Each year the winter whitewater carves out a tiny bit more rock, and each summer we see the ripples in the granite.
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After skeptical climate science blogs dominated the science category in 2013, the bloggies caved in and dumped the whole category. This is your opportunity to show that scientists are skeptics, and the opinions of hundreds of thousands of readers still count. So in 2014, I suggested we could lodge a protest, or we could just nominate our favorite blogs for other categories couldn’t we? And boy-o-boy, nominate we did. (Thank you.) Skeptical science blogs are now spread across many other categories. (In the end, trying to keep skeptics out may give skeptics more wins. Ain’t that the way?) But voting closes on Sunday, so if you haven’t already done it, please take the time to tick those boxes. I know it’s a chore, but it’s a way you can help bloggers reach a wider audience, spread their influence. It’s also a way you can direct readers to sites you find rewarding that they may not have heard of. It’s also a way you can let the Bloggies organizers know that it’s no accident that skeptical blogs are so popular. This year I’ve been lucky enough to be a finalist in three (gosh) heavy hitting categories, with some stiff competition.
What am I most proud of?Since Sept 2008 I have written 1,403 posts and almost two million people have visited this site from over 200 countries. The Skeptics Handbook has found its way in hard copy to 220,000 people, including all politicians in Australia and the US, and was translated by volunteers into 16 languages, and remarkably — in such a contentious topic — five years later, has survived unscathed — there is not much I would change. John Cook took two years to try to knock it down with help from four professors, but I only needed four days to take his arguments apart. Thanks to this blog, I’ve done repeated Op-Eds for The Australian, a sought after Diary post on the Spectator, and been named in the Australian Parliament — where Rob Oakshott “smelt a rat” and claimed I ran a well organized and well funded campaign “to her credit”. My favourite posts include an epic five part debate with Prof Andrew Glikson. I was one of the key protagonists getting Dr Paul Bain and Nature to issue a partial correction “regretting the offence cause by the term denier”. I still think my initial response to him is one of my best pieces. Among my readers are three national cartoonists, and at least a dozen MP’s and senators. I’ve been cited by and talked to the very people who I admire greatly — Mark Steyn, Matt Ridley, James Delingpole and Andrew Bolt, who described this post as outstanding and “a magnificent polemic”. On the 2014 Bloggies Voting Page — Look out for Tallbloke, Donna La Framboise (No Frakking Consensus), WattsUp, GWPF, Climate Audit, and Small Dead Animals. Yes, some are competing with each other. Darn — you shall have to choose! Voting closes 10pm Sunday EST US time. Anthony Watts has a list of suggestions, check his page or see below for the details on making your vote count. Remember you must tick a blog in three categories, you must scroll down, fill in the darn Captcha, with a real email, and click the link that will be sent in your email. Whatever happens I’ve already had a win, and I’m grateful to those who nominated and voted for me in the shortlist. HOW TO CAST YOUR VOTE1. Click on the 2014 Bloggies Page Keep reading → Another day is The Backdown? Everything is more important than carbon action these days. In China, real pollution is trumping the fake kind. China has been toying with carbon markets, but this month announced they might have to back away. (The shame!)
China’s carbon markets were never serious anyway — the glorious plan was to launch seven pilot trading schemes — and each new market was an excuse for environmental activists to issue press releases and proclaim “success” and “momentum”. It was all about the number of new markets opening (not the number of degrees the world would cool). In reality, even these pilot schemes were a pile of tokens (so to speak) — most of the credits were given out for free. The fines for non-compliance were minimal. It almost looks like it was designed with PR in mind? I’m pleased to see they have noticed the general direction of the Australian Carbon Market (and the oath to axe it). Julia Gillard wanted us to be leaders. What can I say? Keep reading →
In 2007, the APS improbably stepped out of the world of physics and into the world of policy and proclaimed:
In 2009, when 160 members of the APS protested, the council “overwhelmingly” voted to reject their proposal. (See how these things work? There are 47,000 members, of which 160 people took the effort and time to publicly protest, and then a council of what, six people, gets to use the word “overwhelming” as if it means something.) They also wrote: “APS adheres to rigorous scientific standards in developing its statements. The Society is always open to review of its statements when significant numbers of its members request it to do so.” It’s all about the PR isn’t it? It’s about the importance of seeming to be transparent and open, when the reality is the APS statement of 2007 was profoundly unscientific, misleading, and against the wishes of many of the members, yet even in 2014, the statement still stands. Prominent scientists like Nobel Prize winning Ivar Gievar and long standing Professor Hal Lewis resigned in disgust. The IPCC was exposed again and again as having poor quality control, an unscientific attitude, using magazine articles as references, and allowing activists to help review their work. One of their leading scientists was caught saying he used “tricks” to “hide declines” and other scientists were caught saying they approved of his approach. Evidence accumulated that the IPCC projections were wrong, double wrong, useless, unskilled and failed on all the major predictions. Still the APS supported them. This is why Science-by-committee is such a hopelessly unscientific approach. Now finally, the APS announces it will Review that 2007 Statement on Climate Change, February 20, 2014. There are six members of the new committee, and it is indeed the most broad spectrum and balanced climate science committee I’ve seen. The other three members are Ben Santer, William Collins, and Isaac Held (all essentially climate modelers). It could be that years after individual physicists and bloggers saw the writing on the wall, the APS has finally realized their support of the IPCC is shredding their scientific reputation. They have a 115 year history as one of the largest hard-science societies. They should never have supported a religion with a trillion dollar price tag. If they jump ship, the quickening will start… that acceleration on the curve where other agencies and groups rush to dump the dying meme. The moment is coming when the phase change occurs and everyone starts to say “I was always a skeptic”. Tony Thomas has an excellent article in Quadrant, arguing that this is “finally some real climate science” and the tide has turned. (Perhaps it has, but I’m waiting for the outcome). If the APS really is being transparent, open, and are willing to objectively assess the evidence, then it will cause a storm.
As Thomas notes, the questions posed are “trenchant”. I would say they also cut to the core of the points that really matter: Keep reading → Professor Richard Betts, Head of Climate Impacts Research, Met Office Hadley Centre, responded to an alarmist news story in the Independent, both with a comment at the article, and in a tweet (or two). If more scientists spoke out publicly, reporting would get better. Prof Richard Betts commenting at the Independent (my bold): Official prophecy of doom: Global warming will cause widespread conflict, displace millions of people and devastate the global economy
And so on– it is pretty much all there: war, starvation, floods, seas rising, and death.
Richard Betts comments (my bolding):
I find myself using the word innumerate more and more. Anything to do with climate change is about the numbers — how much will the planet warm? How much will it cost to change the weather? How much useful electricity do wind turbines produce? The arguments of everyone from trolls to Naomi Klein, to Sir Paul Nurse avoid the numbers. And the only time Greenpeace discuss numbers, they seem to pick the wrong kind — dollars instead of degrees. Then they miss the biggest dollars in this debate anyway (but only by a factor of 3,000). Numbers are just not their strong point. Some people avoid the numbers strategically, — because it’s a debate they can’t win. Sir Paul Nurse hopes we don’t notice that he doesn’t even make an argument, he just declares his side “won”. He tosses a red herring about CO2 being a greenhouse gas. (Which is not what the debate is about. Perhaps he’s heard of feedbacks? He doesn’t say.) Otherwise, he declares the majority “know the cost benefits are worth it”, which is a/ a logical fallacy, b/ a lot like a car advert, and c/ completely wrong. The last UK poll I saw, showed more than 60% of Brits didn’t even believe in a man-made climate, let alone approve the cost of trying to “fix” it. Now Sir Paul is probably very numerate (being a Nobel in Medicine, and President of The Royal Society), which begs the question of why he seems so scared of talking about climate numbers? Perhaps he’s anxious? Apparently some people are at greater risk “to fear math” not just because they did badly at it, or had nasty teachers and mean gloating friends. But genetically they might be the anxious kind of person, and not be too hot with math skills. About 40% of the differences in math anxiety, as it is called, is possibly due to genes. Math anxiety it seems, is a hot field of study. It was a new term for me. A different study using brain scans reckons that when people worry about maths, their brain feels real pain. It’s not something we hear about much on skeptical blogs. Probably since more than half the readers of skeptical blogs had a maths, physics or engineering background. Likewise most geoscientists and engineers are skeptics (and also not too scared of math). Since maths anxiety seems so common among climate activists, perhaps it’s time we asked if climate-anxiety causes maths anxiety? Or rather whether maths anxiety causes the climate kind… Time to talk about some numbers then? Jo Who’s afraid of math? Study finds some genetic factorsDate:
March 17, 2014
Source:
Summary:
A new study of math anxiety shows how some people may be at greater risk to fear math not only because of negative experiences, but also because of genetic risks related to both general anxiety and math skills. The results don’t mean that math anxiety can be blamed solely or even mostly on genetic factors, the researchers emphasized. In this study, genetic factors explained about 40 percent of the individual differences in math anxiety.
Here in Australia the intellectual depth and moral caliber of the fans of big-government handouts is on display. This is a world where your intellect and popularity is measured in how much you hate Tony Abbott and Andrew Bolt. The witless debate ensues, aka the March-in-March protest this weekend: “How much money should we take; you’re a racist, homophobic, corporate a** _______.” Last week a thrash band mock-beheaded Tony Abbott with jets of squirting blood for entertainment. It’s base, it’s barbarian, it’s childish and extreme. Enough. Last week the ABC wallowed in rants, namcalling and false claims about Andrew Bolt. He who argues we should not judge people by their race, gets called a racist. Tonight the ABC finally agree to “clarify” the claims. (Why not just apologize?) Today, surprise, the ABC finds space for 43 protest photos, but omits the ones that show the depraved nature of some of the protestors. It’s not reporting, it’s propaganda. Privatize it.
After Bolt was subjected to abuse he wondered if he should give up. I was struck that what he and what Tony Abbott need are not voices just urging them on, but people willing to do something. Civilization depends on people being civil. It’s not enough to stand by and just cheer on those who fight for logic, decency, and reason. It’s time to speak up against the bullies; to write letters to editors, journalist-activists and politicians. To demand that something be done about the ABC. You may think one voice doesn’t matter. But bullies follow the herd, and they need to know the grownups outnumber them and they are not impressed.
Another Canberra woman, November, said she was upset about too many things to list. When asked what she wanted to achieve, she said, “I want to see Tony Abbott lynched.”— Canberra Times Keep reading → A new paper (Moffa-Sánchez et al) reports that they looked at layers of dead plankton in ocean mud (otherwise known as foraminifera in marine sediments) and have reconstructed the temperature and salinity of a couple of spots in the North Atlantic between 818AD – 1780 with data on δ18O and the Mg/Ca ratios. One immediate thought, an aside, is that if this technique works, there is no shortage of ocean mud, surely, and perhaps we could drill and analyze more mud for solar correlations in other places. (I hear foraminifera live in the Southern Hemisphere too). Perhaps no one is looking for the connection with the sun? Moffa-Sánchez et al find the big climate shifts (the 100-year variations) correlate with total solar irradiance (TSI). See especially that orange line black line track in the d graph below. I stress, correlations don’t mean causation and the mechanism is mere speculation. But I find the graph intruiging. There are a lot of turning points, and in pure “curve fitting” type of analysis, this is a better curve fit than the one with CO2. (Find me a turning point that matches with carbon dioxide!) I suspect we’ll be referring back to this paper, and I hanker for more TSI comparisons with other sites and regions. ![]() Figure 2 | Proxy records from RAPiD-17-5P. a, Solar irradiance forcing reconstruction based on the cosmogenic nuclide 10Be (ref. 10; orange) and global volcanic stratospheric aerosols30 (grey) TSI, total solar irradiance. b, The researchers suggest that when solar activity is low the winter jet stream over the North Atlantic is more likely to get blocked. (Which means vast tongues of cold arctic air stretch far to the south, and someone somewhere, gets freaky and not-nice weather.)
Back when CO2 levels were “ideal” the climate apparently swung wildly: Keep reading → I’ve been humbled by donations from Australia, USA, UK, Canada, NZ, Ireland, Germany, France, Sweden, Finland, Netherlands, Holland, Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Israel, Austria, and Cyprus. I hope I haven’t missed any? (For the record, Queensland has the most skeptics per capita. :- ) ) I thought I might have had writers block trying to live up to that. Here’s the irony, can you believe? I’ve run out of chocolate. More than 600 people bought me a chocolate, yet I have none in the house. Back soon… ![]() Donors came from all over the West. This graphs the number of donors from each country.
(Thank you to everyone, I’m trying to send emails, but I may not manage…) *Holland/Netherlands — yes I realize, but I’m acknowledging the names that donors used.
UPDATE: Oh! Norway added to the post and to the graph, as it should be! – Jo
UPDATE: This is just overwhelming. Amazing! New donations are coming in from the UK, Canada, France, Austria, New Zealand, Germany. Brilliant. Brilliant. Every bit counts. Thanks Anthony Thanks Jaymez.! UPDATE #2: Donations (this random moment 9pm EST) are coming in the last hour from Columbus, OH; Lower Plenty, Victoria; Multi Way London; Newtown, New South Wales; Kew, Victoria; Aurora Ontario; Albion, QLD; Hollola Finland; Belmont, Western Australia; Sawston Cambridge, UK; Point Lonsdale, Victoria; Ermington, New South Wales; Witham, Essex UK; Marrickville, New South Wales; Ascot, Berkshire UK; Belair, South Australia; Oslo Norway; Tatura, Victoria ; Oxley, Queensland; Point Cook, Victoria; Stewarton, East Ayrshire UK … I’m lost for the right word. At this rate we might make the target Jaymez set. UPDATE #3: Good news we are well over the half way mark. I’m really delighted, thank you. UPDATE #4!! Great news, we have claimed the full bonus from Jaymez. (Thank you! I owe a lot of people an email. I did not expect it to be reached so soon. 🙂 Extra mention goes to donors to the NAB account, I have no way of identifying or thanking some of you personally (unless you email, please!). It all makes a big difference, and is support for us over the next few months. If you haven’t yet made a contribution, please don’t stop, the extra funds are still very useful too — in the long run, we need to find a way to fund ongoing independent analysis, research and commentary in a more sustainable way. Any government will grow until something stops it. What stops it? We, the people. — Jo ———————————–
Our bank account is looking very low. All contributions would be gratefully received. Thanks * * * He claimed that hardly anyone would have seen it, and while I think I’m getting a great response, he thinks I’m crazy. He knows I hate asking for money (or even thinking about finances), but he also knows I work full time and despite the claims, big oil isn’t sending cheques, and there are no government grants to fund someone to fill in the gaps the CSIRO ($1.2b budget) and BOM ($300m) seem to miss. To cut a long story short he made an offer I just couldn’t refuse. I had to do a proper request for donations. He’s been ribbing me for ages to get onto it. I keep making excuses, but he’s finally outfoxed me, and in the nicest possible way. This time, to ensure that I did so he made the extraordinary offer of giving me a dollar for every $4 I raise in the next week to a maximum of $5,000 (hypothetically if I was to raise $20,000). So any support you can give me would be gratefully received (and amplified by 25%). It will help me to keep not-thinking-about-money and think about corruption-in-science or getting logic-into-schools or trying to reduce your tax bill instead. Indeed, it’s really just about our freedom to say what we think and the kind of civilization we want to leave for the kids. I would love to claim the whole $5,000 he is offering, because it will be very useful (just wait ’til you see what’s been cooking around here). Just wait! As Jaymez says: “So there is your challenge Jo! Now you have no excuse.” Shucks, Thanks Jaymez. Wow. Just wow.
…or visit the Donations page. Hate Paypal? There are alternatives (Deposit & Cheques button). Why this odd arrangement? Would you believe — the Australian government say that I need permission from them to accept “donations”. (It might be your money, but you can only donate it to a Registered Charity.) So instead of accepting “donations” I’m “selling” units of $1 emergency chocolate support (for me) of which you may purchase as many as you want.
PS: For anyone wondering, Jaymez is not a magnate, not a wealthy businessman, and not in the fossil fuels industry. He spends some of his time working pro bono in developing countries. He writes that he “understands better than most how restrictions on industrial growth will impact the poorest in the world.” PPS: I owe some other thank yous still. They’re coming.
The CSIRO decided to leave out some information about the state of our climate in their State of the Climate Report CSIRO. CSIRO published these “Fast Facts” in bold. I’m publishing the things they didn’t say, but could have, in points in between. UPDATE: The CSIRO budget is $1.2 billion a year and the BOM’s is $300 m. Why is it left to unfunded volunteers to provide the full story? Fast Facts from the CSIRO and BOM“Australia’s climate has warmed by 0.9°C since 1910, and the frequency of extreme weather has changed, with more extreme heat and fewer cool extremes.”
The CSIRO-BOM team could have said:
Admire how a conclusion so weak a skeptic could agree somehow “seems” to endorse the general theme of fear and angst about CO2. It’s all in the wording. The corollary to the conclusion above is equally true: some of these hot summer records are very likely to have been caused by natural and unnatural variability together. Since any unnatural effect greater than flat-zero makes the above statement technically correct, the precise message it conveys is close to nothing. As I keep saying: all forms of warming, cause warming. It doesn’t mean that CO2 caused it.
“Rainfall averaged across Australia has slightly increased since 1900, with the largest increases in the northwest since 1970. Rainfall has declined since 1970 in the southwest, dominated by reduced winter rainfall. Autumn and early winter rainfall has mostly been below average in the southeast since 1990.”
“Extreme fire weather has increased, and the fire season has lengthened, across large parts of Australia since the 1970s.”
“Global mean temperature has risen by 0.85°C from 1880 to 2012.”
“The amount of heat stored in the global oceans has increased, and global mean sea level has risen by 225 mm from 1880 to 2012.”
“Annual average global atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations reached 395 parts per million (ppm) in 2013 and concentrations of the other major greenhouse gases are at their highest levels for at least 800,000 years.”
“Australian temperatures are projected to continue to increase, with more extremely hot days and fewer extremely cool days.”
“Average rainfall in southern Australia is projected to decrease, and heavy rainfall is projected to increase over most parts of Australia.”
“Sea-level rise and ocean acidification are projected to continue.”
If the BOM and CSIRO had wanted Australians to be informed and calm about the risks of Ocean Acidification, they would have said things like this:
More informationPosts on Extreme weather, Heatwaves, Australian temperatures, Sea Level, Oceans.
Our bank account is looking very low. All contributions would be gratefully received. Thanks * * * * Remember how the BOM had to change the whole color scheme on the national weather map just to forecast a potential “50C” in 2013? They had to issue a whole press release, where they also didn’t mention the previous 50C+ days in our national archives. Spot the pattern. ^This does not preclude the possibility that we might “need” a large bureaucracy and soon, to protect us from falling space rocks. Pace NASA, and DOD. Awaiting events in Syria/Ukraine…
REFERENCESBerner et al, GEOCARB III: A revised model of atmospheric CO2 over Phanerozoic Time, American Journal of Science, Vol. 301, February, 2001, P. 182–204. (GEOCARB III) Scotese C.R., Golonka, J., and Ross, M.I. (1994) Phanerozoic Paleogeographic and Paleoclimatic Modeling Maps, in A. F. Embry, B. Beauchamp, and D.J. Glass (editors), Pangea, Global Environments and resources, Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists, Memoir 17, p. 1-47. Scotese, Worsley, T. R., Moore, T. L., and Fraticelli, C. M. (1994) Phanerozoic CO2 levels and global temperatures inferred from changing paleogeography, in Klein, George D., (editor), Pangea; paleoclimate, tectonics, and sedimentation during accretion, zenith and breakup of a supercontinent. Special Paper Geological Society of America 288, p. 57-73, Boulder, CO. Scotese C.C., Upchurch, G.R., and Otto-Bliesner, B.L. (1999) Terrestrial vegetation and its effects on climate during the latest Cretaceous, E. Berrera and C. Johnson, (eds), The Evolution of Cretaceous Ocean/Climate Systems, Geol. Soc. Amer. Spec. Paper, v. 332, pp. 407-426. How much do they hate the Koch brothers? So much, that when the Koch’s paid for a new hospital care centre, nurses stormed the streets.
From the twitter #kochBros ![]() David Koch is against affordable healthcare. Why is his name on a hospital? #stopKoch The real issue apparently is “Affordable Healthcare”. If you are dependent on big-government largess (or aiming to be that way), I guess the last thing you’d want is successful free market philanthropy. Once upon a time people who created productive industries and gave away large sums of money were lauded, now there is no amount of money the Koch’s could give… If you like your small hospital, you can keep your small hospital? Oh the dilemma, The Koch’s support of climate skeptics* means the hospital gift is tainted money:
Grist are right into the irony (as they see it). The hospital is “desperate” because of the extra patients due to the trauma of Hurricane Sandy, and yet The Kochs helped made Hurricane Sandy worse!
h/t Marc Morano Climate Depot *I’m not one. The loose ends…. The bias is obvious in what they don’t say. Reporters are supposed to seek out and promote the most rational, well argued positions they can find. Instead they elevate themselves to defacto “science judges” and decide which scientists deserve to be heard. It could be called arrogance, or it could be called “lying by omission”.
The ABC referred too here is the American one, not the Australian ABC. (Has anyone analyzed the local highly influential mass-media outlet?) For those choosing networks in the US, NBC did better than either the ABC or the CBS. Of course, the evil Fox out-rates them all. Could it be those viewers hate being told what to think?
Cue the commenters who will claim news ought to reflect the consensus. Meaning that journalists should decide who goes to air, not by reason and evidence, but because key-word surveys on specialty magazine publications suggest that there are more scientists who believe a particular, unlikely, idea. Rent out your brain, you “investigative journalists”. Government funding pays for magazine subscriptions, just like it pays for repeated irrelevant press releases. Since when was this science? Keep reading → In the true spirit of satire Steve Hunter manages to pretty much expose the grand flaw. Credit Steve Hunter illustrations Man-made global warming is unfalsifiable. Scientists make predictions and test them. Only unskeptical scientists ignore the failures. Flannery has missed a few. Bolt has a copy of Flannery’s Dam Predictions. For the record. For your entertainment, the list of things that global warming can cause has been collected by NumberWatch: A list of things caused by global warming A snippet from I – K: … indigestion, industry threatened, infectious diseases, inflation in China, insect explosion, insect invasion, insurance premium rises, Inuit displacement, Inuit poisoned, Inuit suing, invasion of alien worms, invasion of Antarctic aliens, invasion of Asian carp, invasion of cane toads, invasion of caterpillars, invasion of cats, invasion of crabgrass, invasion of herons, invasion of jellyfish, invasion of king crabs, invasion of lampreys, invasion of midges, invasion of pine beetles, invasion of rats (China), invasion of slugs, island disappears, islands sinking, Italy robbed of pasta, itchier poison ivy, Japan’s cherry blossom threatened, jellyfish explosion, jets fall from sky, Kew Gardens taxed, kidney stones, killer cornflakes, killing us, kitten boom, koalas leaves inedible, koalas under threat, krill decline…
Global Carbon Markets peaked in 2011 at €96bn euro. Over the next two years they plummeted to €36bn* euro collapsing by 60%. Though the press didn’t seem in a hurry to convey that, and if I search, no government funded agency has done a graph like this below (perhaps I missed it?) The decline was looking pretty terminal, but the EU government has now voted to backload (which means hold off the permits and cut the supply). This is a desperate measure involving over half the new permits to keep the “free” market alive. Instead, the news agencies with greener leanings have underplayed the fall, and the 60% decline is now invisibly massaged in places like BusinessGreen into a “market set to soar”. This is not just media-spin but a news-through-a-centrifuge.
A breathless journalist at Thompson Reuters describes the possible revival of the market back to 30% below the peak as “astounding”:
Let’s not forget this soaring revival is only due to Government decree. The EU voted to simply hold back some promised carbon credits. They cornered the market from the start. There is nothing “free” about this fixed market, and the people who will pay (consumers and taxpayers, us) don’t get a choice. The Australian carbon market is still tied to the EU one. Ask Bill Shorten (the opposition leader) why a group of EU bureaucrats are setting the price.
A CNBC show interviewed Warren Buffett — and in the context of talking about insurance shares — the billionaire (and Bershire Hathaway shareholders) are smiling all the way to the bank. Climate scientists may be predicting disasters, but as far as insurance goes, nothing much had changed. Interviewer: How has the latest rise of extreme weather events changed the calculus on Ajit Jain in reinsurance? Warren Buffett: “The public has the impression, because there has been so much talk about climate, that the events of the last ten years have been unusual. …They haven’t. We’ve been remarkably free of hurricanes in the last five years. If you’ve been writing hurricane insurance it’s been all profit.” Warren Buffett: “So far the effects of climate change, if any, have not affected… the insurance market. It has made no difference. I calculate the probabilities in terms of catastrophes no differently than a few years ago… that may change in ten years.” Warren Buffett: “I love apocalyptic predictions, because … they probably do affect rates…” Warren Buffett: “Writing US hurricane insurance has been very profitable in the last five or six years… now the rates have come down and we’re not writing much, if anything, on Hurricanes in the US at all. The biggest cat risk right now.. I think is earthquakes in New Zealand.” Watch the interview on Squawk Box CNB. It’s worth watching. Even the interviewers are skeptics. h/t Willie and the Wall St Journal.(Headlined: “Warren Buffett, Climate-Change Denier. The sage of Omaha punctures liberal myths.” So the phrase “climate change denier” is used with cachet here. How times change. No insult intended. Ouch. Soon, everyone will want to be one. Keep reading → Readers here will know that my problem with the term “denial” is with its misuse in English*. But the term “denier” is also used as a character slur to mark those who disagree in a science debate as being as odious as Holocaust deniers. The hope, apparently, is that dissenting views should be shunned and their arguments and evidence ignored. It’s a cheap debating tactic to shut down debate for those without evidence and reason, but it’s incredibly effective if you have the media on your side. What’s amazing is how many otherwise smart people don’t see through this babyish rhetorical stunt. Last week Roy Spencer had had enough. In response to years of name-calling, he protested at being called a “denier” and said
Skeptics have been likened to Holocaust deniers for a decade, and the Anti-Defamation League have been pretty silent. They did once in 2007 tell off James Hansen. But otherwise, it’s been fair game to besmirch the memory of the holocaust in the name of climate alarm. So immediately after Roy blogged the Anti-Defamation League did the obvious thing (for irrational fans of alarming science) and jumped in to denounce Roy Spencer. To put it in perspective, Roy Spencer and John Christy developed the system that measures temperatures from satellites, and won a NASA medal for exceptional scientific achievement. Activists who failed science at high school have been calling both men “deniers”. The hypocrisy knows no bounds. PopTech decided to list some of the times the ADL thought that Holocaust allusions were quite alright. Evidently, they didn’t mind when politicians or government funded officials like Al Gore, Chris Hulme, Rajendra Pachauri, Caroline Lucas, or Bernie Sanders do it. They also don’t mind when PhD’s do it, like Andrew Glikson, or Clive Hamilton, and they definitely don’t object to journalists like Ellen Goodman, George Monbiot, Richard Glover, Margo Kingston, or Joe Romm doing it. If there is still a single person out there with Internet access who denies that there has been a wholesale campaign to link skepticism of the climate with “holocaust denial” you can thank Poptech for correcting your delusion. There are many people who have so little respect for the ghastly suffering of Auschwitz, that they are more than happy to milk it shamelessly to score points in a science debate that they can’t win fairly:
– Bill McGuire, University College London (2006)
– Caroline Lucas, U.K. Green Party MP (2007)
– Chris Mooney, The Intersection (2006)
– Clive Hamilton, Charles Sturt University (2009)
– Margo Kingston, Webdiary (2006)
– Thomas Schelling, University of Maryland (2013) My favorite hypocrite of all, Jim Hoggan, who earns a living from doing PR for renewables firms:
– Jim Hoggan, DeSmogBlog (2005) In October 2006 Jim Hoggan realized this was a poor PR move because people were talking about free speech and how skeptics are being demonized. So Hoggan did what he does and simply denied that this was about the holocaust. This is a typical Hoggan rewrite of history:
See the full list at PopTech: Skeptics Smeared As Holocaust Deniers, ADL Silent. Send in any additions you find to document all the name-callers.
*I ask commenters who use it in a science debate to justify it scientifically (with observations their target denies), but none have managed too, though two have admitted they can’t and apologized. : – ) The pause in global warming is so crippling, so crucial, that scientists will go to extremes to find any excuse to issue something that combines the magic terms “no pause” and “extreme temperatures”. This is the winning combination in climate bingo. But marvel how far these researchers have to stretch to get there. Gaze upon Seneviratne et al (UNSW) declaring that there is no pause in the trend of “extreme hot temperature days”. Watch the pea (or rather peas).
If the world was warming, they wouldn’t bother with this strained nonsense, would they? They are talking about 15 year trends in air over land, in summer, on the hottest 10% of days.
Are the UNSW scientists trying to learn something about the world, or are they trying to generate headlines with the words “extreme hot temperatures”? Judge them by their press releases…. ![]() Click to enlarge. Note big blue cooling areas in the DJF months (northern winter) and warming extremes in the Sahara. Note also the amount of “extreme” heat days in high cold latitudes from December to May. They are discussing a 15 year trend in “hottest days” at the end of a natural variation which is something like this: ![]() The graph ends 100 years ago. So extend that red line up 0.9C. Then whip up some panic about the last quarter millimeter. Sure, this is GISP — one ice core from Greenland and not global temperatures. The truth is we have no idea whether the current level of “extreme” hot days is much different to the hot spells 1,000 years ago, 2,000 years ago, or 7,000 years ago. It is completely disingenuous to pretend that a 15 year trend in a data set this noisy tells us something that matters. Forget global average temperatures — move those goal postsThis paper is very ambitious — they would like us to believe that global average temperatures aren’t that important now, really these heat extremes have more impact. And maybe heat extremes do have more impact (it’s debatable), but they don’t tell us about the cause. The climate scientists really hate the term “pause” calling it “ill-chosen”, “misleading” and “erroneous”. (Who is in denial?) Keep reading → |
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