Alec Rawls responds to Steven Sherwood: “The professor is inverting the scientific method”

The IPCC are now adding citations of critics (so they can’t be accused of ignoring them completely), but they bury the importance of those studies under glorious graphic art, ponderous bureacrat-speak, and contradictory conclusions.

When skeptics point out that the IPCC admit (in a hidden draft) that the solar magnetic effect could change the climate on Earth, the so-called Professors of Science hit back — but not with evidence from the atmosphere, but with evidence from other paragraphs in a committee report. It’s argument from authority, it’s a logical fallacy that no Professor of Science should ever make. Just because other parts of a biased committee report continue to deny the evidence does not neutralize the real evidence.

Alec Rawls pulls him up. Sherwood calls us deniers, but the IPCC still denies solar-magnetic effects that have been known for 200 years. This anti-science response is no surprise from Sherwood, who once changed the colour of “zero” to red to make it match the color the models were supposed to find. (Since when was red the color of no-warming? Sure you can do it, but it is deceptive.) That effort still remains one of the most egregious peer reviewed distortions of science I have ever seen.  — Jo

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Professor Steven Sherwood inverts the scientific method: he is an exact definitional anti-scientist

Guest Post by Alec Rawls

I leaked the Second Order Draft of the next IPCC report, and, not surprisingly, am being attacked. In an interview with ABC on Friday Steve Sherwood tried to denigrate my key point:

He says the idea that the chapter he authored confirms a greater role for solar and other cosmic rays in global warming is “ridiculous”.

“I’m sure you could go and read those paragraphs yourself and the summary of it and see that we conclude exactly the opposite – that this cosmic ray effect that the paragraph is discussing appears to be negligible,” he told PM.

Set aside the impression Sherwood gives by saying he “authored” the chapter (he was one of fifteen lead authors along with thirty other contributing authors and editors), his response flies directly in the face of the change that was made from the First Order Draft.

My submitted comments on the First Order Draft of AR5 accused the IPCC of committing what in statistics is called “omitted variable fraud.” As I titled my post on the subject: “Vast evidence for solar climate driver rates one oblique sentence in AR5.”

How vast is the evidence? Dozens of studies have found between a .4 and .7 degree of correlation between solar activity and various climate indices going back many thousands of years, meaning that solar activity “explains” in the statistical sense something like half of all past temperature change (citations at the link above).

Solar activity was at “grand maximum” levels from 1920 to 2000 (Usoskin 2007). Might this explain a substantial part of the unexceptional warming of the 20th century? Note also that, with the sun having since dropped into a state of profound quiescence, the solar-warming theory can also explain the lack of 21st century warming while the CO2-warming theory cannot.

Now take a look the radiative forcing table from any one of the IPCC reports, where the explanatory variables that get included in the IPCC computer models are laid  out. You will see that the only solar forcing effect listed is “solar irradiance.” In AR5 this table is on page 8-39.

IPCC, Asessment report 5, forcings

There is not even a category for solar magnetic forcings. The IPCC denies that it could affect the climate.

Total solar irradiance, or TSI, is also known as “the solar constant.” When solar activity ramps up and down from throwing wild solar flares to sleeping like a baby, TSI hardly varies a whit. That’s where the name comes from. While solar activity varies tremendously, solar irradiance remains almost constant.

This slight change in the solar radiation that shines on our planet is known to be too small an energy difference to explain any substantial change in temperature. In particular, it can’t begin to account for anything near to half of all past temperature change. It can’t begin to account for the large solar effect on climate that is evidenced in the geologic record.

Implication: some other solar effect besides TSI must also be at work. One of the solar variables that does vary when solar activity ramps up and down, like solar wind pressure, must be having some effect on climate, and this is certainly plausible. We in-effect live inside of the sun’s extended corona. When the solar wind is blasting the earth’s immediate external environment is rather different than when the solar wind is down, and even if we don’t know the mechanism, we have powerful evidence that some solar effect other than the slight variation in TSI is driving global temperature.

This is what the IPCC admits in the Second Order Draft of AR5, which now includes the sentence in bold below (page 7-43, lines 1-4, emphasis added):

Many empirical relationships have been reported between GCR or cosmogenic isotope archives and some aspects of the climate system (e.g., Bond et al., 2001; Dengel et al., 2009; Ram and Stolz, 1999). The forcing from changes in total solar irradiance alone does not seem to account for these observations, implying the existence of an amplifying mechanism such as the hypothesized GCR-cloud link. We focus here on observed relationships between GCR and aerosol and cloud properties.

Sherwood’s response is to consider only one possible mechanism of solar amplification. He looks at the evidence for Henrik Svensmark’s proposed GCR-cloud mechanism and judges that the forcing effect from this particular mechanism would be small, then concludes that a greater role for the sun in global warming is “ridiculous.”

Methinks Sherwood should read the added sentence again. It says that the evidence implies the existence of “an amplifying mechanism.” Presenting an argument against a particular possible mechanism does not in any way counter the report’s new admission that some such mechanism must be at work. (Guess he didn’t author that sentence eh? Since he doesn’t even know what it says.)

Sherwood is trying to use theory—his dissatisfaction with a particular theory of how solar amplification might work—to dismiss the evidence that some mechanism of solar amplification must be at work. The bad professor is inverting the scientific method, which requires that evidence always trump theory. If evidence gives way to theory it is not science. It is anti-science. It is the exact opposite of science.

The new sentence was added specifically to avoid the criticism that the authors were inverting the scientific method

My submitted comments on the First Order Draft ripped the authors up and down for inverting the scientific method. They were all doing what Sherwood is doing now. Here is the same passage from the FOD. It lacks the added sentence, but otherwise is almost identical (FOD page 7-50, lines 50-53):

“Many empirical relationships or correlations have been reported between GCR or cosmogenic isotope archives and some aspects of the climate system, such as SSTs in the Pacific Ocean (Meehl et al., 2009), some reconstruction of past climate (Kirkby, 2007) or tree rings (Dengel et al., 2009). We focus here on observed relationships between GCR and aerosol- and cloud-properties.”

The first sentence here, citing unspecified “empirical relationships” between cosmogenic isotopes (a proxy for solar activity) and “some aspects of the climate system” is the only reference in the entire report to the massive evidence for a solar driver of climate. Not a word about the magnitude of the correlations found, nothing about how these correlations are much too strong to possibly be explained by the slight variance in solar irradiance alone, and almost nothing (“many”) about the sheer volume of studies that have found these correlations. And that’s it: one oblique sentence, then the report jumps immediately to looking at the evidence for one proposed mechanism by which solar amplification might be occurring.

The evidence for that particular mechanism is judged (very prematurely) to indicate a weak effect, and this becomes the implicit rationale for the failure of the IPCC’s computer models to include any solar variable but TSI. Readers of the FOD have no idea about the mountain of evidence for some solar driver of climate that is stronger than TSI because the report never mentions it. A couple of the citations that were included mention it (in particular, Kirkby 2007, which is a survey paper), but the report itself never mentions it, and the report then goes on to ignore this evidence entirely. The enhanced solar forcing effect for which there is so much evidence is completely left out of all subsequent analyses.

In other words, the inversion of the scientific method is total. In the FOD, the authors used their dissatisfaction with the GCR-cloud theory as an excuse for completely excluding the vast evidence that some mechanism of enhanced solar forcing is at work. Theory was allowed to completely obliterate and remove a whole mountain of evidence. “Pure definitional anti-science,” I charged.

At least one of the co-authors seems to have decided that this was a bridge too far and added the sentence acknowledging the evidence that some mechanism of solar amplification must be at work. The added sentence declares in-effect, “no, we are not inverting the scientific method.” They are no longer using their dissatisfaction with a particular theory of how enhanced solar forcing might work as a ruse to pretend that the evidence for some such mechanism does not exist.

So good for them. In the sea of IPCC dishonesty there is a glimmer of honesty, but it doesn’t go very far. The SOD still goes on to judge that there is little evidence for the GCR-cloud mechanism and it still proceeds as if the possibility of enhanced solar forcing has been dispensed with. The only solar effect that is taken into account is still TSI as the report claims a high level of certainty that human influences dominate solar influences, and it still uses this garbage-in claim to arrive at their garbage-out conclusion that observed warming must be almost entirely due to the human release of CO2.

One of the reason I decided to release the SOD was because I knew that once the Steven Sherwoods at the IPCC realized how the added sentence undercut the whole report they would yank it back out, and my submitted comments insured that they would indeed realize how the added sentence undercut the whole report. Now sure enough, as soon as I make the added sentence public Steven Sherwood publicly reverts to the FOD position, trying to pretend that his argument against one proposed mechanism of solar amplification means that we can safely ignore the overwhelming evidence that some such mechanism is at work.

We’ll find out in a year or so whether his co-authors are willing to go along with this definitional anti-science. Evidently there is at least some division. With Sherwood speaking up for the FOD position, any co-authors who prefer the new position should feel free to speak up as well. Come on real scientists, throw this blowhard under the bus!

In any case, it is good to have all of them stuck between a rock and a hard place. They can invert the scientific method and be exact definitional anti-scientists like Steven Sherwood, or they can admit that no one can have any confidence in the results of computer models where the only solar forcing is TSI, not after they have admitted strong evidence for some mechanism of solar forcing beyond TSI.

That admission is a game changer, however much Sherwood wants to deny it. He piles on with more of the same at the ridiculous “DeSmog Blog” (as if CO2 is “smog”), and is quoted front and center by the even more ridiculous Andrew Sullivan. Sherwood has become the go-to guy for the anti-science left.

REFERENCES

Bond et al. 2001, “Persistent Solar Influence on North Atlantic Climate During the Holocene,” Science.

Di Rita, 2011, “A possible solar pacemaker for Holocene fluctuations of a salt-marsh in southern Italy,” Quaternary International.

Neff et al. 2001, “Strong coherence between solar variability and the monsoon in Oman between 9 and 6 kyr ago,” Nature.

Ogurtsov et al, 2010, “Variations in tree ring stable isotope records from northern Finland and their possible connection to solar activity,” JASTP.

Raspopov et al, 2011, “Variations in climate parameters at time intervals from hundreds to tens of millions of years in the past and its relation to solar activity,” JASTP.

Shaviv and Veizer, 2003, “Celestial driver of Phanerozoic climate?” GSA Today.

Solheim et al. 2011, “The long sunspot cycle 23 predicts a significant temperature decrease in cycle 24,” submitted astro-ph.

Tan et al, 2011, “Climate patterns in north central China during the last 1800 yr and their possible driving force,” Clim. Past.

Usoskin et. al. 2005, “Solar Activity Over the Last 1150 years: does it Correlate with Climate?” Proc. 13th Cool Stars Workshop.

9.1 out of 10 based on 80 ratings

118 comments to Alec Rawls responds to Steven Sherwood: “The professor is inverting the scientific method”

  • #
    Otter

    I would hope that the other authors of that chapter, will see your response, and be more than happy to respond, HERE.

    I look forward to hearing from them.

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    • #
      turnedoutnice

      And I would also hope that they would do so realising that there can be no such effect as ‘forcing’ foe CO2, indeed any GHG in self-absorption. The only forcing is limited water vapour side bands.

      This is because the main GHG thermal emission is near black body and because it is in equilibrium with a near black body Earth’s surface, the GHG emissions in those bands are near zero. This is standard radiative heat transfer physics. There is no ‘back radiation, an artefact of pyrometry.

      Yes, folks, that’s right there can never be any CO2-AGW because no surface IR is emitted in the wavelength interval. The scare is over nothing.

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  • #
    Joe V.

    The whole idea that something such as the Sun, which is beyond our control, could affect our climate, is divisive, destructive and to be avoided at all costs.

    Paying homage & making sacrifices to the Sun isn’t going to benefit anyone.

    Whereas making us believe that it’s all about CO2 gives us Common Purpose, and makes a whole lot of whonga for the witch doctors who preach it along the way.

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    • #
      The Black Adder

      Poor old Pachauri…

      I can just picture him sitting in level 26 of the UN building playing with his train set…

      Pondering… What the hell are we to do now??

      I’m only a Railway Engineer!!

      Rotflmfao….

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      • #
        Peter Miller

        “Poor old Pachauri?”

        This guy has a set up like a maharajah of yesteryear; he lives in opulent luxury surrounded by beautiful gardens all paid for by his own ‘research’ institute TERI.

        He has obviously studied how the self-proclaimed leaders of those extreme/nutter religious sects in America’s Bible Belts run their businesses and adopted their model.

        Nowadays, we look at Gore, Mann, Lewandowski etc and slice and dice them for their lies and deceit, yet we hardly ever criticise the arch villain in ‘climate science’, the head of the IPCC. It is perhaps fitting that the man most responsible for the attempts to beggar the western world economies is a railway engineer, a soft porn author and lives like a maharajah – it helps put everything in ‘climate science’ into perspective.

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        • #
          Dave

          .
          Rajendra Kumar Pachauri lives in luxury in New Delhi – 160 Central Golf Links Road – very expensive – but just one of many.

          No one knows how much Pachauri earns because none of the organizations listed publish his salary or fees. He travels over 1 million kilometers per year and tells us our lifestyles are unsustainable.

          Loves staying with Big Al Gore at The Grand.

          Loved as chat with Kevin07 until the stabbing.

          Hates meat – Rajendra Kumar Pachauri is a strict vegetarian.

          This cartoon from 2010 is great – by Roger From New Zealand Blog.

          I might become a vegan, CAGW supporter, rich, travel and live in a giant big mansion. That is the only aim of these greedy bast@rds – so if you can’t beat them – laugh at them as their time is coming.

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    • #
      Robert of Ottawa

      It benefited the Mayan Priesthood and now benefits the Global Warming Industry and “manufacturers” of windmills and solar panels.

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      • #
        Robert of Ottawa

        I deliberately inverted the meaning through the sentance, employing the Warmistas’ propaganda techniques.

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  • #
    Kevin Lohse

    Does Prof. Sherwood still advocate the use of wind gauges to measure temperature? just a polite enquiry.

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    • #
      cohenite

      You mean this paper.

      I’d say he does considering he has also written this paper.

      On the basis of these papers, 2 of the worst ever written in support of AGW, it has to be said that Sherwood is a star of AGW science.

      In respect of solar activity and temperature David Stockwell’s paper should be read by the author of this article. The graphs at Figures 4-7 in Stockwell’s paper should be especially noted.

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      • #
        Jaymez

        It is no wonder Sherwood and Lewandowsky shared ‘The Conversation’ article limelight, they share the same twisted thinking.

        I love how Sherwood gets a peer reviewed paper published on the basis that humans may decide not to live in areas where the temperature is consistently above 31c or 35C. Then says that could happen to large parts of the world if the world where people currently lived were to warm by 11C or 12C. Even though there are no scientific projections of that level of global warming.

        We may as well all race out and do peer reviewed papers on our favourite fantasy. This is what tax payers are funding!

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  • #
    Snafu

    “The fight between the British and the Germans was intense and fierce in the extreme. It was a deadly grapple. The Germans have been outmatched and outfought with the very kind of weapons with which they had beaten down so many small peoples, and also large unprepared peoples. They have been beaten by the very technical apparatus on which they counted to gain them the domination of the world. Especially is this true of the air and of the tanks and of the artillery, which has come back into its own on the battlefield. The Germans have received back again that measure of fire and steel which they have so often meted out to others. Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

    Sir Winston Churchill – 9 November 1942.

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  • #
    RoyFOMR

    So, certain Solar changes have been observed that are correlated between 0.4 and 0.7 with terrestrial climate change but it seems fairly clear that TSI is not one of these factors.
    Sounds pretty reasonable so far. Only things that change on the sun could cause changes on earth, if there is any causative solar influence.
    Certainly, any scientists who fail to consider 0.4-0.7 worthy of further study should be planning for their imminent retirement.
    Dr Mann would bite your hand off for these numbers in his chosen field methinks.
    Dr Sherwood (no puns about trees and forests puleeze) has got a bit of work on his hands to explain WTH is he using a CONSTANT factor for as an argument against a solar influence on our climate.
    Just because Dr S doesn’t know the unknown factors (no shame there, the IPPC doesn’t either) doesn’t mean that he has to take the 99% stance much loved by certain Oz Academics these days- take a bow Dr Loo- that they don’t exist!

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  • #
    RoyFOMR

    Correction:
    … WTH is he using a CONSTANT factor, as an argument against a VARIABLE solar influence on our climate.
    Apologies

    71

  • #
    Edward Bancroft

    Where is the bar chart plot showing the relative effect of H2O water vapour on the ‘Components of Radiative Forcing’ table? Or are the IPCC denying that as well?

    230

    • #
      John F. Hultquist

      They have hidden a little H2O in the (Strat.) with a dubious heading of Well Mixed GHG along a multi-colored bar labeled CH4 . But I guess you were expecting them to admit some water vapor is found in the Troposphere? Not an unreasonable expectation if you were reading a scientific report and not a policy statement by the UN.

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    • #
      Crakar24

      Edward,

      The list of which you speak is a list of “forcings” H2O is a feed back not a forcing so therefore the IPCC do not need to put it on said list.

      Just another deception by the IPCC

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      • #
        Howie

        The treatment of H2O as a feedback is a travesty. Water vapor absorbs in the same general area of the infrared and thus competes with CO2. But water vapor is much more plentiful than CO2. The majority of any greenhouse effect is due to water vapor, not CO2. It is water, in all its forms, that keeps our planet warm- and cool. As Ian Plimer points out in his book Heaven and Earth the hydrologic cycle and solar insolation is what determines weather and climate on our planet.

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        • #
          Crakar24

          I believe pound for pound H2O is far more efficient as an absorber of IR due to the nature of the way the molecules are formed (Hydrogen) like Methane whereas CO2 is not very efficient so it is not only the amount but also the content which gives H2O much more potency.

          Please feel to correct me if i have this wrong.

          Cheers

          Crakar

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          • #
            Edward Bancroft

            In my understanding of the effects of IR active gases, it must be water vapour and its global availability which determines climatic temperature equilibrium. From an equilibrium process perspective it is the most readily abundant IR gas, and if that dynamic equilibrium could be disturbed by increases in the IR gas content we would have long ago passed that point, due to the large feedstock quantities of water vapour.

            The equilibrium is maintained by the non linearity of the water vapour feedback. Increasing water vapour means increasing cloud cover, which more strongly reduces the production of water vapour, maintaining the dynamic equilibrium. Therefore there is no ‘tipping point’ from increased CO2, as water vapour feedstock is merely substituted for CO2 in the process equilibrium.

            00

  • #
    Roy Hogue

    Joanne Nova on the scientific method:

    …the scientific method … requires that evidence always trump theory.

    Nah! That can’t be right, can it? No one would believe that. Right? 😉

    Jo, you could have said just that and then quit. Those who can understand will understand and those who can’t or won’t understand will not be moved though the words number many thousands.

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    • #
      Grant (NZ)

      …the scientific method … requires that evidence always trump theory.

      Well I have a model that proves otherwise 🙂

      80

    • #
      Duster

      It is not quite that simple. It could be for instance that the “evidence” was miss observed, mismeasured or misunderstood. But, if repeated measurements yield consistent results, then the theory must eiher be abandoned or adapted. The actual assertion is that “empirical reality” must always trump theory. “Evidence” is observations “of” reality and from which the “true” – not in the philosophical sense – reality is deduced. The wheels are prone to fall off when dealing with complex systems it we approach things with such simplistic attitude. So ideally, you don’t rely on linear correlations when dealing with a complex, nonlinear system, nor do you insist the data is “wrong” because it doedn’t match theoretical expectations. You DO ask, did we measure that properly, is there a problem with the mathematics in the theory, were we drunk, etc.

      40

      • #
        Crakar24

        Duster,

        As an example we recently conducted a test, our aim was to measure the angle of side slip under certain conditions. Our test results where much much lower than what was expected so we sort confirmation that we were looking at the right data and were testing the right way.

        In the end the “evidence” pointed to a much much lower AoSS so it was then accepted as such. The evidence trumped folklore, the evidence trumped preconcieved perceptions (and they were big perceptions) but then again this was flight test not climate science.

        30

      • #
        Julian Flood

        Duster wrote December 17, 2012 at 2:47 pm

        quote
        “Evidence” is observations “of” reality and from which the “true” – not in the philosophical sense – reality is deduced.
        unquote

        It’s worse than we think. Evidence is not deliberately ignored, it’s literally not seen, scrubbed from perception by false knowledge. Look, for example, at Tom Wigley’s blip. During WWII there is a pronounced SST excursion — in the raw data it stands out like a dog’s gonads. But most people don’t see it. When it was noticed the reaction of climate scientists was to fudge it, smooth it, explain it away. Explanation was not required. Once it is gone from the official graphs, the blip vanishes from sceptical minds. See
        http://i39.tinypic.com/2igd1mr.jpg
        and search the Climategate emails for details of how the blip was vanished.

        Climate science gets away with this because the average lay observer of their procedures stops looking at the basic science and ends up believing authority over the evidence of his/her own senses — this is why blatant lies are repeated with the express purpose of wearing down disbelief. Worse, ‘sceptics’ suffer as much as anyone from the problem that some of the facts they know are not actually facts at all, and because of this their world view unconsciously skews to match non-realities, the reality they are being fed. The doom-saying prophesies become Orwellian fact.

        Dr Sherwood provides a classic quote in his ‘temperature derived from windspeed because the measurements don’t fit’ paper.

        quote
        Our findings are inconsistent with the trends derived from radiosonde temperature datasets and from NCEP reanalyses of temperature and wind fields. The agreement with models increases confidence in current model-based predictions of future climate change.
        unquote

        Don’t trust what you are told, because someone might have an agenda. Don’t trust what you know because you might be wrong. Check.

        JF

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  • #

    Thanks Alec for a clarification of your position. The highlighted sentence is basically saying that “we know that there is a solar impact from the observations, but cannot properly explain it”.
    Dana Nuccitelli in the Guardian on 14th December makes a similar point to Sherwood.

    This statement refers to a hypothesis of Henrik Svensmark from the Danish National Space Institute, who has proposed that galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) could exert significant influence over global temperatures.

    What Nuccitelli and Sherwood seem unable to countenance is some part of reality that they cannot explain, nor any circumstance where there might be multiple theories that could explain the same data*. By extension, errors in interpretation must be through ignorance or lying, often with hidden motives.
    In the draft SPM are a series of tacit admissions that previous IPCC reports had either exaggerated or got things wrong. There are a huge number of people like John Cook, Stephan Lewandowsky and Micheal Mann who will be reading this draft realizing that it is a work of heresy.

    *To verify this, try reading “The Debunking Handbook” by John Cook or Stephan Lewandowsky. It is all about dealing with misinformation for issues where there are single, simple unambiguous answers.

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    • #
      ExWarmist

      Manicbeancounter says…

      *To verify this, try reading “The Debunking Handbook” by John Cook or Stephan Lewandowsky. It is all about dealing with misinformation for issues where there are single, simple unambiguous answers.

      Zealots are attracted to certainty like flies are to the proverbial.

      It is always the same, minds inflamed with their own righteous self anointed belief in the “Truth” screaming insults at those who dare to disbelieve – and they call themselves skeptics – it’s positively Orwellian.

      Their inability to deal with ambiguous knowledge is a very real intellectual and moral weakness.

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    • #
      Rick Bradford

      “There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other. “ – Douglas Everett

      Sherwood and Lewandowsky do not inhabit the second category, that’s for sure.

      51

  • #
    Jaymez

    I almost choked when I read Professor Stephan Lewandowsky quoted in ‘The Conversation’ article as saying the leaking of the Draft AR5 by Rawls was “dishonourable”; this coming from a guy who made excuses and exceptions for Dr Peter Gleick’s frauds, forgeries and lies when it suited HIS cause. https://theconversation.edu.au/the-morality-of-unmasking-heartland-5494

    Lewandowsky is also the guy who is happy to leave truth a long way behind when he interprets his own ‘research’ in his as yet unpublished but much heralded ‘NASA Faked Moon Landing’ paper: http://joannenova.com.au/2012/09/steve-mcintyre-finds-lewandowskys-paper-is-a-landmark-of-junk-science/

    Bye the way Stephan, your paper was due to be published in Psychological Science in September 2012, but it missed that edition, oh and October’s and November’s and December’s and isn’t listed for January’s edition either. Why is it taking so long to get it published? It isn’t being re-written is it?

    I also find it curious that even though ‘The Conversation’ article was only posted on 15th December it has been closed for comments, with no comments posted – it stinks of censorship and control. If there was ever any doubt that ‘The Conversation’ was simply a one sided mouthpiece this article snuffed that. It wasn’t written by an academic it was quickly hobbled together by an editor to support Sherwood and Lewandowsky’s previously stated positions without seeking any balancing views.

    Every commentator who has claimed publicly that there was nothing in the draft AR5 to support what Alec Rawls was saying including Sherwood and Lewandowsky clearly did not understand the topic sufficiently; or else they were deliberately ignoring the point or misdirecting the public.

    I must admit it wasn’t clear to me at first, but it is now, that Rawls is saying there are huge volumes of peer reviewed studies providing evidence of a strong correlation between cosmogenic isotopes (proxy for solar activity) and our climate which has been virtually hidden by the IPCC in this report. The ‘mountain of evidence’ for some solar driver or enhanced forcing effect has been deliberately excluded even though it was provided by contributing authors.

    Rawls is spilling the beans that the IPCC Draft AR5 is deliberately ignoring “Dozens of studies which have found between a 0.4 and 0.7 degree of correlation between solar activity and various climate indices going back many thousands of years, meaning that solar activity “explains” in the statistical sense something like half of all past temperature change.”

    That is something the public have a right to know about whether Lewandowsky likes it or not! To tell the public is the HONOURABLE thing to do.

    Meanwhile Sherwood and Lewandowsky would rather we all believed that the IPCC draft AR5 is more certain than ever that human carbon emissions are the cause of catastrophic climate change yet the gospel they wish us to trust is riddled with unscientific gems like this from lines 26 to 31 of the Executive Summary of Chapter 7 Clouds and Aerosols just so they can support their anthropogenic climate change predisposition. (My bold)

    “The net radiative feedback due to all cloud types is likely (>66% chance) positive, although a negative feedback (damping global climate changes) is still possible. We assign a very likely range of −0.2 to 1.4 Wm–2 K–1 for the cloud feedback parameter. This conclusion is reached by considering a plausible range for unknown contributions by processes yet to be accounted for, in addition to those occurring in current climate models. The cloud feedback remains the most uncertain radiative feedback in climate models.

    The fact is that the UN IPCC really wants to pin everything on human greenhouse gas emissions but hasn’t been able to come up with the actual proof. So instead they hope they can stumble along for a while with half-truths and mild correlations, still getting their research grants and funding until governments around the world have committed to their eco agendas which they rightiously believe in, before we all discover the truth.

    [—————‘The Conversation’ has now opened ‘Human role in climate change now virtually certain: leaked IPCC report’ for comment. This was closed last night. So we wonder if this has been opened in response to feedback from here and other places? – Mod]

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    • #
      ExWarmist

      I wonder how much of the rest of climate change is accounted for by the largely unstudied internal variability of the climate system?

      Is the solar variation the main forcing, setting basic direction, with internal variation accounting for the rest, with the boundaries of the climate system set by other factors which are very consistent over time such as orbits?

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    • #
      Jaymez

      Well lets see how long my comments at ‘The Conversation’ survive ‘moderation’ now that comments have been opened up.

      40

      • #
        Jaymez

        Well that didn’t last long, ‘The Conversation’ have closed the article to comments.

        So it wasn’t even open for a full day. It was curious that the article was written by an Editor of ‘The Conversation’, and the article was not an academic article, it did not ad to or debate academic knowledge, it was really just an anti Dr Alec Rawls speil. This is in complete contradiction to ‘The Convesation’s’ charter https://theconversation.edu.au/our_charter paramount of which is:

        “Provide a fact-based and editorially-independent forum, free of commercial or political bias.”.

        How is a clearly politically motivated, one sided article written by the editor seen to be ‘editorially independent’?

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        • #
          Roy Hogue

          How is a clearly politically motivated, one sided article written by the editor seen to be ‘editorially independent’?

          The same way AGW is seen to be real — you can do anything if you ignore the elephant in the room.

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    AndyG55

    They have left themselves nowhere to go if Earth’s response to the sleepy Sun is cooling.

    They will end up with much egg on face !!! 🙂 🙂

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      Apoxonbothyourhouses

      No eggs on their faces at least not in their minds. For them this is “faith” or cause and because they have their God on their side logical argument / scientific facts are immaterial. Opposition needs to be silenced (Monkton’s visit is an example) so that we can be shown the light and be saved. As with all fanatics the rules get suspended; lies and deception are justified so that we, the great unwashed, can be led to their form of salvation. Earnest scientific data has never, will never and can never change the minds of of AGW priests.

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        ExWarmist

        Given that reversion of the meme has already happened once in the 1970s given the shift from man made global cooling to global warming – why not again.

        When Green Chickens Come Home To Roost.

        Somewhere in the western world (NH), sometime in 2028…

        FADE IN.

        OUTSIDE: EARLY EVENING – NOVEMBER.

        – A weary group of men and women, chained into a gang, trudge along a city road. Their guards carry rifles, and short whips. A light dusting of snow is falling.

        – They pass a Primary (Elementary) school where the teachers and students have assembled to watch them pass. The Principle of the school turns and faces the assembled children and staff and raises her arms.

        Principle: (Stern Encouragement) “Now children all as one – Sceptics are Septics”.

        Assembled Children and Staff: (Chanting) “Sceptics are Septics… Sceptics are Septics… Sceptics are Septics…”

        – Some of the chained people steal glances at the children.

        Guard: “Eyes Front!”

        – The guard smashes his whip across the face of one of the chained men and bright blood splashes onto the snow.

        – One of the schoolchildren breaks ranks and staggers forward through the snow.

        Schoolboy: (Falteringly Disbelief) “That’s my Dad!?”

        – The principle turns abruptly towards the boy and signals to green frocked School Proctors, who leap forward and grab the boy before he can reach the road.

        – The struck man slumps to the ground, barely conscious, the man chained next to him takes his arm and drags him to his feet.

        Principle: (Outraged) “Shocking behaviour. Samuel Taylor – A months detention. Proctors remove him to the holding room.”

        – The proctors drag the boy away.

        Assembled Children and Staff: (Continue Chanting) “Sceptics are Septics… Sceptics are Septics… Sceptics are Septics…”

        – Two school cleaners stand quietly to the side of the assembly, not being teaching staff or students they are not required to join in. They talk quietly together.

        Cleaner One: “I’m not sure that your right about quantum fluctuations in N-Space?”

        Cleaner Two: “You have to consider the underlying space time continuum as a 10 dimensional space foam on the planck scale.”

        Cleaner One: “Do you miss the research at MIT?”

        Cleaner Two: “Of course – but at least I’m able to feed my little girl. – and what choice did I have, Particle Physics isn’t Environmental Science is it.”

        Cleaner One: “Same with Nuclear Engineering – now that all the reactors have been shut down – there’s just no more work for a PHD in Engineering in my field.”

        – Cleaner Two nods towards the steadily moving chain gang.

        Cleaner Two: “Still it’s better than what that lot are facing.”

        Cleaner One: “Which is?”

        Cleaner Two: “5 Years Hard Labour in the Pig Methane Plant.”

        Cleaner One: “Shovel Pig manure for 18 hours a day and get fed…”

        Cleaner Two: “Which would you prefer – that – or the alternative?”

        – Cleaner one shivered from more than the cold, and drew his coat more tightly around his thin frame.

        Cleaner One: “The fertiliser plant – but that’s just for capital crimes isn’t it?”

        Cleaner Two: “Apparently “Carbon Denial” is set to become a capital crime – rumour has it, that it’s to be the next Presidential Emergency Directive.”

        Cleaner One: (Quietly) “Oh my god… what have we become?”

        – Cleaner Two nods silently in agreement.

        – The Principle signals a halt to her students and staff.

        Principle: (Smug) “Now everyone – we have todays new mantra, lets chant it together for the benefit of these poor deluded people.”

        All: (Chanting in practised unison) “Man Made CO2 Causes Global Cooling… Man Made CO2 Causes Global Cooling… Man Made CO2 Causes Global Cooling…”

        FADE OUT.

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          Crakar24

          Funny how the warmbots dont join in right from the start, they wait until the first couple of OT posts appear and then start throwing darts about obscure things but they never rationally debate anyone about the main topic do they.

          So i have a question to ask in advance to any warmbot who dares to answer.

          Let us accept what the IPCC are once again saying and the sun plays little if any role in climate what on Earth is responsible for the lack of warming even though CO2 levels have gone through the roof?

          One at a time please there is no need to rush.

          Cheers

          Waiting patiently

          Crakar24

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            Heywood

            Also funny that your post attracted a thumbs down. Obviously they are circling, but are waiting for their sanctioned answers to be provided before posting.

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          • #
            Crakar24

            Ha ha you just got one as well.

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            Streetcred

            They’re circling waiting for a place to land their template answers … I did a stats exam like that in the 70’s, missed too many lectures due to good surf conditions so just memorised the formula and fitted the data to the formula … funny, isn’t that how they do “climate science” ?

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            Heywood

            Yep. Within five minutes of me hitting “Post Comment”.

            I’ll wear it like a badge of honour.

            As I said, they are hovering…

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            ExWarmist

            I got a thumbs down and no comment.

            Art critics are also everywhere…

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          Andrew McRae

          That’s great. I inadvertently converted it into a Tarantino-style movie by starting in the middle then after the “end” I skipped back to the start to see how it all began.
          It was almost better that way because it “started” with the political satire and culminates with the more human element.

          Perhaps that is why the out-of-order sequencing is used for movies. The order in which the emotions are best delivered does not align with the chronological order of their triggering events, so the story is presented out of order to maximise the emotional experience, particularly of the feeling of discovery.

          Bah, everyone’s a critic.

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          Geoff Sherrington

          While in agreement with your sentiments, you are showing your educational period by wrong spelling of “Principle” and “your” for “you’re” in “…that your right about quantum….” Also, from the start, “A weary group of men and women, chained into a gang, trudge along a city road.” It being a singular gang, the correct verb is “trudges”.
          Now, with much apology, I know that I make many typos, so I am being unfairly critical. However, it is a good aim to continue personal improvement. It gains more credibility for you. Sometimes I make purposeful errors, like spelling “eror”, because I think it causes people to re-read sometimes. That’s more for self-referential fun, like “This sentence no verb”.
          My children were trained to count with sticks and allowed to spell inaccurately, so long as the meaning was conveyed. I fear for the generational effect of teachers with loose standards teaching youngsters who will become teachers with more loose standards. In a way, this effect is a problem with climate science. I’m struggling through AR5 leaked from IPCC and there are many scientific sins of omission, such as stressing warming and downplaying cooling, as though the principal aim is convey the rough sense of a message – when the devil is in the detail. Don’t take this email badly, it’s meant to help.

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          Otter

          Would you mind very much, if I posted this piece up elsewhere? (And do you have your own blog?)

          10

    • #
      Roy Hogue

      They will end up with much egg on face !!! 🙂 🙂

      Andy,

      If they do have egg on their faces they’ll just claim it’s some new kind of shaving cream or sunburn lotion and go right on into the next rationalization. They may be short on honesty. But they’ve no shortage of creativity. 🙂

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    Rereke Whakaaro

    Sherwood’s response is to consider only one possible mechanism of solar amplification. He looks at the evidence for Henrik Svensmark’s proposed GCR-cloud mechanism and judges that the forcing effect from this particular mechanism would be small, then concludes that a greater role for the sun in global warming is “ridiculous.”

    I have always admired Henrik Svensmark’s work. As far as I am aware, he is the only scientist to have empirically demonstrated a link between the amount of cosmic radiation reaching the upper atmosphere, and cloud formation. He certainly caused Stephen Schneider to become apoplectic when he learnt that Svensmark had succeeded in demonstrating that cosmic rays could seed cloud formation, under laboratory conditions.

    In fact, I am not aware of any other scientist of the modern (post computer model) era, to have conducted actual experiments in investigating the climate mechanisms.

    The rest is just observation, measurement, interpretation, homogenisation, adjustment, and theory.

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    • #
      ExWarmist

      WRT to Stephen Schneider,

      This quote of his bears well on the current post…

      “To capture the public imagination, we have to offer up some scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements and little mention of any doubts one might have. Each of us has to decide the right balance between being effective, and being honest.”

      – Leading greenhouse advocate, Dr Stephen Schneider
      ( in interview for “Discover” magagzine, Oct 1989)

      From

      Obviously, Sherwood above is choosing “effective” over “honest” from the Schneider playbook.

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    Alec Rawls, I so agree with you. Now is the time for all HONEST scientists involved to step forward. I so hope they do. This is the chance for them to shine, to show their worth and to go down in history for making the courageous choice to stand tall and to say, “No more. This is where we draw the line.”

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    • #
      Debbie

      These people are employees. They are paid to fill their job descriptions. They can’t afford honesty and ethics.
      I agree they should step forward but they probably can’t afford it.
      This problem is political.
      I think we need to make our politicians fix it?
      I think we need to focus on the senior bureaucrats and the political PR depts don’t we?
      It is very sad that decent, hard working people have been totally compromised.
      It is also very sad that the general population do not understand the difference between ‘science’ and ’employed scientist’.
      Just like any other ’employee’ they are paid to do a job.
      Full marks to Rawls for stepping up and choosing to point out that dichotomy. It takes courage to speak out against ‘the establishment’. He, along with Jo and others obviously has courage.

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      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        I think we need to focus on the senior bureaucrats and the political PR depts don’t we?

        Yes, and we are.

        The problem with propaganda is that it is rarely consistent, even in totalitarian regimes. That inconsistency creates material problems that need to be treated.

        The best treatment, even if it risks ultimately killing the patient, is the truth. We are killing the patient one truth at a time.

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        • #
          Debbie

          Definitely is the best treatment Rereke.
          Just a shame that far too many people are compromised by their job description.

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        • #
          Winston

          I think we would be better served with a facebook or similar social media campaign focussing on what amounts to a cunningly implemented wealth distribution stream from Gen X and Y to the BB generation ruling classes.

          This is to be achieved via wantonly increasing global sovereign debt (which is de facto, delayed “taxation” of future and younger generations), carbon taxation (taxing tech dependent and energy intensive youth >> the diminishing energy requirements of the retiring aged boomers, & also energy reliant families >> childless couples), future energy rationing (reducing future generation earning capacity through restricted access to wealth generating, energy dependent work and industry), plus proposed restriction of personal freedoms (eg, to travel, to farm, to commute to work, to accumulate the trappings of wealth, etc,etc) through Agenda 21 sustainability programs, which will impact almost exclusively and increasingly on those 35 and under.

          Knowledge transfer to this demographic, framed in this way that this is an attack on them personally, their future aspirations and economic prospects (which it is) will kill this thing stone dead if the message can be spread far and wide- of course, if global cooling doesn’t do it for us first.

          60

          • #
            ExWarmist

            I think that some people are already playing with strategies around exploiting intergenerational class warfare.

            That’s a dangerous path for a society to go down – doesn’t mean that it is not already happening.

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          • #
            Geoff Sherrington

            Careful Winston – those who wish to over regulate others provide plans and methods that can be turned against them. Similarly, never promote a new tax – you might end up wearing it.
            However, I do agree that Agenda 21 is rather nasty, more advanced than commonly thought and privately supported by many powerful people. It’s the big bogeyman in my book. I feel qite ill at the mention of United Nations police enforcement at Doha – or at any supposedly friendly venue. There are enough police without the UN having their own for civil duties. There could well be a tipping point in employment where there are more regulators, legislators, promoters, swindlers, enforcers, taxi drivers and judiciary than there are ordinary citizens upon whom they can work.

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          • #
            Roy Hogue

            However, I do agree that Agenda 21 is rather nasty, more advanced than commonly thought and privately supported by many powerful people. It’s the big bogeyman in my book. I feel qite ill at the mention of United Nations police enforcement at Doha – or at any supposedly friendly venue.

            You echo me exactly. The problem now is how to stop it. And by “it” I mean the United Nations. We need some kind of political muscle and we don’t have it.

            How do we gain any real traction? Anyone…

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    • #
      Andrew McRae

      “I want you all of you to get up now out of your chairs…
      …go to the window and open it and stick your head out and yell I’M AS MAD AS HELL AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANY MORE!

      Some civil class actions for negligence and a few charges of statutory fraud should be enough to scare the rest into one of two responses: recant or escalate. The escalations will be even easier to nail than now.

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    ExWarmist

    Alec Rawls says…

    Sherwood is trying to use theory—his dissatisfaction with a particular theory of how solar amplification might work—to dismiss the evidence that some mechanism of solar amplification must be at work. The bad professor is inverting the scientific method, which requires that evidence always trump theory. If evidence gives way to theory it is not science. It is anti-science. It is the exact opposite of science.

    Perhaps KR would care to comment on the inversion of the scientific method in this instance, and the meaning of the term bastardized when applied to the use of the scientific method by the warmist community.

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    • #
      ExWarmist

      KR also says here

      as an example of CAGW falsification criteria…

      * You could show that there was a forcing change other than greenhouse gases that explained temperature changes over the last 150 years (see Meehl et al 2004).

      Given that we now have from the UN IPCC SOD…

      Many empirical relationships have been reported between GCR or cosmogenic isotope archives and some aspects of the climate system (e.g., Bond et al., 2001; Dengel et al., 2009; Ram and Stolz, 1999). The forcing from changes in total solar irradiance alone does not seem to account for these observations, implying the existence of an amplifying mechanism such as the hypothesized GCR-cloud link. We focus here on observed relationships between GCR and aerosol and cloud properties.

      and from the body of the blog post above…

      Dozens of studies have found between a .4 and .7 degree of correlation between solar activity and various climate indices going back many thousands of years, meaning that solar activity “explains” in the statistical sense something like half of all past temperature change (citations at the link above).

      What does KR think?

      Does a “forcing from changes in total solar irradiance alone does not seem to account for these observations, implying the existence of an amplifying mechanism” qualify as “forcing change other than greenhouse gases”.

      At the very least this implies a reduced climate sensitivity to green house gases.

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      • #
        ExWarmist

        To the person who gave me a thumbs down, are you at all capable of an effective refutation of what I said?

        I will take your silence as evidence that you are not capable of refuting what I have said, and that you can only click a mouse button to show your illfounded displeasure that the world does not conform to your immature and narcissistic expectations of what the world should be.

        I hope that you continue to take pleasure in being powerless to engage in a reasoned and rational argument with another human being, as you are not likely to experience much real pleasure in a life without reason or rationality.

        Or you could grow up.

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  • #
    Doug Cotton

    Please see this comment as my response to this article and comments above.

    Doug Cotton
    Sydney
     

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    […] Sherwood is Australian, it seemed a visit Down Under was due, so Jo Nova and I teamed up to issue a reply on her […]

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  • #

    […] [Dec. 16, 6:11 p.m. | Updated | Alec Rawls and the Australian climate blogger Joanne Nova have posted rebuttals of those criticizing Rawls' read of the panel's solar findings.]But there’s plenty of […]

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    It would be good if they changed their forcing chart to include water vapour. I am sure it would put all the others in perspective

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    Andrew McRae

    Thank you.

    Solar activity was at “grand maximum” levels from 1920 to 2000 (Usoskin 2007). Might this explain a substantial part of the unexceptional warming of the 20th century? Note also that, with the sun having since dropped into a state of profound quiescence, the solar-warming theory can also explain the lack of 21st century warming while the CO2-warming theory cannot.

    It is refreshing to see the state of the evidence retold so concisely.

    With regards to concern about GCR, I did not know there was much ambiguity about it, especially after seeing graphs from Shaviv and Svensmark. Is there much more data available not shown there which leaves room for doubt about the connection?

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  • #

    The “some” that is missing from the discussion is the variable fission rate of 2 million cubic miles of Uranium and Thorium in the Earth’s high temperature, high pressure, molten rock mantle. The “total” of TSI does not vary much, but the spectrum of output and the quantity of solar particles sure does. Varying GCR and solar particle bombardments causes variations in the Earth’s fission and therefore fissions two by-products, heat and elemental atoms. Most elemental atoms quickly form elemental molecules. The defect in Svensmark’s GCR-cloud hypothesis is the source of the 3 micron SOx feedstock necessary for the atmospheric 3 > 50 micron nucleation. Variable fission solves this problem and links climate and tectonic variations. Radon gas is one of the elemental atom formed ONLY from fission and has a half-life of only 3.8 days. Radon levels spike in monitoring wells prior to Earthquakes. Earth’s themostat is controlled by solar and galactic particle bombardments and NOT by your backyard barbie.

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    • #
      Geoff Sherrington

      Faux Science Slayer,
      For a few years I did experiments on radon-222 and I would not give a 10/10 for your inferences. I have never seen a paper where Rn-222 is enhanced by irradiation, though I might infer it happened in Gabon a long long time ago. It is the natural daughter of Ra-226 whose decay constant is well known and considered invariate for periods covered by climate studies. If you make an analogy to an atomic pile, an external force or effect that increases the fission rate takes some time to work its way down the radioactive decay series. Also, there are several mechanisms in the literature about earthquake formation. Some do not need a mention of radon. Radon levels spike in monitoring wells each day, probably. I don’t think we know all about all.
      Do you have references demonstrating significant increases in the flux of neutrons or other relevant particles from the core through the surface from time to time? If they can’t make it to the surface, they can’t nucleate. Interesting, but needs more development.

      30

    • #
      Mnestheus

      Don’t forget the vital role of spinach.

      00

  • #

    […] Alec Rawls takes to task the anti-science from Sherwood at the University of NSW, one reason that forced his hand in publishing the IPCC final draft report for AR5: UPDATE9: 2PM PST 12/16/12 A rebuttal to Steven Sherwood and the solar forcing pundits of the IPCC AR5 draft leak […]  on WUWT, with help from Joanne Nova. Keep reading  → […]

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    Crakar24

    This is an interesting development, the IPCC have been handed a golden “get out of jail” opportunity. They could have used this new evidence to explain why they had got it so wrong over the years. Of course the down side would mean a revision of all predictions and projections to the negative, a lessoning of their vice like grip on the stupid pollies and along with it a lessoning of power.

    However they choose to ignore this new evidence and have decided to “stay the course” but for how long can they do this. The sun will only get quieter during SC25 and the delayed effects of a quiet sun will begin to emerge over the next couple of decades dropping temps even more.

    I suspect they know the truth and have so for a very long time, their reasoning may be that by the time the simpletons know they have been duped it will be too late.

    Only a moron could possible still believe what the IPCC say and unfortunately the place is full of them.

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    • #
      ExWarmist

      Crakar24 says…

      I suspect they know the truth and have so for a very long time, their reasoning may be that by the time the simpletons know they have been duped it will be too late.

      The UN IPCC and their Governors in the UN FCCC, believe that they have already secured the necessary bureaucratic legislation to secure their agendas into the future. I suspect that they are wrong, and that their belief is based in hubris.

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      • #
        Crakar24

        Exwarmist,

        I even got a thumbs down but alas no rebuttle just a thumbs down i guess the moron did not like my comment. LOL

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          Streetcred

          I’ll bet it’s JB … he’s (been) too hammered to try text.

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          • #
            ExWarmist

            It’s almost Christmas…

            End of the working year…

            I’ll soon be too hammered to type text…

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          • #
            memoryvault

            End of the working year…

            I’ll soon be too hammered to type text…

            Your problem Ex, is you don’t get in enough practice throughout the rest of the year.

            .
            I have a glass of wine every night for my health.
            The other dozen or so are to keep me in shape for the festive season.

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          • #
            Geoff Sherrington

            I’ve copped a few singles lately too. sometimes for very mild comments of little consequence. I put it down to an ageing Chinese reader who still thinks that red, the colour of the revolution, is good and desrves a tick.

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          • #
            Mark

            I’m so pleased the wine is for medicinal purposes, MV!

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        • #
          ExWarmist

          My working assumption for comment free thumbs down is that the person (or bot?…) does not like what they read, but really does not know why, or how to respond, rebut, or refute the points being made in any sort of effective way.

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          • #
            AndyG55

            Yep, that is the obvious assuption.

            They know what you posted is the truth, and they don’t like it. 🙂

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          • #
            Mattb

            Let me suggest I hve the highest ratio of thumbs down to comments on my posts, so quit yer whinging.

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          • #
            Overseasinsider

            Matt, That’s because you make idiotic statements and refuse to think for yourself. You regurgitate warmist propaganda as “gospel” without thinking.

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            Otter

            Brooksie beat you out by a full magnitude in a recent posting here, mattie. Over 130 thumbs down and climbing. Perhaps if you were to be even more inane than you already are…

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          Roy Hogue

          Crakar,

          Don’t sweat it. I gave you a compensating thumbs up as I do many times in such cases – just for the fun of it.

          20

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      Winston

      They are hoping against hope that the “global warming” will resume, giving them the opportunity to ramp up the rhetoric once again. They base that hope upon the presumption that natural global average temperature will continue changing in a positive direction as it has for the last couple of hundred years since the LIA. Probably thought it was a pretty safe bet for temps to keep rising, even irrespective of CO2 being the culprit.

      But, since they have adjusted and tweaked the data till it is screaming (and have nowhere left to go), and possibly the sun has done a runner on them at least temporarily, they are adopting the stonewalling tactics used to great effect by our current PM, in the hope that something might change and they can avoid recriminations as a result. If the globe cools alarmingly, they may have alot of questions to answer, and the question of financial culpability comes into play. I’d be very worried if I were them, because the politicians will be looking for a scapegoat.

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      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        Winston

        If the globe cools alarmingly, they may have alot of questions to answer …

        I doubt it. They will just revert back to the 1970’s play-book, which was all about “The coming Ice Age”.

        They have considered the possibility that the warming period would suddenly end. Which is why it is now officially, “climate change”, instead of “global warming”. That shift in message happened over the course of a single week, which was a sure sign that it was orchestrated. Nothing unplanned, happens that fast.

        ,,, the politicians will be looking for a scapegoat …

        The UN is staffed by politicians, or rather ex-politicians. It is the ultimate goal on the political career path. Tenure for life, on a salary that is higher than most Presidents and Prime Ministers receive. The politicians are not going to rock that particular boat too much.

        On the other side of the deal, this arrangement is where the UN ultimately gets its power to influence national politics. They make people offers that are difficult to refuse.

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          Crakar24

          By the way RW (wrong thread i know) but the true definition of an expert is ‘A man who has made every mistake possible in a very narrow field”.

          Cheers

          Crakar

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          • #
            Rereke Whakaaro

            Well I guess that makes me an expert in several fields.

            Although I have to admit that there appears to be an infinite number of mistakes one can make in any field you care to name. This is a hypothesis that I have spent a lifetime exploring. 🙂

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        • #
          ExWarmist

          RW makes a very plausible case.

          The language is now pretty rubbery about what is “climate change”. The current media blitzes seem to be aimed at making every little storm an omen of global doom, which is in contrast to the official reports.

          I suspect that the media barrage is becoming counterproductive and producing fatigue in belief in CAGW, where people just shut off about it. CAGW is considered to be a very boring topic at BBQs…

          Something else that is possibly working against the CAGW zealots (but not necessarily their masters) are the current world wide financial/monetary issues. If things get bad enough, especially at the sovereign debt level, the CAGW money train may well be thrown under the bus, or (worse) you will see a doubling down on the global doom threat to scare even more tax out of the remaining productive people.

          Note that the UN has no independent source of funding and if push comes to shove – it may well be defunded, or expanded. At this point I see either possibility.

          Timeframes for a shakeout – 2 to 10 years, i.e. I don’t see the current, broken, global finacial/monetary status quo lasting on the current life support for longer than ten years.

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          Geoff Sherrington

          Rereke 1:48 pm Would you go so far as to say that the UN has created a breed of person able to provide information to the rich, to make them richer, with the understanding of a reward in retirement? Several very large frauds are beng exposed right now. (I’m pleased by this – I tipped some of them 3-4 years ago).
          Would you also say that this breed is close to the definition of a typical politician from the smart set? I know some politicians who are not like this and I do not seek to offend them.

          The rate of defection from the establishment is slower than I would have predicted. I suspect that this inertia might be caused by unfilled expectations of brown paper bags, if only one can hold out. In the meantime, the very rich at the top of the pyramid have to find another pyramid to milk and that takes time, a decade or more, so they are not withdrawing en masse. It’s a stalemate. My bet is that there will not be much change of inertia until the main players have aged and passed on to incarceration or deeper places. In the shorter term, put your money on a large expansion in recreational drug supply as the first fall-back as CAGW goes under plus an increase in arms sales to minor wars.

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    I have just written a post on this, and have tried to convert the points made by Alec in a simple form that laymen can understand. In other words, I would like to make the argument a little more accessible and ‘digestible’….

    http://newzealandclimatechange.wordpress.com/2012/12/17/the-leaked-ipcc-report-the-suns-influence/

    However, as someone who is not familiar with the details of the forcings science, I may have it wrong. Comments on the post would be welcome, in particular, if I have it wrong. There are many who post here will understand this question better than me, and corrections/amplifications etc. would be welcome.

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    […] has provided a rebuttal of the critiques. It is long, and I believe quite complex, and can be found here. As such, I thought I would have a go at simplifying the point that he is making (in as simple […]

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    john robertson

    Was it not just last year the UN was seeking immunity from prosecution for those who contribute to the IPCC workings?
    Every time I discuss this craziness with my nonpolitical neighbour, he waits a bit, then asks, “When do we shoot”?
    The boys from, we are here to help you we’re from the government, will have to answer for their involvement in this fiasco.
    Any guesses who the first scapegoats will be?
    Politician, I was misled by my science adviser.
    Bureaucrat , I was misled by the scientists.
    Scientist ????? ?Who you gonna blame?
    Gave ’em all they asked for and you’re the first thrown to the wolves. Welcome to politics.

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      John, you are so right! You’ve raised a point that should be put to good use. These bogus/bought scientists are in it now for the money, and they will indeed be thrown under the bus by their “masters” when the brown stuff hits the fan. I wonder how many of them realize that they will be made scapegoats in all this?

      Maybe we should all hammer the point home and make sure they fully know that “climate scientists” will be held accountable, it’s “climate scientists” who will do jail time. Every one of their “masters” will be pointing the finger directly at them! Oh, they will NOT be happy boys and girls when that day arrives. Maybe they should take the hint and bail out while they can. Better still, they should do some of that finger pointing, themselves. A few confessions wouldn’t go amiss, either, and might just make the world a better place.

      Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m optimistic, that’s all. Seriously, though, they should think about doing it. I’m sure they have enough imagination to look ahead and see what’s in store for them otherwise.

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        Rereke Whakaaro

        I am sure that a few of the Scientists have covered themselves by having copies of all correspondence held in escrow by a legal firm.

        One only hopes that they haven’t chosen a firm that the Australian Prime Minister has had any contact with.

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          Sonny

          Delusional!!!!
          The scientists will be the LAST to be thrown in jail.
          It’s all of the deniers an dissidents that will be locked away or worse.

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    Alice Thermopolis

    CONVERSATION OR CLIQUE?

    Profile of Ms Sunanda Creagh, author/interviewer of this post:

    “Before joining The Conversation as News Editor, Sunanda Creagh worked for two years as a political and general news correspondent in the Reuters Jakarta bureau. Prior to that, she worked for five years as a reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald, where she covered general news, urban affairs, arts, features and sport. She also produced and presented a show for Sydney community radio station, 2SER fm.”

    This site brands itself as having “academic rigour, journalistic flair”. It sure has plenty of the latter, but not much of the former, at least in this instance.

    The Conversation permits regular breaches of its own “community standards”, defends its self-declared “experts”, permits a constant stream of abusive multi-post replies from “debunkers”, discourages “conversation”; etc.

    Meanwhile, the site’s founding partners, which include UWA, allow it all to go on.

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      Jaymez

      Per my comment @ #10.2.1

      It seems Sunanda lost her nerve as they have closed the post for further comments. It was open for less that a day while many others remain open over a week!

      Perhaps she was disappointed she didn’t get covered in the praise and adulation she had hoped for from academics? The only supportive comments came from people who think Lewandowsky and Sherwood are the epitomy of scientific propriety and that Santa will be coming down the non existent chimney on Christmas Eve.

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    Man Bearpig

    The models are NOT wrong. The real world is wrong and that is final.

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    janama

    ABC clique in control of climate

    BY: MAURICE NEWMAN From: The Australian December 18, 2012 12:00AM

    LAST month in this newspaper, I wrote an irreverent piece, “Losing Their Religion As Evidence Cools Off”, illustrating how the global warming establishment was like a religion, replete with the structure, scripture and financial resources required to promote a faith-based movement and how it is losing disciples as the truth wears off.

    I don’t know about other readers, but at the ABC, for those with the religion it hit a nerve.

    On November 24, Robyn Williams intoned to his audience on ABC’s The Science Show, “if I told you that pedophilia is good for children, or asbestos is an excellent inhalant for those with asthma, or, that smoking crack is a normal part and a healthy one of teenage life, you’d rightly find it outrageous. Similar statements are coming out of inexpert mouths again and again, distorting the science”. My article was given as an example of an anti-scientific position.

    Really? Questioning climate science is like advocating pedophilia, abetting mesothelioma and pushing drugs to teenagers? Well yes, according to the ABC’s science man. Stephan Lewandowsky, a guest on the program, asserted that those with a free market background were, according to his research, more likely to be sceptical of science. As well as climate science, “they are also rejecting the link between smoking and lung cancer; they are rejecting the link between HIV and AIDS”, the professor said. Happily, it was extremely difficult to detect people on the “Left side of politics who are rejecting scientific evidence”.

    Williams confirmed that after “a learned lecture” by one of the world’s most famous scientists, bankers remained unconvinced.

    So there you have it. No more proof needed. Free marketers, bankers and science contrarians are simply despicable flat earthers. Best to keep away from them.

    Ordinarily it should be unnecessary to object to such appalling commentary. It should have been automatically withdrawn. But no. An ABC response used sophistry to satisfy itself “that the presenter Robyn Williams did not equate climate change sceptics to pedophiles”. Tell that to his listeners.

    Global warming is today more about politics than it is about science. If flawed evidence fails, coercion and character assassination is deployed. No slur is too vicious, nor, as we saw with the BBC’s 2006 seminar of the “best scientific experts”, which despite strenuous attempts to resist freedom of information requests were finally revealed to be mainly NGOs and journalists, no deceit is too great.

    Lubos Motl, a climate commentator and string theory physicist, said about the ABC’s Science Show: “We used to hear some remotely similar (Czech) propaganda programs until 1989 … but the public radio and TV simply can’t produce programs that would be this dishonest, manipulative, hateful and insulting any more”.

    This is not the first time I have provoked the public wrath of the ABC’s climate change clique, but it is the first time I have publicly responded to it. It is important that I do.

    In March 2010 as chairman, I addressed an in-house conference of 250 ABC leaders. In a speech titled “Trust is the future of the ABC”, I asked, “how might we ensure in our newsrooms we celebrate those who interrogate every truth?” I lamented the mainstream media’s role as an effective gatekeeper. It was too conformist and had missed the warning signs of financial failure. I blamed group think and used climate change as an example. My mistake was to mention climate change.

    While most company chairs would find the tenor of my talk unremarkable, Jonathon Holmes, the presenter of Media Watch, was so angry “he could not concentrate”. He found it an inappropriate forum for such remarks. I was interviewed by PM and teased as to whether I was a “climate change denier or not as obvious as that?” As a further censure, that night Tony Jones read a statement on Lateline saying: “Tonight, ABC management responded to Mr Newman’s speech, saying it stands by the integrity of its journalists and its processes.”

    Journalistic integrity? Encouraging the leadership to achieve higher standards is to question its integrity? Surely wanting to improve performance is an elementary objective for any organisation, but rather than take on board the challenges I outlined, management decided to put a distance between us.

    Holmes (“ABC Bias – Fact or Fiction”, The Spectator Australia, December 1, 2012) says ABC staff may, in certain circumstances, see the editor-in-chief’s interventions as interference. This describes an organisational culture not fully at home with authority and criticism.

    ABC editorial policies require a diversity of perspectives to be presented so that “over time no significant strand or belief is knowingly excluded or disproportionately represented”. They also speak of “a balance that follows the weight of evidence”. But who does the weighing? Who re-weights and when? Or is it set and forget?

    We have seen the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change discredited. We know the science is less robust. And, for the past 16 years, mother nature has been kind to the sceptics. Because Williams says the entire globe is threatened in a way that is pretty dire doesn’t make it so. Yet the “weight of evidence” argument is often used as a licence to vilify holders of alternative views. As a taxpayer-funded organisation, the ABC shouldn’t even have a view on global warming. What it does have is a duty to all Australians to broadcast honestly the best available evidence on both sides of the argument so that we can make up our own minds. This is not happening.

    I retain a deep affection for the ABC. But, like the BBC, there are signs that a small but powerful group has captured the corporation, at least on climate change.

    It is up to the board and management to rectify this.

    Maurice Newman is a former chairman of the ABC

    LINK

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      Jaymez

      Rick Morton at ‘The Australian’ took up the story here:

      This is what the ex-chairman of the ABC has to say about the publicly funded Broadcaster:

      “…. had been “captured” by a “small but powerful” group of people when it came to climate change groupthink”

      “The ABC is not being frank and open about the way global warming is portrayed on its various platforms, although the sense of imbalance is becoming more overt, I feel.”

      In a segment where ABC science editor Robyn Williams and Psychologist cum Climate alarmist Stephan Lewandowsky used analogies likening climate sceptics to recommending paedophilia or drugs or to believing in the earth being flat, the ABC considered it was all fair enough and within their editorial guidlines. WTF!

      Robyn Williams is the same science editor who ran at least one radio program in the 1970’s about the impending ice age due to human industrialisation.

      More recently he told Andrew Bolt that sea levels could rise as much as 100 metres when even the IPCC’s own forecast for the end of this century is 59 centimetres.

      Stephan Lewandowsky is the psychologist who praised those who were sceptical of Governments wanting to invade Iraq, only to now tell us that only conspiracy theorists tend to be sceptical.

      Thankfully neither of these two or the ABC has been able to convince the rest of the world of their 100% certainty though. Recently we seen many governments bale out of Kyoto and refuse to consider any binding committments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It is only the fools running the EU, Australia and a handful of countries representing a diminishing part of the globes industrialisation who have been silly enough to swallow the climate catastrophe madness without proof.

      The results in Doha prove that far from being Robinson Crusoes, climate sceptics are in the majority around the world and the ABC is living in an alternative universe.

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    Andrew McRae

    More psychologists weighing in on the Climate non-Debate:
    US science doubters say world warming up

    Nearly four out of five Americans now think temperatures are rising and that global warming will be a serious problem for the United States if nothing is done about it, a new Associated Press-GfK poll finds.

    Within that highly sceptical group, 61 per cent now say temperatures have been rising over the past 100 years. That’s a substantial increase from 2009, when the AP-GfK poll found that only 47 per cent of those with little or no trust in scientists believed the world was getting warmer.

    Krosnick, who consulted with The Associated Press on the poll questions, said the changes the poll shows aren’t in the hardcore “anti-warming” deniers, but in the next group, who had serious doubts. “They don’t believe what the scientists say, they believe what the thermometers say,” Krosnick said. “Events are helping these people see what scientists thought they had been seeing all along.”

    Among scientists who write about the issue in peer-reviewed literature, the belief in global warming is about 97 per cent, according to a 2010 scientific study.

    So there you go, the AAP is a totally unbiased news agency, belief is reality, don’t argue with authority, 97% of 75 scientists couldn’t be wrong, and if you believe in a warming globe you must believe in “global warming”.

    *yawn*

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    gai

    The IPCC was never about studying the climate so very little actual research on the variables effecting climate has been done over the last decades.

    The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 1988 to assess the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant for the understanding of human induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for mitigation and adaptation.
    http://www.ipcc-wg2.gov/

    It was always about pinning the blame of climate change on humans from the get go.

    The really nasty part is, because the focus has always been on MAn/CO2 and only MAN/CO2, the variations in the climate that can not be easily assigned to another cause all get lumped under CO2 on the theory that we know ALL the variables and their contribution so anything left over is caused by MAN/CO2.

    That is why the graph at the top of the page has such a long bar for CO2. The bar should be labeled CO2 and all the unknowns but they are not about to admit that.

    This is what Alec Rawls means by the “Omitted Variable Fraud”

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    Omniphogos

    The heart of the hoax is that the elitist omitted variable fraud curve points to Mecca, center of the islamofascist CAGW religion exposed by Rawls brilliant campaign to save the Flight 93 memorial from Ground Zero chemtrails denialists.

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    dp

    In the title you misspelled “perverting” but an otherwise fine article.

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    […] JoNova and I blogged last weekend, this ploy inverts the scientific method, using theory (dissatisfaction with […]

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    Shaun

    His response is not an appeal to authority. He’s saying that parts of the chapter have been taken out of context and used to misrepresent what was being said. His reference to the same chapter, in the same report. He’s saying read it all in context.

    Asking for people to read something in the full context it was written is not an appeal to authority.

    If you misrepresent something like that you just weaken your own argument.

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    […] After updating that post with a link to Nuccitelli, Revkin updated again later with a link to the rebuttal that Jo Nova and I wrote about Seven Sherwood. Thanks Andrew, for being an actual […]

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