft carriers parked off the coast of Syria so as NATO cannot free the people of Syria like it did to Libya?
Did you know Gold in my Sacks robbed Lybia of billions of dollars and now fortunately for them there is no Libya to pay it back?
You seem like a smart guy Rereke so your NO response suprises me.
(Russia has only one Aircraft Carrier listed. LINK) CTS
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Who is this bloke, AL CAIDA ?
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No Crak. The Admiral Kuznetsov is currently on a deployment that will, at some point take it to Tartus (among other places), and that’s the ONLY carrier in the Russian Fleet. Available only when its not broken, which is actually most of the time. Get your hand off it mate.
Entertainingly hyperventilating thread though.
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Street cred this is him,
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/fakealqaeda.php
http://whatreallyhappened.com/content/state-department-dont-invade-privacy-cleric-cia-kill-list
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Catamongstthepigeons,
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=27925
Oh sorry Cat i did not know you were a better chess player than the Russians (we all know the yanks cannot even play checkers very well), please forgive me oh great one.
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Crakar24
I was asked, “… do you belive there exists the New World Order?” (sic).
I don’t believe in such a structure or malevolent organisation, nor do I believe in the Bogy Man or the Tooth Fairy.
But I do understand expediency, and people (and countries) acting in their own best interests by taking advantage of situations as and when they arise. I believe in opportunism.
The questions you ask about NATO should be tempered by the understanding that the NATO treaty is for the mutual defence of Europe and the USA.
NATO has no troops of its own – they are drawn from the participating countries on a complex roster basis that I have never fully understood.
NATO took action against Libya, because of the stockpile of weapons that Gaddafi amassed, including ballistic missiles capable of reaching southern Europe.
NATO (as an organisation) was not actively involved in “catching Al Q’aeda” – in fact you can’t, because Al Q’aeda is not an organisation, it is an idea. (But that is too hard for the western press to understand).
As for aircraft carriers being parked anywhere, that is just normal geopolitics – they have to be parked somewhere.
And finally, the USA is not about to get involved in Syria – no oil in Syria – there is oil in Libya – expedient opportunism.
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I guessed as much! Good luck in your pursuits of happiness..Ali Ahkbar!!
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No rereke you were asked
Rereke do you belive there exists the New World Order? The fascist regime that is part of the global military industrial complex, funded by the big banks whos “sockpuppet” in chief is Obama, that has a HAND in this..
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Yes, that was the full quotation.
It consists of a question, addressed to me, followed by a statement of belief. I answered the question put to me. I also chose to ignore the statement of belief since belief is a private matter.
My analysis of the geopolitical situation stands as my analysis. You can either choose to accept it as being a plausible analysis based on the evidence available, or you can choose to reject it on whatever grounds you wish. Your action does not, in any way, diminish my answer to your question.
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Richard Harris ( U.S. “NPR” {National Public Radio}) hasn’t breathed a word about the story. NPR is itself so completely bent on the topic that they might as well be a wholly-owned subsidiary of Al Gore’s profit-making climate scare factory.
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We know that BIG BANKING is behind it..
Wikipedia….A sockpuppet is an online identity used for purposes of deception…
…Invented by the Pentagon to start color revolutions…(evidence exists)
Climate sockpuppets? maybe.
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What evidence, and where?
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[…] ClimateGate II: Handy Guide to spot whitewash journalism – The top 10 excuses for scientists behav… […]
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The established media follow what they think are current fashionable tendencies or what they think ought to be a fashionable tendencies, because they believe that is what sells (it probably does but largely because it is a self-perpetuating mechanism).
This is what skews important issues. But it has been that way for a longer than I can remember. Before the internet the only truly critical journalism I ever found came from the underground press and from pamphleteers.
At the present time we can be thankful for the internet, even if it is under constant pressure from establishment.
We can also be thankful for people like Jo lucidly, and I hope tirelessly exposing the vacuity of such fashionable memes.
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I thinks theres one more excuse for the pinko reporters:
“It’s all a koch brothers conspiracy with de evil murdoch empire…”
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In respect of the conspiracy involving employees of CSIRO and BoM to remove Dr de Freitas from his position at Auckland University, I have sent the following email to my local MP:
I write to you as a supporter and resident in your electorate.
In recent days a fresh scandle in respect of leaked emails termed Climategate 2.0 has erupted in the blogosphere … widely reported by Anthony Watts at WUWT [ http://wattsupwiththat.com/ ] and locally by Joanne Nova at JoNova [ http://joannenova.com.au/ ].
It is absolutely appalling to note the involvement of Australian employees of the CSIRO and BOM actively conspiring to have a fellow scientist, Dr Chris de Freitas, of the University of Auckland removed from his employment for the reason that he does not support their views on catastrophic anthropogenic climate change madness.
This makes me ashamed of being an Australian that my fellow citizens, paid for with my taxes, should behave in such an unethical manner. It draws the integrity of the CSIRO and BOM into disrepute and soils its (once) good name … it is a shameful reflection on Australian society and these individuals and their employer organisation should be called to account.
The CSIRO and BOM government employees involved in this shameful act are identified by their email addresses at the CSIRO:
n.nicholls, Peter.Whetton, Roger.Francey, David.Etheridge, Ian.Smith, Simon.Torok, Willem.Bouma, Greg.Ayers, Rick.Bailey, Graeme.Pearman
There may well be others, the names of which can be found through an examination of the material at the above mentioned blogsites.
I bring this matter to the attention of the Opposition with a view to seeking a Senate enquiry into the behaviour of these individuals and the role of both CSIRO and BOM in perpetuating the scandalous cult of Global Warming.
I urge all bloggers here to bring these accounts to the knowledge of your local MP for further action.
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Humph I’d like to bring it to the attention of my local member but he’s an expenses abusing turncoat traitor who has a penchant for getting tired and emotional before lunchtime and betraying his electorate just because people got sick of his rorting.
Given he’s not brave enough to show his face anymore I don’t think I’d get a reply.
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We need to keep the politics out of science. Emailing scientists directly with your own personal grievences about their behaviour is harassment. You need to be contacting your local MP and the the PM with issue.
I understand you are just replicating your email here but I feel redacting the email addresses of the scientists in question is the responsible thing to do.
I’m not sure if anyone has pointed this article out but, I found it hilarious. It seems “The Conversation” is keeping their comedic sensibilities well exercised. This article is pure parody. I particularly enjoyed this quote by Denis Goodrum:
Here’s the tl:dr highlights.
This is the current state of academia. God help us all!
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Waffle, thanks, you are right. I have redacted the emails. I don’t want scientists harassed (or spammed). Please people, don’t post whole email addresses. I’m sorry I missed that. — Jo
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One of the most egregious examples of media statistical bias by the BBC is here:
http://thegwpf.org/the-observatory/4271-biased-bbc-advice-based-on-sloppy-statistics.html
Jo has already mentioned Black, who obviously is a serious dolt; he is talking about running means or moving averages which can often trail reality; for instance in a series of numbers:
11,12,13,14,15,16,15,14,13,12,11
The numbers rise to a peak and then fall; the trend is clear; a moving average can disguise this clear trend; the average of the 1st 6 numbers is 13.5; the 2nd set of 6 numbers beginning at 12 is 14.16; the 3rd set of 6 numbers beginning at 13 is 14.5 when the trend is clearly declining; at the 4th set the average is still 14.5 when the decline is more pronounced.
Apart from this basic mistake if Black had used HadCrut for his moving decadal average he would have found clear evidence of a decline in trend:
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For some reason that ‘trend‘ link is not connecting; the full url is here; sorry about the length:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1991/to:2001/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1992/to:2002/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1993/to:2003/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1994/to:2004/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1995/to:2005/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1996/to:2006/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1997/to:2007/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/to:2008/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1999/to:2009/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2000/to:2010/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2001/to:2011/trend
[fixed link] ED
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Thank you Jo, that was priceless. By the way I have been using the facts in your booklets in letters etc.
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Hey Jo, nice summary you got there. It looks like the instructions for a game of “natural climate change denier bingo”. 🙂 To make it more fun, watch the nightly news or current affairs programmes and every time someone uses one of these excuses, sip a shot of your favourite liquor. Play the warmist drinking game on any day this week and “climate chaos” will surely ensue – and it will be worse than first thought!
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No i will not play as i donot wish to become an alcholic
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Hic…Hic….Hicc….
I started on ABC 24 this morning and by 9AM after Prof. Tim Flannery I was already half plastered.
Hic.. Hic….
After getting through Kerry-anne, the mid morning news from 7 and 9 got me going again. Hic…
After the Mid-day Report on ABC, I was ready for bed. Hic…
Woke up in time for the The Project on Ten and promptly ended up where I was after Flannery!!
Curse you Andrew McRae for the Warmist Drinking Game…Hic..
I think I`ll do it again tomorow…Hic…
🙂
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I like the thought of designing drinking games around terms in the media! Will give some survivable ones some thought.
So anyway, does this mean that the term , “anthropogenic climate change denier” is socially acceptable here?? I thought the D word sent mods into conniption fits??
Hey, you guys can be ACCD’s and i’ll be an NCCD!!
[we use science-that is if you use the “D” word AND you have negative thumbs, then we have conniptions. ConSNIPtions actually ] ED
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Tsk tsk, so quick to claim victim status, as though it will get you a compo handout.
If I had called you a derisive name when talking to you then you may have had a point, but I wasn’t talking to you. Besides, ACCD does not accurately represent the skeptical view whereas Mann-made paleoclimatology is a proven case of official NCCD. Therefore I cannot accept your term-swap deal as it would not be fair.
It would seem your ability to measure social climate sensitivity to “C2D” is about as good as your ability to measure atmospheric climate sensitivity to CO2; sensitivity exaggerated into catastrophic proportions.
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Nah, i’m not one of those who lays claim to being a victim of the great global warming conspiracy, but having hung around here a while now, it seems to me that in general the use of the “D term” is tolerated when used by those who are are shall we say, in sync with the main group ethos here, while i have seen it draw positively rabid response when used by others who are less convinced of the prevailing swag of positions presented here.
Its neither surprising, nor an uncommon situation on blogs, and seems to be part of normal blog dynamics. But its good for a chuckle!
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No, Catamon、
You are a knucklehead!
Just have a drink mate….hic..hic…
and listen to me old ..hic..mate…phil jones…
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I saw an interesting compsci research paper come out a few days ago. I wanted to comment on it here but it seemed too far off-topic. Now that you have raised the issue of suppression of dissent in the media by sock puppet journalists, the tangentially related issue of sock puppet accounts placing paid opinions on blogs is well within scope.
For those with a highly analytical bent the paper is titled “Serf and Turf: Crowdturfing for Fun and Profit” by Wang, Wilson, and co-authors.
The authors try to coin the phrase “Crowdturfing” as crowdsourced astroturfing, which basically seems to offer any casual web surfer some money for repeatedly performing prescribed actions on web sites that are protected from ordinary bots by CAPTCHAs. This may be as simple as voting up an article, or placing a particular kind of opinion as an article or comment, or voting in online polls in a particular way. A crowdturfing site simply attracts and organises the astroturfers and sometimes has automated ways of detecting whether a worker has done what is required before payment.
They studied mainly crowdturfing in China. The combined total spend on just the two crowdturfing sites they studied was US$4,000,000 over 5 years.
Section 3.2 is perhaps the most revealing, where they discuss the kinds of tasks that crowdturfing actually rewards. There are 5 main types, one of which is:
There’s also some rather sad news for the lonely chinese climate skeptics out there:
Not only did skepchick1984 never get your message, she probably doesn’t even know her Facebook profile is now on lavalife and match.com. Hypothetically of course.
This isn’t limited to China. In the West the main use of this technique is Search Engine Optimisation, or how to get your web site on the first page of a Google search. Pretty much the only people who don’t think this is dishonest and malicious are the SEO companies themselves. In case you think big business doesn’t know about astroturfing, be aware that the technical term “Sybil attack” was invented by Microsoft nearly 10 years ago to describe the sock puppet problem.
I like the researchers’ globalisation spin on the problem:
Isn’t the high-tech era great? Business outsourced software development to India which brought high-paying jobs to India but we paid for it with about a decade of buggy software. Industry outsourced their battery manufacturing to China, bringing cheap batteries to the western markets but paid for with abysmal pollution in China. Now business is outsourcing the manufacture of consent to rice paddies in Indonesia, bringing decent supplementary incomes to the third world while we pay for it with a completely skewed risk assessment of the world we live in.
We only know the opinions of people we know. To break out of our personal bubble and gauge broad public opinion we rely on the media, both old and new. Jo has shown how the old media is subverted. The potential of the new media also to be subverted for corporate and government propaganda is now quite obvious. So mediums old and new are both covered. Welcome to the fish bowl.
Looking at the other side of the coin, the very fact that this research could be done at all is a sign of how easy it is to link together various comments and retweets and trace rebellious thoughts back to the rebellious individuals who thought them. The ability of “open source intelligence” to be abused by governments is also worth considering, especially by today’s FB-addicted “blog every waking moment” generation. Dare I say it… caveat twittor.
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This is a big problem. It’s very hard to stop spam from these people because they are intelligent enough to do things like copy phrases from other, previously allowed comments and thus get around even the smartest spam detecting software.
The only way to catch them is to detect their payload (ie, spam link, whatever) and this is hard to do without starting to impinge upon genuine content.
I call them human spambots but crowdturfing works as well.
On popular blogs like the Andrew Bolt blog, I’m convinced several people share an identity and take shifts in posting controversial information. This is because (a) some identities seem to be there 24 hours a day (weekdays only) and (b) because the same identity often has a different ‘tone’ on different days.
I’m not convinced self-same people aren’t Herald Sun employees there to muckrake and get people fired up to keep the pageviews rolling in.
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GetUp.
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That actually sounds like genuine people to me. 😐 Yes, really. Some people are like that.
I wanted to talk about solutions earlier but my comment was getting too long already.
I am not convinced technology of any kind is sufficient. Given the drudgery involved, this will continue while there are areas with both high unemployment/low wages and with Internet access. I didn’t think you would ever see those two phenomena together, but there you go.
Improve wages and living conditions in the third world and you will see less Aussie jobs going overseas and less crowdturfing. Educating the developing nations about the importance of truthfulness in democracy and in business transactions will make people less inclined to pollute other countries with deceit in exchange for money.
The solution is not better software, the solution is better wetware and fairer economics.
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I always find it interesting that more often than not, these “identities” are the first to post to the thread, or at least in the top 3. I can just picture the on shift troll bunkered down in GetUp! HQ, with their fingers constantly pounding the refresh button, waiting for the next post…
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Must be a dispiriting way to earn a living, especially when you’re losing the argument in the death of a thousand cuts. It’s a bit like the poor sod on the Titanic, down in steerage, with a bucket frantically trying to bail, hoping that his sterling efforts aren’t really as futile as they appear to be.
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Thats funny Ive been there and my inlaws are from there and i dint find any abysmal pollution yes the air has more particulates and other stuff but the impression is its a cesspool of filth ..NOT AND its not paid for by abysmal pollution either. If there bad practises then its by CORRUPT Western cooperates.
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“This doesn’t change the science”
When I hear the word science,… [snip lets find a less aggressive metaphor? –J]
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I believe that the MSM editors don’t allow their journalists to cover these stories, and when they do, they’re a hatchet job. It’s because they’re all part of a club. It’s the club that needs dismantling, the climate fraternity have lost all credibility but fascists are still in control.
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This man-made ‘catastrophic man-made global warming’ con is never going to end until some person or persons are involved in some form of legal action that provides the platform to expose all that is rotten about the IPCC and its cabal of fraudsters.
We’ve seen lots of warming bells that you would think, by now, should have caused authorities to seriously question the AGW dogma and effectively hold certain people to account e.g.
… the convenient lies in Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth”
… the documentary “The Great Global Warming Swindle”
… the NIPCC’s “Climate Change Reconsidered” reports
… the Co2 Science report “Carbon Dioxide and Earth’s Future – Pursuing the Prudent Path”
… numerous other reports and papers by experts
… the climate gate emails
… numerous books exposing the IPCC and its ‘science’
… expert testimony to the US government hearings
Yet nothing changes.
These fraudsters are protected by their universities and governments, and the corrupt IPCC. The IPCC is protected by governments. Governments remain unaccountable and use the media outlets to maintain the message, which in turn rely on the fraudsters who are protected by the universities… etc etc etc etc. It’s truly a circle of insanity.
So the global warming juggernaut rolls on… now in Durban. And surprise surprise… now it’s getting hotter… now we’re all going to get sicker… and now, they’re even saying “Sorry folks, the catastrophes are going to happen it’s just that we got the timing wrong and meant to say we will see catastrophes in 20 to 30 years time”.
Already, the next meeting in the Middle East has been set.
I believe that until more politicians like US Senator James Inhofe stand up and get their fellow colleagues to appreciate just how rotten this global warming climate change scam has become, absolutely nothing will change. It will be business as usual… unless one of these climate change charlatans face charges in a Court of Law and must explain their actions.
Unfortunately, Australia has no politician like Senator James Inhofe. Politicians on both sides of Australian politics have swallowed the AGW crap and are not smart enough to think for themselves and question the dogma.
So we will all continue to have a huff and a puff… blogs will maintain the rage… journos like James Delingpole and Christopher Booker will continue to expose the scam, but until governments regain their sanity, nothing will change… the governments will just continue feeding this thing with more taxpayers money…
… but cut the the money, though, and the whole scam will come tumbling down like an old house of cards. But how to do this?
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Just for info, a slightly different take an this issue. I think it should appeal to the occasional posters found here who seem advocate the conspiracy theory model of anthropogenic global warming.
http://youtu.be/4OB2prBtVFo
And people wonder why the public reaction to these emails is a tad ho hum??
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No, no! Come on Catamon, this is the smoking gun, the FINAL NAIL IN THE COFFIN! Gentle mocking is not an appropriate response…
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More like a smoking cap pistol maybe??
The guy who produced the vid seems to have a pretty good style. Seems to have been a journo for a while and had a fairly broad ranging career. Calm, no hype, and gets the salient parts of his argument across in what is a pretty compressed format. Some of the others on his site are worth a look if you have the time.
http://www.youtube.com/user/potholer54#p/c/A4F0994AFB057BB8/3/N2B34sO7HPM
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And, yet people who believe that a mere 0.7C warming in 130 years is somehow catastrophic, have the audacity and the unmitigated gall to suggest that those who find this argument totally unconvincing are the gullible ones. OK, nice fool’s paradise you live in. We are not buying what you are selling, sorry, Catamon.
No need for a conspiracy, however, just realising that Climatologists wishing to big note the import of their branch of science, which is predicated on an erroneous (or is that Arrhenius?) foundation, who as a consequence refuse to admit their irrelevance and insignificance as a backwater branch of “science-lite”, with little justification for their existence. Damn shame that.
And, as the obvious global cooling trend swings slowly into gear for anyone with their eyes open (witness the Australian Eastern seaboard with the coldest, wettest Spring in living memory, plus the coming northern winter continuing the cooling trend) clearly people refusing to acknowledge the observational evidence before them and instead blindly swallowing what is dished out to them can hardly be lecturing others on the meaning of gullible, now can they? Gaia just refuses to cooperate to back you up in your ridiculous assertion that man has any capacity to control the climate to any significant degree over any significant time scale. The phase changes of the hydrological cycle trumps any tiny impact increasing CO2 could ever have.
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Uh huh…
The video tells us that Phil Jones’ “hide the decline” quote was taken out of context, then gives us the full email and explains that the “trick” of truncating the tree ring proxy series just at the point (~1960) where it starts diverging from temperature readings is a simply a technique for dealing with a “well known phenomena called the ‘Divergence Problem'”.
(Strangely, the “full context” doesn’t change the meaning of the quote, even though the narrator implies that it does.)
Those who aren’t in the habit of thinking may believe that they have heard a valid explanation — perhaps a review of the “Divergence Problem” is in order:
When Michael Mann was constructing the dendroclimatological icon known as the “Hockey Stick” graph, he selected tree ring series that agreed with the 19th and early 20th century temperature records. This was supposed to isolate those trees whose growth mainly depended on temperature, rather than on other weather changes in sunshine and rain, or microclimate effects such as position in a tree island or fertilizing effects such as which trees were most often visited by sheep relieving themselves.
Then, these selected trees were used to create a 1000 year “temperature” record — one which, incidently, was in conflict with hundreds of other, non-tree-ring proxys, historical records, and weather observations from centuries past.
It had the great virtue, however, of supporting the IPCC’s claim that the climate didn’t change much before Humans began putting large quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere, so it was seized and trumpeted as the “smoking gun” of AGW.
There were just a couple of problems, though: Both before and after the selection period the tree series diverged from each other (and the temperature record).
The before part was finessed by not plotting the individual series, just the average. Since they were going in divergent directions, they tended to average to a flat line. Often the “Hockey Stick” is plotted without indicating the standard deviation of the data — however, when the std. dev. IS included, you can easily see that it grows rapidly as you move backwards from the actual temperature record, as in this graph. — indicating that the individual tree records grew farther apart the farther back you went.
The divergence after 1960, however, was a more serious problem. If that was published, people might start questioning whether tree rings actually responded primarily to temperature at all. This is where “Mike’s trick” comes in — just dropping the offending data and replacing it with temperature readings.
When I went to college, this was universally known as “Fudging the data”.
Then, a geologist and an economist (Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick), both experts in statistics, demonstrated that Mann’s technique of selecting only those series that agreed with the short instrumental record would produce the same “hockey stick” result if you used series of random numbers for “data”. This not only reproduced the hockey stick, but the divergence problem as well. The “data” in other words, had no effect on the result, which was entirely contained in the algorithm — kind of like those “pick a number” games where, no matter what number you pick, you end up with the same number after going through a specified series of manipulations.
Well! You can’t let stuff like that go unchallenged. People might think that tree rings are no more useful for telling the temperature than, say, random numbers, so McIntrye and McKitrick were viciously attacked and the “Hockey Stick” was re-created by other scientists (using Mann’s algorithm, of course) and thereby claimed to have been “validated”.
At the same time, we now know from Climategate II, those same scientists tried out M&M’s “trick” and discovered it worked — Mann’s algorithm made perfectly good hockey sticks from strings of random numbers. This, however, did not change their public stance one whit.
So, we have climate scientists, in their own words, admitting to fudging the data, attacking critics whom they knew were right, and continuing to promote conclusions they knew were wrong, all while being supported by public money.
But, the narrator of the video effectively says, “Nothing to see here. Move along. Nobody believes this except crazy
conspiracy believersclimate deniers.”Uh Huh.
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I might add, this was only in the first few minutes of the video — I don’t have the time to deconsruct it all. It is merely poor satire, whose makers felt no duty to report honestly.
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It turns out it was worse than we thought … Hide the decline has been revisited:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/30/hide-the-decline-worse-than-we-thought/
or see the extended version here @ Climate Audit:
http://climateaudit.org/2011/12/01/hide-the-decline-plus/
Mann et al appear to have chopped Briffa’s data series off at 1940 in the spaghetti graph.
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Oh no!!! You mean that it gets cooler in winter!!!! Damn! I would never have picked that Winston. And i agree with you that there is no need for a conspiracy. But that kind of makes any posts about “CLIMATEGATE II, THE FINAL NAIL” a bit silly if there is actually no conspiracy doesn’t it??
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Catamon has also apparently failed to notice that the last few winters have been setting all-time records for cold and snow. (See here and here.)
You know: “continuing the (decade long) cooling trend”.
Catamon, your post is more dumb than clever. Try including some informational content next time.
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Meh, Climate, Weather there’s a difference.
I’ll see your decade long cooling trend and raise you a century long warming trend.
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Century long?
Oh how you make me laugh Cat.
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“laugh Cat”? Is that like a laugh track?
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Craker24,
100 years is longer than 10 years.
In that way she is correct.Not only that the trend since the 1850’s is warming.
But she like too many AGW believers.Fail to realize that the century long warming trend is abysmal compared to previous sustained warming trends.It is so far the weakest long term warming trend of the entire Holocene.
The Modern Warming is weak.ALL of the other warming periods were much more robust in warming.
LINK TO CHART
That worries me.
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Sunsettomy
I thought Cat was a bloke, this changes everything.
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Dear Catamon, just to clarify, are you talking about the warming period around ~1905 to ~2005 AD?
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Joke, it’s been warming since the Little Ice Age … now its cooling again! Natural cycle.
Repeat after me, ” CO2 increase follows warming, CO2 increase follows warming, Warming not due to CO2 increase, Warming not due to CO2 increase.”
That’s the problem with the CAGW propagandists they cherry-pick data and trends, and everything else.
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And I will raise you a 4000 + year long cooling trend.The current dominant trend. That will easily run over a feeble postulated CO2 warming effect.The warm (summer) part of the interglacial is long past.We are into the climate Autumn and soon into the next glacial ice age.
There is nothing to indicate that the oncoming glacial cycle has changed.
Here is my simple post about it.Later in my new climate forum.I plan to expand on it.
We are already sliding into the next cold ice age
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Had a look at your linked page. Interested in the absurdly long view until i got to the bit about:
Lost interest.
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Catamon,
Thank you for reading 98% of my link!
The part you say you lost interest is funny coming from you.
It is a FACT.That CO2 is a trace gas.
It is a FACT.That it has been increasing in the atmosphere for 120 years.
It is a FACT.That it was around the 385 ppm level in early 2010.
Yet you lost interest over these facts?
LOL
It is rated around 3.6 W/m2 versus 341 W/m2 of the total.That is a feeble contribution.That is after I added the doubling factor.That has yet to happen.A very small increase over a century.
The Modern Warming you talked about is the WEAKEST warming period of the entire Interglacial period.Yet people like you irrationally exhibit fear of the future over a feeble trace “greenhouse” gas.
What your reply really means.Is that you are willing to ignore the possibility.That the CO2 effect is nothing to worry about.It has NEVER been shown to be a climate driver.Just a bunch of models is all they have to run with.
Cheers.
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By the way Catamon.
The “Interested in the absurdly long view until i got to the bit about…” You wrote indicates to me that you fail to realize that the long climate cycle is the DOMINANT one.It is a cooling one that has been going on for over the last 4,000 years.
The current warming trend in the last 150 years.Is well within the natural variability range of the interglacial period.
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Where’s MadJack these days?? I cant call BINGO, till he posts REGIME CHANGE NOW!!
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catamon,
I see that you completely ignored my comment about temperature trends. THE dominant trend of the Holocene is one of a 4000+ years of cooling.You wail over a very tiny trend.
It is 31.1.1.4
Cat got your tongue?
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BobC, it is his Dunning – side coming through.
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There’s something in all this fraud that just screams out that this is a crock of Bovine waste product, and I’m just absolutely bewildered why no one can see it.
Lead Paint. The problem was the Lead, so they immediately set about making paint minus the lead.
Same with Petrol. They took the Lead out of that, and it cost Billions.
CFC’s in Spray cans. Stopped dead, and replaced, again at enormous expense.
The air conditioning industry. They had to change the coolant fluid, again, CFC based, again costing Billions.
CO2 emissions, and the single largest cause is coal fired power.
If the problem was so dire, as we are being told, there would be Worldwide mobilisation to just shut them down.
Full stop.
Are they doing that?
No.
Instead they place a cost of those emissions, now understanding just how huge they really are, and that the cost will make an absolute fortune, and then telling us that ‘somehow’, placing this cost will lower those emissions, but that lowering is so incrementally tiny as to be almost non existent, and in fact emissions are actually rising.
What would make me, and the entire World population really believe is not the ‘Science’, but the actual actions of standing by that belief and closing them down.
Bugger the problems that will cause, because, we are told, this is really dire.
That action alone would absolutely and positively make people believe.
Are they doing that for the ‘good’ of the Planet, even full in the knowledge that it would be absolute political suicide to close them down, but it’s something that must be done, must be done, if the problem REALLY IS so dire.
No, they’re not serious.
Now go to this website, and it’s Wikipedia, huh! and let me explain some home truths.
Propaganda, flat out, and they have no idea what they’re on about at all.
Wow! They actually are closing down coal fired power plants, and just look at that huge list.
Note the construction dates and the sizes of the plants closing down. Most are 50 to 60 years old, and are in the main, tiny, small, and small medium sized plants. Nothing over 1000MW and barely a few even over 500MW. Those plants that are closing down have nothing whatsoever to do with saving the environment from CO2 emissions. They have reached the end of their lives, are positively ancient technology, and are not economically viable to remain in operation. That’s why they are closing. No airy fairy save the Planet here.
The average life span of a coal fired power plant is 50 years, and in the U.S. currently the average age of ALL the coal fired power plants is just on 45 years.
When they start closing down those large essential coal fired plants, then I will know that they are serious.
Until then, it’s just a scam supported by spin.
Tony.
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Tony: My father a few years back made exactly the same point; they could legislate on this to stop the dangerous behavior – the sheer fact they have not indicates both a lack of evidence and that what is currently happening is more about the money than the environment. Also when I heard that hydro electric was ‘off the radar’ as a solution – it was clear to me then that this is not about really solving any problems – its just another way to get us to emotionally spend money on things we ‘should not’ understand and just trust in it being the right thing to do – e.g a scam.
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Tony,
Yes they replace one thing for another and like the replacement of lead in petrol they always create a bigger problem (why do we need a cat converter) yes thats right to collect all the bad shit they replaced the lead with.
Re shutting everything down, it was done once albeit in a hollywood movie “The day the Earth stood still”. Unfortunately there was no sequell so we did not see the utopian world that followed.
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That’s not correct.
The catalytic converter uses a high temperature process to cleanse the exhaust of more pollutants. Ironically this increases the co2 content, I’m led t obelieve.
The reason that lead was removed was because it bungs up catalytic converters. With lead in the fuel, you couldn’t have a catalytic converter.
There are other ways to approach emissions control (modern engines are using more turbocharging and lean burn technology) but catalytic converters was decided as the result.
You can say what you like but the removal of lead is absolutely a good thing. The amount of airborne lead is still very high, and there’s no-one arguing that lead is not a pollutant.
Removal of lead and unleaded fuel (and increasingly tighter engine emissions) has been a very good thing, and it’s the type of environmental improvements we should all be getting behind, because it makes for cleaner air and longer lives, and really isn’t that expensive. It is the polar opposite of co2 reduction – low cost and high benefits.
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BRC, when they removed the lead they had two choices design a new engine or add shit to replace the lead, leaded petrol cars dont and never did have a cat.
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Yes, that’s my point.
You’ve still got it the wrong way around. You seem to think catalytic converters were introduced to clean up the stuff that replaced lead, when catalytic converters were always desired, but unable to be used because of the lead. The lead had to go in order to use the cats.
The cat is there to clean up toxic pollutants that are a side-effect of the imperfect combustion process and convert them into non-toxic gases. So it takes Nox and CO and converts it into non-toxic co2 and h20 (water vapor). This is why modern cars look like steam kettles on cold mornings, because of all the water vapor created by the cats. The catalytic converter was invented to stop noxious exhaust emissions into something that is a lot better for the environment. Ironically it contributed to a large rise in co2 from vehicle emissions, but this was all done before the global warming scare, and I’d much rather sit in a room (or city) full of co2 than co and nox.
Lead, however, was incompatible with cats, so the lead had to be removed. You don’t need a cat converter on an unleaded engine, but you can’t have a cat converter on a leaded engine – or more accurately – you can have one, but it won’t work for very long before the internals get coated in lead.
The ‘other shit’ that replaced lead is less toxic than the lead it replaced. Lead is a known neurotoxin which does accumulate with exposure – this is real science, not pseudoscience. It is far better to have MTBE or ETBE in fuel than Lead, despite the other two not being pleasant substances. Since the removal of lead, studies have shown the lead levels of children have decreased by over 5 times. However, the cats are not, I repeat NOT, there to remove MTBE or ETBE.
Phase out of leaded petrol and introduction of cat converters remains one of the biggest improvements in environmental conditions ever undertaken, especially when viewed in cost/benfit terms. Removing the lead not only stop lead exposure, but it enabled cat converters which have massively reduced smog problems in many cities, especially LA. There were days in LA in the 1970s were you were advised not to go outside because of the toxic air. That vritually never happens anymore – all from the cleaning up of car exhausts enabled by the removal of lead and the introduction of cats.
As always, for the socialists and marxists out there who think that socialism is the answer to environmental problems, the only countries left running leaded petrol (and thus doing damage to their environment) are poor and/or communist countries like Afghanistan, Burma and North Korea, while one of the first to remove lead was that capitalism star, the United States.
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I you want a parallel example then, look at the US debt crisis. The problem is just as big and the approach to soultions are just as poor. They are talking about cuts to future increases in spending. We both know that the US debt is real. It is simply a lack of cajones by the politicians.
One thing I am suspicious of though, are the polls which indicate such a high level of concern about CAGW throughout our population. This is the main lie. If that many people were that concerned then, we would see a natural change in consumer behaviour to reflect the belief in
global warming,climate change, climate disruption(i give up).It is nothing for households to reduce their energy consupmtion by 20% and to buy less crap on Thursday evening.
What is often overlooked is that “business as usual” means, production as usual and consumption as usual. What we see on both sides of the equation is complete disbelief in the propaganda of fear. Take a deep breath, relax and enjoy the gift of life.
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Climate shift Waffle, its now called climate shift do try and keep up.
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Tony, the change to unleaded paint, unleaded petrol and cfc free refrigerants, while costly, was essentially easy to do in the short term. Replacing fossil fuels is not, hence the different approach.
Paying for pollution has been used before, with sulphur emissions from power stations in the US. It was, I believe, moderately successful. There was one problem, in that certain existing power stations were exempt, and thus their life was prolonged excessively, rather than replace them with cleaner power stations.
From an economic point of view, an emissions trading scheme is the most efficient way to reduce emissions. That is, the cost of reducing emissions is minimised. The Lib/Nat strategy of promising direct action (and pork barrelling in many country electorates, no doubt), would definitely be more costly. However, if they get in, I’m quite sure that they will not actually implement anything that might actually reduce emissions. So you guys better vote for them.
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John,
you say:
I can’t understand how people have actually can be sucked in to believing this.
You need to understand how electrical power is consumed, not how it is being generated.
A monetary ‘driver’ (and how I hate saying this) might, just might cause the generation side to cut back on its power generation. eg. Impose a huge cost on the generation of power and in the case of the large coal fired power plants, that is in the vicinity of $500 Million and higher, and this may cause them to reduce generation in an effort to save money.
However, consumption is the main thing that needs to be looked at.
Power is consumed in 3 sectors, Residential (38%) Commerce (37%) and Industrial (24%).
Industry cannot cut back its consumption in the amount of power they consume, for the huge levels needed.
Neither can Commerce, also in the amount of power they also consume.
The residential sector can cut back, but here you are talking of tiny amounts, in the vicinity of 5% at the individual household level, and that is positively sanguinely hopeful at best that they can even achieve this at all.
Any changes, and let me repeat that, any changes will be so tiny that they will not even be felt back at the source of the power generator.
They cannot, repeat, cannot, generate less power. The minute that they do, then the whole grid becomes overloaded and blackouts ensue, and it really is as simple and dramatic as that.
Large scale coal fired power operates at its absolute peak efficiency when it is running at its absolute maximum.
Varying that up and down results in greater consumption of coal, hence greater emissions.
Those large scale plants just have to run all the time, producing what they always do.
An average large scale coal fired plant emits around 18 million tons of CO2 each year. Any significant savings needed are in the vicinity of millions of tons, not a few tons here and there, and millions of tons means millions of KWH less power, not fiddly amounts here and there.
I can just see Governments now, Federal, and State both, telling power plants that blackouts are not an option, that they HAVE to have available ALL THE TIME, enough power to run everything.
In fact, as part of the actual Legislation, now in place, they have just that thing in place.
It’s called ‘Security Of Supply’.
The plants now have to keep doing what they always have been doing.
Generate the power they always have generated.
An ETS will never reduce emissions.
It’s a device purely for making (enormous amounts of) money.
Tony.
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Tony do you have a reference for this It’s called ‘Security Of Supply’ i have a bone to pick with someone.
TIA
Crakar
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It goes without saying Tony, that ultimately coal fired power stations will be replaced. Maybe with gas (in the short term), nuclear (fission, and hopefully fusion some time in the next 50 years), wind, solar, hydro, whatever.
They will be replaced at the point when someone says, “Hey, I can generate power more cheaply than you can”. For a small isolated station, that might mean augmenting diesel with solar – right now. Increasing generating capacity with gas turbines rather than coal fired power stations is probably already the only sensible way to go, as the cost of emissions will rise.
The residents here no doubt believe that civilisation as we know it can’t continue without burning coal and oil. It won’t be easy, but we should be able to survive without it.
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In an economic model, perhaps.
But back in the real world, you can’t construct a synthetic market out of nothing and expect it to work properly.
You can’t price each individual emission and you can’t price each individual abatement, so you end up with all sorts of estimates, assumptions and thumbs-in-the-wind. This opens up the field to rorting, cheating, mistakes and all-round market failure.
It’s funny I should say this because that’s been the exact experience in Europe – with lots of people working out ways to scam the system, including Indian companies buying European steel plants, closing them, opening a new one in India and claiming billions in credits while emissions are exactly the same. The recent UBS report noted that emissions had not changed while something like $70 billion had been spent. It has not made one jot of difference to the climate, as blind freddy could have told you.
We also know that the markets are a complete failure because the governmnet knows they will collapse, (see CCX), so they try and set a price floor, but as we know, a price floor encourages oversupply (see WWF et al trying to own Brazillian rainforest to get a piece of the action) and oversupply guarantees price collapse at some point. Basically if you can promise an arbitary amount of carbon credit by promising not to cut a tree down, you can not only multiply the promise over again (just like printing money!) but you can overwhelm the markets ability to absorb credits – there are, after all, a lot more forests than there are power stations.
The direct action model is odious because for the most part it is also a waste of money, but with the possible side effects of actually reducing emissions (ie, upgrading power plants or similar).
Synthetic economic models trying to trade invisible gases sound good on paper. In practice they are a complete failure and should only exist as economic though experiments.
I note you’ve given up trying to defend the science or the scientists which is a positive step. Now it’s time to give up on the ETS as some sort of useful model.
If you want to stop something emitting you have to switch it off. End of story.
When the alarmists telling me there is a problem start acting like there is a problem, then I will start to believe there is a problem. But Phil Jones gets dissapointed if warming stops, despite the fact that he tells everyone warming will be the end of the world. He’s either a misanthropist who wants people dead and gets excited when that might happen, or he’s a liar and knows that extra warming isn’t dangerous. Neither is a particulary pleasant outcome as far as his character is concerned.
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Anybody who says coal fired power plants may be replaced by wind power is demonstrating such great ignorance of the subject that his/her comments are not worth the bother of reading.
Richard
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I read a research paper recently Tony, that suggested the hole in the O3-layer never was anything but a natural occurrence. Measurement data is quite recent so how would they have known what was not natural?
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Streetcred,
They have no idea how big the hole was before, in fact their predictions (theres that word again) was that the hole should be almost gone by now but it is the largest it has ever been.
Suggest you do a google search on GCRs and ozone holes it will be very enlightening. If you dig deep enough you will find a study or two which suggests the reduction in ozone can explain most of the warming currently being blamed on CO2.
Tip dont bother looking through IPCC literature.
Cheers
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Layers and layers of fact-checking fail again: It’s 2011, and the AP and Washington Post still claim that Pachauri is “The U.N.’s top climate scientist”
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“The U.N.’s top climate scientist”???
It’s like the journos have been railroaded into saying that.
nyuk nyuk nyuk!
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In response to all those nail jokes by the warmbots i give you science in action care of CG2.0
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/30/crus-dr-phil-jones-on-the-lack-of-warming/
Oh and here is another scientist drumming up a bit of cash for his retirement fund
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/30/the-worst-kind-of-ugly-propaganda-david-suzuki-targets-kids-at-christmas-in-the-name-of-climate-chnage/
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I think rationality has lost this round. The behaviour of journalists that Jo has (brilliantly) listed appears to be successful in keeping CG 2.0 from the public and political eye.
I have read (in newsprint and on the web) that
– the only people pushing the CG 2.0 emails are discredited journalists like Bolt, JoNova and Delingpole.
– the emails “confirm the science”
– the emails are unimportant because most journalists of “integrity” are not interested in reporting them
So, we who think that CAGW is the greatest scam since Uncle Bill’s magic elixir and that there are employees of govt., CSIRO and various universities that should be gaoled, for fraud, deception and corruption; well we are just going to have to work a bit harder. This is going to be a long haul.
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So let me get this straight………………the economy is in the shitter, we have a carbon tax that will do nothing but exert control over our lives, we have been told to tighten our belts, we asked for a 4, 4 and 4% payrise the bitch said NO, and now the bitch threatens us with our very jobs and then the bitch turns around and does this
http://www.news.com.au/national/politicians-get-a-christmas-cracker-of-a-pay-rise/story-e6frfkvr-1226210689577
This payrise is more than most people earn in a year WTF are these people thinking!!!!!!!!!!!!!
REMEMBER……..THE LAST OFFICIAL ACT OF ANY CORRUPT GOVERNMENT IS TO LOOT THE PEOPLE
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The salaries of politicians and corporate executives are pegged to money supply. Everyone else has their pay packets pegged to an invented number called inflation. All the PM was doing is to maintain the purchasing power of her salary against the global deflationary pressures which exist. You only have to look at the spot price of gold and silver to know what the real value of the dollar is.
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Crakar, I agree with you (!) – this is ridiculous. I don’t see how the pollies can justify this pay increase.
We currently face a growing divide between the “executive class” and the rest of us (the 99%?). The pollies would obviously like their rate of pay to keep up with the “executive class”.
I must admit to not understanding how salaries are determined once they get much over $100,000. Where I work, we have a superb boss who probably gets somewhere between $100k and $150k. But a couple of corporate rungs above him is a fairly average big boss on $500k. If the two were to swap places, our area would suffer, but the organisation as a whole would do better.
The level of pay for “top” people seems to be the result of an almost superstitious belief system. A belief that there does exist a separate class of people who are so much better than every one else that you must get them, and you must pay them a lot of money. I know a teacher at an affluent private school who has nothing but contempt for a recently departed headmaster. Yet the headmaster was much lauded by his peers and those above him, and despite eventually being effectively sacked by his school, went on immediately to lead another prestigious school.
This superstition is more dangerous than climate change to the future of our society.
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Trust me, “the growing divide” is between the political class and the rest of us. Few executives in the private sector earn that kind of monney.
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Superstition? Really John? It’s about time you step out of your cloistered cocoon of academia and learn how the real world works. In corporate employ, in an advancement beyond your professional vocation, the amount of money you earn is directly proportional to the amount of money you are responsible for.
What you don’t understand about corporate culture is that, barring the very top level(inner circle), if those managers that earn over $200K mess up, their careers are over. Trust me, I have a number of friends who are now ‘out of the game’ and through no direct fault of their own. But, the buck stopped with them along with their careers.
There is some truth to the propaanda you read about in the papers with overpaid CEOs but, there are two things happening here.
1. They are part of the club in which only a few hundred are either executives or board members of our major corporations. It’s an old boys club but, thankfully, not the best way to get wealthy in our society today. It is the easiest way to wealth but, the amount of money you can make doing bugger all is fairly limited compared to being an outstanding entrepreneur.
2. Corporate media is at work to create a division in our society. “Look at all these fat cats robbing you blind. That’s OK, don’t try to be wealthy you’ll only be robbed. In fact, you might as well stop trying in your current job as your boss is probably robbing you blind too.” Divide an conquer, the fat cats hate competition so they will psy-op you into not even trying. That way, your small business or the small business you work for will become less productive.
It’s time to get past the entitlement attitude. 99% of the 1% have earned their wealth fair and square. It’s the 1% of 1% who are the robber barons and rent seekers.
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I’m not so sure Waffle. A mate of mine runs with an orthopaedic surgeon. This guy can notch up quite a few $2000 operations on a Friday before he runs. Apparently even he is mildly embarrassed at how much he gets. The same mate also knows a couple of pharmacists, and they too, apparently, have a license to print money.
We have plenty of these anomalies in our economy, dragging everybody down.
But just about everybody earns more than me, which is really annoying!
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They probably run their own businesses which means long days, stress in keeping the business coming through the door to pay for payroll, the rent, the bills and the taxes which keep academics in a job.
I can tell you that at anytime in a business you can go under and those things will keep you up at night, regardless of what you are earning today. The entrepreneurs that run their own businesses can take it all, only because they are prepared to lose it all. That’s how life works. If you don’t want a roll of the dice then don’t complain about how much you are earning. I’ll take freedom over security any day of the week.
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How to defend the indefensible
(1) ‘Out of Context’
CG-2.0 is adding TOO MUCH ‘In Context’ for all to many in the media. Just make sure that your audience doesn’t know the details and, hey presto, everything is as it says on the
tin – ‘Out of Context’
(2) ‘You shouldn’t be reading ‘stolen’ e-mails’
A double whammy here. Stops some of your audience from sinning and provides a great excuse for those who don’t want to ‘know the context’. ‘I don’t read stolen e-mails’ sounds
much more laudable than ‘La La, I can’t hear you!’
(3) ‘The latest release adds nothing new to the debate’
Another great reason not to look at the CG-2.0 messages for those who either didn’t read the CG-1.0 tranche or chose instead to read the translated/bowdlerised translations.
This leads naturally to number
(4)’Multiple investigations cleared the scientists of any fraudulent or unprofessional behaviour’
Given the background to CG1.0 that CG-2.0 has ‘partially’ added to, AND was AVAILABLE to the ‘investigators’ at the time (but not in the public domain) and the unwillingness of
official questioners to ask probing questions then ‘La La, I can’t hear you’ became unnecessary as ‘La La, I won’t ask you’ rapidly became the favoured approach of these
highly-paid and defendant-friendly inquisitors.
(5) ‘This doesn’t change the Science’
Yes, the investigations did say that sometimes these brilliant but often absent-minded scientists were guilty of less than perfect record-keeping but, nonetheless, their
conclusions are unarguable. We’re all going to hell in a hand basket.TACTIC- when caught out in a big lie- admit to a small one.
But the science has changed. It’s gone from ‘Global warming’ to ‘Climate Change’ to ‘Climate Disruption’ to whatever the PR calls it today. When the e-mails are read, at first
hand, too many of those scientists who created the science FLUNK the ‘SMELL TEST’
Maybe the science hasn’t changed but how can anyone trust the products of those whose actions, ethics and integrity are in the gutter. I unreservedly apologise to those tainted
and soured by the activities of the aforementioned.
(6) ‘and 97% of climate scientists agree. That the 97% equates to one execrably-worded, three question survey of about 10K individuals that got filtered down to 76 ‘Climate
Scientists’ says everything about the politics and zilch about the science. Forgive me for the revelation but I’m dressed more to the ‘natural variability’ side of the argument
than the ‘it was us humans wot done it governor’ extreme and I still reckon my answers would have pushed the 97% up to 99%!!!
(0) jUST ME
I’m called a Denier, far too often for my personal comfort but at least I’m now part of a growing consensus of individuals who share some of my sentiments. Here’s part of this
deniers credo
I AGREE that we’ve warmed since the ‘Little Ice Age – LIA’ of the 19th century. I’m a warmist unlike the Hockey-Stick supporters who, by supporting its findings, deny that there
was an LIA.
I AGREE that CO2 has a warming effect on our planet. Our recent 3% addition to that particular GHG over that of the natural background does seem to have had beneficial effects
such as increased Biomass, longer growing seasons and a distinct lack of ice-fairs on the Thames
I AGREE that computer models do a really good job at projecting what computer models say will happen at Longitude xx, Latitude yy in the year zzzz.
I AGREE that Man has been guilty of degrading the environment with dirty air, poisoned water, contaminated land and extermination of species but, and excuse my french dear
reader, WTF has that got to with CARBON DIOXIDE?
Let’s GET BACK to protecting the environment and tackling the REAL ISSUES rather than stuffing the bank accounts of opportunistic faux-manipulators.
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I do believe Dr Spencer is about the only denier the warmbots have not been able to get mud to stick to so with that here he is talking about CG.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/11/climategate-2-0-bias-in-scientific-research/#comments
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hes a ‘luke warmist’ in a sense so maybe they hope he will switch over..he like Monckton..some warming but not catastrophic..of course this isnt so.
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http://www.wherewillsantalive.ca/
David Suzuki at his alarmist best. You’ve really got to see this to actually believe that a supposedly “revered” environmentalist could stoop so low as to bring this type of unabashed “alarmism” directly to the children.
Unfrigginbelievable. via Anthony Watts’ site.
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jo, i leave it to u to respond to this, :
1 Dec: ABC The Drum: Anthony Cox: Climategate 2: A consensus emerges
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3707172.html
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I left some comments with this story on the ABC site and they have not been “moderated” away! Maybe the ABC are testing their exit strategy as well …
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well worth a read…
30 Nov: Calgary Herald: Barry Cooper: Cooper: Climategate 2.0 clouds global warming threat
(Barry Cooper is a University of Calgary political science professor. His column appears every second Wednesday.)
The new batch shows that, for example, many so-called climate scientists were fully aware that proof of melting tropical glaciers was bunk, but treated such evidence as “dirty laundry.” Others complained of “nitpicky jerks” who found anomalous data. They grew fretful about anthropogenic global warming skeptics having “extreme religious views.” One such miscreant apparently “has links to the Vatican.” Who knew that conspiratorial Catholics were inspired global warming deniers?
It is not all so comical…
After reading McKitrick’s latest study, no one with a shred of common sense would trust a word produced by this outfit.
For example, the lead authors are not chosen for scientific excellence, but for political reasons. Being a member of Greenpeace helps; membership in the World Wildlife Fund is even better. Lead authors are under no obligation to consider the full range of evidence on any topic. They are immune to independent analysis, and so often examine their own splendid work and call it peer review. If by some miracle, criticism of a report occurs, the lead author can simply overrule the objection. Many of these problems came to light in Climategate 1.0, but McKitrick provided overwhelming evidence that the IPCC procedures are hopelessly compromised. In several case studies, he showed how authors simply made stuff up in response to external criticism of their work.
As one politically aware scientist said in the Climategate 2.0 collection, “What if climate change appears to be just mainly a multidecadal natural fluctuation? They’ll kill us probably.” As with Kyoto, RIP.
http://www.calgaryherald.com/business/Cooper+Climategate+clouds+global+warming+threat/5787882/story.html?cid=megadrop_story
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not kyoto RIP here, but Climategate RIP!!! what a wag Michael is:
30 Nov: UK Daily Mail: Michael Hanlon: Climategate RIP
(Michael is Britain’s sharpest and most well-read newspaper science journalist.
As well as writing science features and comment for the Daily Mail, he is the author of five popular science books including ‘Ten Questions Science Can’t Answer (Yet)’ and ‘Eternity – our Next Billion years’ (Palgrave Macmillan).
With his support of nuclear power and dismissal of alternative medicine, Michael has never been afraid to court controversy, and he has managed to enrage both climate change sceptics and believers)
Then, last week, we had Climategate 2. I have deliberately waited a few days to blog about this because I wanted to see if I was right in thinking that this time the fuss would die down quickly. And it has…
This time they got their act together. The professor at the heart of the alleged scandal, Phil Jones, not only made himself available to the media he got on a train to London to address a press conference, at which he addressed every single awkward question the hacks threw at him. He came across as a bit fed up with the whole thing (as well he should be) but honest and very open. We all came away believing that there was no story here.
Scientists are people, not robots. They say things in emails which, quoted in the light of day and out of context, can sound damning, dishonest even. Saying something along the lines of ‘blimey, we’d better hope this climate change stuff is real or we’ll be strung up!” is the sort of thing I can imagine any climatologist saying after a few beers at a conference. It doesn’t mean there is a grand conspiracy, any more than it does if a tired MP confesses he has not always seen eye-to-eye with his party leader.
My guess is that Climategate is over. No doubt the hackers, whoever they are, have more emails to release, and I do not doubt that they will contain snippets which could be construed as interesting, damning even. But I do doubt whether Dr Jones will bother to take the slow train down from Norwich when it happens.
http://hanlonblog.dailymail.co.uk/2011/11/climategate-rip.html
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30 Nov: UK Register: Andrew Orlowski: Malcolm Gladwell, tipping points and Climategate
How a marketing buzzword changed the world
Best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell had a powerful impact on the way climate change was marketed to the public, without even knowing it. Gladwell’s marketing book, published in 2000, embedded the phrase “tipping point” into the public’s imagination, and this in turn was used to raise the urgency of climate change.
It seems ridiculous today, with climate sensitivity models being tuned downwards, natural variability recognised as increasingly important, and climate institutions talking about a period of long-term cooling. Much of the urgency went out of the window after countries failed to agree on a successor to the Kyoto agreement at Copenhagen in 2009, and the costs and taxes of “low carbon” strategies are political poison.
But back in the mid-noughties, it was very different. The idea that the climate was reaching a “tipping point”, and that global temperature would runaway uncontrollably, was rife. It created a sense of urgency that helped pass legislation such as the UK’s Climate Change Act in 2008.
This story emerges from the FOIA2011 archive – the so-called Climategate 2.0 emails released last week. Although it hasn’t had the immediate and dramatic impact of the first leak two years ago, the breadth of social networks uncovered in these emails will keep historians busy for years – and whets the appetite for the 95 per cent of UEA emails still under wraps…PLUS MUCH, MUCH MORE…
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/30/climate_tipping_points/
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Surely Robin Williams needs a mention, though it seems he’s been quiet of late.
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Everyone should watch Channel 7 tonight. Supposedly CH 7 are doing an exclusive story on Gillard’s CO2 tax and discussing the AGW scam. Supposedly it uncovers many truths about what many of us seem to believe
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Juliar:
Could you be a bit more specific? I’m only hazily aware of what I actually believe, let alone what I seem to believe…
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Didn’t seem to be actually much on CH7 other than increasing bills due to CO2 tax amongst other things.From what people were saying it seemed to be that a bombshell was going to be dropped on us.
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Of course what we are all waiting for is the release of the emails between the higher echelons of the denialati. The discussions between Plimer, Kinninmoth, Jo, Lindzen, Michaels, Pielke, Watts (my apologies for worthy omissions), and the plethora of right wing think tanks channeling money to them will be very interesting, should they ever come to light.
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Just checked my hacked files and nope only bad ones are from your lot.
good question though JB.
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I think you may find that unlike the alarmists the skeptics are very upfront and have nothing much to hide. Roy Spencer, a highly credentialed climatologist says this:
“I hope I am correct that most climate change we have experienced is natural. But I also know that “hoping” doesn’t make it so. If I had new scientific evidence that human-caused climate change really was a threat to life on Earth, I would publish it. It would sure be easier to publish than evidence against.”
That upfront approach is the antithesis of the alarmists who, it appears plain from their emails, knew they really did not know what they publicly claimed they did know about Earth’s climate system.
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Not necessarily. Would be interesting to see what the effect on the public debate of release and scrutiny of emails between the skeptics populist poster boy Monkton and people like Peter Hadfield would be?
Interesting vid:
http://youtu.be/fpF48b6Lsbo
Where actual assertions made on the public record by Monkton have been followed up in context by Hadfield as to sources and veracity.
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A particularly good piece of work by Peter Hadfield. Monkton totally caught out, but essentially unrepentant.
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I think they coined the term shameless charlatan just for him.
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Sort of like Mann, Hansen, and Trenberth then? “Totally caught out but essentially unrepentant?”
Yes, the term shameless charlatan fits them well. Catamon is still in denial. You two really are the Laurel and Hardy of the believers. At least they were funny, you two are just sad.
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Sorry to disillusion you Robert, but i for one am of generally happy, friendly and optimistic disposition.
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Ah, John,
the good old ‘everybody’s doing it’ argument.
That always makes it, er, OK!!!!!
Tony.
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Quite the contrary, they are only too aware they are not being watched… and there’s the rub if you want to sell advertising dollars.
A change is as good as a holiday. I’d like to see that as the tagline for next election.
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Watching Ticky Fullerton on Business Lateline introduce; “Panel of economists get every one of their 20 predictions for 2011 wrong”. Her comment that their score is a bit like weather forecasters is very appropriate.
Both deal with chaotic systems and both use mathematical modelling to get it wrong more times than they get it right. That’s the sort of complex system that confronts climatologists and the naive alarmist variety imagine that their models are going to tell them more than the economist’s models tell them. We don’t need to read their plaintive emails to tell us that they are not very smart.
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True as far as it goes, but missing a crucial point. Economies are driven by people, their wants, needs, impressions and perceptions. Climate is driven by physical processes and interactions that while complex, are by their nature much more amenable to analysis and prediction.
Which is not to say that economic modeling doesn’t have its place. Price effects of a impost for instance, pretty amenable. Global financial markets, a fracking dogs breakfast with too many variables to do with the weirdness that goes on in peoples heads.
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And I would add, Catamon, that economists predictions are usually about inherently difficult things – like currency exchange rates and share prices in the short term. Note that these are things that people make money out of by gambling. That gambling itself effects the very things economists are trying to predict – often ruining their predictions.
Keynes himself nearly went broke speculating on prices greatly at odds with the fundamentals. In the end, he was proved right, but the timing of these things is notoriously difficult to pin down.
There are many simple economic predictions, like productivity improving, standard of living improving, cost of high tech products falling etc which are easy – but of course economists get no credit for predicting these.
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Keynes was proved right in the end? So that’s why all these nations subscribing to Keynesian economics are in the financial shitter. Because his theories were so correct? God help us had he been wrong, we might actually be in the black…
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Here is another tame “journalist” from the Daily Mail
http://hanlonblog.dailymail.co.uk/
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The only question I want answered now is how do we get our money back and when are these people going to gaol?
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Total evidence of criminal behavior by the IPCC(riminals)
http://iceagenow.info/2011/12/satellite-sea-level-data-tilted-distort-figures-sea-level-expert/
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And don’t believe it would be 3.3C if skeptics hadn’t called them on the original 5.8C. If we hadn’t, it would still be 5.8C. And every decade that the new Maunder Minimum exists, it will drop by about 0.8C, so by 2050, the warming will be predicted to be about 0.1C total by 2100. And even that may be too high.
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The MSM are at least a bit more restrained. If you have a strong stomach, are over 18 and do not mind abusive language then follow the link on what Tamino refers to as “a talented blogger gives a rather precise commentary.” I think you will find Joanne’s analysis fits very well.
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Dear Jo,
Where did you get the quotes from? Who are the people who have given these excuses?
It would seem to me that you are manufacturing false claims and attacking these falsehoods. This is known as a ‘strawman fallacy’. You can check the meaning of this and other ‘logical fallacies’ here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies
My reason for not taking anymore notice of ‘climategate’ is because when I read them I see NO evidence of ‘foul play’.
Also every time someone does an ‘exposé’ on these emails they use logical fallacies to come the there conclusions. It is as if they are trying to desperately find something that isn’t there. Why? I don’t know, but I have my suspicions.
# 8 in particular is a funny one?
“This doesn’t change the science”
(Since most of “the science” is merely a consensus of these same experts, whom we are told to respect, then actually it does change “the science” when they are caught cheating.)
Are you joking? ‘Since most of “the science” is merely a consensus’ what a terrible assertion to make… It doesn’t even make sense.
Is there anything in ‘climategate’ that debunks GHGs allowing more of the suns energy to enter the climate cycle?
NO, so yet again you are bashing a ‘strawman’.
Why are you using logical fallacies Jo?
For shame, I was expecting better 🙁
[yes us moderators expect better too. Why don’t you try heaping doses of politeness? Expect to be snipped in the future.] ED
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AntN
You assert that Jo has made a strawman fallacy, yet you agree with what she has quoted.
Or to put it in simpler terms, “This [the climategate emails] doesn’t change the science”
Now, I think you agree with that statement, so there is no strawman fallacy. It’s just that you don’t like Jo’s response.
Let’s pretend that you said to me, “Climate sceptics deny that the climate changes”. And you then gave solid evidence that the climate does in fact change.
I would accuse you of “manufacturing” a strawman fallacy.
Why? Because we sceptics have always said that the climate is changing. We expect it to change in the future, as it has always done in the past. Can you see that you have attributed something to me that I disagree with?
Might I, with all due respect, suggest that you look up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies
Then may I ask you to get back to me with the correct name for the remaining logical fallacy that you resorted to in your comment.
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Nicely done MaxL! You saved me from typing something similar.
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Max the strawman is “Since most of “the science” is merely a consensus”
(what do you/Jo even know what the consensus is?)
The ‘attack’ via assertion is: “then actually it does change “the science” when they are caught cheating”
So the assertion is, that if scientists disagree on any minor facet of anything to do with AGW, then the ‘science’ asserted as ‘consensus'(ie the strawman) is invalidated.
Classical strawman fallacy: – assert/produce false premise, then attack the false premise.
PS – I’m an AGW sceptic myself, however that doesn’t mean I accept every fallacy produced.
These types of fallacious manifestations make the ‘warmists’ look good.
Since you have shown an understanding of ‘logical fallacy’ do you want to point the rest out for us?
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Hi AntN,
I quote from the link you provided.
In the pretend example I gave above, you said that sceptics deny that the climate changes.
Sceptics do not deny that the climate changes. So you have attributed a position to your opponent that we don’t endorse. That is the strawman fallacy.
Jo said: “Since most of “the science” is merely a consensus of these same experts, whom we are told to respect, then actually it does change “the science” when they are caught cheating.”
This is Jo’s opinion. She has not claimed that any of the experts would say or think that, thus it is not a strawman fallacy.
I’m pretty sure that Jo knows exactly what a consensus is. Please don’t insult her intelligence. Mind you, you can insult mine as much as you like, I’ve been insulted by experts, so your effort is like water off a duck’s back.
Another quote from your link:
Hmm, remind you of consensus?
Well, there’s two for a start.
Must go now, I’ll get back to your #57 and #58 soon.
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Oh,
I should of added that the other ‘strawman’ I identified was, by attacking ‘climategate’ or emails and no attacking the ‘actual’ body of what makes up the ‘consensus’ aka the science of AGW (GHGs, solar radiative forcing, etc, etc.) this is also a ‘strawman’
So yes I agree, that ‘climategate’ doesn’t falsify, nor try to falsify the ‘science’, as yes IMO doesn’t add anything to the reviewing of AGW.
I apologise if I have can across as impolite, the utmost respect is intended. I will reframe from using ’emotive’ language from now on. 🙂
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I’m afraid I don’t actually understand your first sentence, so I would prefer not to comment on it.
Maybe someone else may get the gist of what you are saying. Maybe Mark D?
Regarding your interpretation of the strawman fallacy, please see my attempted explanation in #56.1
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Yes the climate as aways changed, but what caused those ‘past’ (pre industry/human GHGs)?
Aren’t those same past senarios (GHGs changes) happening now? caused by humans producing GHGs?
What reasoning is behind acknowlegding that ‘natural’ GHGs DO change the climate, yet human GHGs some how will not?
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Please note that what follows is merely my opinion.
I’m not sure that I acknowledge that ‘natural’ GHG’s DO change the climate. So please don’t ascribe that statement to me.
As for human produced GHG’s, if I don’t agree that ‘natural’ GHG’s change the climate then why would I think human produced gas would do otherwise?
I do however believe that temperature increases before the quantity of CO2 increases. From this, I deduce that an increase in CO2 cannot cause an increase in temperature.
If B occurs after A then B cannot have caused A. For example, when an apple strikes the ground after falling from the tree, then the apple striking the ground cannot have caused itself to become detached from the tree.
To obtain an answer to your last sentence, you will have to ask a warmist. However, they would probably disagree with the last part of your question.
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MaxL.
“In the pretend example I gave above, you said that sceptics deny that the climate changes.”
You made that up. I never said “sceptics deny that the climate changes”. Show me where I said that.
“Jo said: “Since most of “the science” is merely a consensus of these same experts, whom we are told to respect, then actually it does change “the science” when they are caught cheating.”
This is Jo’s opinion.”
So Jo’ opinion is the ‘attributed easily refuted position’ ie”“the science” is merely a consensus”
So by attacking the ambigous word ‘consensus’ via an assertion of “cheating” now left ‘believing you have undermined the opponent’s actual position’.
This is the strawman.
I wasn’t asking Jo if she knew what the word ‘consensus’ meant, I was asking if she knew what the consensus was amounst climate experts? ie what do they agree on and what is still left ‘up in the air’ so to speak.
I was not insulting Jo’s intelligence. please do not project such things on me please.
———–
“I’m afraid I don’t actually understand your first sentence, so I would prefer not to comment on it.”
that’s ok mate…no worries
———–
“I’m not sure that I acknowledge that ‘natural’ GHG’s DO change the climate.”
If they (GHGs) didn’t (affect the climate) there wouldn’t be any life on Earth. There would be no Ocean, no Thermohaline cycle. The Earth would freeze by night and cook by day…
Some light reading for those interested:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/search/publications/6620/1/Non-CO2_greenhouse_gases_and_climate_change_-_Montzka,_2011.pdf
http://climate.nasa.gov/
“if I don’t agree that ‘natural’ GHG’s change the climate then why would I think human produced gas would do otherwise”
You wouldn’t of course….
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AntN: “You made that up”.
Yes I did, that’s what pretend means.
AntN: “I never said “sceptics deny that the climate changes”. Show me where I said that.”
Now can you see what is the first condition that must be met in order to produce a strawman argument?
That is, AntN says this: (insert some statement here). When in fact, AntN never said such a thing. I simply attributed that statement to you and (possibly) misrepresented your position.
Furthermore, I worded it in such a manner that I could easily refute.
This is the second condition that must be met in order to produce a strawman argument.
So, here are 4 simple steps to produce a strawman fallacy.
1) Make up a statement and claim that this statement represents your opponent’s position. (In fact, this statement must misrepresent your opponent’s position)
2) Word that statement in such a manner that you can easily refute it.
3) Provide the evidence which refutes the statement that you just made up.
4) Then claim that your opponent’s position is clearly unsupportable.
Give it a try, the more times you practice producing strawman arguments, the better you will become at recognizing them in others arguments and hopefully, avoiding them in your own.
An easy way to avoid falling into the strawman argument yourself is to start your statement with something like: “I think that my opponent believes that, (insert your interpretation here)”.
Then say, “If this is a true interpretation of my opponent’s position then, (insert your refutation here)”.
If your opponent accepts your interpretation of his position then at least you are not guilty of a strawman fallacy.
If your opponent claims that you have misrepresented his position, then you may be guilty of producing a strawman, or you may have honestly misunderstood his position.
This technique also engenders a sense of politeness, which is usually best.
Jo’s opinion that most of “the science” is merely a consensus of the same experts, does not meet the first condition of a strawman fallacy, ergo it is not a strawman argument.
I have read (in some places), statements like this: “The scientific consensus is that an increase in CO2 will lead to an increase in the average global temperature”.
Now that kind of statement has all the hallmarks of the bandwagon fallacy. The fact that lots of people (including scientists) agree with each other on some issue, doesn’t make it true.
“I was not insulting Jo’s intelligence. please do not project such things on me please.”
Ok, I see now that I misinterpreted your statement: “(what do you/Jo even know what the consensus is?)”. But I still think it was a reasonable interpretation, until you clarified it for me.
“If they (GHGs) didn’t (affect the climate) there wouldn’t be any life on Earth.” Hmm, that’s an interesting opinion. Now if you had said something like: If there were no atmosphere surrounding the Earth then there wouldn’t be any life on Earth.
Then I would agree. I think that the problem with your statement is that it contains assumptions which you have not identified, so I will not try to refute it. You’ve only given me your conclusion without supplying any evidence on which your opinion is based.
Please don’t send me a wall of links saying, ‘Look at this, and this, and this…’. I have read some of the science, and I’ve tried my best to understand the issues.
Finally, this subject is not appropriate for this thread, and Jo’s moderators would be entitled to tell both of us to stick to the subject matter of the thread.
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Cheers MaxL,
Apon re-reading my post, durning the [cut and paste] from word (because I need to use a spell checker)
A line went missing:
““In the pretend example I gave above, you said that sceptics deny that the climate changes.”
> missing < A refute for a strawman would be something like:
You made that up. I never said “sceptics deny that the climate changes”. Show me where I said that.
Sorry again for the confusion caused, I will endeavour to be pay more attention to my posts in future.
"Jo’s opinion that most of “the science” is merely a consensus of the same experts, does not meet the first condition of a strawman fallacy, ergo it is not a strawman argument."
By itself "“the science” is merely a consensus" is just an assertion or misunderstanding.
However when "then actually it does change “the science” when they are caught cheating." was added, the strawman was completed.
So,
1) Make up a statement and claim that this statement represents your opponent’s position.
In this case the opponent (I'm assuming is climate science) and the 'made up' statement that is suppose to represent the opponents position is:'the science” is merely a consensus"
2) Word that statement in such a manner that you can easily refute it.
I would say using the emotional trigger 'merely' aids this.
3) Provide the evidence which refutes the statement that you just made up.
Evidence via assertion or misunderstanding "caught cheating"
4) Then claim that your opponent’s position is clearly unsupportable.
This wasn't written in this case, however IMO this is the point or claim of the post.
IMO step 4 isn't a prerequisite for 'strawman' fallacy not to be fallacious.
Also, I was unaware that asking question about Jo work was an offence.
I will not ask questions on here again, if this is the case.
Bandwagon fallacy?
Just like those evolutionist bandwagoners, It's just not science.
AntN
PS, thanks for your time and thoughts MaxL 🙂
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Hi AntN,
Thanks for using a spell checker, it helps me to understand what you are saying.
Thanks for finding that missing line “A refute for a strawman would be something like:”.
I was starting to doubt your sanity. Mind you, I always doubt mine.
“By itself ““the science” is merely a consensus” is just an assertion or misunderstanding.” Or an opinion. Yep, I can live with that. I’ll leave the next line because I think you take it up in your points.
First point: “In this case the opponent (I’m assuming is climate science)…”
No, ‘climate science’ is not and cannot be an opponent. Only people or organizations that are represented by people can make statements and may be opponents. Climate science is a branch of science, it doesn’t make statements. People who study climate science may make statements.
“… and the ‘made up’ statement that is suppose to represent the opponents position is:’the science” is merely a consensus””.
Yes, for the misrepresenting part. For a moment, let’s assume that the people Jo was trying to misrepresent were “the experts”. Then the entire made up statement might be: ‘The climate science experts say that most of “the science” is merely a consensus’.
The trouble is, Jo doesn’t say that, does she?
I repeat: Jo’s opinion that most of “the science” is merely a consensus of the same experts, does not meet the first condition of a strawman fallacy, ergo it is not a strawman argument.
So, rather than going down the path of trying to fit an opinion into a strawman suit, I’ll continue with: “IMO step 4 isn’t a prerequisite for ‘strawman’ fallacy…”
Yes, the 4th part is generally just the conclusion where they try to gloat over their brilliant rebuttal.
Not sure what you are talking about regarding Jo’s work?
This thread is headed “ClimateGate II: Handy Guide to spot whitewash journalism – The top 10 excuses for scientists behaving badly”, and long drawn out discussions on subjects that are off topic, well, lets say…Jo might not like it. I don’t think there is a problem with asking questions on any thread, but try to remain on topic and polite.
“Bandwagon fallacy?”
This is the bandwagon fallacy:
No probs 8)
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
The straw man fallacy occurs in the following pattern of argument:
Person A has position X.
Person B disregards certain key points of X and instead presents the superficially similar position Y. Thus, Y is a resulting distorted version of X and can be set up in several ways, including:
-Presenting a misrepresentation of the opponent’s position.
-Quoting an opponent’s words out of context — i.e. choosing quotations that misrepresent the opponent’s actual intentions (see fallacy of quoting out of context).[2]
-Presenting someone who defends a position poorly as the defender, then refuting that person’s arguments — thus giving the appearance that every upholder of that position (and thus the position itself) has been defeated.[1]
-Inventing a fictitious persona with actions or beliefs which are then criticized, implying that the person represents a group of whom the speaker is critical.
-Presenting an oversimplification of the opponent’s position.
Person B attacks position Y, concluding that X is false/incorrect/flawed.
This sort of “reasoning” is fallacious, because attacking a distorted version of a position fails to constitute an attack on the actual position.
Jo’s reasoning for regecting claim No.8
“Since most of “the science” is merely a consensus of these same experts, whom we are told to respect, then actually it does change “the science” when they are caught cheating.
If this is the only reasoning (strawman) why No. 8. (“This doesn’t change the science”) isn’t a reasonable reason to ingore ‘climategate’ in the context to AGW. Then IMO No.8 holds up because ‘climategate’ to me reads as a weak ad hominem at best and shouldn’t be given any oxygen.
These types of public fallacy makes us, the ‘sceptics’ look bad, as we have all been grouped together by the alarmists.
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AntN, you regress.
Nothing in your cut and paste from wikipedia contradicts anything I have written on the strawman fallacy.
So now it’s your turn to show what you have learnt.
Please show me how Jo’s statement: “Since most of “the science” is merely a consensus of these same experts, whom we are told to respect, then actually it does change “the science” when they are caught cheating.” constitutes a strawman.
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Person B (Jo) disregards certain key points of X (AGW) and instead presents the superficially similar position Y
-Presenting an oversimplification of the opponent’s position.
““Since most of “the science” is merely a consensus ”
Person B (Jo) attacks (“actually it does change “the science” when they are caught cheating.””)
position Y (merely a consensus oversimplification), concluding that X (AGW) is false/incorrect/flawed.
“merely a consensus”? what does that even mean? AGW is not based on a presuppositional apologetics platform. lol 🙂
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Do you deny that the AGW proponents actively and repeatedly claim that there is a ‘scientific consensus’ or even more absurdly, a ‘consensus of evidence’?
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“Do you deny that the AGW proponents actively and repeatedly claim that there is a ‘scientific consensus’”
No.
There is ‘a’ consensus on some aspects of AGW (eg. GHGs radiative forcing) and not on others (Snowball Earth hypothesis for example).
However, you would have to agree to ‘blanket’ all of AGW as “merely a consensus”(a statement that doesn’t even make any sense) as an terrible oversimplification?
“‘consensus of evidence’ IMO would refer to the multiple research facilities having recorded similar results:
http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/figure05.jpg
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In #61 (December 22, 2011 at 8:00 am) you failed to address the first line of your wiki quote, “Person A has position X”.
You allege, “Person B (Jo) disregards certain key points of X (AGW) and instead presents the superficially similar position Y” and that she has presented an oversimplification of the opponent’s position.
Who is Person A that has a stated position X?
What is Person A’s position X which you allege Jo has oversimplified?
Which key points of Person A’s position X does Jo disregard?
What are the similarities (superficial or otherwise) between position X and position Y?
You have an opinion (a position) on AGW, I have an opinion (a position) on AGW, our opinions differ, therefore AGW is not a position.
Neither you nor Jo nor AGW proponents can state the AGW proponent’s position in one sentence. Jo is commenting on one aspect of the AGW proponent’s position, ie, the claim of ‘a consensus’.
You accept that AGW proponents use the phrase ‘scientific consensus’ to support their position and you claim to deplore the use of logical fallacies, then why do you support their continued use of this bandwagon fallacy?
From the Concise Oxford Dictionary:
consensus, n. Agreement (of opinion, testimony,etc.)
Opinion and testimony can only be given by a person, and agreement can only be given by another.
AGW or climate science, cannot give or hold, an opinion or a position. AGW cannot be an opinion or a position. One may only give or hold an opinion or a position on AGW.
Evidence cannot give or hold, an opinion or a position. Evidence cannot be an opinion or a position, and an opinion is not evidence. One may only give an opinion or hold a position based on evidence.
To suggest otherwise (as you have attempted) is an example of Anthropomorphism. This is the error of projecting uniquely human qualities onto something that isn’t human.
The subject matter of our discussion is your allegation that Jo has created a straw man fallacy. So far you have been unable to support that allegation.
Furthermore, you said, “… to blanket all of AGW as “merely a consensus”…”.
You have just initiated a straw man fallacy, Jo said “most of the science“, not “all of AGW“.
Do I agree with your sentence? Obviously not, you have misrepresented and exaggerated Jo’s statement. I think she deserves an apology.
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>Who is Person A that has a stated position X?
Who ever it is that Jo is quoting, who said, “This doesn’t change the science” aka an accusation of Ad Hominem.
>What is Person A’s position X which you allege Jo has oversimplified/misrepresented?
Climategate is a Ad Hominem. (“This doesn’t change the science”)
Which key points of Person A’s position X does Jo disregard?
the Ad Hominem accusation “This doesn’t change the science”
To suggest that ‘any’ or ‘some’ of AGW is merely a concensus, doesn’t make any sense.
So… do you agree that ‘climategate’ is a Ad Hominem and therefore invalid as a arguement against the components of AGW science? Why should ANY media publish or give any time to an Ad Hominem fallacy?
In the same way as no.4
“The emails show a robust scientific debate”
(But that is the whole point isn’t it? We were told the “science was settled”? It is dishonest to discuss uncertainties in private while you tell the public “the debate is over” and call anyone who questions that a “denier”.)
“science was settled” not every last thing in the science of AGW is settled (as I’m sure you agree) What is settled to my knowledge is:
– Humans exist
– humans produce GHGs
– GHGs affect the atmosphere
The debate on this is over.
So what did Jo expect to read in the emails.
“hey here’s my new data set”
“jolly good old boy, everything looks perfect, no need to investigate a thing”
“thanks yes it is perfect”
“excellent, everyone agrees”
“how about a cup of tea?”
?
Debate is a good thing IMO…
Did scientists who in disscussions via email say “science was settled”,“the debate is over” and accuse people of being of ‘denier’ mentality?
There alot of projections and assertions in Jos post, which makes me sceptical of her motives/honesty.
Reading throught the other contents of this blog, IMO Jo has a presupposition that AGW is a hoax. And is cherry picking, and presenting intellectual dishonesty to support this and to convince others to do the same. Why? is another topic.
I’ve asked this question a few times and only got abused as a ‘warmist cultist’ and never a straight anwser.
What evidence and from what source would it have to come from for you to accept AGW is real and is a problem?
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The subject matter of our discussion is your allegation that Jo has created a straw man fallacy. So far you have been unable to support that allegation.
Your comment in #64 does not address your allegation, it merely attempts to distract attention to some other allegation that you wish to present.
You need to either acknowledge that your original allegation is incorrect or you must produce the evidence to support your allegation as I asked you to do in #60.1 (December 20, 2011 at 10:40 am)
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Dude, I’ve have explained the strawman/men to ad nausium… read again…
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“What evidence and from what source would it have to come from for you to accept AGW is real and is a problem?”
Wow! A false dilemma fallacy and a complex question fallacy in one question.
Firstly, the false dilemma:
The question implies that I should accept that AGW is real and is a problem.
There exists 3 alternatives:
AGW is real but is not a problem.
AGW is not real, therefore is not a problem.
AGW is not real, but there is still a problem. (i.e., the problem is not due to AGW)
Secondly, the complex question:
As for evidence, I consider all evidence available to me. To do otherwise indicates a confirmation bias (fallacy of selective attention, fallacy of suppressed evidence). As for the source, I don’t care where the evidence comes from, it’s the quality of the evidence and how it is presented that guides my opinion. To do otherwise also indicates a confirmation bias.
Of the two of us, only you believe that AGW is real and is a problem. I haven’t found convincing evidence that AGW is real and is a problem, so I cannot answer your question.
The question should have been, “What evidence has convinced you on whether AGW is real or not and whether it is a problem or not?”. This eliminates both fallacies, but then the framing of your question indicates that you are not interested in my opinion.
From your comments above, you clearly have no understanding of straw man, ad hominems, false dilemma and complex question fallacies, nor have you shown any desire to learn about them. Oh and by the way, it’s ad nauseam not “ad nausium”.
Do yourself a favour, get some books on logic and do some research.
Because of your rudeness in #65, your unwillingness to apologize to Jo, your willed ignorance and your lack of interest in my opinions, I will not waste any more space on Jo’s forum in a discussion with you.
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Hi maxL
This exchange is like “The Attack of the Young Green Lawyers”.
Would make a good movie.
Evocative of the current trio of trolls at work on the latest thread.
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Hi KinkyKeith,
Yeah, I dunno about a movie, but I’m starting to think one could write a book or at least an article on the logical fallacies resorted to by our current trolls.
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