Finally! The long awaited Italian Translation

Click to download The Italian Translation of The Skeptics Handbook

Dario Buso has finally accomplished a task I’ve been looking forward too for a long time. The Italian Translation of The Skeptics Handbook is here ready to be sent to all your friends among the 62 million speakers of Italian around the world.

He has done a marvelous job of putting it all together, along with help on the in-depth and careful review work done by Guido Botteri and Patrick. It’s just another example of the remarkable productivity of exasperated people. Citizens who won’t let the half-truths and distortions stand unopposed.

As always these things take a team (all up, involving people in six countries).

Dario writes:

Guido and I would also like to mention the final review by Colonel Guido Guidi, an Italian Army weather forecaster who manages and presents some weather forecast programs on national RAI TV channel. Col. Guidi also keeps a very informative blog in Italy on the status of the global climate, as a skeptic of the AGW hypothesis. He’s our Anthony Watts “made in Italy”…

Guido’s Italian blog is Climate Monitor.

The 15th translation of The Skeptics Handbook.

Thanks also goes to the people I can always rely on behind the scenes — Jorn in Germany (who masterminded graphic-design-by-powerpoint), Ralph at Kane TV in the UK, and Ian in Turkey, Mir in Czech. (Both of the latter did such a good job on their translations, that some aspect of what they did is carried forward to all new translations).

Volunteers have translated the first Skeptics Handbook into German, French, Norwegian, Finnish, Swedish, Turkish, Portuguese, Danish, Japanese, Balkan, Spanish, Thai, Czech and Lao. The second Skeptics Handbook is available in French and Turkish.
See all posts tagged Translations.

7.4 out of 10 based on 7 ratings

59 comments to Finally! The long awaited Italian Translation

  • #

    More good news. Or should I say ‘notizie eccellenti’.

    (As an aside, since I cannot find a direct email, can you comment on whether this talk of a new movie is genuine or not: http://theclimatescepticsparty.blogspot.com/2010/07/climate-movie-for-young-people.html#comment-form It fooled me at first, because I wanted to believe it, but now I think it looks a bit suspicious)

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  • #
    Adolf Balik

    Great! Skeptics are going on!

    Nevertheless, there are also bad points in it. The Carbonari activists lose their former confidence and arrogance, thus they are not that ridiculous as they used to be and their defensive begins to be boring. They are in such defensive that they don’t write their “Inconvenient Truths” any more and have to write contra-pamphlets against Jo to attract some attention focused on her (the Guide). Perfect signature of defensive!

    Now, they suffer with such lack of arguments that I had to recommend my opponents at Czech webs to read the Czech unskeptical-Guide to have something against us and keep their ridicule discussing.

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  • #
    pat

    jo –
    congrats…but having a “weather forecaster” involved in any way would not impress George Negus or Ginny Stein at SBS Dateline:

    18 July: SBS Dateline: Ginny Stein: Weather Wars

    REPORTER: Ginny Stein: Joe Bastardi has a reputation for speaking his mind. He’s a former wrestler and a champion body builder…

    SBS: According to the largest survey of US weather forecasters, only half of the men and women paid to predict the weather believe global warming is happening. At George Mason University in Virginia, Ed Maibach is the director of the Climate Centre which conducted the survey…

    ED MAIBACH, CLIMATE CENTRE, DIRECTOR: 55% of our respondents believe in climate change, about 25% don’t and about 20% haven’t yet made up their mind…

    ED MAIBACH: The fact that the quarter who don’t believe are almost entirely people with a conservative political ideology tells me that this has something to do with the fact that we have allowed this to become a political issue as opposed to a scientific issue…

    ED MAIBACH: Ultimately treating this issue in a balanced manner gives the implicit impression that the scientists disagree and that there are as many scientists who don’t believe in climate change as real, as do. In reality, it is more like 97 to 3 in terms of the way the split falls out…

    PROFESSOR KERRY EMANUEL, CLIMATE SCIENTIST: Why would anybody ask weather forecasters about their opinion on climate? I think it is because there is a hope that I don’t think is justified that ordinary people will confuse weather forecasters with climate scientists.

    SBS: Professor Kerry Emanuel is disparaging about what he perceives to be a lack of knowledge amongst many meteorologists.

    PROFESSOR KERRY EMANUEL: Weather forecasters are in a unique position. I mean if they actually did study the problem, if they actually took the time to really understand it rather than just go to the blogosphere to get their favourite views and rebroadcast them, then I think they could do a lot of good in the world and I think there are some who are doing that to be fair…

    http://www.sbs.com.au/dateline/story/transcript/id/600617/n/Weather-Wars
    (Negus signs off on the story with problem is how to present both sides when it’s not a 50-50 split among the scientists. think Galileo, george!)

    Stein chooses to heavily feature Kerry Emanuel, who was on Lord Oxburgh’s Climategate Inquiry panel – nice.

    Ed Maibach is another great choice, Ginny and it’s good to know he has a propaganda plan for weather forecasters!

    30 June: Nature: Jeff Tollefson: Climate science: An erosion of trust?
    Researchers at George Mason University have teamed up with Climate Central on a project to see whether meteorologists on television can change the way people think about climate issues by making global warming into a local phenomenon. Beginning this summer on the television network WLTX in Columbia, South Carolina, weather forecaster Jim Gandy will integrate global warming into his coverage. Topics might include projections for increasing weather extremes over the next century, and how local gardeners are adapting to climate change. The George Mason team will use surveys at the start and end of the project to see whether it has any effect on public opinion.
    It is no coincidence that the team is starting with weather forecasters: a recent poll found that, after scientists, they are the most trusted source of information on global warming, despite their lack of formal training in climate science. “The nation’s weather forecasters are basically standing by, ready to teach their local populations,” says Edward Maibach, director of George Mason University’s Center for Climate Change Communication. “We feel that we know them and trust them, and that means that they actually have greater potential to engage the public and teach them about climate change than do climate scientists, as a profession.”…
    http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100630/full/466024a.html
    (Nature doesn’t even mention Maibach and George Mason Uni are reacting to their own weather forecaster surveys)

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  • #
    pat

    continued – links to both surveys:

    March 29, 2010: A National Survey Of Television Meteorologists About Climate Change: Preliminary Findings
    Lead Investigators:
    Edward Maibach, MPH, PhD..ETC
    This study was funded by the National Science Foundation, Award # DRL-0917566.
    http://www.climatechangecommunication.org/images/files/TV_Meteorologists_Survey_Findings_%28March_2010%29.pdf

    30 June: A National Survey Of News Directors About Climate Change:
    Preliminary Findings
    Lead Investigators:
    Edward Maibach, MPH, PhD..ETC
    This study was funded by the National Science Foundation, Award # DRL-0917566
    http://www.climatechangecommunication.org/images/files/TV_News_Directors_&_Climate%20Change%281%29.PDF

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  • #
    pat

    continued:

    as for “Dateline”:

    SBS Dateline Archives: Climate Change
    http://www.sbs.com.au/dateline/topic/grid/id/7/
    (no Climategate program since November 2009. previous two programs on Venezuela/power cuts and Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill have no mention of CAGW or “climate change” in their transcripts)

    prior to the latest three programs, Dateline had:

    SBS Dateline: Primate Change
    Palm oil is found in many of the products we use every day, like food, cosmetics and toiletries, but in Indonesian Borneo, there are concerns its production is endangering the orang-utan and significantly contributing to global warming.
    The evidence has been uncovered by reporter Raphael Rowe from the BBC’s Panorama program…
    http://www.sbs.com.au/dateline/story/about/id/600497/n/Primate-Change
    (yet there is no mention of “global warming” or “climate change” in the transcript as far as i could see)

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  • #
    pat

    final post:

    1 July: Grist: Randy Rieland: TV weathercasters and news directors are distorting climate coverage

    Andrew Freedman, a member of The Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang, blames the blogosphere — or, more specifically, the fact that a number of big-name meteorologists have found second careers there as climate skeptics:

    “In my view, the perception that there is significant scientific disagreement about the causes of climate change can be traced in part to the rise of the blogosphere as a medium of scientific communication (and misinformation). Climate skeptics dominate this medium, and many are current or former weather forecasters, such as former TV meteorologist Anthony Watts of the popular “Watts Up With That” blog, and Joe D’Aleo, who runs icecap.us.”…

    Attempts are being made to bridge the climate chasm — check out a CBS News report on weathercasters taking global-warming classes. But scientists are starting to realize that they need to make more of an effort to dispel the notion that they are a secret society. As Jeff Tollefson writes at Nature.com:

    Scientists are … trying to take a proactive approach, designed to counter charges that they are a ****cabal**** that won’t share data and that blocks dissenting views. Ralph Cicerone, president of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, says that the climate-science community must find ways to open up….

    Too much information: The sad truth is that sharing science won’t necessarily bring people over from the dark side. Chris Mooney, writing in The Washington Post, points to research showing that Republicans who are college graduates are less likely to accept the scientific consensus on climate change than Republicans with less education…

    http://www.grist.org/article/2010-07-01-tv-weathercasters-news-directors-distorting-climate-coverage/

    *****REPEAT AFTER ME, THERE IS NO CABAL*****

    2006: Atlantic Hurricane Trends Linked to Climate Change
    Authors: Michael E. Mann
    Department of Meteorology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA
    Kerry A. Emanuel
    Program in Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
    http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2006/2006EO240001.shtml

    discredited…what the heck?

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  • #
    Brendon

    Same mistakes in a different language. wow.

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    Lawrie

    There are many insidious ways to promote the governments line on climate change. One I saw today is the Green Vehicle Guide which must be displayed on the windscreen of all new cars. It gives a summary of expected fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. It also states that CO2 is the main cause of climate change. I wrote to point out that that was an hypothesis and unproven.

    We have to respond to any false claim we see. It all helps, just as Jo’s multi lingual guide to the uneducated.

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  • #
    MattB

    Lawrie the Green Vehicle Guide is essentially a fuel consumption rating tarted up to make the car industry look green enough to make sure enviro friendly folks buy more cars.

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  • #
    pat

    further to the George Mason Uni propaganda effort posted earlier –

    30 June: Nature: Jeff Tollefson: Climate science: An erosion of trust?
    Researchers at George Mason University have teamed up with Climate Central on a project to see whether meteorologists on television can change the way people think about climate issues by making global warming into a local phenomenon.
    Beginning this summer on the television network WLTX in Columbia, South Carolina, weather forecaster Jim Gandy will integrate global warming into his coverage..
    http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100630/full/466024a.html

    how’s this for being quick off the mark?

    30 June: MinnPost: What weathermen know about climate change
    by Emilie Lorditch, Inside Science News Service
    “In television, when it comes to weather, there is an extremely wide range of education sets,” said Jim Gandy, chief meteorologist at WLTX-TV in Columbia, S.C. “Some have bachelor’s degrees, master’s degrees, and Ph.D.’s, but you also have some without.”…
    “People are uninformed and believe climate change is a hoax,” said Gandy. “I occasionally respond to comments posted on our station’s website, but you better know your science and get your facts straight before you post on my website.”…
    Beginning in July, the next phase of the National Science Foundation-funded study will begin. A test case at Gandy’s station will include 30-second segments in some of the weathercasts to educate viewers about climate change.
    “It will be a year-long effort using our resources on-air and on the Internet in an effort to educate the public about climate change past, present, and future,” said Gandy. “I wish the public knew how difficult it is to have knowledge of climate science. Simply being a meteorologist is not enough, and this is a mistake that some television meteorologists make.”..
    http://www.minnpost.com/scientificagenda/2010/06/30/19270/what_weathermen_know_about_climate_change

    not even blatant propaganda such as this will have any effect on our taxpayer-funded ABC/SBS. it is frightening to think ABC will now have another 24/7 news channel to waste on the CAGW fraud, using even more taxpayers’ monies.

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  • #
    Scott

    Brendon:
    July 19th, 2010 at 11:21 am
    Same mistakes in a different language. wow.

    Why is realclimate in multiple languages now?

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  • #
    janama

    Brendon:
    July 19th, 2010 at 11:21 am

    Same mistakes in a different language. wow.

    you pathetic little sniper from the sideline – [snip ] no one here reads your posts or cares for your opinion.

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  • #
    Brendon

    janama: July 19th, 2010 at 4:46 pm

    you pathetic little sniper from the sideline – why don’t you just p*** off – no one here reads your posts …

    The fact that you and another have replied to my post thus proven that people do indeed read them.

    I point out that for Jo to repeat her mistakes in different languages, doesn’t really improve her arguments at all.

    Her four points have been well debunked.

    [But only if you ignore my debunking of the debunked and others tagged here – JN]

    1. The “hotspot” could exist and if it doesn’t then it may be the failure of “any” warming, not specifically GHGs.

    [Ah yes, the classic RC text-book way to confuse things printed in black and white. The CSSP called it a fingerprint, the CSSP (with a budget of billions) couldn’t find it. There’s no hint the hotspot exists unless you use wind gauges (lol), and since hte hotspot doesn’t exist all the major models are wrong for all climate forcings. Happy?–JN]

    2. Nova can’t understand how CO2 can be in lag of temp rise, yet still contribute to the warming. She has yet to scientifically address this, but instead we’re supposed to take her word for it.

    [When the only site you read is unskepticalscience, you wouldn’t know I’ve already answered that here

    3. Nova Cherry picks recent years to show the the surface temps no longer go upwards and ignores the long term trend. Nor does she mention how the last decade has remained so high despite a low solar contribution.

    [Nova quotes Phil Jones, and the latest peak is an El Nino. Who’s cherry picking?–JN]

    4. Fails to understand how more CO2 can create more warming. RealClimate might help her understand but I’m afraid it’s only in English.

    [And I debunked it a year ago. But some late comers to the party won’t bother to use the Index (look up log graphs).–JN]

    … or cares for your opinion.

    You are right. The truth is hard for some people top handle when they really wish to deny it.

    No matter what language you might want to translate this into, Nova is still wrong. 😉

    [No matter how many times we explain it to Brendan, he still denies the replies. Brendon of hotmail anonymity, it’s rude to turn up late and arrogantly pretend you can make valid points without even a tiny bit of research. Lift your game. — JN]

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  • #
    Scott

    Brendon is still wrong been proved many times on this site, he just can’t read the replies.

    Hasn’t been able to disprove Jo scientifically on anything, he just dribbles away on his computer.

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  • #
    Bulldust

    …and Brendon fails to “debunk” any point despite only having to do so in English. Is there a language you are more comfortable in Brendon? I am sure some of the readers here could take it to another language if you are struggling with English.

    I think you are a tad mistaken about RealClimate… it appears to be mostly in Double Dutch. Joking aside, we would love to have a scientific debate at RC, but they continually censor polite skeptical questions, so it is a tad hard to have a debate under those circumstances, no?

    This site, on the other hand, is quite confortable hosting your comments or those of any poster willing to remain relatively polite, be they skeptic or of the AGW persuasion.

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  • #
    Baa Humbug

    Brendon: #13
    July 19th, 2010 at 5:09 pm says…

    1. The “hotspot” could exist and if it doesn’t then it may be the failure of “any” warming, not specifically GHGs.

    Could exist? Well it doesn’t. So the question YOU have to answer is; Is this because of the failure of any warming, or the failure of ghg’s to behave in the manner a cabal of crooks thought it would?

    2. Nova can’t understand how CO2 can be in lag of temp rise, yet still contribute to the warming. She has yet to scientifically address this, but instead we’re supposed to take her word for it.

    Putting words in peoples mouths are we? Nova has acknowledged over and over that she believes ghg’s DO cause some warming. What YOU and YOUR SIDE have failed to do is to scientifically explain in accurate detail how our climate works. After decades and billions of dollars later you lot pretend to know enough when in actual fact nobody knows diddly squat about what makes the climate tick.

    3. Nova Cherry picks recent years to show the the surface temps no longer go upwards and ignores the long term trend. Nor does she mention how the last decade has remained so high despite a low solar contribution.

    Speaking of cherry picking and the long term trend, how are temperatures coming along since the Holocene Optimum? How about since the last ice age? Cherry picking indeed you hypocrite.
    Regards solar, funny how you lot totally dissmissed solar for the 20thC despite it being at it’s strongest for hundreds years, but you bring solar into the equation for the last 10yr period. YOU HYPOCRITE. Show me where it’s proven that variations in solar activity should have INSTANT impact on our climate. Show me where it proves there is NO LAG in the affects of solar variations.

    4. Fails to understand how more CO2 can create more warming.

    Oh really? So I guess you DON’T fail to understand. Then how about YOU tell us how much warming from extra CO2 and when it will manifest itself. Some real life examples would be good.
    Whilst you’re at it, you better contact NASA and tell them how wrong they are about extra CO2 high in the atmosphere helps COOL the planet.

    Janama is spot on. You are nothing but a pathetic little sniper from the sidelines.

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  • #
    allen mcmahon

    Janama& BH
    Brendon suffers from a passive/aggressive personality disorder, pity is in order not contempt.

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  • #
    janama

    Brendon suffers from a passive/aggressive personality disorder

    no he doesn’t – he’s just stupid.

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  • #
    wes george

    “The “hotspot” could exist and if…”

    If, if, if. If what if?

    What if everything we know is wrong. What if there was no light. Nothing wrong, nothing right. What if there was no time and no reason or rhyme…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdD6RMICpfg

    How can you know if you don’t even try?

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  • #
    george

    Wes, very prosaic interlude there. Off on a tangent – “Imagine” by Mr. Lennon also readily comes to mind…shades of “but what about the planet your grandchildren will inherit”, etc? I believe it is referred to as “ideology”.

    Not that much into the particular band you showcased but a nice number I must say…ahem, O/T.

    PS – Yes Brendon, I think everyone understands that more CO2 will create more (notional) warming. Ah, but monsieur, how much is le question…

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  • #
    Mark

    Good article by Tim Ball:

    http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/25387

    The recent trolls will find the quotes of Lovelock and Trenberth particularly galling.

    Oh, but of course, they were taken out of context…NOT!

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  • #

    Molto bene! Magnifico. Mi dispiace molto!
    Italiano e molto bello.

    [Grazie Pierre! –JN]

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  • #
    Binny

    Brendan’s religion is collapsing around,cut him some slack: It must be an incredibly traumatic situation to be in. We are talking about the equivalent of explaining to the local priest that God doesn’t exist.

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  • #
  • #
    Brendon

    [But only if you ignore my debunking of the debunked and others tagged here – JN]

    Not really. I have read your comments and you still make a number of mistakes.

    Regarding the hotspot, you still make the mistake of identifying it as – “hot spot is the fingerprint of positive feedback, which causes the vast bulk of the warming in the climate models .”

    When you say “Amplification is only a major force if the feedbacks are positive. See point one.”, you’ve made two mistakes here. One is to think that point 1 (the hotspot) is the measurement of climate sensitivity, and secondly you fail to show how the climate sensitivity is low.

    You say “Warm nights are more likely due to the urban heat island effect”, but no one here has answered why the surfaces of the oceans are also warming. One person suggests that the UHIE is responsible for warming the oceans too, although they have no scientific study, or even calculations to show this is possible.

    With regard to the saturation of CO2 you say “Carbon on it’s own causes 1 measly paltry pathetic degree of warming if carbon doubles.”, which is your way of saying it creates 1 degree of warming, and that other feedbacks can reduce or enhance that figure (hence the debate about climate sensitivity).

    You cite, as evidence for a low sensitivity, “Lindzen, R. S., and Y.-S. Choi (2009), On the determination of climate feedbacks from ERBE data” yet numerous and very simple flaws with this study was made evident shortly after its publication.

    [When the only site you read is unskepticalscience, you wouldn’t know I’ve already answered that here

    You again use the debunked Lindzen study as evidence for low sensitivity. You need to “Lift your game”.

    [When the only site you read is unskepticalscience, you wouldn’t know I’ve already answered that here

    Low and behold, again the dodgy study of Lindzen is your number one reference.

    I suggest you have a read of the above RealClimate analysis of Lindzen’s paper before making further conclusions from his work. 😉

    [Nova quotes Phil Jones, and the latest peak is an El Nino. Who’s cherry picking?–JN]

    Since you don’t make it clear, I assume that you are referring to the BBC Q&A.

    This is where Phil Jones was directly asked “Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming”, and he replied, “Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods.

    Not only is Jones NOT cherry picking a date, he went out of his way to explain that achieving statistical significance on short timeframes is unlikely.

    But Jones did also point out that there had been warming.

    So to answer your question, no Jones isn’t cherry picking, you are.

    [And I debunked it a year ago. But some late comers to the party won’t bother to use the Index (look up log graphs).–JN]

    No what you did is demonstrate that you fall into the trap, that being (as RealClimate puts it, “Again, the scientists of the day got caught in the trap of thinking of the atmosphere as a single slab.”

    I expect you fall into the category of “Even today, many popularizers try to explain the greenhouse effect as if the atmosphere were a single sheet of glass.”.

    [No matter how many times we explain it to Brendan, he still denies the replies.

    I reply to as many of many adoring fans as time permits. 😉

    Brendon of hotmail anonymity,

    Anonymity does not change the argument one bit, yet it seems to be a fallback line used in these forums all too often.

    it’s rude to turn up late

    The timing of my replies is mostly dictated by what spare time I find. That does not make them invalid.

    … and arrogantly pretend you can make valid points without even a tiny bit of research. Lift your game. — JN]

    Yet it is you that relies on the debunked paper of Lindzen in order to prop up your own arguments. I’m ahead of you in that regard.

    Lift your game.

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  • #
    Scott

    @ Brendon

    The timing of my replies is mostly dictated by what spare time I find. That does not make them invalid.

    your right it doesnt matter when you reply, your always wrong.

    any more dribble in that lopsided head of yours. your chin and keyboard must be soaked by now. do you want a bib?

    When are you going to come up with some actual science???

    beaten again on the science Brendon or would you like us to speak more slowly so you can understand.

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  • #
    Roy Hogue

    John Shade @1,

    I went directly to the home page http://theclimatescepticsparty.blogspot.com and it appears to be legitimate skeptical stuff. It is a little thin on content however. And they don’t seem to use science to debunk anything.

    I hope Jo will enlighten us about the truth of the matter because such a movie would be a good thing to have around. I’d sure like to see it shown to schools here in the states.

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  • #
    Brendon

    Scott: July 20th, 2010 at 12:55 pm

    When are you going to come up with some actual science???

    Hi Scott. You don’t need science to understand that Nova cherry picks the date whereas Jones replied to a question that was trying to cherry pick a date. That’s just obvious. 😉

    As you why I am always “wrong”, in your opinion, because I never supplied any science. I guess that’s why I directed you to the thorough debunking of Lindzen’s paper that argues for low climate sensitivity and why you’ve replied by telling me I am wrong, but without a scrap of logic.

    How could I possibly argue with you!! HAHAHA!!

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  • #
    Scott

    Hi Brendon

    Still waiting 🙂

    And your still dribbling

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  • #
    Scott

    Brendon said

    because I never supplied any science

    We know 🙂

    Thats why your always wrong

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  • #
    janama

    Brendon – you are referring to Lindzen Choi 2009 – there is now Lindzen Choi 2010 which has been corrected yet still shows a negative feedback.

    http://www.eike-klima-energie.eu/uploads/media/Lindzen_Choi_ERBE_JGR_v4.pdf

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  • #
    allen mcmahon

    The truth is hard for some people top handle when they really wish to deny it.

    by embracing the more apocalyptic “scenarios” of the GCMs.

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  • #
    MattB

    Janama in 31 has that actually been published yet.

    I’d not put all my eggs in the L&C 2010 basket: http://groups.google.com/group/alt.global-warming/msg/7b5423112497b973

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  • #
    janama

    Matt – I am aware of the criticism of their 2009 paper. I note that Lindzen brushes the criticism off and says the new paper will settle it all. So I went looking for the new paper and found this page

    http://www.heliogenic.net/2010/05/03/lindzen-and-chois-new-paper-out-confirms-negative-feedback-unlike-agw-climate-models/

    which links to the May 2010 paper.

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    Brendon

    janama: July 20th, 2010 at 2:50 pm

    Brendon – you are referring to Lindzen Choi 2009 – there is now Lindzen Choi 2010 which has been corrected yet still shows a negative feedback.

    Corrected?

    They haven’t corrected the fact that their findings are relevant only to the tropics.

    For extra-tropic interaction Lindzen uses his flawed (and well debunked) work of 2001 to pluck the number 2 out thin air in order to reduce the final global climate sensitivity number.

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    Bulldust

    Interesting snippet from the IEA here:

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/news/china-worlds-biggest-energy-consumer-says-international-energy-agency/story-e6frg90x-1225894449698

    China is now the world’s largest energy consumer despite only comnsuming approx one fifth on a per capita basis of the developed nations. So imagine China closing that gap in the next decade or two… in other words being the largest energy consumer in the world by a factor of 2-4 times greater than the USA.

    And we quibble over reducing Australia’s CO2 emissions… seriously. We matter not a sparrow’s fart in the grand scheme of things. An ETS or carbon tax in Australia would be a tokenistic exercise only.

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    janama

    Brendon – perhaps you should read the following links

    http://johnosullivan.livejournal.com/

    http://www.drroyspencer.com/

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  • #
    Waylander

    Some unfortunate news ,Stephen Schneider has died after an apparent heart attack on an airplane en route to London from Stockholm .

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/19/AR2010071905108.html

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  • #

    Regarding the hotspot, you still make the mistake of identifying it as – “hot spot is the fingerprint of positive feedback, which causes the vast bulk of the warming in the climate models .”

    The Mistake? Which mistake? This is a bald baseless assertion. You give no reasoning,and no references. I quote AR4, CCSP, Hansen.

    When you say “Amplification is only a major force if the feedbacks are positive. See point one.”, you’ve made two mistakes here. One is to think that point 1 (the hotspot) is the measurement of climate sensitivity, and secondly you fail to show how the climate sensitivity is low.

    Two mistakes? Theres a self referential pointer to the previous baseless assertion. Then a line I’ve never said: “point 1 (the hotspot) is the measurement of climate sensitivity”. Then a falsity. (I provided at least 3 indpendent references, you provide none to support your claims).

    Because you’ve arrived late to the 260-post-club here (and haven’t read any of the past answers) you expect you can arrogantly proclaim errors and expect me to personally tutor you in climate science for free?

    You say “Warm nights are more likely due to the urban heat island effect”, but no one here has answered why the surfaces of the oceans are also warming. One person suggests that the UHIE is responsible for warming the oceans too, although they have no scientific study, or even calculations to show this is possible.

    This is nonsensical incoherent babble. We’re talking about overnight minimums and city recordings and you bring up a lack of an answer to a question on sea surface temps?
    And “one person” whoever they are, is not me. Ask them.

    With regard to the saturation of CO2 you say “Carbon on it’s own causes 1 measly paltry pathetic degree of warming if carbon doubles.”, which is your way of saying it creates 1 degree of warming, and that other feedbacks can reduce or enhance that figure (hence the debate about climate sensitivity).

    Yep.

    You cite, as evidence for a low sensitivity, “Lindzen, R. S., and Y.-S. Choi (2009), On the determination of climate feedbacks from ERBE data” yet numerous and very simple flaws with this study was made evident shortly after its publication.

    It took them months to name any flaws, and I’ve read Lindzens 2010 pre print and his conclusions are still valid. You make no refs to Douglass or Spencer which agree.

    [Nova quotes Phil Jones, and the latest peak is an El Nino. Who’s cherry picking?–JN]

    I assume that you are referring to the BBC Q&A. … Not only is Jones NOT cherry picking a date, he went out of his way to explain that achieving statistical significance on short timeframes is unlikely. … But Jones did also point out that there had been warming. So to answer your question, no Jones isn’t cherry picking, you are.

    I was referring to you being the cherry picker, not Jones. In the handbook I refer to 2001- 2009 and said “not warming”. Clearly, (thanks to Jones) you can see I’m being very conservative. Anyone with eyeballs can see it’s been flat since 2001. Though if you want to use the el nino spike as an end point that would be cherry picking wouldnt it? So I’m exactly accurate and you claim this is an “error”. I also refer to the long term trends in the handbook (which only make the AGW case look even more pathetic) and you say I don’t. Again, cherry picker.

    [And I debunked it a year ago. But some late comers to the party won’t bother to use the Index (look up log graphs).–JN]

    No what you did is demonstrate that you fall into the trap, that being (as RealClimate puts it, “Again, the scientists of the day got caught in the trap of thinking of the atmosphere as a single slab.”

    I expect you fall into the category of “Even today, many popularizers try to explain the greenhouse effect as if the atmosphere were a single sheet of glass.”.

    I have never described or used the analogy that the atmosphere as a single slab. It’s easy to “debunk” someone when you make up things they say, and pretend that RC is the last-word-gospel truth. Did you even read my debunking of that?

    Anonymity does not change the argument one bit, yet it seems to be a fallback line used in these forums all too often.

    Anonymous commenters are free to make stupid repetitive, time-wasting comments without the danger that their colleagues, family or friends will notice they look like a rabid fool. Hence I have no sympathy for anonymous comments which dominate threads, demonstrate little research, understanding, humility, manners, and sometimes are not even coherent.

    You can apologize, reveal your real name (so we know you are actually proud of what you write rather than dishonestly posting things you don’t even believe in in the hope of distracting us or just wasting our time). Otherwise you can post your thoughts on sites which allow anonymous baseless babble to dominate.

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    Scott

    Brendon got owned again 🙂

    Each of his posts just proves how much of an Intellectual lightweight he is.

    cut & paste not working for you Brendon?

    Nice one Jo

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    1DandyTroll

    @Brendon

    ‘1. The “hotspot” could exist and if it doesn’t then it may be the failure of “any” warming, not specifically GHGs.’

    Coulda shoulda woulda

    ‘2. Nova can’t understand how CO2 can be in lag of temp rise, yet still contribute to the warming. She has yet to scientifically address this, but instead we’re supposed to take her word for it.’

    Can makes for a certain coulda shoulda woulda.

    ‘3. Nova Cherry picks recent years to show the the surface temps no longer go upwards and ignores the long term trend. Nor does she mention how the last decade has remained so high despite a low solar contribution.’

    We all cherry pick, since we all don’t use the proper geological time frame of the last billion years or so since the first cell developed. And apparently not even your heroes over at RC want to use geological time frame unless it suits their propaganda which means cherry picking.

    Where do you think we should be after an ice age before another ice age but somewhere in the middle. And apparently we’ve been a tad bit closer to the sun on this lap around the sol, which makes me then wonder how come we had this extra cold winter being a tad bit closer to the sun with all this co2 helping setting warming records. I’m practical and a star gazer I just blame the clouds.

    ‘4. Fails to understand how more CO2 can create more warming.’

    Can makes for a certain coulda shoulda woulda. Seem to be a very “sciency” RC argumentation technique.

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    Brendon

    Joanne Nova: July 20th, 2010 at 7:54 pm

    The Mistake? Which mistake? This is a bald baseless assertion. You give no reasoning,and no references. I quote AR4, CCSP, Hansen.

    When yu give no references you expect me to search for the evidence you’ve written somewhere.

    [Yes, because I am not your slave, and I gave references in the articles I wrote. –JN]

    I gave plenty back here in post 171 and the posts prior to that but you elected not to comment.

    [Your first comment on that thread was a drive by one liner. I assumed if you had something to say you would have said it first, (so I ignored everything after that). I guess you had to wait for advice from elsewhere to come up with a real point? Conversation with a nameless commenter is a waste of time if they make statements that don’t stand alone, and they expect me to read through all their drivel to find the one comment where they might say something useful. –JN]

    Two mistakes? Theres a self referential pointer to the previous baseless assertion. Then a line I’ve never said: “point 1 (the hotspot) is the measurement of climate sensitivity”. Then a falsity.

    Jo, it’s pretty plain to see.

    http://joannenova.com.au/2010/07/the-unskeptical-guide-to-the-skeptics-handbook/

    You say “The hot spot is the fingerprint of positive feedback”, then follow it up again in point two by saying “Amplification is only a major force if the feedbacks are positive. See point one.”.

    [ I’ve never said: “(the hotspot) is the measurement of climate sensitivity”. The hot spot’s existence affects climate sensitivity. You’ve shown no evidence the hot spot is there. –JN]

    (I provided at least 3 independent references, you provide none to support your claims).

    You provide three references, none of which address the “amplification” that CO2 provides during the period of time examine within the ice cores.

    You cite :
    Lindzen and Choi which I’ve already linked to RealClimate and they show why that paper is useless.
    Roy Spencer cooks a graph
    Douglass et al make a trend, or do they?

    [I’ve given three independent ways of estimating sensitivity which all agree with each other. I quote peer reviewed papers, and you quote blog replies you can’t even explain yourself and which are out of date or discussing the wrong paper. Timewaster.
    1. Lindzen has put out an update taking the RC things into account and it didn’t change the end results.
    2. The RC page is about a different Spencer paper to the one I quoted.
    3. Douglass et al is supported by the latest paper by McIntyre &McKitrick 2010 who trounce Santer – (which has been the most harsh critic of Douglass). The RC page puts up a bogus argument about how the fingerprint the CCSP used to claim was a fingerprint, isn’t really technically a “fingerprint” because “theoretically” other things cause a hot spot too. (Note that all the climate models don’t think any of these other factors could cause a hot spot here on Earth. This is a desperate post hoc way to confuse the debate. The CCSP said “fingerprint” and said it 50 times). Ooh errr – It means that either the models are wrong on all the other causes or the CCSP were faking it in the first place to pretend it was a fingerprint . I have discussed this to death already.
    –JN]

    Care to explain why you continue to highlight poor examples of science that strive to show a low sensitivity, without once mentioning the many other attempts at calculating climate sensitivity that show a range of positive feedback values.

    http://agwobserver.wordpress.com/2009/11/05/papers-on-climate-sensitivity-estimates/

    [ Done with models, not empirical observations. –JN]

    Because you’ve arrived late to the 260-post-club here (and haven’t read any of the past answers) you expect you can arrogantly proclaim errors and expect me to personally tutor you in climate science for free?

    Tutorage from you? No thanks!! I like real science and I doubt very much that’ll come from someone like yourself who vehemently defended Monckton’s foolish climate sensitivity calculation.

    This is nonsensical incoherent babble. We’re talking about overnight minimums and city recordings and you bring up a lack of an answer to a question on sea surface temps?

    I highlight the problem that the sea surface temps also show an increase in temperature that parallels the land surface temps.

    In the Urban Heat Island is such a HUGE issue, then why do the oceans also show surface warming?

    Is that clearer for you?

    [This is preschooler-climate-debating. Skeptics talk about the fractional number of degrees of warming, or not, due to different factors. You are still back at the gross innumerate stage of “if it shows some warming at all, we are right!” –JN

    And “one person” whoever they are, is not me. Ask them.

    I did, surprise, surprise, they didn’t have the science to back up their idea either.

    Yep.

    So that brings us back to climate sensitivity. Got any credible science to support your “low sensitivity”? Perhaps Monckton has another “back of the envelope” calculation that might help?

    [Still denying the evidence I provided eh? –JN]

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    Brendon

    …continued.

    It took them months to name any flaws,

    Perhaps they should have been included in the peer review process.

    But we know that isn’t perfect don’t we.

    and I’ve read Lindzens 2010 pre print and his conclusions are still valid.

    Er, did you miss the part about him using his older (previously debunked) 2001 paper from which he grabs the number 2 (pretty precise figure don’t you think, not 2.03, not 1.96, but exactly 2!!) and simply divides the sensitivty by it to arrive at his conclusion.

    Until he properly addresses the rest of the planet rather than just the tropics he continues to miss a HUGE chunk of the real world.

    [Another non-point: The tropics is exactly where the hot spot and positive feedback was supposed to be. AND Lindzen answered that in his paper from 12 months ago: “Finally, it should be noted that our analysis has only considered the tropics. Following Lindzen et al. [2001], allowing for sharing this tropical feedback with neutral higher latitudes could reduce the negative feedback factor by about a factor of two. This would lead to an equilibrium sensitivity that is 2/3 rather than 1/2 of the non-feedback value. This, of course, is still a small sensitivity.”]

    You make no refs to Douglass or Spencer which agree.

    Others already have done the hard work for me. 😉 Thanks again RealClimate!!

    [One day you’ll think for yourself… –JN]

    I was referring to you being the cherry picker, not Jones.

    Me? I continue to promote the long term trend.

    http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1900/to:2011/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1900/to:2011/trend

    How is that cherry picking?

    [Your “long term trend” is always 130 years, mine is any length: 200, 1000, 10,000 etc, and you suggested earlier that I should update my graph to take the latest results into account which include an El Nino. That would be cherry picking. ]

    In the handbook I refer to 2001- 2009 and said “not warming”. Clearly, (thanks to Jones) you can see I’m being very conservative.

    So you pick an 8 year period and think that is not cherry picking? As I’ve repeated asked of you, why is it you ignore the long term trend and focus on short term fluctuations?

    We know very well El Nino, La Nina affect surface temps and make them fluctuate on decadal scales.

    So why is it you focus on the short term, and ignore the bigger picture?

    [I don’t. You just keep suggesting this baseless stuff. ]

    Anyone with eyeballs can see it’s been flat since 2001. Though if you want to use the el nino spike as an end point that would be cherry picking wouldnt it?

    No. Cheery picking is looking at the smaller parts of the data in order to highlight an end result favourable to your own argument.

    I highlight the longer term scale even though there are huge periods of “no warming”. The long term trend is the important feature of surface temperature data.

    So I’m exactly accurate and you claim this is an “error”.

    I didn’t say it was an “error”. I said it was cherry picking.

    I also refer to the long term trends in the handbook (which only make the AGW case look even more pathetic) and you say I don’t. Again, cherry picker.

    I have been over every page of your handbook and not once is there are graph of the temperature for the period since we’ve been emitting GHG. Why is it that you don’t show the last 150 years worth of data?

    [Because the guys with $79 billion in funding show that same graph 100,000 times, and I, with next to no funding, show all the time scales they don’t. But if you want to donate and pay for printing, I can write up skeptics handbook III and I’ll discuss exactly why your favourite graph doesn’t support your case that well. OK? I’ve discussed it on my site many many times. ]

    Why is it you ignore the fact that we have a solar minimum and a Milankovitch cycle in a cooling phase whilst decade by decade we continue to warm?

    [I don’t. The sun spot minimum only started in 2007, but every time I discuss how there’s been no warming lately, you cut off the conversation and call me a cherry picker remember? ]

    Perhaps by long term you mean the Vostok Ice Core? A period showing how the Milankovitch cycles dominate the forcing? Whoop de doo. No climate scientist is saying the CO2 is the only force around.

    I have never described or used the analogy that the atmosphere as a single slab.

    I never said you used those words. I said this description seems to fit you well.

    [It doesn’t. When you don’t quote me directly, you are wasting everyone’s time. ]

    It’s easy to “debunk” someone when you make up things they say, and pretend that RC is the last-word-gospel truth.

    No. I just see that they have developed the argument further than you seem capable of.

    Did you even read my debunking of that?

    Yes I did. You’re still stuck on the “but it’s logarithmic” thinking instead of understanding the atmosphere as “layers”. I could be wrong about you, perhaps you’re stuck on the “it’s logarithmic” thinking for some other reason.

    [ Or because it’s a basic concept in spectroscopy and the IPCC use the log equation maybe? Just a hint…]

    Anonymous commenters are free to make stupid repetitive, time-wasting comments without the danger that their colleagues, family or friends will notice they look like a rabid fool.

    I don’t mind being made a fool. Perhaps you can start making me look like one by answering the above questions. I’m really keen to get your interpretation of long term surface temps since GHG emissions.

    demonstrate little research

    You’re the one citing Lindzen 2009, not me.

    , understanding, humility, manners, and sometimes are not even coherent.

    The same could be said tenfold about your supporters and their responses to me. 😉

    You can apologize

    Sorry. For what?

    reveal your real name (so we know you are actually proud of what you write rather than dishonestly posting things you don’t even believe in in the hope of distracting us or just wasting our time).

    Why not focus on the arguments rather than the person presenting them.

    Are you also demanding that everyone else here that has been abusive towards me also reveal their full name too?

    Otherwise you can post your thoughts on sites which allow anonymous baseless babble to dominate.

    Or those that wont delete posts that strongly disagree with the host?

    [I have now found time to reply, dig out and release all your comments, but as I’ll note below, I won’t be doing it further. It’s clearly a waste of my time. If you find some strong flaw, you can always email to someone with a name and a reputation and I’m sure they’ll be delighted to spend their time assessing your work and announcing it to the world. They’ll be sure to want the credit for finding some real evidence that a catastrophe is coming and Jo Nova is wrong–JN

    .

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    Laura Allais

    what about all these eminent scientists???
    http://www.ddponline.org/

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  • #

    Brendon has tried to reply. He still doesn’t get it and says he doens’t mind making a fool of himself. Which is exactly my point. Which anonymous moniker does?

    I can’t respond to every no-name commenter, though I try. He’s had 79 comments, and frequently post things which are: repetitive; already answered; off-thread, making a rational conversation impossible; loaded with baseless “definitive” statements, like “Her four points have been well debunked” even though, as I showed above, the debunkers have been debunked.

    Then there’s the incoherent statements (see the comment above), and the non-sequiteurs.

    I don’t give a toss who Brendon is, I wouldn’t be googling him, but his future employers, girlfriends, friends or family might, and knowing that makes someone more careful at posting and less of a time-waster. Since commenting here is a free service only people who can self-edit can post.

    I answer those who are real Doctors of science, or at least bloggers who have real names.

    Those who are only coming here to repeat bluster, disrupt discussions, and “don’t mind” repeatedly get caught for it are net-negative. Any possibly useful point they might make is buried under mountains of bluff. Anonymous cowards never admit they were busted for making brazen statements that were totally baseless. It’s not an honest conversation.

    No real person in a room would get away with their reputation intact if they continually interrupted with things that were shown to be embarrassingly wrong and did not apologize and lift their game. In the real world, this effect shames the uninformed and stops them from adopting the pose of baseless superiority for long. But in the blog world anonymous posters have no such brake, and continue on as if the embarrassing failures in their reasoning had never been caught out.

    All gardens need weeding.

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    Brendon: Just to clear things up, your comments seem to have been polite (thanks) except that you throw large generalizations repeatedly of say, “cherry picking”, “it’s been debunked” etc, which you just can’t back up logically or with peer reviewed references. I or someone else replies, then you ignore the reply, confound the point by raising something else. It make the thread dysfunctional. It’s not honest conversation.

    — I can (and have) forgiven it many times, but there’s a limit.

    Let’s do this one point at a time. You say:“Your position seems to be rather weak given that you write much that is directed personally at me, instead of attacking the argument. Hence I understand your motivation for blocking my posts instead of responding sensibly to the arguments.”

    Can you not agree that most of what I wrote on this thread #13 and #39 was responding to the scientific points and not you? Despite you being off thread, I gave reasons and references. Hence your statement above is wrong.

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    Brendon,

    All your comments are held in moderation until you show you are here for an honest conversation. You didn’t answer my question.

    “Can you not agree that most of what I wrote on this thread #13 and #39 was responding to the scientific points and not you? Despite you being off thread, I gave reasons and references. Hence your statement above is wrong.”

    Yes, some sceptics have been very frustrated with discussions with you, and I have asked moderators to raise standards on both sides, but the reason people are frustrated with you is because you do not reply to simple points and resolve them. It’s dishonest.

    I don’t want to edit people. I want self-editors to post. Those who make statements need to back them up or retract and apologize. Even anonymous people.

    I do want you to post, but not if you cannot hold a simple one-point-at-a-time conversation. I’m waiting.

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    Brendon

    I did answer your question but perhaps I should have been more specific.

    This is what I said.

    You have blocked my posts (42 & 43 as I see them) and I have print-screened them so that others can also see that they have been blocked on your site. In those posts I responded to your previous post with what I consider to be very valid points.

    I was clarifying the “blocking” comment was in regards to posts 42 & 43.

    Perhaps I should have added this.

    Yes Jo, you did answer my earlier questions #13 and #39, however as you saw, I had further comment regarding your answers. My statement regarding the blocking of my posts was in direct reference to the posts that were blocked (42 & 43 as I see them). These are the ones where you have gone down the path of personal attack rather than addressing the questions and points I have made.

    Do you have a reply for the cherry picking of 8 years worth of data?

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    Brendon, I have made no personal attack on you. How could I? “You” are anonymous.

    Your position seems to be rather weak given that you write much that is directed personally at me, instead of attacking the argument.

    I stopped answering the endless repetitive questions because it reached the point where you wrote sentences that were confused babble: “You say “Warm nights are more likely due to the urban heat island effect”, but no one here has answered why the surfaces of the oceans are also warming.”

    I wrote to explain why “anonymity” gives you the power to write careless bluster and drivel. I’m not attacking you – I’m attacking the state of your anonymity – and poor logic, and gave you the chance to improve.

    1. You can start by retracting the nonsensical claim that I attacked you personally.

    2. Then you can admit that people with real names have a vested interest in making more careful comments.

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    Brendon

    Brendon, I have made no personal attack on you. How could I? “You” are anonymous.

    Personal attacks can be made against anonymous people. It is quite easy to give abuse to a stranger in the street, not that I am promoting such behaviour.

    You run a forum where using your real name is not mandatory and email address is not

    I stopped answering the endless repetitive questions because it reached the point where you wrote sentences that were confused babble: “You say “Warm nights are more likely due to the urban heat island effect”, but no one here has answered why the surfaces of the oceans are also warming.”

    If my use of the English language is not sufficient, wouldn’t it be more polite to ask for further explanation rather than label it as “confused babble”, this kind of language is a personal attack.

    [Wouldn’t it be more polite to try to stick to one topic at a time, explain what you mean and provide some link, rather than psychic guesses as to the point you are making? – JN]

    If you had instead asked for clarification I could have directed you to the discussion that was held in the other thread. The oceans also show an increase in surface temps along with the cities and land areas. If the UHIE is responsible for a considerable amount of the increase, then why is it the oceans are also warming.

    One person suggest this is because the winds blow the heat offshore, and that the GISS heat anomaly maps show this in some parts of the world. I pointed out how it also fails in other parts of the world.

    I have also since learnt that the temp increase in the cities the same whether it be windy or not. http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI3730.1

    I wrote to explain why “anonymity” gives you the power to write careless bluster and drivel. I’m not attacking you – I’m attacking the state of your anonymity – and poor logic, and gave you the chance to improve.

    I will continue to point out it is the argument you should be attacking, not the person.

    1. You can start by retracting the nonsensical claim that I attacked you personally.

    Towards me your language has been full of emotive language. eg. “fool”, “rude”, “arrogant”, “incoherent”, “time-waster”.

    Brendon, I answered 11 scientific points, and used the word “arrogant” once. “Incoherent” applied to the argument. The other words applied generically to anonymous posters. Your assertion that “much” of what I write is personally directed at you is not supported by the evidence. You are in denial of that.–JN

    These are personal attacks; you are addressing the person, not the argument. As I said earlier, personal insults can be directed at a complete stranger.

    2. Then you can admit that people with real names have a vested interest in making more careful comments.

    You would hope so; posts like “allen mcmahon”‘s #17 show it’s not always the case.

    Good. I’ll take that as a Yes. Bonza –JN]

    Personally I am interested in answers to the scientific questions and I will continue to question those that are not answered, or where they repeat themselves without having addressed my point.

    See – you do it again. The flat out incorrect statement. I did address your point about cherry picking. I may not have done the impossible and converted you, but I did address it. It’s the repetition of this kind of careless posting of factually incorrect statements that makes your posts fail to reach the bar here for logic and reason.

    Once again you avoided answering this:

    In the handbook I refer to 2001- 2009 and said “not warming”. Clearly, (thanks to Jones) you can see I’m being very conservative.

    You want to influence the general public into thinking that the warming has stopped by picking an 8 year period. We know that El Nino, La Nina, Solar Irradiance all affect surface temps and make them fluctuate on decadal scales.

    The period from 1970 to 1979 also had a flattening of surface temps, as we saw that didn’t mean the warming had stopped. http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1970/to:1979/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1970/to:1979/trend

    So why is it you focus on the short term, and ignore the long term trend?

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    On cherry picking:

    Lets quote me direct. Page 6 The Skeptics Handbook.

    Noise is caused by something. And it’s more important than Carbon. Even if the temperatures start going up again, the flat trend for seven years tells us the models are missing something big.

    Conclusion: This doesn’t prove global warming is over…

    So, if you read the article you attack you’d see I don’t claim global warming is over, I don’t claim things won’t get warmer, I don’t claim that carbon had nothing to do with it (just that it isn’t the main driver), I don’t claim that the world is cooling, and I don’t use an El Nino year as a start point. I use the 8 year non-warming trend to point out that the models are wrong.

    You ask: So why is it you focus on the short term, and ignore the long term trend?

    Could it be you mistakenly think 130 years is “long term” and haven’t done much research on what I write?

    I discuss graphs of the last 200 years, the last 2000 years, the last 10,000 years, the last 420,000 years, the last 65 million years, and the last half-billion years (see Skeptics Handbook II p 19).

    So Brendon, will you admit I don’t focus on short term trends, and don’t ignore any longer term timetable?

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    Brendon

    [Wouldn’t it be more polite to try to stick to one topic at a time, explain what you mean and provide some link, rather than psychic guesses as to the point you are making? – JN]

    More polite? No. More helpful? Yes, it would have been very helpful if I had of linked to where the comments were made.

    [Thank you]

    Brendon, I answered 11 scientific points, and used the word “arrogant” once.

    A search of this page shows you used this twice.

    [Do you worry about that obsessive tendency to investigate inconsequential things? –JN]

    “Incoherent” applied to the argument.

    An argument is never “Incoherent”, the people writing the words are.

    [Of course an argument can be incoherent. It’s an adjective, not a medical condition. –JN]

    The other words applied generically to anonymous posters.

    Yet it was me you were replying to.

    [Obviously I can’t use any descriptors on any statement made by you or even on the style of argumentation common to posters like yourself, because you’ll take it personally, and accuse me of an “ad hom” (or equivalent) which is the perfect way to distract from the point I raised eh? –JN]

    See – you do it again. The flat out incorrect statement. I did address your point about cherry picking. I may not have done the impossible and converted you, but I did address it.

    No you haven’t. Perhaps you honestly think you have, but I’ll explain in my next post why you have not addressed the question.

    [Brendon, “Addressed” means to speak to a point, which I did. It’s not a question of me “honestly thinking” anything – it’s just you denying the obvious yet again. You continually carelessly use words which reduce our conversation to a dictionary lesson. It’s a minor point, except repeated 100 times makes a mockery out of a meaningful discussion. –JN]

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    Brendon

    For reference, I am using the_skeptics_handbook_2-3_lq.pdf for page numbers.

    Conclusion: This doesn’t prove global warming is over…

    So, if you read the article you attack you’d see I don’t claim global warming is over, I don’t claim things won’t get warmer, …

    Yes you do. Page 6 the heading in large text is “The world is not warming any more”. This is the heading to the section which discusses in detail how the “Temperatures are not rising”.

    The first line on that page is “The world hasn’t warmed since 2001”. So if you cherry pick the headline and ignore all the text… once again, you are cherry picking. Not me.

    I don’t claim that carbon had nothing to do with it (just that it isn’t the main driver), I don’t claim that the world is cooling, and I don’t use an El Nino year as a start point.

    I agree that you don’t say these.

    I use the 8 year non-warming trend to point out that the models are wrong.

    That would be a different argument to “The world is not warming any more”.

    No model will ever perfectly predict the future climate. Models will perform many “runs”, each run showing a different result because of the inherent “randomness”. The results of each run can be plotted on a graph and over many runs you eventually start to see what the more likly result will be. Models also don’t predict what the Sun will do, so none will predict the extended period of low solar irrandiance, nor can the best of models predict exactly how long the El Nino/La Nina periods will be.

    But I’m not here to defend the models and I’ll happily concede they have many limitations.

    My gripe is that your claim “The world is not warming any more” is based upon an 8 year period. Such a timeframe is well affected by El Nino / La Nina cycles.

    Which is why I didn’t refer to 1998 and won’t use 2010 either. I could have said that there has been no statistically significant warming since 1995 and that would be correct too.

    Perhaps this section of your handbook would be better re-labelled as “Models are not capable of predicting El Nino / La Nina”.

    Could it be you mistakenly think 130 years is “long term” and haven’t done much research on what I write?

    I am aware of how you talk about other periods of time. But for your argument that “The world is not warming any more” you are using an 8 year period.

    Since there weren’t too many climate models predicting temperatures in 1900, I can hardly compare their predictions with a much longer time frame. If you prefer I’ll compare what they said in the FAR 1990 report with the performance for 20 years. It’s damning.

    I discuss graphs of the last 200 years, the last 2000 years, the last 10,000 years, the last 420,000 years, the last 65 million years, and the last half-billion years (see Skeptics Handbook II p 19).

    These are not referenced to in the “The world is not warming any more” section of your handbook. You only refer to the 2001-2009 period.

    With your permission I would be happy to discuss each one of these other periods because there are some problems with your arguments I would like to comment on, but in this thread, in regards to the “short term” argument, I assume that such comments would be considered off-topic.

    So Brendon, will you admit I don’t focus on short term trends, and don’t ignore any longer term timetable?

    Once your “The world is not warming any more” section of your handbook is amended to no longer look at a short term period, then yes I would admit that.

    [I’ll edit that when the worlds mass bureaucracies stop saying “xxxx is the warmest on record” without also admitting that records are short and that it’s not as warm as it has been several times in the last 10,000 years. OK? –JN]

    At the moment it reads “Satellites circling the planet twice a day show that the world has not warmed since 2001. How many more years of NO global warming will it take?” which is a short term view.

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    Brendon

    The first line on that page is “The world hasn’t warmed since 2001?. So if you cherry pick the headline and ignore all the text… once again, you are cherry picking. Not me.

    You said “I don’t claim things won’t get warmer”, but that’s exactly what you did in the heading for that section of your handbook.

    [Headlines in any other publication are not expected to be assessed as a stand alone sentence without supporting material. Yes you are right, I used that phrase in the heading, then explained what it meant and didn’t mean in the text. Your need to hold me to standards that you don’t hold anyone else too is obsessive and biased. In the big scheme of things my unfunded publication competes with government funded en masse 100 fold more frequent headlines that are similarly short phrases. Timewasting.– JN]

    You then go on to back up your claim that “The world is not warming any more” with your very next line, “The world has not warmed since 2001” and a graph with a label “no warming”.

    Your suggest here to readers is that the warming has stopped.

    You say on page 3, in bold, “Temperatures are not rising.” and “Satellites circling the planet twice a day show that the world has not warmed since 2001. How many years of NO global warming will it take?”

    [The question goes out for all who believe in the catastrophic hypothesis. Is there any data that could come in where they’d admit the models are wrong? They almost never give a number. If 8 years of no warming (or 15 of no significant trend) doesn’t sway someone that the models have serious flaws and larger cycles are at work, how many years of No warming would it take?

    On page 6 you say “Clusters and longer trends are all that’s left when you can’t say ‘2008, or 2007, ot 2006 was the hottest”. You are indiciating to your readers that being able to highlight one year is important when determining if the planet is warming or not.

    [ No. Sceptics don’t say “2009 was the coolest year since 2007, warmists do. I’m pointing out how mindless that is, and how they can’t say that so the PR campaign has moved on to the next best “PR message”. Tell your buddies at NOAA that one storm season doesn’t count. –JN]

    Also on page 6 you say “Satellites have circled the planet 24 hours a day for 30 years recording temperatures continuously. If temperatures were still rising, they would see it.”.

    Now if you are saying there’s been no warming in the 30 years then you’d be wrong.

    http://woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/to:2011/plot/rss/to:2011/trend

    [Why attack things I haven’t said? Time-wasting. –JN]

    But if you’re referring to the short term period of 8 years not showing warming, well then you’re back to a short term view once more.

    You say above “I use the 8 year non-warming trend to point out that the models are wrong.” and I agree that’s also one of your points but it’s not the main crux of your argument as the headline and the majority of your wording within implies.

    [I make SIX POINTS in that two page spread. 1. The trend has been flat now (and the media don’t mention that) for the last 8 years, and BTW the “cluster of hot years argument” is meaningless (see here for why). 2. We’ve been warming for 200 years – long before C02 emissions. 3. Temperature Records are short. 4. Ground based stations are compromised due to UHI and to siting problems. 5. The flat trend tells us the models are wrong. 6. Some other factor is involved in climate that the models don’t understand. –JN]

    You also suggest that CO2 levels climb during this period whilst temps are flat; another example of flawed thinking. The long term forcing of CO2 will never be visible amoungst a short term graph with a large amount of natural variation.

    Which is why I didn’t refer to 1998 and won’t use 2010 either. I could have said that there has been no statistically significant warming since 1995 and that would be correct too.

    To do so would be to repeat the same mistake if you are believing this is evidence that “The world is not warming any more”.

    As Jones pointed out, with the amount of natural varation in surface temp data, statistical significance only becomes possible on longer timescales.

    Since there weren’t too many climate models predicting temperatures in 1900, I can hardly compare their predictions with a much longer time frame. If you prefer I’ll compare what they said in the FAR 1990 report with the performance for 20 years. It’s damning.

    For the record though, I’d be extremely surprised if any computer model from 20 years would ever predict the climate, partly because the models were very rudimentary, but also because of the previous comment I made about computer models.

    Current day modelling is far more sophisticated than 20 years ago.

    But hey Jo, I’m trying to stay on topic here, something you’ve implored me to do in the past, so I’ll leave it at that.

    [I’ll edit that when the worlds mass bureaucracies stop saying “xxxx is the warmest on record” without also admitting that records are short and that it’s not as warm as it has been several times in the last 10,000 years. OK? –JN]

    Every now and again knowing that we’ve hit another warmest year in the past 100 or so years is something to be highlighted.

    [Yes it’s ok for the major powers in control to cherry pick repeatedly but not for one volunteer pointing out how mindless they are? You admit you have a double standard then?–JN]

    Personally I preferred the more recent news that showed how decade after decade we’re getting warmer, though even that picture is susceptible to decadal fluctuations.

    Compare that to your message, that we’ve not seen “statistically significant” warming in an 8 year period.

    As for previous periods being warmer, other periods will have warmed/cooled for various reasons, that doesn’t mean that GHGs can’t be responsible for most of this period’s warming.

    But again I feel like we’re drifting off topic – you wished to focus one question. Point 3 of your handbook “Temperatures are not rising” cherry picks 8 years of data and ignores the long term trend. If you wish to change this point to be “The models are wrong about short term warming”, then we’d be having a different discussion.

    [No. I see no reason too. The page is about short term trends, and yet even so, mentions the 200 year trend. It was designed to be a tiny counterpoint to the thousands of repetitions of “The world is warming” which ignore the longer term trends, and overestimate model accuracy. Part of the “warming” is due to UHI and siting, and the powers-that-be don’t mention that. Thanks for your dogged attempt to find any editorial minor aggrievement. Obviously this page was a success. –JN]

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    Brendon, I’m sorry this discussion is so slow for you. Frankly I’m looking for any signs that I could expect your posts to improve, I’d much rather let others answer you as they so ably were, and I so patently don’t have time to do.

    I was answering you point by point (even though you weren’t bothering to explain your points, or adding links or references). Even though the arguments were at times incoherent.

    Clearly you are still hiding something and wish to remain anonymous, even though you defend the dominant paradigm. At least you’ve acknowledged that this gives you complete freedom to be demanding, obsessive, difficult or unreasonable*, and presumably you understand why I have more important targets to reply too – anyone with a name/ institution/ real reputation.

    *Notice I’m not saying you do all these things, I’m merely suggesting (as per previously) that these are possibilities for anonymous commenters.

    Cherry picking is a weak tool of logic. You say I’m cherry picking because I refer to an 8 year period, even though I declare that in the first full sentence, and also point out that it doesn’t mean the longer trend is over, but does show the models were wrong.

    I make four points in a single 200 word page using the latest data at the time, and you think I could have chosen a different headline.Is that it?

    The cherry picking in your comments is worse. You attack a headline phrase, and ignore the short immediate text below it which takes much of what you say into account. Worse, all those on your team, who you don’t criticize, frequently use a single storm, or single season to make claims, and even those who use decadal averages almost never mention that this century is colder than many past periods. Why do you ignore the longer term … ?

    See how meaningless “cherry picker” is? Anyone can use it, especially by being one.

    You hold my “headlines” to standards that you would never apply to major newspapers. I’m flattered by the attention, but underwhelmed by the reasoning.

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    Brendon

    I was answering you point by point (even though you weren’t bothering to explain your points, or adding links or references). Even though the arguments were at times incoherent.

    I try to be as clear as possible. Please ask for clarification if you don’t understand something I’ve said. I am quite happy to elaborate.

    Clearly you are still hiding something and wish to remain anonymous, …

    It’s a non-issue in my case. I am addressing the argument, you should do likewise.

    [So you admit you post arguments which are incoherent and unreferenced and you repeat points that I have already answered elsewhere without bothering to use the careful index page I set up to help you find my answers, yet you argue that I am not allowed to discuss your low quality style of arguments. I asked you to name yourself, hoping that you could improve, yet you won’t, even though you acknowledge that people with real names are less likely to waste the time of everyone else here. You could have ended this whole charade of a scientific discourse just by giving your real name, I would have let you post again without moderation, and continually you show that your style of scientific discussion is to emphatically announce a cherry-picked or obsessive micro-flaw, then when someone points out the flaws you deflect attention from the low quality of your original post by using any adjective they wrote (even if it was not about you, but about anonymous posters in general), amplifying it up and claim victory because someone responded to your preposterous argument with an adjective which you call a “personal attack”? Your entire cherry picking focus here amounts to a discussion not of any error I made, but of your feeling that my editorial choice of headings was misleading. What you are claiming is about my style of writing, the headline I used is, in context of the page, quite correct, and in the context of all my writing, not cherry picking any time period. So you can discuss “styles” and editorial choices but if I do that, you pretend I am avoiding the science? –JN]

    Cherry picking is a weak tool of logic. You say I’m cherry picking because I refer to an 8 year period, even though I declare that in the first full sentence

    Declaring that you cherry pick years does not make it any more valid as a measurement of long term trends.

    [But I’m discussing short term trends.]

    In your introduction on page 3 the majority of your text is saying how we are not warming. Only the last line mentions computer modelling; “The models don’t know what it is.”. 4 of 5 lines are telling us we’re not warming, only 1 line mentions models, so I’m not cherry picking there.

    On page 6, of the 20 lines you write, the models are mentioned in 3 of them. Again the majority of your text is concerning the “lack of warming”. If I said to someone that this section of your paper is about computer models and how they are inaccurate, they would have asked why would I cherry pick 3 lines out of 30 to come to that conclusion.

    and also point out that it doesn’t mean the longer trend is over

    You say this once at the end, but that is overwhelmed by the amount of effort you go to, to try and convince us it’s not warming. You even argue against “trends” by saying “Clusters and longer trends are all that’s left when you can’t say ‘2008, or 2007, or 2006 was the hottest'”.

    , but does show the models were wrong.

    I’m not surprised that models can’t predict the future given that it involves climatic events that cannot be precisely predicted such as solar irradiance, volcanic activity and ocean currents.

    I make four points in a single 200 word page using the latest data at the time, and you think I could have chosen a different headline.Is that it?

    No it’s not just the headline. Most of the rest of the page tries to back up your headline. If your intention was to attack the models, why then would you have as the #1 AGW reply, “In the last decade we’ve had six (or seven, or eight) of the top ten hottest years ever recorded.”? This AGW reply only makes sense if they were arguing about the trend. A reply to the models’ accuracy would have been something like “Models can’t predict some forces that influence our climate, hence they will only give estimate projections under various scenarios, not exacting predictions.”.

    Why is it you show a graph that has only surface temp data and NO model prediction, if this was to be the main point of this section of the handbook?

    [Because I make many other points on the one short page. The failure of models is only one point].

    The cherry picking in your comments is worse. You attack a headline phrase, and ignore the short immediate text below it which takes much of what you say into account.

    As I’ve shown, you made a headline, then tried to support it with the majority of your following lines. I’m not attacking the headline, I’m attacking most of the lines on the pages.

    [Now after claiming the phrase “the world is not warming any more” is cherry picking x 10 times, you claim you’re not attacking the headline? Inane.]

    Worse, all those on your team, who you don’t criticize, frequently use a single storm, or single season to make claims, and even those who use decadal averages almost never mention that this century is colder than many past periods. Why do you ignore the longer term … ?

    As I said above, I think hitting new highs is newsworthy, but I prefer highlighting the long term trend.

    Yes it has changed many times in the past and for various reasons. That doesn’t mean that the radiative forcing of a higher CO2 level cannot have an impact.

    See how meaningless “cherry picker” is? Anyone can use it, especially by being one.

    That’s why I like to be specific.

    Cherry picking 8 years to show that there is “no more warming” is useless because it ignores the major decadal influence of various natural cycles.

    You hold my “headlines” to standards that you would never apply to major newspapers.

    As shown already, it’s more than just the headline.

    Aside from that, you’re writing about science, I would expect higher standards than found in the tabloids. That you currently don’t exceed the tabloids is a concern given that you are a scientist writing about science.

    I’m flattered by the attention, but underwhelmed by the reasoning.

    Spend more time on understanding reasoning and less on being flattered. 😉

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    Brendon

    [So you admit you post arguments which are incoherent and unreferenced

    I post comments which are very readable albeit with the occasional typo. People can follow my arguments in other forums without problems. I am happy to expand on anything I have said that confuses you if it helps clarify.

    and you repeat points that I have already answered elsewhere without bothering to use the careful index page I set up to help you find my answers,

    Yes. You have said that already. So in keeping on topic, using that index, how am I to find out why you cherry pick 8 years in an attempt show that the warming has stopped?

    yet you argue that I am not allowed to discuss your low quality style of arguments. I asked you to name yourself, hoping that you could improve, yet you won’t, even though you acknowledge that people with real names are less likely to waste the time of everyone else here. You could have ended this whole charade of a scientific discourse just be giving your real name, I would have let you post again without moderation

    That you continue to want to get to know me is great, but also totally irrelevant to the argument I make.

    , and continually you show that your style of scientific discussion is to emphatically announce a cherry-picked or obsessive micro-flaw, then when someone points out the flaws you deflect attention from the low quality of your original post by using any adjective they wrote (even if it was not about you, but about anonymous posters in general), amplifying it up and claim victory because someone responded to your preposterous argument with an adjective which you call a “personal attack”? Your entire cherry picking focus here amounts to a discussion not of any error I made, but of your feeling that my editorial choice of headings was misleading. What you are claiming is about my style of writing, the headline I used is, in context of the page, quite correct, and in the context of all my writing, not cherry picking any time period.

    I made it pretty clear in my previous post why it’s more than just your heading. That you fail to answer the rest of my post makes it clear you cannot refute the logic I present.

    So you can discuss “styles” and editorial choices but if I do that, you pretend I am avoiding the science? –JN]

    Sorry I don’t follow you on this. Rather than call you incoherent, I would ask that perhaps you could elaborate on this point?

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    Brendon, I don’t normally debate with anyone anonymous who has posted such low quality arguments that they’re in moderation, and won’t reveal themselves or apologize for wasting my time. I made a special exception for you. But sorry I can’t continue the free service and personal tutoring.

    Hope you enjoyed the personal replies, but now that I’ve responded to all your scientific, and non scientific, and repetitive, and ill-informed comments I’m officially putting you in my to do list, but prioritized under responses to real people with real names and reputations. Henceforth I’ll be replying first to the Academy of Science, NOAA, Professors, Journalists, Ministers, and other bloggers (with names).

    So when they all stop putting their names and institutions to bogus illogical arguments, I might find time to answer yours OK? Until then, if you do finally come up with a real flaw, and you want a faster reply, you can always email it to the real professors eh? I’m sure if you come up with something real – like the evidence they can’t find themselves, they’ll be delighted.

    People on my site need to be able to form sentences in context with points that they can back up.

    Best of luck.

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