Professor Richard Betts, Head of Climate Impacts Research, Met Office Hadley Centre, responded to an alarmist news story in the Independent, both with a comment at the article, and in a tweet (or two). If more scientists spoke out publicly, reporting would get better.
Prof Richard Betts commenting at the Independent (my bold):
Official prophecy of doom: Global warming will cause widespread conflict, displace millions of people and devastate the global economy
Leaked draft report from UN panel seen by The Independent is most comprehensive investigation into impact of climate change ever undertaken – and it’s not good news
Climate change will displace hundreds of millions of people by the end of this century, increasing the risk of violent conflict and wiping trillions of dollars off the global economy, a forthcoming UN report will warn.
Based on thousands of peer-reviewed studies and put together by hundreds of respected scientists, the [IPCC] report predicts that climate change will reduce median crop yields by 2 per cent per decade …
“I’m one of the authors of the IPCC WG2 report, and I think this article by the Independent is highly irresponsible, especially the headline.
The author of this article has chosen some juicy bits which back up the “climate doom” meme, but ignored other information. The headline writer has then done the same with the original article to come up with the headline of catastrophe.
They’ve also completely ignored all the important discussion in the report on adapting to climate change and increasing resilience.
The upshot is a very biased, alarmist headline.
The problem is this then risks damaging the credibility of the report. There’s much more to it than the impression given by this article, especially concerning other (non-climate) influences on human health, economies, etc.
Yes, anthropogenic climate change is real and poses major risks, but manufacturing scaremongering headlines by cherry-picking leaked reports is not at all helpful in informing a response to this complex situation.
I strongly encourage readers to read the actual report for themselves, and not rely on journalists who just want to get a scary headline.”
Richard Betts
Chair in Climate Impacts, University of Exeter
Head of Climate Impacts Research, Met Office Hadley Centre
While I’m not at all concerned about potential damage to the IPCC’s credibility, I share with Richard Betts a desire to see less hype and more accuracy. But if the IPCC wanted to be credible, then statements like Betts’ to pull in careless reporters would be an excellent start (shame it is 24 years too late).
He also tweeted:
Cringeworthy coverage of leaked IPCC AR5 WG2 report http://t.co/ydsfkaT8li Cherry-picked, ignoring adaptation & non-climate influences
— Richard Betts (@richardabetts) March 18, 2014
H/t Barry Woods.
Official prophecy of doom: Global warming will cause widespread conflict, displace millions of people and devastate the global economy
45 years of fear mongering bs:
“In ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish.” -Paul Ehrlich, Earth Day 1970
“By the turn of the century [2000], an ecological catastrophe [will occur] which will witness devastation as complete, as irreversible as any nuclear holocaust.” -Mustafa Tolba, 1982, former Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Program
“Entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000. Coastal flooding and crop failures would create an exodus of eco-refugees, threatening political chaos.” -Noel Brown, ex UNEP Director, 1989
“If Canada proceeds [with its tar sands oil development] sea levels would rise and destroy coastal cities. Global temperatures would become intolerable. Twenty to 50 percent of the planet’s species would be driven to extinction.” -James Hansen, NASA, 2012
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For those in Oz who don’t know (but might have guessed) the Independent is a failing newspaper which will probably fail completely before the Earth’s temperature increases by 2 deg.
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I was under the impression that the Independent had already died, and was now only being produced, published, and read by the zombies who failed to get the memo.
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Rereke,these would be the same as the labor/gangreen people that did not get told about Australia’s last election.
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For those in Oz who don’t know (but might have guessed) the Independent is a newspaper that in 2000 had the following headline.
In 2008 they had the following headline.
The only problems is that they were wrong on two levels. The north pole wasn’t ice free and it has been ice free in human history. I pointed it out below.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/22/open-water-at-the-north-pole-2/
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Kudos for Richard Betts for having the fortitude to flag up this particularly absurd article. Watch your back, Richard!
For those who are unaware, The Indy is a left-wing comic masquerading as a serious UK newspaper.
They’ve been running this sort of hysterical climate gibberish for years, with their ‘environment’ editors particularly fond of this alarmist type of ‘reporting’.
Feel free to visit the environment section to discover all the magic for yourself.
Readers may be astonished to hear it’s been on the slide for years and is not doing too well! Visit at your own peril.
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OK Mike and CheshireRed, I take back what I said about Tom Bawden being more circumspect next time…
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Jo,
Better read the comments on this at Bishop Hill
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“and wiping trillions of dollars off the global economy”
Hasn’t the Global Warming meme already done this, is continuing to do so, and will continue to do so well into the immediate future?
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This is what Agenda 21 is adesigned to do – create massive ghettos of people in mega slum cities and emopty people out of the countryside to protect “Gaia”.
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And if people are put into large concentrations in mega slum cities after a form of “cleansing” of the countryside for “Gaia”, it sounds rather like Pol Pot or Hitler “cleansing” the country of certain people. Although in this case, the extreme greens consider all humanity “evil” and “parasites”.
One wonders therefore if they should set the example and drink their own kool aid first…..
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By calling into question the worthiness of basic human existence, and reducing humanity to equivalence with rodents or cockroaches, perhaps a new term would be apropos for the Green doctrine as it has evolved in it’s Malthusian glory- How about “Pestilentialism”?
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‘displace millions of people’
Yip, I’ll go with that!
‘There were supposed to be 50 million climate refugees by the end of last year, so where are they?…was it all a myth? ,…a New Scientist investigation reveals how international agencies failed to make even the most cursory calculations…we found that while there are undoubtedly millions of people…who have had to abandon their homes due to factors linked to climate…’
www.newscientist.com/article/mg21028104.600-searching-for-the-climate-refugees.html
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Let me give you the non-cherrypicked version with my bold:
(with the rest of the article, that BA4 hasn’t looked at either, being behind the pay-wall)
There is so much equivocation in those two paragraphs alone, as to make them meaningless. I particularly like the phrase, “have had to abandon their homes due to factors linked to climate”. Since “climate” is all pervasive, everything, including the war in Syria, can be easily linked to “climate”.
It is jingoism, rather than journalism, but serves as a definitive source for those who can’t see past the mental manipulations. Eh, BA4?
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‘Since “climate” is all pervasive, everything, including the war in Syria,’ wake up! You’re in dream land it you believe that.
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We’re all cousins, too; via Adam & Eve!
(sarc)
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I deny that I am from Tasmania!
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Oh, I see that your knowledge of Geography and History are as dismal as your knowledge of Science.
The war in Syria, like most conflicts in the Middle East, ultimately comes down to access to water, who gets what share of the available water, and who makes the decisions over water distribution and use. The overall availability of water depends on rainfall, which in turn, is dependent on land use, and the cyclic nature of climate patterns.
What part of that ‘dream’ did not not understand?
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‘The war in Syria, like most conflicts in the Middle East, ultimately comes down to access to water’, so now you have concluded that climate change is and will create conflicts. Well done you, but currently it is a fractional conflict as all types of fractions flood into the country to have an influence on the outcome. No where in the news reports has any significance been attached to the climate! It’s just another ‘Arab Spring’, gone wrong!
[Isn’t the word FACTION?] ED
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‘[Isn’t the word FACTION?] ED
Well done you, looks like you have nothing more important to do!
[Maybe you should stop using the voice to text program? Or is it that you failed English?]ED
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BADjnrx4,
Why are you acting so superior?
You store carbon just like the rest of us…
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He’s an extra terrestrial … a particularly dim one.
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BA4, a simple google would tell you that leftwing writers consider conflicts such as those in Syria are due to climate change or will become more common due to climate change.
Could you apologise to RW for deriding his comment when it was yourself who was being grossly ignorant.
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“when it was yourself who was being grossly ignorant”
This applies to basically EVERY comment he has ever made on this blog.
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ba4:
“,…a New Scientist investigation reveals how international agencies failed to make even the most cursory calculations…we found that while there are undoubtedly millions of people…who have had to abandon their homes due to factors linked to climate…”
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Nicely edited. The ‘undoubtedly’ spoils it.
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bullocky,the 50 million climaxing(sorry) climate refugees are obviously in the deep ocean with the missing heat.This would also explain the warmer wallys sea level rise,50 million people must displace a great deal of water.
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“bullocky,the 50 million climaxing(sorry) climate refugees are obviously in the deep ocean with the missing heat”
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Yes, Bones.
Interest is currently centred around Dr David Jones’ locker!
(sarc)
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Watch the pea. Betts is saying the headline is a problem but the rest of the report … wel no real comment. He is not flagging up a bad article just the headline. That’s my reading of it.
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To paraphrase Keating, I think Betts’ admonishment of the Independent is a warm lettuce leaf flogging. Sure a nudge if the right direction but still fully embracing the UN IPCC political dogma.
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True,
Betts is trying to have his cake and eat it too. He says just enough merely so that he can justify that he warned those “irresponsible” alarmists (as opposed to “responsible” ones like him) out there not to be too unreasonable and exaggerate the headlines, while simultaneously still wholly conforming and subscribing to the whole Gaia complex suicide cult of IPCC “science”.
I’d expect there to be increasing back pedalling like this and more in the future as their position becomes more and more untenable, and those who have not “gone over the top” in climate science trench warfare into the “no man’s land” of climate reality become increasingly keen on retreat or abject surrender, or even possibly switch sides to fight for the denialist “Hun” (I hope “Black Adder the 4th” appreciates the WW1 allusion).
We can expect more butt coverage than a Dutch porno flick in the very near future from the alarmist side, IMO.
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What credibility? I didn’t know the IPCC had any to risk.
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Redfearn will quote it.
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I hope no one notices that all this doom and gloom was supposed to have started and be well along by now. That would surely spoil The Independent’s party.
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So paraphasing Richard Betts: “Anthropogenic climate change is real! Just not quite to the extent that The Independent makes it out to be.” To quote Charlie Brown, “Good grief!”
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Unsurprisingly, and up until now, he and his fellow travelers have been quite happy to stay schtum at the alarmist headlines in order to extract more tax-payer funding … is the mental dissonance becoming an issue their conscience?
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Nah! Nothing to do with their conscience. They tried the activist and advocacy path for a while, made some money, achieved some fame, had their 15 minutes in the limelight and now they’re realizing that the hammer is about to drop and being a member of a rational, conservative, “scientific” organization has a certain coziness and defensiveness to it. They realize they almost bet the farm (reputation, future livelihood) on an idealistic vision of how they would like the world to be. They’re doing nothing more than trying to reposition themselves as a voice of reason. I’d label them as scumbags, but real scumbags have some ethics.
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They rode that gravy train as far and as joyously as they could. They’re trying to slip off the train unnoticed now before the folly of their hubris becomes too apparent, and in so doing, get ahead of the rush.
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So, all Betts are off then?
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And what climate change anyway? There hasn’t been enough to notice since all the CO2 started going through the roof, mid 20th century. Now about 400 ppm vs. the “ideal” 280 and nothing to show for it but hyperventilating.
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Could it be all of the hyperventilating accounts for the difference between 280 and 400? Oh Irony, how I love thee.
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Oh no! Could that be true? Maybe we all simply need to slow down a little to solve the whole global warming problem.
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The Independent came into existence in 1986 with an apparently centrist political disposition and offered a plausible, even perhaps laudible alternative to The Gruniard and the Telegraph at the time. It declared itself: “free from party political bias, free from proprietorial influence,” which it apparently (and correctly) dropped as a slogan in 2011.
It once punched with some intellectual mass and seemed able to inject commentary with apolitical insight, arguably less riven by spin. This did not last and perhaps inevitably for MSM, it commenced its mindless slide to the left.
Now it appears predictable in its promotion of climabollox, welded to an MSM catastrareflex, that is not only grossly tiresome and bordering on the irrelevant but a manifest pseudoscience based models cultivated by the UNEP and WMO for UN political ends. Or is it?
It grows daily harder in the face of article to deny that the UN pumped meme has become a massive sagging balloon of rapidly chilling hot air. An IPCC “report,” written by volunteer “science” enviro-activists, UN bureaucrats and climapparatchiks MUST only present the obvious “its not good news.”
The Independent had the grace to entitle the article as prophecy — “Official prophecy of doom”, a tacit acknowledgement of the religious if there ever was one. By presenting it this way, they (deliberately?) drive yet another gaping hole into the mottled and disintegrated skin of credibility of the IPCC.
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A nice turn of phrase you have there, Manfred, Almost poetic.
I especially like, “climabollox, welded to an MSM catastrareflex.” That sounds like something that every man should have in his garden shed, even if only to annoy the neighbours.
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“climabollox, welded to an MSM catastrareflex.
Do you think that these could be made with batteries for lazy gardeners?
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And you can mess up the blockquote to annoy everyone else.
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Too bad that the the alarmist claptrap is being called out by “climate scientists”.
Better for the eructation to continue.
Every belch drives down public support.
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But it’s reporting of this calibre that has made the Independent what it is today….handy and absorbent.
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Richard Betts frequently engages on the “Bishop Hill” site, raises coherent points and induces debate (and brickbats). He is respected and admired for doing so, defending his position whilst acknowledging the integrity of (at least some) of the other correspondents. He has never (to my knowledge) used the word denier. He also knows a bit about weather and climate. His revealing statement is “the problem is this then risks damaging the credibility of the report” (AR5 WG2 – of which he is an author).
Paul Nurse CSA to HM Government has recently referred to ” extreme sceptics and catastrophists”
They are both expressing the perception that the public is suffering “catastrophe fatigue” and this is diminishing the message.
To understand the consequences you must follow the political history of CAGW (the best account is Rupert Darwalls’ “The Age of Global Warming”). At the Rio Earth Summit 1992 the whole world accepted the UNFCCC and in doing so accepted the IPPC as the authority for the “science” of climate. Hence the science is “settled” by the series of ARs (no pun intended). Thus the IPPC “summary for policymakers” becomes the position of the authorities. NO public functionary can question this as rejection of the IPPC ARs also required the state to renage on its commitment to UNFCCC. However the UNFCCC divides the world into two camps.
The annexe 1 “developed nations” and the non annexed “developing nations”.
The stance of the first is that binding commitments must apply to all.
The developing nations signed up on the tacit condition that they would not have to comply and that the whole responsibility would fall on the Annexe one nations.
This conflict almost prevented the Kyoto Protocol and has stalled all evolution since, the latest stalemate this Monday in Bonn.
So don’t imagine that any “scientific” argument will reverse
the “reality” of CAGW. Nothing can overturn the decision made by the whole world but it can fade away by default of application into irrelevance.
Paris 2015, confronting the irreconcilable, will simple postphone into infinity as Annexe 1, having conclusively demonstrated the futility of “renewable” energy, gradually withdraws because the developing world rejects suicide, the “pause” providing the exit line by delaying thermogeddon.
Thus, to sustain this process the pressure from “scepticism” must be sustained and unrelenting. The “CAGW memeplex” is on the run but the chase cannot relax until the concept of “climate change” has completed its natural evolution.
Growth, maturity, decline and death.
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One of the problems that enables spin doctors to spread their propaganda is the willingness of journalists and their editors to accept media releases without doing any research to check if the information provided is accurate, and to write it up almost exactly as written in the media release.
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It is all about column inches. The journalist’s job is the fill the blank spacees between the advertising.
In the certain knowledge that their words will only be read by the anally retentive, they fill them with appropriate material.
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You’re in rare form today, Rereke. What have you been consuming? 😉
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People are only as intelligent as thier internet connection…..
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Well, that explains everything. Time to upgrade from the coconut shell and string.
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At least they are organic. I presume you are using hemp, for the string?
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That being the case (I take your word for it), I asked my ISP what the IQ of my connection is. Unfortunately they don’t know. What do you suppose that means? 😉
I guess some wires are crossed somewhere way down inside where the intelligence of the Internet lives.
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Excuse me just posting to establish the server’s timezone.
Reviewing my posting times to assist in investigation of a burglary ( which couldn’t have happened while I was awake).
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Thanks. You are 10hrs & 7 minutes ahead if GMT btw.
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Or they could be 13 hours & 53 minutes behind GMT, tomorrow.
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17 hours & 53 minutes … grrr
My touch typing needs adjusting.
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The timezone set here is Brisbane, East Coast of Australia, no daylight savings. It is supposed to be GMT +10. (Perth is GMT +8). Bizarrely, I see that (googling) current time is 12:19, but the wordpress dashboard clock says time is 2014-03-20 12:27. No I don’t understand the discrepancy.
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I suggest that WordPress probably only does a NIST sync when they reboot the servers after a shutdown. All computer clocks drift over time, so we reboot our servers once a day. The odd thing is that they seem to drift less, if we keep them on Universal Time (GMT), I can’t figure out why that might be.
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You reboot your servers everyday for time drift, what do you use your servers for?
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Real-time data capture of events, through multiple channels. Time stamps are important, since they imply sequence.
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Yeah i get that, we do similar stuff but the capture devices are synch’d to IRIG time the server simply provides command and control if you like. What you need is a GPS device with network time protocol (NTP)available for a few extra bucks, connect it to your server and the need to reboot is gone forever.
cheers
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You can get one here
http://www.symmetricom.com/products/time-frequency-distribution/gps-instruments/xli/
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Um, when I said channels, I was actually referring to independent organisations, in multiple locations, some of which are in the economic third world.
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Third worlds have different time?
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It’s something like The Twilight Zone, Mark. 😉
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Windows never was a real time operating system. But even Windows lets you use NTP periodically.
http://csg.trinhall.cam.ac.uk/tips/ntp/winxp
( I know what youre thinking and yes my XP gets retired tomorrow, which is why I’m still up.)
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I suspect that since Jo’s host is in Brisbane it’s using whatever the Australian official time service equivalent of NIST is and not NIST directly.
It’s not necessary to wait for a reboot to re sync the server clock. It can be done at any time and if the drift was small, that is, if you reset the clock frequently enough, any change wouldn’t be noticed. It’s quite obvious, by the way, that some sites don’t pay very close attention to accurate time keeping.
Windows is particularly bad about keeping the right time. The built in time sync feature will only do it once a week which is totally inadequate if you care about accurate time. My computers sync at user logon and then every 24 hours thereafter if they’re up that long. When you transfer files from one system to another and the time stamp on the file is how some application tracks which version is the later, you quickly learn to keep the clocks from drifting very far.
NIST, by the way, seems to prefer that you use some secondary server which gets its time from NIST. But I use a NIST time server directly regardless. My tax dollars pay for it and I don’t consider it an abuse to use it. They can’t tell who you are anyway without doing some work to identify you so I’ve never had a problem. They do shut off replies to any IP address for a short time if more than 3 or 4 requests come too close together.
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Jo, can you delete my last sentence in 10.1.1 referring to scumbags above. A little harsh. Thx
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Could Singer and Monckton be onto something?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/03/19/un-cherry-picking-and-the-singer-event/#comments
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I am not sure I understand what the fuss is all about, this is just typical unsubstantiated alarmist nonsense, which has kept the funds sloshing around the overflowing troughs of ‘climate science’
I am not sure hoe you could discredit ‘climate science’ much more than it has already discredited itself by its absurd predictions of Thermageddon, riding on the backs of highly manipulated data fed into dodgy computer programs.
If the “distinguished professor” Mann is a hero and a climate warrior, then as a supposed science, the subject of climate has become utterly rotten and corrupted.
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more unintended consequences?
19 March: UK Daily Mail: Staff Reporter: Pilots complain of being blinded by glare as they fly over giant mirrors powering world’s largest solar plant
Air traffic controller tells FAA of daily complaints from those traveling over desert facility
$2.2 billion plant uses 173,000 reflectors the size of garage doors to generate energy
The Ivanpah plant, in San Bernardino, uses 173,500 mirrors to reflect sunlight on to boilers, but despite its green credentials it has been criticized as a flying hazard.
Two anonymous complaints were made to the Federal Aviation Administration in August last year, complaining of a ‘blinding glare’ coming off the plant…
A spokesman for the FAA told Daily Caller: ‘The FAA is aware of potential glare from solar plants and is exploring how to best alert pilots to the issue.’
In one of the complaints, the pilot of a small transport plane described the glare from the mirrors, which are the size of garage doors, as ‘like looking into the sun’…
‘In my opinion the reflection from these mirrors was a hazard to flight because for a brief time I could not scan the sky in that direction to look for other aircraft,’ the pilot added.
The air traffic controller also warned of the dangers of glare, saying the tower received daily complaints as pilots passed over the facility in the late morning and early afternoon…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2584015/Glare-panels-worlds-largest-solar-plant-blamed-blinding-pilots.html
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NEWS FLASH!
Is the end nigh?
Very good news indeed.
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Judith Curry’s report on the APS review is here :-
http://judithcurry.com/2014/02/19/aps-reviews-its-climate-change-statement/
Judith included links to interesting sites such as the APS public website for the Climate Statement Review here :-
http://www.aps.org/policy/statements/climate-review.cfm
… you’re welcome..
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scaper –
re the Quadrant “Finally, Some Real Climate Science” piece u link to – i was just about to post these excerpts:
By its statutes, the APS must review such policy statements each half-decade and that scheduled review is now under way, overseen by the APS President Malcolm Beasley…
Second, the sub-committee, after ‘consulting broadly’, appointed a panel to workshop the questions and then provide input to the new official statement on climate. The appointed panel of six, amazingly, includes three eminent sceptic scientists: Richard Lindzen, John Christy, and Judith Curry. The other three members comprise long-time IPCC stalwart Ben Santer (who, in 1996, drafted, in suspicious circumstances, the original IPCC mantra about a “discernible” influence of manmade CO2 on climate), an IPCC lead author and modeler William Collins, and atmospheric physicist Isaac Held.
Third, the sub-committee is ensuring the entire process is publicly transparent — not just the drafts and documents, but the workshop discussions, which have been taped, transcribed and officially published, in a giant record running to 500+ pages.[4]
Fourth, the APS will publish its draft statement to its membership, inviting comments and feedback…
http://quadrant.org.au/opinion/tony-thomas/2014/03/finally-real-climate-science/
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I knew you would be onto it, Pat.
Worthy of a thread, in my opinion.
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Whilst I admire Betts’ courage for making the point, I fear that he and his peers in the CAGW Fraud must accept responsibility for sensationalism by the journalists for it is they that make the ridiculous claims in the first instance. For example, in his paper “When could global warming reach 4 degrees C?” he forecasts 10C temperature rises by 2060 [h/t chris y, BH blog]… that is just inviting some nincompoop journalist and sub-editor/editor to take advantage.
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I’ve been bombarded with alarmist predictions for some 25 years now, since regular ABC science show guests were telling us back then we needed a ‘wartime effort’.
Fearful outcomes, extreme predictions and the need for urgency has been the game plan up till now … but on finding people are waking up, they’ve added insults and threats.
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The next “statement” by the American Physical Society could be rather interesting. 🙂
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Sorry scraper.. didn’t see your post 🙁
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Together with the APS announcing their major review and with what seems a most credible team this backhander clearly indicates that the tide has turned, that the pause has become a downturn.
The prospects for a burst of real science and a muzzling/sacking of all those alarmist “science communicators” are looking better.
Should solar 24 continue the fizzle and indications for solar 25 continue to be low then the prognosis for the AGW virus looks dim.
As that great scaremongering coward, Dr Smith of Lost in Space would say, “Oh the PAIN, Oh the PAIN”. For the real world it will be schadenfreude with some fava beans and a noice chianti for a while yet.
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I’ll be contacting lots of journalists when my book “Why it’s not carbon dioxide after all” is available late April. I don’t expect journalists to know much about physics though. I just hope they’ll find a story in the fact that I’ll be putting my money where my mouth is. So be the first to claim the $5,000 which will be lodged in a trust account.
The Vortex tube experiments confirm the Loschmidt gravito-thermal effect, by the way, with calculations from the theory closely matching the observed temperatures. If you have a better explanation, why not run a post on the Vortex tube, because it has high relevance to tropospheric temperature gradients.
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Maybe journalists should run articles on the Vortex tube experiments which confirm the Loschmidt gravito-thermal effect, with calculations from the theory closely matching the observed temperatures. If you have a better explanation, Jo, why not run a post on the Vortex tube, because it has high relevance to tropospheric temperature gradients.
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I mean, like, there is sure a lot of displeasure expressed on this thread with “newspaper” hype of environmental threats, and all. But let’s not lose sight of real threats to the environment that the vigilant press has so often valiantly brought to the attention of the public.
For example, we have this valuable piece of investigative reporting from the good ol’ USA:
The courageous “Washington Times” investigative reporter, Charles Hurt, reports, “whenever one of those bossy bureaucrats at the EPA takes a bowel movement on a rainy day, all the excrement floats right out into the Potomac River…”
Yep! According to the above report, Gina McCarthy, head of the EPA, is using her headquarters building to inject her very own raw, untreated feces into the Potomac!!! And we’re not just talkin’ a decorous, prim “stool”, here or there, from Gina, either–NO!!–we’re also talkin’ all her eco-flunky underlings and all her frequent-visitor, NGO-cronies too, massively loosing their eco-turds (a large percentage of these EPA-types are Vegans (the HORROR!!!), don’t forget) into the Potomac!!!
Seems the local sewage system can’t handle the “load” during periods of heavy rain and so the sewage of our environmentally-conscious, EPA, headquarters-weenie betters gets diverted to the Potomac River! So, like, HAVEN’T THESE EPA HIVE-BOZOS EVER HEARD OF “PORTA-POTTIES”?!!!! It rains and so the “regular facilities” go on lock-down and the EPA zealots, who so love Gaia and the kids and the Polar Bears, get re-directed to some permanently installed, low-cost “Porta-Potties” set-up at the side of the EPA headquarters building. Is this really so hard to figure out?
But No!!! The EPA continues to dump its gross-out, stink-bomb “poop” into the Potomac pending the construction of–get this!!–“giant, underground tunnels to store this overflow sewage” at the “estimated cost of some $2.6 billion” vice a few thousand bucks for “Porta-Potties” which are available, RIGHT NOW!!!!
And the best thing about the “Porta Potty” solution? When some EPA busy-body is freezing his/her butt off “doing his/her business” they’ll have some idea of what it’s like for those “useless-eater” folks they’ve plunged into “fuel poverty” who must choose between heat and food.
One last thing, I recommend there’s an emergency requirement to test anyone who has been in the EPA headquarters building for lethal strains of E. Coli, intestinal parasites, and the “brain-eating” pathogen that has so ravaged our D. C. based “public servants” and elected “representatives”. We need a real “fix” on just what sort of public health crisis we’re dealing with!
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only people quoted are Labor’s Mark Butler & Greens’ Christine Milne, plus a mention of environment “groups” congratulated the Senate, without naming even one of them:
20 March: Australian: AAP: Senate votes against abolition of carbon tax
THE Abbott government has failed in its first bid to scrap the carbon tax, with the Senate refusing to pass a package of bills to repeal the Gillard-era climate change policy.
After three months of debate, the package of nine bills was finally put to a vote in the upper house today only to be swiftly rebuffed by Labor and the Australian Greens.
The result prompted cries of “shame’’ from the Liberal benches, but there was little real emotion on either side…
Environment groups congratulated the Senate, urging it to use this as a chance to negotiate with the government on a climate change policy that puts a price on pollution…
Only the arrival of new senators in July is likely to change the outcome for this legislation, which can’t be brought before parliament again for another three months…
Earlier today, the government set up a potential double dissolution trigger by reintroducing legislation to scrap the Clean Energy Finance Corporation…
If defeated again in the upper house, as would seem likely, it could be used as grounds for a double dissolution election.
However parliamentary secretary to the treasurer Steve Ciobo, who introduced the new bill today, didn’t mention the constitutional implications…
Debate on the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (Abolition) Bill 2013 was adjourned.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/senate-votes-against-abolition-of-carbon-tax/story-fn59niix-1226860065470
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“Pat” here is yet another story regarding this…………
THE ALP(Australian LIARS PARTY) and the greens (RED COMMUNISTS) BLOCK REPEALING THE carbon DIOXIDE TAX !!!
THE ALP AND GREENS ARE TRAITORS TO ALL AUSTRALIANS !
THEY STILL CAN’T BELIEVE THAT THE MAJORITY OF AUSTRALIANS DON’T WANT THEY USELESS TAX !!
DEMOCRACY MEANS NOTHING TO THEM !!!
AUSTRALIANS WILL NEVER EVER FORGET THEIR BETRAYAL !!!!
Labor saves the carbon tax
Labor votes to keep the tax it promised to scrap, and which costs Australians money and jobs:
The Abbott government has failed in its first bid to scrap the carbon tax (http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/senate-votes-against-abolition-of-carbon-tax/story-fn59niix-1226860065470), with the Senate refusing to pass a package of bills to repeal the Gillard-era climate change policy.
After three months of debate, the package of nine bills was finally put to a vote in the upper house today only to be swiftly rebuffed by Labor and the Australian Greens.
UPDATE
So how did the Guardian come to report this last year?
Kevin Rudd has “terminated” the fixed-price carbon tax from July 2014, … (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/16/kevin-rudd-terminate-carbon-tax)
“Has terminated”?
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Kevin Rudd has “terminated”
Nice thought Angry,but as with the rest of the gangreens its only wistful thinking.
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19 March: Reuters: Osborne freezes carbon tax at 2015 levels
(Reporting By Susanna Twidale, editing by William Hardy)
Britain’s carbon tax will be frozen at 2015 levels of 18.08 pounds per tonne, Chancellor George Osborne said on Wednesday, as a part of the government’s annual budget.
The move is a downscaling of Britain’s carbon price floor, which came into effect in April 2013 aiming to ensure power producers pay at least 30 pounds per tonne for emitting carbon dioxide (CO2) by 2020, to help spur investment in low carbon technology and encourage utilities to switch from burning coal to gas.
The tax will still rise to 9.55 pounds per tonne from April 1 and to 18.08 per tonne from April 2015.
But Wednesday’s freeze means the levy will remain at 18.08 per tonne of carbon dioxide until the end of the decade, instead of the government’s previous plan to increase it on a steep trajectory until the end of the decade…
The carbon levies hit coal harder than natural gas as it emits almost double the amount of CO2 into the atmosphere when generating electricity.
Drax, Britain’s largest coal-fired power producer, said its carbon costs rose by 120 million pounds in 2013 due to the start of the domestic tax and changes to rules in the EU ETS.
Shares in the company rose 1 percent after the announcement…
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/03/19/uk-britain-budget-carbon-idUKLNEA2I02620140319
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20 March: Herald Scotland: Tim Sharp: Protection from green costs may save millions for Scottish firms
A £7 BILLION scheme to protect the UK’s most power-hungry companies from green policies could save 17 energy-intensive facilities in Scotland an average of £2.6 million a year by 2018-19, according to Treasury figures.
Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said: “Our steel-makers, chemical plants, paper mills and other heavy energy-users make up 35% of our manufacturing exports and employ half a million people.
“This scheme helps the companies most at risk of leaving to remain in the UK.”
But the energy industry warned that his plan makes it less attractive for power companies to build new gas-fired power plants to replace old coal power stations that are being closed…
Grahame Smith, Scottish Trades Union Congress general secretary, said: “Additional assistance for exporters and energy intensive industries is welcome but hardly signals the manufacturing renaissance promoted by the Chancellor.”
The Confederation of British Industry said the package was “much needed”.
“Our energy-intensive industries are crucial to building a low-carbon economy and it’s right the Government is taking action to mitigate the cost for these firms,” the CBI said…
http://www.heraldscotland.com/business/markets-economy/protection-from-green-costs-may-save-millions-for-scottish-firms.23732751
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bulldozing ahead:
EU committee rejects deal to exempt foreign flights from CO2 charges
LONDON, March 19 (Reuters) – The European Parliament’s Environment Committee (ENVI) voted on Wednesday to reject a deal to exempt long-haul flights from paying for carbon emissions until the end of 2016, aiming to prevent the European Union from bowing to foreign pressure…
https://www.pointcarbon.com/news/reutersnews/1.4546149
19 March: NYT: Coral Davenport: Obama Turns to Web to Illustrate the Effects of a Changing Climate
President Obama wants Americans to see how climate change could deluge or destroy their own backyards — and to make it as easy as opening a web-based app.
As part of an effort to make the public see global warming as a tangible and immediate problem, the White House on Wednesday inaugurated a website, climate.data.gov, aimed at turning scientific data about projected droughts and wildfires and the rise in sea levels into eye-catching digital presentations that can be mapped using simple software apps.
The project is the brainchild of Mr. Obama’s counselor, John D. Podesta, and the White House science adviser, John P. Holdren…
The effort comes as Mr. Obama prepares to announce a set of aggressive climate change regulations aimed at limiting emissions from coal-fired plants. Although a poll by the Pew Research Center last October found that 67 percent of Americans believe that global warming is happening, a Pew poll in January showed that Americans ranked global warming as 19th on a list of 20 issues for Congress and the president…
Some major software and mapping companies have already expressed interest in using the climate data. Chief among them are Google and Esri, a Redlands, Calif., company that supplies mapping and geographic information systems software to federal agencies, including the C.I.A., and city and local governments. Company executives say they anticipate a strong interest in the data. “There’s a market for this,” said Jack Dangermond, Esri’s chief executive, who joined Mr. Podesta and Mr. Holdren at the White House. “We’re excited to use it. Reading climate data in real time is unusual.”…
“What if we could make information about sea-level rise, extreme heat and drought as simple to digest and interactive as using Google Maps to get directions?” said Rebecca Moore, the engineering manager of Google Earth, who was also at the White House. “That is not possible, but we think it’s possible to get a lot closer. There’s the possibility to create a living, breathing dashboard in a way people can understand and relate to.”…
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/20/us/politics/white-house-to-introduce-climate-data-website.html?_r=0
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Barack “Hussein” Obama……..
A closet MUSLIM.
What a surprise he is complicit in this global warming conspiracy to destroy western civilization !
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Pat,
If the software is as good as that for Obamacare – – –
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If I live to be 1,000 years old I’ll never understand the mentality of this man who never blinks an eye, even as he falls flat on his face over and over and over. His slick tongue is the only asset he has. If I was in his place I would be so ashamed of myself by now that I would resign. His own National Weather Service contradicts him.
climate.data.gov indeed. climate.lie dot gov is more like it. It’s http://www.climate.data.gov if anyone cares to go there.
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If I was in his place I would be so ashamed of myself by now that I would resign.
G’day Roy,your mistake is that you are judging obuma by your morals.If your aim is to destroy the financial,social and religious structure of your country,then this mug can be very proud of what he has achieved.Hopefully,for your sake it wont be CONtinued by the lying airbag Hilary.
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13 mins 25 secs: 19 March: Southern California Public Radio: Airtalk with Larry Mantle: What will make Americans care about climate change?
Guests:
Bjorn Lomborg, (Ph.D. in Political Science), adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School and director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center (a think tank that specializes in development spending); Lomborg was named on Foreign Policy magazine’s Top 100 Global Thinkers
John Abraham, Professor of Thermal Sciences at the University of St Thomas, St Paul Minnesota
http://www.scpr.org/programs/airtalk/2014/03/19/36560/what-will-make-americans-care-about-climate-change/
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btw John Abraham claims that the evidence that all extreme weather events are human-induced is so convincing, it’s time for those who don’t believe in CAGW to be told they must prove their case.
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What a LUNATIC this “John Abraham” character is !
The onus is on him and his ilk, who are proposing the THEORY that humans are responsible for global warming (not there is any ), to provide evidence to back up his assertions.
Seriously, is he that Pig Ignorant that he does not know this basic tenant of science ????
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20 March: Guardian: Posted by Dana Nuccitelli: A remarkably accurate global warming prediction, made in 1972
A paper published in Nature in 1972 accurately predicted the next 30 years of global warming
John Stanley (J.S.) Sawyer was a British meteorologist born in 1916. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1962, and was also a Fellow of the Meteorological Society and the organization’s president from 1963 to 1965.
A paper authored by Sawyer and published in the journal Nature in 1972 reveals how much climate scientists knew about the fundamental workings of the global climate over 40 years ago…
Sawyer’s paper was followed by similarly accurate global warming predictions by Wallace Broecker in 1975 and James Hansen in 1981.
This research illustrates that climate scientists have understood the main climate control knobs for over four decades. Perhaps it’s about time that we start listening to them…
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2014/mar/19/global-warming-accurate-prediction-1972
20 March: Engadget: Timothy J. Seppala: Google and Microsoft are using the cloud to track climate change
The raw data comes from the likes of the Department of Defense, NASA and the US Geological Society, but probably isn’t easy to grok for the average person. To help with that, Google and Microsoft have stepped in. Mountain View is donating 50 million hours of its Earth Engine’s computing power — the Global Forest Watch’s backbone — and is partnering with academics in the western US to produce a near real-time drought map and monitoring system.
Redmond, on the other hand, has developed a tool (dubbed FetchClimate) that can both recall historical climate data and forecast future weather trends based on the stockpiles of information stored in Microsoft’s Azure back-end. For example, the software giant says that this could allow state planners to predict extreme rainfall, preventing flood damage to infrastructure and transit lines as a result. These are still early days for the Initiative, but, as times goes on, more applications using its wealth of info will surely surface. For now, though, it’s nice to see tech companies exploit government data instead of the other way around…
http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/20/google-microsoft-data-gov-climate-change/
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Here’s the transcript of the Review Panel.
http://www.aps.org/policy/statements/upload/climate-seminar-transcript.pdf
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Credit where credit is due: well done Professor Betts.
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One scientist speaking out is not a trend. But it is a start.
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would it be remotely interesting for me to paste here , the comments that The Guardian UK refuses to publish because of pre-moderation?
I ask only to avoid boredom to fellow Sceptics but also to illustrate the bias in reporting.
It really is quite sad that once you point out where an error is made or that a “journalist” who is just another leach, sucking off the hind teat of CAGW , is in actual fact ,just another player in the scam and being paid for it.
The Guardian prints shit like the Independent article above, on a daily basis and there are a team of SS (Skeptical Science) bloggers willing to refute anything and everything . A tipping point has been reached , in that respect they are correct,and the point is that CAGW is nonsense.
How many thousands of Scientists are involved and are being paid to perpetuate this hoax? How many thousands are going to be out of work and seriously unemployable? Tragic, but you make your bed and you lie in it .
————
Yes, for the record I’m quite interested to know what comments the Guardian won’t publish. There may be good fun to be had, especially if the comments they wont publish are polite, well informed, contain links to skeptics, or are otherwise investigative and entertaining…. Jo
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Ok will in future cut and copy comments prior to submission
I’m pretty sure it is a concerted effort to disrupt and deflect criticism of their “star” journalist s like
Nutticcelli .Circling the wagons I reckon.
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Could certainly be fun. Count me with Jo.
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First refusal of the day:-
Comment
A remarkably accurate global warming prediction, made in 1972
So yet again it is quite clear that only basic physics and chemistry are necessary to understand climate change, and why CO2 pollution, caused by careless human activity, is entirely responsible for the ongoing global catastrophe that we see developing all around us.>
These so called “deniers” just aren’t amusing any more, are they?
Response;-
How bold of you to say so!
Climate science does not rely on basic physics and chemistry ,it relies on modular science.Climatologists may be neither of the above 2 disciplines .Geologists, biologists,hydrologists,paleoclimatologists ,all these and 100s more “ologists” with a snout in the trough
What is the careless human activity you refer to? Heating oneself? Housing? Holidays? Cars , clothing, plumbing ,drainage,roads (yes ,what else have the Romans ever done for us springs to mind)
How are we causing it and where is the ongoing catastrophe?
CO2 is not a pollutant it is entirely essential to our lives and the lives of all living things.
This so called “denier” may not be amusing ,but can be vastly amused by some of the correspondence on here.
Go hug a tree.
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Jo,
Have you been observing Neil Degrasse Tyson disgrace the scientific method on various talk shows? He has been denigrating “climate deniers” by calling skeptics flat earthers and stating things like “Those who think they can cherry-pick science simply don’t understand how science works”. He’s publicly stated that so-called science deniers should be ignored and it should be talked about in the newspapers.
I challenged him about this on his Facebook page and finally got a response in which he first tried claiming he had been misquoted (I watched the videos and he was not) and then he made a fallacious argument from authority and stated there was an “observational consensus” that warming was occuring. Unfortunately has has since gone on TV and stated he does not debate climate deniers and won;t engage with me as I only have a BS in physics, MS in space systems engineering, MBA, and MPHIL in Public Policy. Despite my 30 years as a scientist and engineer working on space programs, I am apparently a climate denier. He’s even gone on Bill Maher and made smug disparaging comments about their targeted skeptic guest and climate skeptics in general.
Is there anything you can do here to raise the profile of the Warming Inquisition, particularly this arrogant Grand Inquisitor? I got started confronting him after I watched the first episode of COSMOS in which he proclaimed that science is all about observation, experimentation, and questioning everything. In public fora he has done the opposite and shouted down anyone who questions his authority.
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