Ivar Giaevar
The guys at Popular Tech have done a Very Nice List. They’ve put together seven names of eminent scientists who are skeptical of man-made climate catastrophe, along with their stellar biographies and quotes. It tells us nothing about the climate, but before you write it off as just a fallacious appeal to authority, ponder that these eminent people are the same people that teenage tree-huggers would call “deniers”.
To see just how mindlessly puerile “denier” is, try the thought experiment of putting those-who-use-it in the same room as one of the more notable “deniers”.
Julia Gillard (the new PM downunder) used “denier” 11 times in one recent speech. So imagine she’s in a room talking with, say, Ivar Giaever. She studied arts and law, he got a PhD in theoretical physics two years before she was born, and won a Nobel Prize by the time she was nine. Picture him talking atmospheric physics and her telling him he’s a denier.
Julia Gillard, PM of Australia. Source: The Daily Telegraph
A Nobel doesn’t mean he’s right, but when Gillard says “Denier” she is referring to thousands of people including Freeman Dyson, Ivar Giaever (Nobel Prize), Robert Laughlin (Nobel Prize), Edward Teller, Frederick Seitz, Robert Jastrow and William Nierenberg.
The arrogance of all those who use this inane form of name-calling ought be exposed for exactly what it is, a cheap tactic to intimidate people who disagree, and a big bluff. The smug conceit of “denier” implies that the answer is so obvious it’s not even worth discussing. Thus it’s main purpose is to stop people talking about the finer points, the pros and cons, the weight of the evidence. It’s a form of censorship and has no place in a scientific discussion.
Anyone who uses it ought be shamed, even more so, any scientist who doesn’t protest at it’s vacuous use ought be shamed too.
The list includes Robert Jastrow, none other than the Founding Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
“The scientific facts indicate that all the temperature changes observed in the last 100 years were largely natural changes and were not caused by carbon dioxide produced in human activities.” – Robert Jastrow
Freeman Dyson: Unification of Quantum Electrodynamics Theory.
Ivar Giaever: Nobel Prize in Physics
Robert Laughlin: Noble Prize in Physics.
Frederick Seitz: Pioneer in the field of solid-state physics and President Emeritus of the National Academy of Sciences.
Edward Teller: Manhattan Project Member, Developer of the Hydrogen Bomb and Founder of Lawrence Livermore Laboratory.
William Nierenberg: Manhattan Project Member and Director Emeritus of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
The mass collection of awards, sought-after titles, and decades of experience at the highest levels of physics tells us that those who pretend that there is nothing to discuss are either faking it or witless.
That we’ve sadly lost four of these remarkable brains in recent years changes nothing. The term “denier” was in use while all of them were alive, and any collection of eminent achievers with long service and recognition is hardly going to include fresh graduates. Given the name-calling and political spite involved, it’s also unlikely that eminent achievers who are still in the rat race (and applying for grants and memberships) will feel enthused about speaking out.
There are of course thousands more names on the Global Warming Petition Project.
The team at popular technology have been assembling a list of scientific papers for a long time too. It’s now up to 750peer reviewed papers. I keep hoping to get time to do a proper post on it. For the moment, I’ll just note that’s it’s a very useful resource. Thanks to the pop tech team.
PS: Before there are any predictable critical comments about the Petition Project let’s remember that it was done by volunteers and done twice which is an extraordinary indication of the grassroots movement out there. It says something about the petition and the name-callers, that critics are still attacking the first round (known as the Oregon Petition) .
Excellent article. Is there a correspondingly pejorative term one wonders, for users of the ‘D’ word, to put them back in their place ?
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How embarrassing for an alleged leader to resort to ignorance and jingoism to defend a policy.
I thought Australia was trying to set a different course than America, where our insiders have been relying on just that to shove AGW inspired policies on our country for years now.
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You are aware of this in Australia?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/19/breaking-phil-jones-got-to-endorse-papers-for-oxburgh-inquiry/
Details here at Bishop Hill who writes:
Well, now we know who the redactions were. The contact through with the Royal Society was through Martin Rees – we knew that already. The other redaction, the other person consulted about whether the sample of papers was reasonable, was…Phil Jones.
Now, whichever way you look at it, this is a funny question to put to the accused if one’s objective is a fair trial. I mean, what could Jones say? “You’ve picked all my bad papers”? And of course Jones must have known that the sample was not representative.
Gobsmacked I am, surprised I am not.
—————–
Please do not blame Phil Jones, given the circumstance, as he had stepped down as the director of CRU. Take a look at the establishment, Oxburgh, etc, Royal Soceiety, etc that put him in this position(he did not look well at the enquiries, someone that got caught u, in a bigger political game?)
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Koolaid drinkers.
When America banished booze, we had a temperance movement.
This temperance movement is about those of us who don’t drink the Koolaid.
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I personally fell to be honored when someone calls me a denier. If my memory doesn’t delude me then Feynman was a denier, too. He suspected the Sun to be a main drive of the climate.
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Joe Veragio: #1
On a previous thread, somebody came up with the term, “Cultist”, to emphasise that AGW is a belief system that is sometimes economical with the facts.
But I don’t think that calling names, on either side, does anything for the debate other than forcing people into fixed and increasingly intransigent positions.
Calling Julia Gillard a “cultist” for example, is not going to change her opinion one iota, just as calling me a “denier” does not change mine.
Besides, her opinions are not hers, in the same way that my opinions are not solely mine. The opinions that each of us carries around are actually an amalgam of the consensus in our social groups, and what we choose to read uncritically. We are social animals who select states of mind that makes us feel comfortable. It is a cognitive bias that I have – that we all have – it is just I have to deal with mine every moment of my working day.
Besides, who knows what Ms Gillard’s views really are, after she has turned out the light and gone into her private space?
In her working day, she is “advised” by “policy units” in the bureaucracy, and informed by her own party organisation, which is in turn informed by party polling, which is in turn informed by the the opinions of survey respondents who say they “will probably”, or “will possibly” vote for the Labour party in the next election.
That is the nature of politics, and the truth be dammed.
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Indeed, who can blame a politician for pandering to populist notions. That is their job after all, lest we ever forget it.
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The Popular Tech list is seven eminent physicists. Climate science is physics. It is thermodynamics, heat transfer, energy, quantum mechanics, etc etc – all physics. These environmental scientists who call themselves “climate scientists” are deluding themselves and the world that they understand and can predict the climate. Phil Jones has never been a “climate scientist”. The CRU does not do climate science. Look at the authors of the IPCC reports. There’s hardly anyone amongst them who does climate science. This issue of people calling themselves “climate scientists” needs wide exposure.
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Good observations.
The corresponding term to ‘deniers’, with similar offensiveness, for the ‘other side; is ‘collaborators’.
They collaborate with an insidious, unjustified, dangerous, aggressive, irrational, and inhumane ideology just because it is dominant. But it will not be dominant forever (Kevin, would you like to comment?).
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We shall not be marginalised by by those devoid of argument.
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I provided a link to an excellent speech given by Ivar at this post:
http://pgosselin.wordpress.com/2010/04/18/ivar-giaever-on-winning-the-big-prize/
And add Karry Mullis to the list, see excellent video interview:
http://pgosselin.wordpress.com/2010/04/05/the-clergy-says/
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9John Shade:
July 21st, 2010 at 6:51 am
“Good observations.
The corresponding term to ‘deniers’, with similar offensiveness, for the ‘other side; is ‘collaborators’.”
Good suggestion. Can see where you’re coming from with that one. No need to offend ‘though (as indeed that doesn’t). Just something to highlight the witless ignorance displayed in the pusillanimous use of the term. Something to make them sit up and think about their own passive acceptance of the orthodoxy.
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John Shade 9:
The corresponding term to ‘deniers’, with similar offensiveness, for the ‘other side; is ‘collaborators’.
Ingenious! I will use it in that way. 🙂
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Collaborators can have a positive connotation unless you know what it is referring to.
How about “deceivers”?
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“Collaborators” Yes thats them!
It is no surprise that the collaborators don’t quote this often:
Evidence on the climate impact of solar variations
Sallie Baliunas and Robert Jastrow
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The Green plan to kill your job:-
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/column_the_green_plan_to_kill_your_job/
Save the planet! Starve pregnant women:-
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/save_the_planet_starve_pregnant_women/
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ooooo Mummy – they called me a denialist – oooo Mummy….boo hoo
….. and they won’t talk to me and laugh at me coz they say I’m not published …..
And I only called them criminals and fraudsters Mummy…… ooooo ….. ooooo – boo hoo
{cue abuse from “stage right of course”}
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“Is there a correspondingly pejorative term one wonders, for users of the ‘D’ word, to put them back in their place ?”
Beginning with D? How about “D*ckheads”?
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Shocking UN Document Divulges Climate Cult Brainwashing
http://www.prisonplanet.com/shocking-un-document-divulges-climate-cult-brainwashing.html
Bedtime story to BRAINWASH children about global warming
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXdUW3-7Qyk&feature=player_embedded
AGW alarmism in school classrooms is child abuse
http://www.climatesceptics.com.au/agw-alarmism-in-school-classrooms-is-child-abuse/
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A couple of weeks back, I started an article about a panel discussion supposedly pitting two pro-AGW speakers vs two “deniers.” The second paragraph gave the names: one of the “denier” panelists was Prof. Lomborg! Yes, even though he supports AGW (not just warming/change) he qualifies as a “denier” because he proposes expanding our tech base, even nuclear power, rather than proposing that industrial nations revert to pre-industrial state and non-industrial states not be allowed to upgrade their standard – or length – of living.
I went to another story…
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In the wake of Climategate and the whitewash inquiries one wonders which camp is truly in denial?
Which brings up the point that the term “denialist” doesn’t come directly from the idea of “being in denial.” Rather it is employed as a smear to link those skeptical of the AGW hypothesis with the original “Denialists” — the post-Nazi apologists who “deny” that there was any Holocaust in Nazi Germany.
As such, the term “denialist” is a brutish attempt to dehumanize a political opponent as the “enemy of your tribe.” The Nazis forced Jews wear yellow stars to designate them as less than German, sub-human…today our cultural elites forces skeptics to wear the “Denialist” label to designate them as beyond the pale of polite thought…. Once you label “the other” as something despicable and less than human, then it becomes OK to do anything you wish against these hated outcasts. This is why hate speech is considered so vile. To witness Julia Gillard, Penny Wong, Kevin Rudd and the ABC talking heads employ the same sort of dehumanizing techniques in our nation’s democratic discourse is more than disturbing. Yet we have all become strangely inured to this abuse of political speech.
As Climategate (and all the other Climate scandals) illustrate – by labeling your opponents as sharing common characteristics with Nazi hate groups, you validate any means to reach the end. After all, would sub-human “denialists” play by the rules of rational scientific inquiry? Of course not. So why should climate scientists, journalists, political leaders, activists and educators?
Labeling the skeptics as hated sub-human denialists leads scientists to fabricate paleoclimate reconstructions and destroy documents requested in FOI’s. It leads journalists to report half-truths and only one side. It leads to activists to advocate civic disruptions (except in the case of the purlioned CRU emails – that was denounced as fiendish theft.) It leads political leaders to contemplate ruinous and authoritarian socio-economic policy. And perhaps most vile of all, it leads educators to indoctrinate children with ideology rather than teaching them how to think for themselves.
This is the path to corruption and ultimately the destruction of the democratic social contract we all share. And it all begins with hate speech.
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Yes but “And I only called them criminals and fraudsters Mummy…… ooooo ….. ooooo – boo hoo”
Then take a libel case. If you someone has accused someone of criminality and it is on record then it should be processed through the courts. The problem is that the AGWs case would only serve to incriminate themselves.
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So a Trade Union Lackey keeps dropping the holocaust denier label just like Kevin Rudd did. Is anyone really stupid enough to believe that Gillard is any different to Rudd? Shes just a mouthpiece for the anonymous Union Thugs.
Honestly, if the Australian public are stupid enough to re-elect these ignorant, incompetant and stupid people, I don’t think I will ever be able to defend the intelligence of the average australian again.
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Yes but @ #17:
You would be well advised to check out the history of the whole sad story of AGW, and most especially the reprehensible treatment of those like Steve McIntyre who dared to want to check the veracity of the claims of those who want to spend trillions of dollars of public money. Consider that the alarmist brigade will tell you to look at the big picture because all these little nit-picks don’t matter – and individually, they don’t. But added together, they most certainly do – when seen in the big picture, they matter a lot. For instance, Pielke Snr is still asking why IPCC only consider CO2 and not other human induced first order climate forcings such as aerosols and land use change; Pielke Jnr is still asking why people are mis-representing the peer reviewed literature WRT disaste losses; Anthony Watts is still asking why the supposedly high quality temperature measuring equipment in the USA fails to meet WMO standards; Willam Briggs continues to suggest that the certainty in the stats used is over estimated; E M Smith continues to show some alarming potential biases in the data that “proves” we have an issue. There is certainly more – much more – than this, but even this pitifully small list raises sufficient questions that still remain unanswered – in some cases, for years – that any reasonable person would at least pause before handing over their hard-earned on a fix for something that, quite frankly, has never been shown to be an issue, let alone one of our own making, and it’s certainly never been shown that we can even do anything about it except adapt, or that the solutions proposed actually address the (unproven) issues in any significant way.
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Yes But @ 17:
Please refer to THIS which clearly shows that denialist is not a word, it is interesting how the related search is for the holocaust.
So I suggest that “Yes But” should go back to primary school and learn how to use the English language properly you uneducated moronic imbecile.
I would be embarrassed to have taught someone as stupid as yourself. I’ll take a guess at this and say that maybe yes but is really Clive Hamilton? His arguments are just as poorly constructed as his command of the English language.
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But according to high priest David Suzuki these “denuded deniers” are “disingenuous clowns” that should be “embarrassed”.
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/blogs/science-matters/2010/07/science-delivers-repeated-blows-to-deluded-deniers/index.php
It is amazing that they can get away with this. He talks about evidence without mentioning a single piece of data.
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“Is there a correspondingly pejorative term one wonders, for users of the ‘D’ word, to put them back in their place?”
How about Gullible, Naive, Luddite, Sheep, Mischievous, Conspiracy Theorist or Amateur Psychologist.
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Denis,
How about watermelon – Green on the outside, red on the inside?
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As usual though, Poptart’s list is not a very good list.
Dyson and Laughlin both accept the mainstream understanding of AGW but are skeptical (in the true sense of the word, not the frothing at the mouth sense) about the extent of impact and whether or not we can do anything worthwhile to mitigate it, but far from being denialist. Their position is not unusual. These guys are good scientists in their field and I personally have all the time in the world for them, even if they appear to be wrong about climate change. I would be more impressed with the skeptical camp if there were more people like Dyson and Laughlin actively publishing in the field.
Ivar Glaever has said very little about climate change and published nothing on the subject (could be wrong… couldn’t find anything with a quick search, not even a Murdoch column).
Then the familiar faces Edward ‘Strangelove’ Teller, Seitz, Jastrow, Nierenberg (all deceased). OK whatever.
There is a better list on wikipedia I’m sure you all know about: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientists_who_oppose_global_warming
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There is name-calling on both sides, of course, but any examination shows that it is much more prevalent and much nastier on the ‘cultist’ side.
From Pachauri hoping that ‘denialists’ will apply asbestos to their faces every day, to the Deltoid blog’s extraordinary personal abuse of Lord Monckton (including the stated desire to feed him a spoonful of DDT), you can see their rage-fuelled rants wherever you look.
Blind rage is, of course, one of the key motivators of those on the hard Green/Left, so it is no surprise to hear Gillard spit out the ‘denier’ taunt as often as possible.
Us ‘deniers’ should avoid name-calling – we’re not very good at it, anyway, and there are more important fish to fry.
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I would suggest Scientologist, but then retract the suggestion for the following reasons:
1) It’s not a word (not that this matters to the AGW camp)
2) It’s more than two syllables, so with their lack of command of the english language, they will have difficulty pronouncing and spelling the insult, which is pretty cruel really
What we need is a slogan the bogans will understand which uses words at their level (less than three syllables per word).
How about “Moving Forward”?
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Sadly “denier” has become standard usage in AGW circles such as Real Climate. For example (and this is just looking at the authors usage @ RC, not the hundreds of times the terms get used by the blog respondents):
On the “The Muir Russell report” thread:
and
On the “What do climate scientists think?” thread
I am sure I could go on and find just about every RC author has used the term. These are the self-proclaimed real “climate scientists” who feel the need to stoop to this level on a regular basis. They have long since left the high ground of being all about the science and are engaging on a level of pure climate policy advocacy.
I for one applaud those who can raise the tone of the debate above this level of name calling, but I, like most others, occasionally get a rush of blood and enter the fray with fists swinging. Unfortunately I always feel foolish, regardless of how soundly I beat the opponent with logic, because I have stooped to their level. It is the level of politicians, used car salesmen, and real estate agents… where lying to get the sale justifies the means.
When you feel that rush of blood and need to react to the name calling just remember:
“Never argue with an idiot, they drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.”
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Ive seen the term “bed wetter” used on many occasions. Has a certain ring to it.
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This is what’s great about Physics, and why I studied it until the maths got me caught out, is that at the cutting edge there is immense disagreement about what us layfolk would consider fundamental basics of science. Take gravity for example. Still, as a policy maker, is it about lists of names? There are clearly significant numbers of highly esteemed, respected, awarded and credentialed scientists who don’t agree with these 7 people, and most of them are still alive to boot (although we lost a great one yesterday).
So my point is that at the pointy end of serious science research there are immensely magnificently intelligent people who hold views contrary to what most of us consider fundamental truths. So what?
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Grats cbp on presenting a list from Wikipedia, of all places, and one heavily tainted by the hand of Mr Connolley of all people. True to form you couldn’t resist a jibe at Pop Tech either by calling it Poptart. Sometimes I wonder if you are actually trying to make our case or argue against it.
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Interesting MattB that you would concede that there is much debate about fundamental laws of physics at the cutting edge, and yet you have such certainty about the infant science of climate which is far less open to scientific experimentation and subject to much greater uncertainties.
This is a very curious position to take.
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As usual cbp personally attacks me and pretends the list is not very good and then links to a list on Wikipedia of “Scientists Who Oppose Global Warming” when this specific list is of “Eminent Physicists”. Funny how he also tries to smear the “Father of the hydrogen bomb” Dr. Teller who’s CV makes even prominent climate scientists look inadequate,
Edward Teller, B.S. Chemical Engineering, University of Karlsruhe (1928), Ph.D. Physics, University of Leipzig (1930), Research Associate, University of Leipzig (1929–1931), Research Associate, University of Göttingen (1931–1933), Rockefeller Fellow, Institute for Theoretical Physics, Copenhagen (1933–1934), Lecturer, London City College (1934), Professor of Physics, George Washington University (1935-1941), Researcher, Manhattan Project, Chicago Metallurgical Laboratory (1942-1943), Group Leader, Manhattan Project, Los Alamos National Laboratory (1943-1946), Professor of Physics, University of Chicago (1946-1952), Member, National Academy of Sciences (1948), Assistant Director, Los Alamos National Laboratory (1949-1952), Developer, Hydrogen Bomb (1951), Founder, Lawrence Livermore Laboratory (1952), Professor of Physics, University of California, Berkeley (1953-1975), Associate Director, Lawrence Livermore Laboratory (1954–1958), Harrison Medal (1955), Albert Einstein Award (1958), Director, Lawrence Livermore Laboratory (1958-1960), Professor, Hoover Institution on War Revolution and Peace, Stanford University (1960–1975), Enrico Fermi Award, United States Atomic Energy Commission (1962), Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution (1975-2003), Professor Emeritus of Physics, University of California, Berkeley (1975–2003), National Medal of Science (1982), Presidential Medal of Freedom (2003), (Died: September 9, 2003)
I am confused by your “deceased” comment as if you imply their opinion is no longer relevant? Do you apply these standards to those who agree with you such as the late Dr. Schneider?
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>> True to form you couldn’t resist a jibe at Pop Tech either by calling it Poptart
Hey I’m not above a bit of name calling, and I know you guys are good at it too. Bring it on.
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“…at the pointy end of serious science research there are immensely magnificently intelligent people who hold views contrary to what most of us consider fundamental truths. So what?”
So what? There is no such thing as a “fundamental truth” in science. Not even our latest understanding of gravity is a “fundamental truth.”
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>> I am confused by your “deceased” comment as if you imply their opinion is no longer relevant?
>> Do you apply these standards to those who agree with you such as the late Dr. Schneider?
Well no, not at all, but personally I feel that given all that has been discovered in the field of climate science over the past decade, I’m sure that Teller and Nierenberg would have changed their mind by now were they alive to do so. Schneider died a couple of days ago – I don’t think anything significant has come to light since then that would have changed his mind. I’m not saying that a deceased person’s opinion is irrelevant, just that when you’re doing a pure argument-from-authority shtick, it plays better if your authority was alive this millenia.
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cbp@40,
What a load of claptrap, so do Einsteins views on relativity diminish because he wasn’t alive during this milennia?
Stop stealing my oxygen.
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Bulldust that’s an argument in favour of never doing anything about anything. The arguments I refer to don’t mean we can’t have TVs or Telephones, and don’t mean we can’t try and figure out to the best of our abilities how something like the climate works, and what may happen if we change bits and pieces of it.
When have I ever said I have much certainty? … hmm I can’t deny some may think that of me, and maybe along the way I’ve given that impression I don’t know. I am certain that my assessment leads me to believe that the arguments against AGW are very weak – but I could be wrong – ahh well that’s life.
1) There is a potential problem that the vast majority of people who know most about and are in a position to understand think is a real problem.
2) Solving said potential problem is well within our technical ability without unreasonable economic harm.
3) Let’s get cracking.
Where is the downside?
Also Wes at 39… I love that you randomly quote a section of my post as though you think it is an outrageous statement, but then you simply meekly agree with me? Cheers:)
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I imagine that in future scientific circles the term “denier” will come to stand for someone who thinks for themselves, somewhat like the (now disgraced) Royal Societies’ old motto “Nullius in Verba”, loosly translated as “on the word on no one”.
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MattB @ 42:
I don’t remember saying anything about never doing anything about anything… you are putting words in my mouth there. Strawman.
You say your assessment is that the arguments against AGW are weak, and that you understand that those most learned say there is an AGW problem to be addressed. Sounds pretty certain to me. Admittedly you have merely been sniping from the sidelines of late, but your track record supporting the “consensus” AGW view in the past is quite clear. Explain how I have the wrong impression here?
So you say solving the “problem” (a point on which we clearly disagree… that there IS a problem) should be technically easy and come at reasonably low cost. I am all ears to hear your learned suggestions of these technically feasible and cheap solutions to the AGW “problem.”
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Supporting the consensus view and having “much certainty in an infant science” are completely different things. All it will take is one piece of credible science and the whole thing will come falling down. incidentally that applies to all sciences not climate science… brilliant isn’t it. Politicicization of climate science unfortunately means that such a breakthrough would be seen as a victory against some sort of AGW-cult to some types? and a loss by some of the supporters, but it is just scientific progress.
Strawman schmawman – it is the end result of tyour way of thinking love it or loathe it. It is not a logical fallacy to point out you are on a dead end there – sorry.
nu nu nu nu nu nu nu nu nu nu nu nu nu nu-cle-ar power.
(sung to skyhooks “computer games” tune)
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A bit OT but I have just beem reading and replying to a piece in Climate Spectator.
http://www.climatespectator.com.au/commentary/2020-vision?utm_source=Climate%20Spectator%20daily&utm_campaign=e91abb7313-&utm_medium=email
A grour have a plan for Australia to go all renewable by 2020. Solar towers and salt heatbanks augmented by 6400 7.5 MW wind turbines. I am currently reading “The Wind Farm Scam” by Dr. John Etherington. The case for wind does not inspire confidence no matter how many nor how big. So far the solar tower is at the demonstration level and upscaling is always difficult if not impossible. Think Flannery’s hot rocks proposals.
While much of this technology may be viable as some time in the future the current rush is the result of the AGW scam. The pushers for acceptance have one thing in mind; subsidies from a delusional government and an ignorant public.
The parallels with the rise of the NAZIs is really astonishing. With any luck we are now at 1939 and the beginning of the fall. Two things to help us will be a cooling climate AND blackouts caused by a; uncertainty in the power generation industry about carbon taxes and b; failure of government to increase generating capacity. The coalition between the Greens and the ALP will ensure the fall will be much more rapid and extremely painful. God help us all.
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Apologies. Group has a p not an r.
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Imagine that! I first came upon the climate debate in the 1980’s, although it wasn’t much of a debate outside of a narrow academic and enviro circles. I found the AGW argument convincing. The AGW narrative got stronger in the 1990’s with Mann’s paleoclimate reconstruction and Hansen’s ravings from a position of authority at NASA, the El Nino of 1997, the modern temperature record…
It was only “the discoveries in the field of climate science over the past decade” that convinced me the AGW hypothesis was fatally flawed. One wonders just what these “discoveries” are that Bpb alludes too?
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cbp, Teller and Nierenberg had not changed there mind about the same arguments being made now as there was then. All the so called “new science” would not convince them as there is just as much new relevant science that has come out of the skeptics camp since then. Nierenberg was alive in 2000, Teller in 2003, Seitz in 2008 and Jastrow 2008.
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The downside is that consensus is NOT science! Matt, every time you bring up the consensus BS, I’m going to post Michael Crichton on consensus:
Did you catch any of that, MattB?
http://www.s8int.com/crichton.html
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The issue more relevant for Australia in mid 2010 is the pursuit of an ETS/CPRS/carbon price by our next government. How about we divert some energy to a question for Penny Wong on next week’s Q&A? Can she tell us how CO2 drives climate change without resorting to the “Just read the IPCC you denier!” approach that has typified her replies to such questions. Can she move forward and dare to look beyond IPCC?
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“Is there a correspondingly pejorative term one wonders, for users of the ‘D’ word, to put them back in their place ?”
The list is long Joe but i have found it serves no purpose we are called deniers because men who are weak of character and lacking any real gumption who have been unable to overcome that childish urge to throw a temper tantrum when their beliefs or ideas are challenged. They lack the fortitude to participate in any kind of debate as they consider the case closed, they believe anyone still questioning the validity of their position are now actually subconsciously attacking their intelligence, while this is clearly not the case, it does motivate them to resort to name calling as Joe has so eloquently stated.
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MattB:
Nuclear? I thought you said a solution which would be relatively inexpensive. Developing a nuclear industry from scratch in Australia would costs countless billions. There I thought you might mean a solution to the warming that we have experienced in the last hundred years or so.
You know, something crazy like the geoengineering solutions proposed by the crew at Intellectual Ventures. Their solutions would cost of the order of a billion dollars to implement and cool the entire planet… I know that sounds a tad sci-fi to most, but hey. These guys/gals are some of the best inventive brains on the planet.
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Wes when did I say consensus is science? I even made it clear in post 34 that I was making a clear distinction between science and policy “Still, as a policy maker,”.
Ok so we listen to Crichton… can you please propose how that can translate in to what happens day-to-day? How do policy makers make decisions if all science is invalidated because there is some expert who disagrees with it. There wouldn’t be a scientific field that doesn’t have a prestigious member who disagrees with others.
Can you give us a way forward here?
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Lets pretend you believe AGW is real and action needs to be taken, what will cap-and-trade or in Australia an ETS accomplish?
What You Can(‘t) Do About Global Warming (Patrick J. Michaels, Ph.D. Climatology)
This is the truth they do not want anyone to know.
10
Using the “climate denier” label isn’t the moral equivalent to mere name calling, even slanderous name-calling. It’s much more deceitful and damaging. Language is the medium in which we form all our thoughts and ideas about the world and from those ideas are born our actions.
Our cultural and media elites have hijacked language in order to herd the way we think about the AGW hypothesis towards the orthodoxy. It’s the kind of thought control that George Orwell so presciently warned us about.
For instance, the specific term “anthropogenic global warming” has been abandoned for the vague and tautological pseudonym “climate change”. This allows AGW apologists to dumb down the narrative… connect any malady, political or environmental, to the cause of global warming without having to refer to the AGW hypothesis or remind anyone of its specific meaning, many of which aren’t confirmed by direct observation. For example, recent record cold spells in South Africa don’t fit the AGW narrative, but they certainly can be used as evidence for climate change.
Likewise, creating a universal label to smear all skeptics as denialist is an attempt to control the vocabulary that people must use in order to think about the AGW narrative.
What makes the slur “denialist” different from when someone hurls insults, is that to effectively subvert the discourse the slur “denialist” isn’t openly used with contempt – It’s the same corrosive cultural phenomena as the commonplace usage and acceptance of racial slurs even in polite company long ago in Australia and America. So rife has the slur “denialist” become that it seems normal and this obscures the damage it does to our ability to think rationally as a nation about what AGW really means.
As John A pointed out @ 20 – you don’t even have to be sceptical of the AGW hypothesis to be cast as a “denier” (Lomborg, for example) all you have to do is question some aspect of the orthodox solutions offered to the alleged AGW problem. So much for an honest debate.
10
Is that the truth Popskeptic? or is it a rearrangement of numbers to make something look insignificant. What is the basis of the figures used to convert to the degrees? Why does it not factor in the reductions over the whole 40 years which would show that by 2050 even using those figures the reduction would be about 0.1 of a degree?
Also – that quote is just about reductions in CO2, not anything to do with cap and trade or any other mechanism used to achieve the reductions. It says nothing about the effectiveness of a cap and trade system.
10
and that is 0.1 degree just for the US… which is only responsible for 15% of global emissions…
so lets say that all nations contribute to reductions and again there is a significant cumulative effect. And then I have no ability to judge the conversion from CO2 emitted to temperature used in your quote.
10
Mattb the truth hurts try reading the whole link. What the figures say is accurate.
10
Ahh ok poptech [snip] I see what you’ve done there – linked to a guy who just back of the envelope calculates climate sensitivity to CO2 – of course that’s the truth, how could I be so blind:) And also cross checks it with a CO2 only warming without any feedbacks. that’s fine I can live with that.
You;ve essentially provided a link to show that if you believe the skeptical side of science then there is no point in reducing CO2 emissions – wow.
would it have been so hard for him to do the math using the IPCC’s sensitivity ranges – just for good measure? Or would that have spoiled the party?
10
PLUS of course it says nothing of the future reductions over the next 100 years…
lets say his figures are true, well if there were no reductions in the USA then by 2150 the USA alone would contribute a further 0.28 degrees even if it levelled off at 2050 emissions… let’s assume that is not the case as we’ve taken the do-nothing path. SO lets say the USA has some growth in emissions and instead contributes a further 0.56 degrees by 2150. Currently it is 15% of glopbal emissions, but that is likely to reduce, so averaged over the 100 years 2050 – 2150 maybe it averages 10%… my gut feeling is it will be less but 10% is a nice number. if the USA is 10% then we get 5.6 degrees warming by 2150.
So there you have it folks, Poptechs [ed] link advocates global warming of 5.6 degrees celcius by 2150, and that is hoping there are no feedbacks to CO2 warming…..
wow… just wow.
10
Hmm I just figured out why you approve of such trash figures poptech [ed]… your name suggests you are associated with the mob that put together the 750 list…. what a hoot!
10
MattB is it that hard to use my actual name here? I understand the numbers from the “basic physics” argument are too much for people like you to handle which is why you try to label it a skeptics position.
Yes there is no point in reducing CO2.
10
Poptech [ed], it would be easy to use your actual name, which I assume is not actually Poptech. The link is not a basic physics argument. It is a basic rubbish argument, that I have shown leads us to a 5.6 degrees of warming by 2150 even if it were true. I don;t care what name you call me – try and answer the flaws I’d exposed.
10
MattB [ed], my link advocates that reducing CO2 based on the current policy propositions will be “scientifically meaningless”. Your inability to deal with this revelation has you desperately looking for any strawman argument you can throw out there none of which changes the new reality you have been awakened to. Please you silly numbers have nothing to do with reality.
10
MattB [ed], you have shown nothing, you just make up various numbers to get a temperature you wanted, all bullshit. You didn’t expose any flaws, you exposed your consistent ability to make up BS.
10
Good post Wes (56),
If i understand it correctly the same could be said for “carbon pollution” and when we have cold weather it is a sign of regional weather variants but warm weather is a sign of climate change.
A tree hugging friend of mine is excited by the desal plant we are building but i said it was a waste of money as our dams were over flowing (apparently its the future we need to worry about not the present). Anyway i asked why we needed one and was told because of the drought. I asked what caused the drought and was told burning of fossil fuels.
I reminded my tree hugging friend that the desal plant uses osmosis to produce fresh water which requires a continuous supply of a tremendous amount of electricity to do so and i asked exactly where was the government going to get it from……
We use words as catch phrases (moving forward) words which dont actually relate in anyway to the catch phrase, carbon pollution does not relate to the science behind increasing CO2, climate change does not accurately describe the effects CO2 has on the climate.
But the use of such vague catch phrases does allow us to bedazzle the masses such as my tree hugging friend who honestly believes building a desal plant will save him from dying in a drought.
The word denier not only symbolises my denial of the science but my denial of the end times. I am denying the obvious, i am denying the world is coming to an end, i am denying that we must act. I deny all these things because i have predisposition to deny horrible things its easier for me to deny such things by burying my head in the sand…..or so i have been told by the following people;
Believers
Alarmists
Alarmatologists
Alarmaggedonists
Alarmaholics
Al Gore
Witch Hunters
WWF
The romance novalist (formerly known as the rail road engineer)
Jim Hansen and Never A Straight Answer (NASA)
The International Political Corruption Counsel (IPCC)
The list goes on
10
How to do BS like MattB [ed],
Lets say that the US discovers carbon remover device by 2025 but increases GDP by $10 Trillion, net result is +0 degree temp by 2150.
Look Matt I just exposed the flaws in your argument.
Basic Physics Matt = Scientifically Meaningless.
10
Silly numbers???? All I’ve done is use HIS EXACT NUMBERS and carry that on for 100 years….
HE SAYS:::
0.0028 degrees per year for the USA, I’ve used that to arrive at:
= 0.28 degrees over a century for the USA
= 2.8 degrees over a century for the planet’s emissions (assuming USA hits about 10% for that period – currently 15% but rest of world is catching up fast so 10% seems reasonable enough)
And that assumes zero growth in CO2 emissions between 2050 and 2150… given that his basis is that there is no need to reduce CO2 emissions then I think it is fair enough to assume there will be some fluke of a levelling off at 2050 despite the fact no one is trying to halt emissions. I’ve assumed growth – say a doubling over the 100 years – unreasonable?
Regardless of the growth – assuming any growth between 2050 and 2150 means more than 2.8 warming
even using HIS FIGURES!!!!
Can you point out a flaw in my maths… it really is junior school maths, multiplying by 100 and all.
10
Why would anyone be trying to invent a carbon removing device by 2025 if carbon is not a problem? maybe having a price on carbon will encourage people to try and invent one…
Poppy my dear, you is out of your league… and I’m not even big league! better give up son.
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The best response to “denier” is just to point out they are name-calling thugs trying to stop people talking about the evidence.
In longer forums I ask them to name and explain the evidence we deny. No one has yet named a paper, a theory, or an idea that we refuse to discuss. Remember, the catastrophe is supposedly so bleeding obvious the evidence must be overwhelming, but whenever we actually get into public debates on the science it’s immediately clear that the evidence is very much open to intelligent discussion, key papers are highly suspect, and the layers of points of disagreement are vast. When this happens it’s obvious to the audience that we’ve been sold a marketing line, and it’s been an advertising campaign based on a naked bluff.
It shows how dishonest and untrustworthy the AGW team is. They haven’t explained the uncertainties, or pointed out the contradictory evidence, or admitted what they can’t explain. Let them reap what they have sowed.
10
MattB @ 54:
When in fact Wes said:
What he said is that you bring up consensus… he did not say that you said consensus = science. And, in fact you did bring up the concept of consensus at 42:
In point 1) you are clearly talking about consensus. You speak of the “vast mojority of people” and that they “think is (sic) a real problem.” Well stone me if that isn’t a near perfect definition of a consensus.
Once again you are taking what someone said here to mean something entirely different and then attacking that strawman instead of the actual statement. This is exactly the same tactic Abraham used in attacking Monckton.
I am not saying Monckton is never wrong, he is human after all, but the basis on which Abraham repeatedly attacked him was for things Monckton never said. Abraham took that one step further to portray that Monckton said these things to third parties, in order to solicit a rebuke for something that was never stated in the first place. Hardly proper conduct for a university Associate Professor.
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Bulldust do you have many normal conversations with people that don;t end with you alleging use of strawman arguments to dig yourself out of a hole?
Wes meant what he meant and I interpreted it right. You don;t need to fight his battles you sideline sniper.
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Hear, hear Jo… in the meanwhile I am hoping no ridiculous and pointless carbon “pollution” schemes are enacted in Australia, at least for another 5-10 years. Hopefully we will have accrued another 5-10 years of sideways temperature movement by then such that the “lack of significant warming” becomes irrefutable. Then cue the silent death of the whole “AGW science.”
It will then rear it’s ugly head again transmuted into “Ocean Acidification” or through UN Agenda 21.
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MattB:
Virtually all my conversations seem to be normal mate… you are the outlier in that sample.
You are saying Wes didn’t say what is in print? If you don’t want strawman pushed in your face, stop using them. You continually move the goalposts when you try to debate here. I demonstrated this previously with a synopsis of your posts in an earlier thread, if you recall.
I am happy to wait for Wes to respond at his leisure and explain his statements.
10
Its not that simple Jo well not in circles i travel in.
I have produce peer reviewed studies that call into question their beliefs only to be told “that study is flawed” or “that guy is a nutjob”. I produced a study by Spencer once which brought into question the sensitivity guesstimated by the IPCC the response was that Spencer believes in Intelligent Design therefore everything he has to say is crap.
Essentially the battle lines have been drawn, people have chosen a side so know we sit and wait to see what mother nature has in store for us. Just so we dont get bored while we wait we play this little game.
10
MattBS, like I said no need to worry about the evil CO2. It is clear Dr. Michaels has gotten you hysterical from reality. The US is responsible for 20% (not your made up 10%) of the CO2 emissions so you will have an increase using his numbers of only +1.4 degrees in 100 years. Basic math is apparently something you are incapable of. Your solution is to cripple the U.S. economy and send us back into the dark ages to change this (if you believe in AGW) to +1.12, which is scientifically meaningless.
Basic Physics and Basic Math, you have now had a lesson in both.
10
ESAA survey in the Australian yesterday proves once again that the ETS is a money grab and has nothing whatsoever to do with saving the planet:
20 July: Australian: Annabel Hepworth: Climate heating up on Gillard
Overall, the survey finds, the energy sector will need to find more than
$94.1bn for refinancing over the next five years to replace ageing networks,
connect new wind farms to the grid and service a growing population…
ESAA chief executive Brad Page said the uncertainty over greenhouse policy
had undermined the credit quality of carbon-intensive generators…
The findings also add to pressure on Tony Abbott, who has vowed there will
be no price on carbon if the Coalition comes to office.
Business Council of Australia president Graham Bradley warned that unless
investment in electricity generation was encouraged, “we’re heading for real
problems”.
Mr Bradley urged the new government to produce the green and white energy
papers, promised in 2008, which have been delayed…
He also warned that the renewable energy target, coupled with other rising
input costs, could lead to the need for higher power prices…
“We are now faced with the prospect of higher electricity prices partly
driven by our national commitment to invest in higher-cost renewables such
as wind and solar…
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/climate-heating-up-on-gillard/story-fn59niix-1225894277511
ESAA: List of Full Members, Affiliate Members & Associate Members
http://www.esaa.com.au/list-of-members.html
(amusingly Affiliate Members comprises of just two companies – Contact
Energy, New Zealand and Transpower New Zealand Ltd, which has already
introduced an emissions trading scheme; Associate Members include those
CAGW-concerned entities such as JP Morgan, Rothschild, KPMG, UBS, CSIRO,
Monash, Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, Department of
Employment, Economic Development and Innovation (Qld) and
Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism)
10
with biofuels and hedging already taking a toll on the poor, how much worse would the situation be if carbon reductions were fully enforced (which the poorest countries would have to abide by or risk loss of exports as far as i understand it)?
19 July: Guardian: Katie Allen: Hedge funds accused of gambling with lives
of the poorest as food prices soar
Goldman Sachs dismissed the WDM report as “horribly misinformed on a number
of fronts”…
A bank spokesman, Michael DuVally, said: “Research by respected
international bodies, like the OECD, demonstrates clearly that long-term
trends, including increased meat consumption by the growing middle class in
the emerging markets and the increased use of biofuels in the developed
markets, have created a backdrop for global food shortages.”…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/jul/19/speculators-commodities-food-price-rises
now please explain why ordinary australians, hard-pressed financially in many cases, would be demanding an ETS, as some “polls” (WWF) are claiming:
21 July: Ninemsn: Labor poll swing in four Qld seats
The poll, commissioned by the conservation group WWF, revealed a 3.5 per
cent swing to Labor on a two-party preferred basis in the electorates of
Brisbane, Bowman, Petrie and Ryan…
“Support for the introduction of an ETS by 2011 was even higher amongst
respondents who identified themselves as ALP voters, with an overwhelming 87
per cent being in favour,” Ms Caught said.
She said a majority also wanted Ms Gillard to make an election promise to
introduce an emissions trading scheme within the next 12 months…
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/election2010/7932636/labor-poll-swing-in-four-qld-seats
10
Bulldust lets just look at strawman again. Lets say Wes pops on and says he wasn’t saying I think that consensus=science, and I took him at his word, it would mean that there was a misunderstanding, not a strawman argument. The latter would require that I have wilfully twisted his words, which I have most certainly not.
Again you’ve ignored my full post, which I’ve already explained again, where I was talking about policy approaches to a science issue. Michael Crichton’s quote is only relevant if I was harping on about consensus science… which I am not, I’m clearly referring to policy.
What science would you rather policy was based on, given that the scientists can’t agree. I base mine on (1) who makes the better argument, and (2) who there are more of. Where (1) and (2) match… well that would be the policy direction I pursue.
10
Poptech your link is for CO2 emissions only, and does not include other greenhouse gases or other factors.
The actual page you want, since you are allowing wikipedia, is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_greenhouse_gas_emissions
which states 15.74%… so you could accuse me of a rounding error I guess. But your 20% is wrong, and it is absurd to think USA would remain at that level over the years 2050-2150.
You’ve then ignored the basic trends that suggest that the USA’s percentage will be lower than that by 2050 (unless you think China and India are not growing).
Take a deep breath, get a calculator out, realise you are wrong, come back and apologise. Cheers.
10
Thanks, Bulldust for that. Saved me the effort to have to answer to another one of Matt’s endlless stream of strawmen. Actually, I often don’t go back to tag strawmen arguments as such. I reckon anyone following the comment debate is intelligent enough to see what strawmen arguments implicitly signify – failure to answer to the issue at hand.
My larger point is that MattB, as our representative of the warmist position here, seems to be less than au fait with the most basic principles of the scientific method. This might explain why he is so delusionally dedicated to a rationally indefensible position, ie that we must spend trillions of dollars to limit the effects of AGW. Note: that spending trillions of dollars to lower the earth’s temperature is not only a logical absurdity — After all, if it were possible for government to control the weather, why hasn’t parliament long ago outlawed drought! — But the waste of trillions of dollars on a futile effort would essentially mean the genocide of tens of millions, maybe 100’s of millions of the world’s poorest people over the next 50 years. This is the great crime that goes unmentioned in most of these debates. It is shameful that frivolous commenters like Matt are allowed a pass on this, truly the greatest moral question of our time.
I would like to ask Matt why he imagines that government which cannot even finish a divided highway between Sydney and Brisbane or install insulation in houses without killing people can hope to control the climate of planet Earth? The mindboggling naivete of the warmists is a never-ending source of amusement.
Seriously, though, Matt, assuming that government could control the climate (a huge If) why do you even trust government to control the weather more equitably than Gaia has in say, during the last 10,000 years of the Holocene?
10
Wes @ 82,
Whilst i agree with what you say re genocide, i think you/all need to treat the issue of governments contolling weather more seriously.
We all know only a bonehead pollie would have the audacity to think he/she can control the weather but that does mean he/her cannot try. We are already hearing from the fringes the term geoengineering, i fear we are only a hurricane away from this frankinstonian idea to became main stream.
How long will it be before some nut job country (America or the EU) begin lacing the atmosphere with sulphur to *save the planet*?
10
Wes the fact you are thanking dusty for launching a strawman against me, saving you from having to do the same, kind of makes a mockery of your criticism of strawmen arguments, don’t you think.
At least you’ve revealed that your opposition to AGW is based on nothing more than a non-scientific opinion that man is incapable of affecting the climate. Not to mention claims of genocide and waste of trillions of dollars. Not to mention you thinking our inability to say make it rain next tuesday has anything to do with climate change.
There are many completed roads in my fine state of Western Australia. We just built a new one to Bunbury… in the scheme of things probably a more important city than Sydney or Brisbane?
Your last question – I don’t trust the govts of the world can do it, but I do hope they can.
10
MattB, master of the strawman argument, no one including Dr. Michaels is talking about all greenhouse gas emissions but rather only CO2 thus your 15% is wrong and my 20% is right, deal with reality. You cannot do basic math and do not understand basic physics, it is absolutely embarrassing.
10
Crakar – it seems Bulldust advocates such geoengineering in #53, and poptech in #68. Maybe you could ask them?
10
Liar, I advocated for no such thing. That post was to show the ridiculousness of your BS. You cannot even be honest when talking to people.
10
Sorry the “tech” part of your name must have been suggesting more than you meant. You come across as quite disconnected to reality (like how to multiply by 100, how to figure out a nation’s share of GHG emissions and so on) so I thought you actually thought that “do nothing and wait for a pie in the sky tech solution to fix things” was a rational position in the discussion.
10
I was voicing my opinion to all including you MattB so i have in effect asked them, maybe they will respond we shall wait and see.
10
@wes
So in your original post did you say that MattB thinks consensus=science, or did you not?
It sure read like you did to me.
Your level of non-understanding here is incredible. Firstly, the irresponsible, profligate emission of co2 is what is ‘controlling’ the climate. The proposal is to stop controlling the climate.
Secondly, it is precisely because government (Labor or Liberal, left or right) is not entirely competent when it comes to getting things done, that we need a carbon tax or cap-and-trade (rather than something like Rabbott’s direct action). The carbon tax puts the onus on regular people and business and makes it in their interest to behave more responsibily. The government doesn’t have to do anything except manage the tax. There is nothing outlandish or extreme about such a system. In fact, a more normal solution would be to fine people or even put them in jail, as we do for other types of pollution and irresponsible behaviour.
10
So, Matt has demolished my argument that governments are incapable of controlling the weather. Because, after all, Western Australia built some rather fine roads down around Bunbury. Hey, why not spend a few tens of trillions to manage the most complex nonlinear system in the solar system?
What could go wrong?
10
Wow, the Watermelons are in absolutely pathetic form today.
10
Poptech in #85…. excuse me? The IPCC are certainly talking about all GHG emissions and other sources like land clearing. All the models are talking about them. AS far as I know Australia’s ETS will include them (agriculture was a sticking point maybe delayed a few years).
Unbelievable that you are actually advocating a rubbish piece of maths that does not even include other ghgs!!! Astounding! Another read shows me he repeatedly uses the term “greenhouse gases”.
Sorry Poptech But credit to you – you certainly have an insatiable appetite for misleading and incorrect data.
10
Matt, back to reality, we are and always have been only talking about CO2 emissions. Back to basic physics again, you cannot use the calculations for CO2 and apply them to other GHGs. Like I said your numbers were silly for many reasons and still are. I am glad I could educate you on this.
10
Wes you are the one who brought roads in to this – not me. Shoot me down for addressing one of your absurd points lol.
Take a lesson from Jo, she makes it SOOO SIMPLE for you guys but you DON’T LISTEN!!!!!! There is a reason none of this crap is in the skeptics handbook – and that is because it is the stuff of morons.
10
No Poptech if you want to talk about CO2 emissions you are on your own – who cares. You may want to contact the guy who wrote your linked piece as he talks about greenhouse gases a heck of a lot. Even with 20% your maths is still shot as you are assuming 20% from 2050 through 2150, no warming prior to 2050, and no growth in emissions post 2050. It is one absurdity after another and if you can;t see that then sorry you are thick.
10
Ahh the twisted stories they spin – I never advocated the use of geo-engineering in that post MattB. I merely stated that it would be significantly cheaper (assuming it works) than rolling out nuclear power stations all over the world. I was taking your argument that there is a problem that needs addressing and proposing that there may be significantly cheaper alternatives to achieve taht end.
The main issue with geoengineering would be where to set the “thermostat.” I imagine a bit of warming might be good for agriculture in Canada and Russia, perhaps, but maybe not so good for other countries. The debates on the floor of the UN would be endless.
So it may well end up that we have a solution that is relatively cheap and easy but politically too difficult to implement. After all, geoengineering to cool the planet does not transfer wealth to less developed countries, so you have lost their UN vote straight off the bat.
10
I’m surprised you are not a nuclear fan Bulldust. Seriously.
10
Cpb says we should be grateful that the state is planning to merely steal everyone’s money with the excuse that they are going to guarantee fine weather for our great great grandchildren….Is that a core or non-core promise? After all, if we don’t shut the f up the government might choose to imprison us as “a more normal solution.” More normal in China, Burma and Syria?
Good point, Cpb, we should be all grateful that the government has not yet decided to throw us in prison for “irresponsible behavior,” like being skeptical that AGW is real or exhaling carbon pollution. After all if CO2 is a criminally pollution – We’re all crims now! Of course, this is all the more reason to vote for whomever promises to reduce the power of government before it goes past one of those fabled “tipping points” into totalitarianism, don’t you think?
10
@CBP
Please provide some scientific proof of this please.
10
Scott – do you mean evidence?
10
The understanding that human technocratic government has no hope of “controlling” the direction of climate evolution has no relation to the possibility that human economic activity might have an effect on the most complex nonlinear system on Earth. Complex nonlinear systems are famous for responding chaotically to very small perturbations. As such, human activities might well effect the climate, even while the hope of even the most rudimentary control of that effect is light-years beyond today’s science and technology.
10
Matt B @ 60:
Using the IPCC’s own bloated figures for climate sensitivity, to reduce warming of 1C would require a complete shutdown of global industry. No cars, planes, factories or campfires – for 30 years!! Back to the stone age. All the while, the planet and its climate will continue to warm or cool as it likes while you shiver in your cave wondering what went wrong. Would reducing our CO2 output actually cool the planet at all? Doubtful, since the ENSO and PDO have cycles FAR stronger than any trace gas, let alone our current output of 3% of a total of 0.03% of the atmosphere.
As you can see, I don’t deny that climate changes. As a climate realist, I and most others here fully understand the ramifications of disastrous CAGW action and the more scientific approach of plain adaptation.
10
“Using the IPCC’s own bloated figures for climate sensitivity, to reduce warming of 1C would require a complete shutdown of global industry. No cars, planes, factories or campfires – for 30 years!! Back to the stone age.”
(another one for the abbreviations page Jo).
10
Dammit image didn;t work – there is meant to be an ORLY? in there in 104.
10
@ MattB
CO2 is not pollution…CO2 is not pollution..CO2 is not pollution…CO2 is not pollution…CO2 is not pollution…CO2 is plant food…CO2 is plant food…is plant food …is plant food…repeat after me, CO2 is plant food…
10
Matt don’t tell me you have a reading comprehension problem as well? The article I linked to explicitly talks about CO2 and his calculations are only for CO2. He only even mentions GHG in the context that CO2 is a GHG, you are the one who took those calculations and foolishly attempted to apply them to all GHGs. Again basic physics and basic math gives you an increase of +1.4 degrees in the next hundred years based on worse case hysteria of all the warming being due to CO2. Crippling the US economy with 83% CO2 reductions would change that number to +1.12 degrees, a meaningless change even if you believe in AGW.
10
I see the tree huggers and Labor have signed a secret pact to share preferences in the up coming election.
I should take a moment to explain to the non Oz readers the complexity of our voting system. Here in Oz you can have as many candidates as you like and the voter MUST vote for all candidates 1 through to whatever (number of candidates).
We then get the two candidates with the most votes (marked as number 1 on the ballot by the voter) and put them aside we then get all the ballots that had someone else as number 1 (apart from the two previously mentioned) and see who they voted for as number two.
If number two is one of the two highest vote getters (as mentione d above) then they get the vote, if not we go to number 3 on the ballot and so on until all votes go to either the winner or the runner up. Simple really.
Anyway Labor cannot win the election in a “First passed the post system” so they rely heavily on preferential voting. They have now done a deal with the tree huggers, the deal means that the tree huggers will tell their voters to put Labor down as number 2 on the ballot for the house of representatives and labor will tell their voters to put the tree huggers down as number two for the senate.
This deal will do two things, first it will go a long way to ensure Labor get enough seats to retain power and second it will go a long way to get more tree huggers in the senate.
Of course with extra tree huggers in the senate Labor may actually have control of the senate (with the tree huggers help). The question is what has Labor offered the tree huggers to agree to such a deal? I suspect Julie (lets not talk about the ETS)Gillrudd will pull a rabbit out of her hat after the election and get the ETS through the senate with the help of the tree huggers.
One can only imagine what the ETS will look like, God have mercy on our souls.
10
And Bob Brown sends the Greens down the anti-mining avenue:
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/national/7618131/greens-signal-demand-for-higher-mine-tax/
Predictable garbage spews forth from the Brown Green… exactly what is a “fair share” of tax I wonder? Protip for Mr Brown: the word fair has no place in discussions about economics… there is what is, and what is not. “Fair” is a perception which has nothing to do with reality.
10
POPTECH,
Here in OZ we produce a paltry 1.4% of world emissions but apprently it is imperative that we reduce our emissions by 5% bringing our world emissions down to the grand total of 1.33%.
Of course to do this we will need to tax the crap out of everything we see, touch, taste, smell and hear.
Our ETS like all variants of are simply nothing more than political symbolism to satisfy the clueless.
10
Poptech you truly are an embarrasment to skeptics. And year 9 maths students.
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MattB @42 says this:
“1) There is a potential problem that the vast majority of people who know most about and are in a position to understand think is a real problem.
2) Solving said potential problem is well within our technical ability without unreasonable economic harm.
3) Let’s get cracking.
Where is the downside?”
Point 1 is consensus, authority and the precautionary principle bundled together; it is spurious and Lysenkowistic and merely camouflages the fact that there is no evidence to support AGW.
2 Since there is no problem this is irrelevant but it is an insidious view; renewable energy does not work and, as an industry, is now controlled by government dependent corporations, criminal organisations, opportunists and spivs. As for “without unreasonable economic harm”, just look at California, Spain, Italy etc.
3 Is tinker bell stuff; the “downside” is a gross distortion of resources into unworkable renewable energy mirages, a society which prioritises nature against humanity, whose best interests have diverged fundamentally from the idea of pristine nature and egregious and fanciful ideas about a benevolent nature.
AGW is just so dumb and corrupt.
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Crakar in 108 – you are assuming that everyone would vote the same way in a 1st past the post election as they do in preferential voting. If you think our voting system is complex then no wonder you struggle with climate science.
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crakar, they believe they are saving the planet from “doomsday”. No one could create a better fantasy that called for more government regulation of the economy.
Matt, I understand your embarrassment, thinking no one would challenge your bogus numbers or catch any of your strawman arguments but this is just no so.
Your hysterical replies to mine and desperate attempt to discredit me only shows how dangerous the truth I provide is. I realize you need people believing in your fantasy to support government action.
Thankfully after the November elections in the US, this insane socialist experiment will be over for some time here.
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“Point 1 is consensus, authority and the precautionary principle bundled together; it is spurious and Lysenkowistic and merely camouflages the fact that there is no evidence to support AGW.”
Sorry Cohenite no it is not. Nice words to bandy about but a load of rubbish.
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Cpb doesn’t understand the meaning of control, which has a rather specific meaning in cybernetics. To control implies intent, to have intent implies a calculating intelligence. If human economic activity is effecting the climate it is certainly in no way a concerted effort to do so. Humans might be effecting climate while having no hope of controlling climate in our lifetimes.
To propose to stop the human effect upon climate first one must quantify those effects. That research has not yet been performed to anyone’s satisfaction. Therefore instead of suggesting carbon polluters – ie every human being on the planet – are lucky not to be in prison maybe we should do that basic research, this time transparently with complete raw data sets, metadata and codes posted for review and verification on the Internet by all interested parties.
To suggest that humanity can control the climate is still well beyond the singularity. In other words, you is talking science fiction, mate! Not that it won’t come to pass… a Kardashev Type I civilization:
http://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=2922
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“crakar, they believe they are saving the planet from “doomsday”.”
lol I’m not the one who thinks that action to avoid AGW will plummet the globes economy to ruin!
Poptech my numbers are sound, yours are rubbish. I’m not surprised you are to embedded in your anti-AGW-cult to realise.
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Matt blathers:
No you aren’t. Nor are you worried that redirecting 4% or more of the Earth’s GDP to tilt at windmills will commit 100’s of millions of the world’s poorest people to life without what you take for granted – electricity powered by fossil fuel, transportation powered by fossil fuel and adequate medical delivered by fossil fuel. Not only are you a hypocrite, you are a particularly virulent variety thereof.
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Wes I do not support the notion that “windmills” can provide us with an energy system that will maintain lifestyles. I’ve made that clear so that is, I believe, a strawman. No?
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If we are really convinced that CO2 was causing the planet to head toward a tipping point where the warming would become “outta control” then we should cut down the world’s rainforests.
Mile upon mile of plantation plants in a row absorbs more CO2 than a rainforest. A rainforest is a sustainable system as it produces it’s own CO2 from it’s decay and it’s own O2 from it’s growth.
A plantation has minimum decay, it takes CO2 from it’s surroundings, ours, and returns O2 for our benefit. (yes – I’m aware of the fauna )
I live not far from an Old Growth Rainforest where the trees were so large they had to climb 9m (30 feet) to get to the top of the buttresses. You could ride a horse through the undergrowth because the canopy was that high and the forest that dark.
They chopped it all down.
The land then became successful beef/dairy and supplied the Brits with meat, butter and cheese up until they joined the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1972 and no longer needed the produce.
It’s now Macadamia nut farming, sugar cane bananas and sub-tropical fruits and is adding new produce consistently.
People freak out about clearing land yet Europe and Britain used to be covered in forests with wild animals – today it’s some of the best farming land in the world.
If we really cared about CO2 we would sequester it all back into our soils for our own benefit.
David Attenbourgh at the end of his epic series on Planet Earth stood beside the stones of Stonehenge and suggested that we have been engineering this planet forever and our only option is to continue, but to do it well.
To do it well we should do nothing regarding CO2 because CO2 is harmless. We know what the real pollution is, we know what is not good for our environment and the environment of our Flora and Fauna. It’s glaringly obvious to anyone – and it’s not damn CO2.
We can retain our biodiversity, our forests and our fauna because hopefully, we care.
There is no problem
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I like the term Warmmonger. Has a sense of nonsense about it.
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Janame is that David “Climate change is the biggest challenge facing the world” attenborough
or maybe
David “Now surely, we must act to reform it: individually and collectively; nationally and internationally — or we doom future generations to catastrophe” Attenborough
or was it David “The Truth About Climate Change” Attenborough?
The cheek of you citing him in support of your particularly crackpot view of the world.
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Janama I mean, not Janame – sorry.
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Cohers #112:
Would you prefer that I changed it to:
1) There is a potential problem that the vast majority of people who know most about and are in a position to understand think is a real problem. With my maths and science background I have to the best of my ability, including immersing myself in the sceptical blogosphere to consider all knows opposition to the suggestion there is a problem, come to the conclusion that those telling us there is a problem are more than likely correct, and the reasons that those who oppose put forward appear to be incorrect, often absurdly, blatantly and inconsistently so. If those who tell us there is a problem are incorrect, well it will be demonstrated by some future theoretical or observed discovery/mechanism, and unlikely to confirm anything from the current skeptical side other than they had a hunch and it ended up being correct.
I just thought that may have been a tad wordy?
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MattB at 45
“Computer Games” was a song by MI-Sex, not Skyhooks.
Just saying…
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Nope I meant proof positive
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Bulldust, MattB and Poptech:
This thread has raised the issues of response to AGW, controlling global temperature, cost, and geo-engineering.
They interact at a fundamental level because – at present – there is no evidence of any kind that AGW exists – or will exist – to a discernible degree. However, AGW advocates say they fear catastrophic change will result from AGW in future. Hence, they assert that expensive actions are now needed to avert the possibility of what they fear.
The AGW advocates might have a point if there were no available method to counteract AGW in the event that AGW became discernible. Put another way, their assertion might be valid if there were no cheap, simple, safe and easy method to avert the postulated catastrophe if and when AGW were to attain a discernible magnitude.
But there is such a method.
In the unlikely event that AGW were to become a discernible problem then the only required action would be to re-introduce sulphur to aviation fuel used by aircraft that travel over oceans.
This would reduce costs because removing sulphur from aviation fuel costs money at present.
The sulphur would increase cloud cover and reduce global temperature instantly for the same reason and in the same way that volcanic sulphur at altitude reduces global temperature.
Volcanic sulphur at altitude is not observed to have any serious detrimental effects so there is no reason to suppose the sulphur from aviation fuel would, either.
And the sulphur washes out within days so this mitigation option could be stopped before any serious damage if its re-introduction were found to have unforeseen harmful effects.
Hence, logically, the ONLY necessary action at present is to decide the maximum acceptable global temperature. Some say it is 2 deg.C higher than now. That is clearly too low a maximum limit because global temperature cycles up by 3.8 deg.C then down by the same amount in each year (but nobody notices).
So, it is reasonable to assume that the maximum limit to global temperature should be not lower than 3.8 deg.C higher than its present annual average.
Since AGW I not likely to ever achieve so high a rise, perhaps it would be sensible to proclaim the truth that there is no known reason to take action to avert the threat of AGW until mean global temperature rises by another 4 deg.C.
Richard
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Well I reckon CO2 is far from harmless
More atmospheric CO2 =
(1) increase in plant cyanides
(2) decreased cassava root weights
(3) reduced protein yields in wheat
(4) increased frost damage and especially tricky with those AGW false start spring weather patterns
(5) C3 woodies (trees & shrubs) choking out C4 savanna grasslands
(6) FACE experiments show nothing like those ridiculous Wattsian cowpea pics
(7) Sceptics haven’t heard of Liebig’s Law of the Minimum – being ecophysiological ignorami
What an ecological nightmare. It could even be one of those cataclysmic apocalyptic tipping point thingos.
Millions of species including illiterate sceptics could go extinct from eating cyanide laden food.
Although chain smoking sceptics heavily into tobacco denial (like anything for the cause right ? – and sticking it up those Green bastards and jeez Lindzen does it so WTF)could be getting big mobs of cyanide. Maybe it even enhances the hit. Alas it seems for greenies extra CO2 does not enhance the potency of marijuana – not that I would know as I only drink green tea.
Not to mention reduction in reef biodiversity.
Cue abuse, frothing, talking in tongues.
But the real question is “Why are there earthquakes?” Do you know?
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Tertius – indeed you are correct. before my time of Aussie music (or NZ as Wiki tells me although we probably claim them) I’m afraid. Skyhooks had those other tracks that remind me of skeptics:
Ego is not a dirty word
Horror Movie
Living in the 70s
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Friends:
At #128 ‘Yes But’ presents the now common argument that since AGW is a dead-duck other reasons to fear CO2 are needed.
His list omits ‘ocean acidification’. This is a serious omission because it is the postulated threat that most fear-mongers are promoting now they can see the AGW-scare is almost over.
Richard
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I’m not refering to any of that because we will absorb all the additional CO2 – well not the planets, only ours 😉
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MattB: – I was referring to Attenbourgh in that documentary well before AGW was even an issue – the fact he’s become a warmist is another story, just like David Suzuki.
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Folks,
Using science for political advocacy is not new – Gillard’s UK predecessors did the same with the nascent science of geology during the early 19th century – then they won, a battle, mind you. Today they are losing a battle, hence the name calling and ad hominems, but the war remains.
History shows we have dark and light ages – and if Gillard and the Fabians win this one, the globally we will be entering another dark age, since her cohorts control the US government, the EU, and I suspect the UK.
Fabians are Communists without the AK47’s. Same goal being aimed at, one does it instantly ridding society of the problem, the other by incremental takeover of society’s institutions and regulation.
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RE ‘Yes But’. This person is a troll who ducks in and out of sceptical blogs metaphorically thumbing his nose and chanting na na ne na na at anyone who attempts to reason with him. I have found that arguing with believers such as Yes But is a singularly pointless and profitless exercise, so they are best ignored.
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RE ‘Yes But’. This person is a troll – actually he’s well educated and holds down a serious job which only goes to show you can be educated and stupid.
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I bitch to Matt:
MattB’s reply:
Dude, you claim you flunked out of physics because of the math, obviously you didn’t get past year 10 literature either.
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/c/cervantes/c41d/
Yeah, this is where I usually type ROTFL. But this is just sad. I’m not laughing. I’m mourning the decline of public education.
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MattB:
This is the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO):
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/SixtyYearCycle_files/image004.jpg
Same as global temp:
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/SixtyYearCycle_files/image002.jpg
With such a strong correlation between the two, how could you, let alone anyone, be so SURE and unscientific by saying “CO2 gone an’ dun it”?
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Yes but: #128
These are all excellent points, you have made …
Er … but could you explain to me, being an ignoramus, an’ all, why these factors only apply to anthropogenic increases in carbon dioxide?
I think we can all agree that atmospheric carbon dioxide is increasing in the current era. The debate is over what proportion of that increase is attributed to anthropogenic causes, as opposed to the proportion that is due to natural cyclic variations.
You see, as an ignoramus modeller, it appears to me that the current rate of increase in CO2 – the rate that has the Greenies wetting their pants – is actually within the natural range of ecological noise – you know, that Fourier thingie …
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On average world temperature is +15⁰C. This is sustained by the atmospheric Greenhouse Effect 33⁰C. Without the Greenhouse Effect the planet would be un-inhabitable at -18⁰C. The Biosphere and Mankind need the Greenhouse Effect.
So just running the numbers by roughly translating the Greenhouse Effect into ⁰C:
• Greenhouse Effect = 33.00⁰C
• Water Vapour accounts for about 95% of the Greenhouse Effect = + 31.35⁰C
• Other Greenhouse Gasses GHGs account for 5% = ~1.65⁰C
• CO2 is 75% of the effect of all GHGs = 1.24⁰C
• Most CO2 in the atmosphere is natural, more than 93%:
• Man-made CO2 is less than 7% of total atmospheric CO2 = 0.087⁰C:
• so closing carbon economies of the Whole World could only ever achieve a virtually undetectable <1/10 ⁰C.
As the temperature reduction that could be achieved by closing the whole of the World’s Carbon economies is less than 1/10 ⁰C, how can the Green movement and their supporting politicians think that their remedial actions can limit warming to only + 2.00 ⁰C?
See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wy0_SNSM8kg
So the probability is that any current global warming is not man-made and in any case such warming could be not be influenced by any remedial action taken by mankind however drastic.
If this is really so, then the prospect should be greeted with Unmitigated Joy:
• concern over CO2 as a man-made pollutant can be discounted.
• it is not necessary to damage the world’s economy to no purpose.
• if warming were happening, it would lead to a more benign and healthy climate for all mankind.
• any extra CO2 is already increasing the fertility of all plant life and thus enhancing world food production.
• a warmer climate, within natural variation, would provide a future of greater opportunity and prosperity for human development. This has been well proven in the past and would now especially benefit the third world.
Nonetheless, this is not to say that the world should not be seeking more efficient ways of generating its energy, conserving its energy use and stopping damaging its environments. And there is a real need to wean the world off the continued use of fossil fuels simply on the grounds of:
• security of supply
• increasing scarcity
• rising costs
• their use as the feedstock for industry rather than simply burning them.
The French long-term energy strategy with its massive commitment to nuclear power is impressive, (85% of electricity generation).
Even if one is concerned about CO2, Nuclear Energy pays off, French CO2 emissions / head are the lowest in the developed world.
However in the light of the state of the current solar cycle, it seems that there is a real prospect of damaging cooling occurring in the near future for several decades.
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Alexander K: #134
Good point – in future I shall refuse to have a battle of wits with any unarmed persons … 🙂
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Yes Butt @ 128:
Continental drift caused by rivers of magma in the mantle.
Have you even thought about what the plants think? Imagine them wanting to cut your oxygen supply because oxygen feeds fires. Instead, you hypocritically and selfishly want to cut their supply of CO2, which your CAGW crowd imagines (invents) all manner of maladies in order to tax its own kind into oblivion.
How is it that what you read is translated into the sheer garbage you post?
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luke @ 128; Liebig’s Law of the Minimum is junk because it assumes a static organism and no adaptation; conversely it also assumes that natural limitations are definitive; in this it restates the Malthusian principle that unless at or below subsistence level, a population’s fertility will tend to move upwards. This is junk, it is vile junk and it is irrelevant junk because it has continually been disproved by human ingenuity; what luke and the other supercilious alarmists suffer from is a failure of optimism; they project their own limitations or failings onto humanity as a whole and by doing so set up social structures designed to validate their personal failings. One Norman Borlaug is worth a million such and their natural intellectual source would be this man:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/frank-fenner-sees-no-hope-for-humans/story-e6frgcjx-1225880091722
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Yes but: #128
July 21st, 2010 at 7:36 pm
Who gives a chit what you reckon.
This twit reminds me of those unpopular guys at parties who weren’t invited, doesn’t have friends and yet still goes from one group to another, one couple to another, hoping to be included in the conversations. But all he gets is F**K OFF WANKER.
Those girls giggling behind his back have sure affected this moron in a profound way. Hope he doesn’t go shooting up the uni or anything. Maybe you all should be nice to him, pretend he “belongs”, you never know, you maybe averting a small tragedy.
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Rereke don’t bother engaging with Yes But.
Luke, aka Yes But is drunk tonight. Janama and I have seen many times before. He’s an old friend of ours and we apologize for his, well, incoherence. The mix of drink and his anti-depression meds makes the “el creepo” in Yes But really shine. If he doesn’t pass out drooling on his keyboard he’ll be back soon sputter threats in incomplete sentences. Not a pretty picture. Another epic fail from our public education system.
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Oh, I see Cohenite is here too. Also very familiar with El Creepo’s darker moods. Hi, Cohenite! 😉 We all try to intervene, rather than enable.
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Yes Butt @ 128:
So you’re saying that in the not so distant past of the Jurassic (100Mya), when CO2 levels were some 10-15x higher than today, that plants were too toxic for animals to eat? Is that what wiped them out? There would have been no life left on this planet today as the high CO2 lasted hundreds of millions of years. Your “hype-othesis” has just been made extinct.
It enhances the growth rate. But you’re a lying idiot – you’ve definitely been smoking something..
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Don’t worry Wes.. I’m not phased.. 😉
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Olaf – and look at the Jurassic species – they’re all extinct – so maybe the cyanide levels killed them? Slow painful deaths.
So really what sceptics are on about is killing more people than Stalin or Pol Pot by mass protein deficiency, cyanide poisoning, and ecological disruption.
So we need to change those redneck number-plates from “Licence gays not guns” to “Licence sceptics not guns”.
And who knows anyone who uses CO2 to fertilise their ganga – if it were any good they’d be using it?
The reason there are earthquakes has nothing to do with plate tectonics (which Louis assures me don’t exist anyway) – it’s all to do with harmonic feedback.
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ROFL
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OMG how much spittle did you spit on your computer screen then Luke Butt.
And yes we are laughing at you!!!
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He’s been smoking again!
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wes george: #144
Excuse me! I have been known to do that sometimes …
Mind you, I put it down to my
advanced agenot inconsiderable experience. 🙂10
Yes but: #148
Well uda fort … its all them hippie, tree hugging, new age, greenies going, “Ommmmmm”.
Bettcha they fly too when they have had a few puffs.
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I see the that the unrelenting green march against liberty is alive and well here tonight.
Thanks to all of the sane skeptics for their tireless efforts. (drooling or not)
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I reckon luke @128 and 148 is an imposter; the scatology is absent, the freneticism is forced and there is far too much syntax coherency.
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Yes butt @ 148 says
“and look at the Jurassic species – they’re all extinct – so maybe the cyanide levels killed them? Slow painful deaths.”
So would that would mean that anything grown in a commercial greenhouse with co2 enhanced to optimum at 1500ppm is toxic ? People all over the world must be dying in droves from cyanide poisoning , I must already be dead from cyanide poisoning ! aaaaarghh !…………..whoops false alarm , I`m still here ,it was just one more CAGW story to scare children with .
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Rereke
OMG harmonica feedback! Destroy all Bob Dylan music immediately.
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Definitely off-topic, but apparently Stephen Schneider had died of a heart attack …
http://www.noteviljustwrong.com/blog/general/464-stephen-schneiderdeath-of-an-unrepentant-hypocrite
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Also off topic – what happened to the thread promoting/endorsing extreme [snip] You’d think I was here often enough not to have missed it!
[ya know about search results on the web don’t ya? Jump in when you see that thread OK?] ED.
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A poster above seems to be enjoying the theory that increased CO2 will have apocalyptic consequences for plant life, as another example of presenting fiction as fact.
Here are a couple of very good examples demonstrating the positive effects of higher CO2 concentrations on plant life and exposing how the AGW establishment have twisted the facts :
Try Growth of crops, weeds, CO2 and lies
and Photosythesis and CO2 Enrichment
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[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by inferiae4542, Robert P Reibold. Robert P Reibold said: How arrogant art thy name-callers? « JoNova: Freeman Dyson: Unification of Quantum Electrodynamics Theory. Ivar Gi… http://bit.ly/c2sfx5 […]
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Dear Jo Nova,
“Thy”is a possessive pronoun, if you mean the personal pronoun, it should be “thou” [followed by a comma]
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Or if you mean the possessive pronoun “thy”, “namecallers” would the (plural) subject, to be accompanied by the plural “are”
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The worrying thing to me, a simple Pommie, is that such ill conceived views can come from someone with so much power and support. It is a truism that if someone powerful makes a statement the unthinking hordes will accept it.
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Tony: @ 163
July 22nd, 2010 at 2:06 am
Tony, Isn’t a truism rather something that’s generally accepted as being true, but isn’t. Sadly your observation here is truer than that. More of a ‘trustism’ perhaps… and the masses say:- We have to go with what the politicians say because they should know about these things, and we have no way of knowing better.
and the politicians say :- We have to believe the Scientists, because we haven’t a clue and they should have.
and the Scientists say … well it’s the politicians that tell us what the Scientists say. (Isn’t that what the IPCC was for ?).
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Read this:
http://fravia.com/realicra/basiclawsofhumanstupidity.htm
This explains a lot about Matt B and the other trolls here as well as the alarmist movement. Mostly type S. The business people getting on board the emissions trading bandwagon appear to be B2 bandits.
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I’ve pointed out elsewhere that the “Global Financial Crisis” did not cause even a plip on CO2 levels (as measured in Hawaii) so presumably we would need a much bigger downturn than that — just to deliver a change in CO2.
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No surprises to hear on the radio today that, given the rumour that Gillard reneged on a cabinet post for Rudd if he stepped aside, that Rudd is reportedly in line for a UN job.
Now I can only assume its to shore up the UN’s climate change (ie. aim for a carbon-restricted society) positioning in the world.
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Bah!
It’s all BS!
But sure lets bring forth the idiots who supposedly were so “intelligent” they thought atomic weapons was all that. Climate is about forecasting right, and they didn’t see it?
And when it comes to using nobel prize award as any kind of authority, first read who was supposed to actually get an award, i.e. young people not old farts, and certainly not old farts who made the world even worth, and know that even adolf frakking hitler was put forth as a potential awardee.
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Oh look! 1DandyTroll has a yearning to be an infantryman in a giant re-run of WW2. I love nuclear weapons – the politicians and the generals are in the front line with the rest of us which is why the WW2 re-run hasn’t happened.
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It should be noted that many of the most outspoken scientific supporters of AGW are mediocre academics (Jones, Mann etc) based at second-rate universities.
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But I didn’t mean it as a possessive pronoun. It’s an irreverent pronoun.
Forgive my throwing grammatical rules out the window, but headlines rarely make grammatical sense.
Point taken C.W. You are right of course.
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MattB:
While I like the idea of a nuclear base power industry I am realistic enough to realise it is a pushing the proverbial uphill battle to get it in Australia, and the start up cost is horrendous compared to fossil fuel generation. I just don’t see it as a practical option.
Personally I hope they crack the fusion nut in the future, but I suspect that will be some time off yet. In the meanwhile I don’t see much reason to push Australia away from it’s current energy fuels.
Even if CO2 emissions were a problem, Australian emissions are insignificant compared to the big emitters and we would change nothing (climatically). It would be a token gesture only… and at what cost economically?
10
Firstly Julia Gillard has NOT been elected Prime Minister of Australia. She and her Australian trade union thug backers ‘excecuted’ the elected Prime Minister Kevin Rudd three weeks ago so she could get a jump start on the Liberal opposition at the immiment Australian election. Mr Rudd, Ms Gillard and their confrere Ms Penny Wong, all enthusiastic parties to that appalling mess called Copenhagen, rely heavily on name calling in their every day dealing with the Australian Liberal party opposition leader, Tony Abbott, who refers to climate change as “crap science”. Are you surprised the “Prime Minister” of Australia’s election slogan is “moving forward” which she mentioned TWENTY ONE TIMES in her short opening election campaign speech? It implies “let’s sweep everything about climate change under the carpet and move forward”. Secondly, a certain Al Gore, one of the original climate change gravy trainers, has been featured in the media again today, involved in several claims of sexual assault by several different female masseuses in the U.S. As an ordinary citizen of Australia, why am I not surprised which side of the political divide across the developed world has been pumping the climate change nonsense science for so long, chasing NOTHING MORE THAN GULLIBLE VOTERS AT ELECTIONS?
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I’m unable to look in for a day or two and I find MattB using up most of this thread. It’s not that there’s something wrong with that but that he’s been exposing his problem for all to see. MattB is a politician! He cares not for the science and has admitted it, preferring the policy maker’s position of making policy that the most people can agree on. See post 80 for example.
At post 54 he asks Wes George, “Can you give us a way forward here?”
Well I think there is a way forward. In Shakespeare’s King Henry VI, the villain says, “The first thing we must do is kill all the lawyers.” I was immediately reminded of this because it might be reworded for our good use to say, “The first thing we must do is kill all the politicians.” Please, no one gasp in horror. The line was a joke in Henry VI and recognized as such by audiences and I don’t mean it literally either.
I’ve remarked before that AGW is a political disease and the way to go forward is to kill off (as in get rid of) politicians who have this confounded disease and elect leaders who understand that you don’t make policy for your own glory; you don’t make policy without seeing the hard empirical evidence; and above all else, remember that they are accountable to the people.
The fundamental premise of government in the United States is that government of the people is by the people and for the people. I suspect that wording of that kind might not be found in Australia’s founding documents. But I equally suspect that if you asked the average Australian on the street if that describes the way governing should be done the answer would be yes.
In both countries government has been hijacked by factions that seek power instead of the good of the governed. The day may be coming when we can’t vote on who governs us or the vote is rigged so that only the power broker’s candidate is on the ballot. While we still can we must find and support better candidates and I mean support them not only with your words but with your money so they have the chance to be heard and their message debated.
MattB will not change and as much as it’s fun to butt heads with him, his point of view is irrelevant as far as finding a way forward. He can’t help because no matter how he protests to the contrary, the science really doesn’t matter to him. Has any argument ever moved him? I think not. But I wonder how fast he would switch sides if the consensus shifts the other way.
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Sounds nice Roy… but my response is not because I’m a politician, if you can call an unaffiliated local councillor that. As for arguments that moved me, well until two years ago I was an ardent opponent of nuclear power, just for example. Your comment, while I take it as good natured, is a generalisation that simply does not stick in this instance Roy, I may have been average at complex maths associated with quantum mechanics and the like but essentially all my training is in the sciences. I’m not some law-arts-politics grad you know;) Science and Engineering thanks.
My question was asking just how do people expect policy to be developed in a world where every science field has a bunch of contrarians insisting that the mainstream view is absurd/obsolete/in violation of the laws of thermodynamics?
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Bulldust #173:
The real obstacles to nuclear power are political.
AFAICT, the cost of a nuclear power station is roughly double that for a modern coal-fired one; at an appropriate scale.
Third and forthcoming fourth-generation nuclear power can be inherently “safe”; without risk of a meltdown and even the worst concievable catastrophe would only result in the release of some helium gas – the working fluid of choice for high-temperature, gas cooled pebble-bed reactors. The core technology is about 50 years old, but for most of the intervening period, nuclear reactors were designed largely to supply materials for nuclear weapons; and PBRs (pebble-bed reactors) are really terrible at doing that; especially the one which use thorium as their main fuel.
China, Russia, South Africa and South Korea are developing modular reactors and power stations. Power plants that can be bought “off the rack” from a production-line process. That significantly reduces the construction cost compared to the individually-engineered and manufactured plants of the past. Saudi Arabia has, IIRC, ordered 6 nuclear power stations from South Korea.
Where nuclear wins over coal is in the transport of the fuel. The volume and tonnage is about one millionth of that of coal. i.e. instead of a steady stream of coal trains to the big power stations, it’s one container truck a month.
This freeing of the transport requirement as well as the zero-emissions (apart from “waste” heat) of a nuclear power station when operating, make it ideal for locating in the proximity of consumers, reducing energy transmission losses.
My vote is for a nuclear power station on Pelican Point. That way, people will pay close enough attention to it every day. 😉
Realistically-speaking, commerically-viable fusion reactors are still 30 years away from the drawing board. Meanwhile, (AFAICT) the last of the Australian-trained nuclear Engineers are going into retirement. Australia needs to educate people to understand and manage these technologies. Hands-on experience counts for a lot. And if one can generate a dozen gigawatts of electricity for Australia at the same time, all the better.
The mind-set and technical requirements for designing, constructing, building and maintaining extreme-density energy generating systems based on fusion are ostensibly the same as for fission. Let’s build up some domestic, practical expertise starting now.
Australia should conserve the carbon “fuel” sources for mobility (refined or syntheric) and as a general chemical feed stock to make e.g. plastics, fertilisers, fast food, etc.
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MattB,
You make my point for me. “…how do people expect policy to be developed…” rather than what does the hard evidence tell me the policy should be? There is a big difference. The former easily disregards the science but the latter cannot. So you prefer the comfort of the mainstream view, correct or not, over the much more difficult road that demands to do what hard evidence dictates.
As for an argument moving you — I refer specifically to your belief that CO2 is causing dangerous warming and action needs to be taken. For as long as I’ve been around your position has not changed. And I don’t expect it to.
I rest my case.
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Errr, build the power station on top of the coal mine and transport the electricity.
Also, increasing numbers of power stations are gas, and gas is easy to transport.
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No Roy – your assumption is that looking at the hard evidence would lead people to your opinion. My observation is that it leads less than 10% to that opinion, and it is strongly linked to political persuasion. I’ve looked a the evidence, and I go with the AGW concept. When most people in a position to make a call agree with someone like me, then that is where policy comes from.
Why would my opinion have changed? I’ve not noticed yours do much changing either.
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What about all the pollution from coal. I’m of the opinion that I’d much rather a nuke in my backyard than a coal plant.
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MattB,
It appears we are both satisfied with our positions. Nothing is wrong with that per se. But like it or not you became a politician the minute you filed papers to run for a seat on your local council. I don’t want to beat your politician/policy oriented approach to death. In fact you’re welcome to it if that’s what you like. But I have to say it, that 10% number is probably because you’re looking at the wrong thing. People seldom get an honest picture of both sides here. The AGW pushers make sure that dissenting opinion is suppressed and ridiculed.
See here http://joannenova.com.au/2010/07/another-10-of-the-worst-agw-papers-part-3/comment-page-2/#comment-67713
And look at posts 35 and 42 for what happens when people get both sides presented to them. It’s quite a different picture then.
The skeptical position is leaking out now and it’s impossible to control it anymore. So the tide of public opinion is beginning to change. Why do you think we’re visited so often now by the likes of Yes but and John Brookes?
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I don’t have a policy/politician oriented position. I have a science oriented position, and I have an appreciation of how politics turns science in to policy.
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Tel #179:
I agree that it is feasible to have a coal-fired power station “on top of” a coal mine, well that was the preferred location, historically speaking. Such locations also,historically became the hub for energy-intense industry. But in Australia it requires for electricity to be transported hundreds, if not thousands of kilometres to the consumers of the majority of electricity. Electrical power transmission is not without energy losses and it’s neither cheap to construct nor to maintain.
The rising “popularity” of gas-fired power stations is dominated by politics and the consequences thereof. Trying to incorporate an unpredictable generating source into the grid (e.g. solar and wind) to any substantial extent, results in supply instability unless the conventional generating equipment can quickly adapt to the surges and slumps in unpredictable generation that don’t match the changing load.
Burning gas in a fixed power station means that that fuel is no longer available to be used (directly) for transport. Australia needs fuels for transport, perhaps more than most other countries due the geographic dispersion of population, resources and human activity.
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Bernd they are exactly my thoughts… it is such a shame to waste gas on baseload electricity.
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Matt / Bernd, you will find that at a specific prioce point, it will become economical for coal-liquid conversion power plants that will suppliment gas sources.
This price-point lever will come into play at infinitum, until nuclear, solar, wind, etc all become vial too.
The facts are most alternatives are not yet readily viable. Try reading some David Archibalds research.
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MattB,
I could write a book on that one. But what good would it do. So I’ll just say you should be a lot more skeptical than you are. That way you’ll arrive at the other end of your life having been snookered a whole lot less than you will be with your present outlook.
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Roy you are lucky I’m not Richard Courtney… he’d reply “I’ll buy 10,000 of those books for my store, where are they LIAR!” and threaten to sue you for breach of contract;)
I am so sceptical you wouldn’t believe it (in fact I’ll go on a limb and say you don;’t believe it).
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Bernd @ 177
G’day Bernd,
Thermal fusion you are probably correct. Inertial fusion – well it certainly looks better than that, although the US DoD may want to keep it classified. Personally, I think there are too many people watching from the sidelines and too much information about it already “out there” for it to stay a secret for very long if the US military get it to work. See the EMCC website for more info (google “bussard fusion” – sorry mate, too lazy ATM 😉 )
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MattB,
You’ve bought the AGW scam hook, line and sinker. I can hardly call that skeptical.
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Well Roy from where I sit it would be easy to say you’ve bought the denialist conspiracy bug. I tend to think that you just don’t understand the science.
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MattB:
At #188 you say to Roy:
Withdraw that unfounded and unjustifiable remark then apologise.
I assume your remark refers to your having offered a bet that I accepted and you lost but refused to honour. If so, then your unfounded remark is even more reprehensible because it presupposes that Roy would behave in similar dishonourable fashion to yourself. I have seen no evidence of any kind that he would.
Richard
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Mattb, I’m going to start insisting that people substantiate their insults or retract them.
So in future, if you say the above, you will need to point out what particular point of science you think Roy doesn’t understand.
You may “tend to think” we are all wrong on the science, but I don’t recall you coming up with a serious error in our reasoning, nothing on the big scale that matters.
If you were a new poster I would have busted that comment above for the use of denialist. It’s name-calling Matt. Don’t you get that?
Speculation about Courtney in #188 doesn’t contribute anything useful.
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Macha #186:
Coal and gas to liquid fuel conversion has been long-established technology. It was used in Germany during WW2 and later in enbargoed South Africa.
Based on 1940’s to 1970’s technology, the price point for economic replacement of oil by coal seems to be about USD$80/barrel. i.e. if the price of a barrel of crude oil is sustained above $80/barrel then synthetic fuels can become viable purely on the basis of “immediate” cost; not just the lost opportunity cost of not having the raw material available (cheaply) for other uses in the long term.
[No doubt economic research in South Africa during the embargo delved into balancing “smuggled” oil costs against synthetic fuel costs and volumes. Perhaps I’m being lazy not to do the research on that right now, instead of getting ready for lunch and resting up for the coming working week in a real life.]
Natural gas is more “valuable” than coal but it’s also more amenable to being converted to a liquid fuel, tending to balance out the economics.
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But people are converting their homes to gas all over the place which is exactly the same thing. If you are a heavy energy user, and you convert cooking, heating and hot water over to gas then you tend to be well ahead compared to the price of electricity. The real problem is that it is so difficult to completely get off electricity because some appliances (e.g. computers) don’t run on gas.
Of course, if you have a mortgage at 7% then you are effectively paying 7% interest on all capital expenditure which will be $1k to have gas installed, $2k for the stove, $1k for a few heaters, $1k5 for hot water, probably $500 other installation expenses… lets guess it at $6k all up.
You need to be saving at least $400 per year to even cover the interest payments on the conversion. Obviously there is enough incentive because more and more people are switching to gas, especially when they are fully refitting an old house anyway. Electricity prices are rising faster than gas prices so expect it to slide further toward the gas side of things.
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Jo my use of the D word was entirely valid in context and in response to a post essentially suggesting the same about me. You should read it again… I was highlighting that I don’t use the word and would appreciate the same respect back. either that or we can just slag eachother off all the time.
Jo I know you don’t think I’ve come up with any errors in your reasoning, but I don’t think you’ve come up with any holes in the AGW science either.
Personally I thought #188 was just a humorous tongue-in-cheek comment.
p.s. I visit my parents yesterday and blinkin’ Archibald has given my dad a copy of his book!!! Outrageous!
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MattB @196,
Since this all revolves around me I get to put in a statement.
I never called you a denier of anything; neither did I try to imply it. I said you had fallen for the AGW scam. The one does not have any connection with the other. You aren’t denying anything. You believe something false.
At post 187 I hoped you would break it off and so I rejected saying anything more. Or so I thought. “But what good would it do.”
About this statement:
Could it be that Jo hasn’t come up with any holes in the AGW science because there is no science there to poke a hole in? This has been the whole problem from the beginning. There’s lots of speculation, scare mongering, data torturing, name calling and no end of people who hope to gain money, power or both. But the whole thing falls apart every time it’s opened up and exposed to the cold hard light of day. When it’s reduced to what counts you have absolutely nothing that links CO2 to anything happening now or to anything that happened in the past. The properties of CO2 are well known and the worst that honest science can predict is a trivial warming very likely to be swamped by normal variation in weather from one year to the next.
And for this the UN is willing to fight global warming and ignore the death of millions in Africa from starvation and disease so they can save the planet!? No, Matt, they’re not saving the planet they’re trying to become dictator to the world. Your own government is trying to reduce you to about an 18th century level of existence, if not worse, and you don’t recognize it. They don’t even recognize it.
AGW is just a cover for the real agenda and I’m incredulous that you can be around the wealth of information that your hostess here makes available to you for so long and not be able to read the plain obvious handwriting on the wall. It’s there Matt, big 3 meter high red neon letters for anyone to see who wants to see it. I read you as a fairly young guy with a family just starting out. And you deserve a long happy life free from this madness. You should run from it, not to it.
——–
If the opinion of an old guy who’s been around a while means anything, then remember this. We don’t own this blog, Joanne does. So we’re essentially guests in her house every time we click that submit button and it behooves us to remember that. She recently called me to account for my bad judgment and she was right. She’s also right about what she said to you.
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Dearest Matt: Nope Roy said -: “You’ve bought the AGW scam hook, line and sinker. I can hardly call that skeptical. ” This whole blog is about the ways we are scammed, the mountain of money, the hockey stick that’s the most embarrassing bit of science in the last 100 years, the missing hot spot that’s utterly completely gone, the fakery colour scale on Sherwoods graphs, the photos of temperature stations in outrageously dumb spots. We have evidence for our insults. You have nothing.
Matt – take it as a compliment that I didn’t throw you in the sin-bin (anyone else would have been). You have a special place in my heart. But if I let you use it, then others think that that’s ok too. In scientific circles the word is meant as an insult, and used as a weapon. The conversation degenerates as soon as anyone starts tossing it around.
Ha ha ha. But Matt, you know that it doesn’t matter how convincing I am, you need to hear the Royal Society declare Jo Nova an official hero before you’ll believe it. Two years on and the skeptics handbook stands with not one single error of reasoning or fact. Dr Glikson gave up. Deltoid didn’t respond. I baked the latest round of attacks on the handbook in toto, no point left standing.
Didn’t I absolutely categorically bust the notion that Big-Oil money for sceptics matters? That line of argument is one big lie based on a fallacy.
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As I say I don;t use the D-word, and I don;t think I was calling Roy a denier. But point taken and I’ll watch my tongue:)
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Thanks Matt. We’d miss you if you didn’t visit 🙂
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Brilliantly naive, I’d say. My guess is that you don’t actually work in a science-related field. My experience suggests that scientific change happens more often by the mechanism suggested by Thomas Kuhn: The supporters of the old view (“the old die-hards”) die off or retire and the “consensus view” is then dominated by the newer scientists.
The AGW situation is even more resistant to change because most of the scientists promoting it are also defending their careers, which are dependent on government funding of the “climate problem” (no problem — no funding). As Upton Sinclair said: “It’s hard to get a man to understand something when his salery depends on his not understanding it.”
Jo isn’t the only one that thinks that. It probably has something to do with your inability to produce any contrary evidence.
The entire Skeptic’s Handbook is nothing but a long list of such holes. When, for example, the AGW hypothesis predicts a fundamental result and that result is observed not to exist in the real world, that is a “hole”.
I’m not sure we’re speaking the same language. I’m pretty sure we don’t have the same understanding of “logic” and “proof”. I’m pretty sure my interpretation is the right one, because I have invented a number of things that never existed before and made them work. That didn’t happen because a “Consensus” of scientists or engineers agreed with me (indeed, a few times many disagreed) — it happened because I was right. (I’ve been wrong a few times, too 😉 )
Data is the ultimate judge of a theory, not “the consensus view”. The scientists promoting CAGW have yet to demonstrate that their hypothesis has any predictive skill that is distinguishable from chance, yet the entire political drive for “mitigating climate change” is (supposedly) based on such “predictions”. It you can’t see a problem with that, then you need a remedial logic course (and thank goodness you aren’t designing airplanes, or anything that matters if it’s right or wrong).
I sincerely hope (and I mean this) that you don’t use such “logic” in making decisions about your new business — we need all the successful businesses we can get.
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We can now confirm after recent leaks that Gillard is a denier herself – A “welfare reform denier”
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My long-used term for those blindly in support for AGW is “Alarmists.” I believe that to be an accurate description.
Jo – keep up the excellent work!
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BobC – actually the new business is off the agenda for a while. While wrapping things up here I got a few offers and on balance I think I’ll take them and get a bit more private sector cred up my sleeve.
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BobC also… you and others like to quote my use of the word consensus a lot. Early on I backed AGW without it being “consensus”. I don’t support it because of the consensus, I support it because I think it is right.
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Not to worry MattB; You’re not the one who started us using “consensus” 🙂
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Glad you’re getting offers — that’s an accomplishment in the current climate.
The last time I tried to start a business (Optical networking in 2000 — really bad timing), I got 4 unsolicited offers of employment in one year. When you’re looking, however …
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Cheers Bob – 10 years in the public sector and it is glad to know that someone in the real world thinks I’m worth employing. The “current climate” in Perth, I think, is far different than in many places around the world. I’m as much in demand because they are desperate as because I’m any good;)
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