Deltoid

Yep, it's 'the new dark age' alright el gordo (#1)

Soon you'll be hearing : 'Bring out your dead' !

:-(

Posted by: Billy Bob Hall | October 22, 2009 3:30 AM

If only there were some way of getting your animal to consume a carbon-rich substance to offset the carbon output...

Posted by: Mark | October 22, 2009 3:53 AM

Pets are a waste of anyone's money

By that logic are children also a waste of money? Put them to work?

Posted by: Janet Akerman | October 22, 2009 7:31 AM

Pets are a waste of anyone's money.

There are a few million (billion?) people around the planet who might disagree with that assessment given the companionship they receive from their pets.

Conversation with a dog might not be that stimulating, but I find their enthusiasm and uncluttered happiness at being taken for a walk infectious.

Posted by: DavidCOG | October 22, 2009 10:24 AM

Re Paul in #5: "Pets are a waste of anyone's money."

From WebMD: "What are the Health Benefits of Owning A Pet?"

I dunno... maybe what the right wing is driving at is: HEALTH is a waste of money. That would explain a lot. :-)

Cheers, Bruce

Posted by: Bruce Sharp | October 22, 2009 12:14 PM

DavidCog:

There are a few million (billion?) people around the planet who might disagree with that assessment given the companionship they receive from their pets.

Don't really care!

Most pets cost a lot of money. Working pets are fine. In the past they would have been fed on scraps and left overs. Now we use fossil fuels and industry to sustain them, they are not much different to a video recorder or a TV these days.

Posted by: Paul UK | October 22, 2009 1:47 PM

I won't mention he-who-must-not-be-named anymore, but I have to add that this:

"Newspaper and magazine reporters don’t have a pre-determined story in mind while they’re interviewing sources. This is not how we operate".

This is bizarre and absurd. I was a radio and print reporter and editor and in the SPJ and our state press club and IRE and so on. Seeing that simply convinced me I was reading someone who knew nothing whatsoever about journalism.

No one I ever met would agree with that.

A working journalist without some sort of sinecure who called his editor and said the above would be fired, with the one exception of completely human-interest feature writers. And even they would only sometimes do that.

If a journalist is interviewing you, little source, she or he has a pre-determined story in mind. Take that to the bank.

Posted by: Marion Delgado | October 23, 2009 5:00 AM

I place little trust in the architect couple's carbon accounting, but yes, pets, and especially meat-eating pets consume resources, including finite ones. They should be viewed as a luxury.

But who said we needed to get rid of all our luxuries? I don't deny that dogs provide a lot of companionship, etc. Even as a hobby, pet keeping may be perfectly acceptable - it's up to each and one of us to decide how to spend our fair "resource share", and no one's business to complain about how we do it, as long as we don't use more.

But we need good data on what's more resource intensive. With honest bookkeeping (there are a lot of examples of dishonest bookkeeping, "food miles" come to mind) we can make informed decisions. Unfortunately, most of the people who try to provide information are either lightweights, like these architects, or have an agenda independent of environmental conservation, like animal rights organizations.

Posted by: Harald Korneliussen | October 23, 2009 7:01 AM

Ooh, el gordo displays such compassion for furry animals. I'm so moved to tears.

But wait. What if the furry animals are... penguins? Or (HORRORS HORRORS HORRORS!!!) polar bears? Then clearly we should kill as many of them as possible! So that the free market can continue to thrive!

Posted by: bi -- IJI | October 23, 2009 8:05 AM

"Newspaper and magazine reporters don’t have a pre-determined story in mind while they’re interviewing sources. This is not how we operate". This is bizarre and absurd

If it were true, Nixon would never have had to resign the Presidency ...

Posted by: dhogaza | October 23, 2009 10:46 AM

But wait. What if the furry animals are... penguins?

If the furry animals are penguins, then indeed, much of modern biology will have to be scrapped, starting with taxonomy ...

Posted by: dhogaza | October 23, 2009 10:50 AM

"Get back in the bear costume, Levi!"

Posted by: Marion Delgado

I hate me for this one, but it has to be said: Is this why they elected Palin???

Posted by: Mark | October 23, 2009 11:28 AM

New Scientist has an article about it:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427311.600-how-green-is-your-pet.html

Just in case that doesn't work, a tinyurl version:

http://tinyurl.com/ygfos8s

Posted by: Paul UK | October 23, 2009 2:25 PM

Problem is with the HI their form of libertarianism is "let me make as much money as I can" and the quid-pro-quo of GPL doesn't give them that freedom.

Microsoft and Darl McBride would be proud of them (seeing as D's sacked, anyone know if HI has gained another member..?)

Posted by: Mark | October 23, 2009 3:15 PM

btw I think pet thing is insane - it reminds me strongly of Freakonomics.

Assume you bike to the store to get your pet food, and the pet food is mostly industry BY-PRODUCTS. Exactly where is the extra impact from the pet?

Phuck these people.

Posted by: Marion Delgado | October 23, 2009 8:03 PM

Steve asks a TRICK question:

Questions for the panel: 1) Which is the greater waste of finite resources - a pet cat/ dog/ minnow/ llama or a climate change denialobotomist

Consulting my Pielkepedia, I find that WE are all minnows. QED, the minnow is the most important creature on Earth.

Thought you'd trip us up, there, eh, Steve?

Posted by: Marion Delgado | October 24, 2009 2:39 AM

Re: bi-IJI 27.

What free software though?? I don't know of any true free software, someone somewhere usually pays for its creation, even Open Source.

What server software do Heartland use to run their web site?

Posted by: Paul UK | October 24, 2009 5:17 AM

Another plonker misses the point about Arctic ice:

http://www.examiner.com/x-11224-Baltimore-Weather-Examiner~y2009m10d23-Arctic-Sea-Ice-shows-a-recovery-but-NASA-is-not-telling-you

Or tinyurl

http://tinyurl.com/ylhs4ls

Scroll down to the bit about NASA's statement about multi-layered ice and the author ignoring it.

Posted by: Paul UK | October 24, 2009 7:59 AM

I don't know of any true free software, someone somewhere usually pays for its creation, even Open Source.

Libre, Paul.

And who paid for "hello world"?

Don't be an arse.

Posted by: Mark | October 24, 2009 12:14 PM

Mark

And who paid for "hello world"?

Whoever was paying the person who wrote it in their lunch break!

Students writing such a thing in a class are funded, by their parents or by the state.

Most of the software I use has had some funding from the likes of Sun, Apple and many others. Or funding from the selling of books, services etc. Small developers usually have a day job of some sort i would imagine.

Posted by: Paul UK | October 24, 2009 1:28 PM

Whoever was paying the person who wrote it in their lunch break!

You aren't paid for your lunch break. Or at least I'm not.

I wanted a routine that added two dates together (this was a while back) and so I wrote it.

I just wanted it.

I didn't pay for it.

I wrote it.

It was free.

If I paid for it, who did I pay?

Posted by: Mark | October 24, 2009 2:36 PM

Well yeah... by Paul's 'logic' it'll follow that every personal hobby in the world is in fact 'paid work'. Who knew?

The "Free Software isn't truly free ($0) because someone paid the authors for doing something else and they spent the money on writing Free Software" line may be espoused by certain normally thoughtful people. But it's still dumb.

* * *

Back to the HI rant: some libertarian actually got so miffed by it that he wrote a blog entry about it, which then got, um, Slashdotted. Duh...

Posted by: bi -- IJI | October 24, 2009 3:08 PM

Paul UK:

I live in Eugene, Oregon, a very bike-oriented city, so the answer to your first question is "many people I know." And my mother, who moved to California from Alaska, always walks to the store to buy pet food for her little Jack Russell terrier, which keeps her healthy because it needs to be walked every day.

The answer to your other point is that feeding livestock by-products to livestock is not a good thing at all. Indeed, the UK got a very, very bad reputation on the Continent because so many people there believed as you do. Hence, my point stands.

As for the free software and open source software, you've been corrected adequately. You're simply mistaken, and it shouldn't take you more than a few hours of net-searching to realize it.

In general, though you're in the UK, your comments remind me of someone who's mostly read nonsensical Americans like John Stossel or John Tierney.

Posted by: Marion Delgado | October 24, 2009 7:49 PM

Hmm, let's see. El gordo shows such great compassion for fluffy animals which will have to be put down because they're being demonized by the Church of Global Warming. Unless, of course, they're penguins or polar bears, in which case we should totally not care about them. Because, you know, ████ ██████ winter █████ █████ ████ Vancouver Olympics █████ ███ █████!

I'm so moved to tears by el gordo's compassionate compassion.

Posted by: bi -- IJI | October 25, 2009 12:58 AM

el gordo: "a fading El Nino"?

Not quite what NOAA or the BoM are saying. But what do i>they know, right?

Posted by: Steve Chamberlain | October 25, 2009 1:39 AM

Shorter el gordo:

El Niño will be fading!

Well, maybe El Niño won't be fading. But wait! That's not the main point!

Posted by: bi -- IJI | October 25, 2009 4:12 AM

The answer to your other point is that feeding livestock by-products to livestock is not a good thing at all.

I didn't actually ever write anything to suggest such a thing!

Vegetable waste that isn't a high enough grade for human consumption as food is used in pet food. I suggest that could instead be directed to non-food human use, eg anaerobic digestion, compost etc.

Or as the articles suggest, it would be better to direct that feed to productive pets such as chickens etc.

Pet food is a 'stream' of activity and resources that could be used productively elsewhere. Because there is a huge market for pets, there is no incentive to find alternative uses for the waste stream that currently ends up in pet food.

It is only because people can afford to divert some of their income to a non-productive pet, that they do it.

Posted by: Paul UK | October 25, 2009 5:19 AM

Further to the 'free' software debate. Clearly the move from selling software on a physical medium to individuals, to a network system like the internet, has just moved the costs around.

Instead of retrieving costs via the selling of a disc. We now pay indirectly through higher electricity use, networks of switches, servers and connections.

Because I have an environmental view of things these days, I usually see things in a wider context, especially regards to costs to society rather than costs to individuals.

Personally I think if Heartland Inst insist on using Microsoft technology because it fits their model of economics and politics, then they are failing to adapt to inevitable change. eg. they are displaying the same intransigence as they do with climate change.

Posted by: Paul UK | October 25, 2009 5:56 AM

Instead of retrieving costs via the selling of a disc. We now pay indirectly through higher electricity use, networks of switches, servers and connections.

What rot.

Did FOSS piss on your wheaties or something?

The ONLY payment is the payment that living in society costs: you do the right thing.

Someone gives you code, you improve it and give the improvements back.

And the code could come from someone just wanting to write something useful. Or something they wanted to see if it could be done. Or they were bored.

I notice that you haven't disagreed with the statement that your wide ranging definition of "pay" means that you are being paid to post here.

After all, you couldn't post without a paying job to buy the computer. You couldn't post without using more electricity (needs paying for, so you need to be paid to pay it). Etc.

Posted by: Mark | October 25, 2009 6:54 AM

I'll ignore the abuse...

Back to the issue of the Science Museum vote on Copenhagen.

It appears that Anthony Watts has confirmed robo-voting is taking place (the email confirmation on the poll does not work). Interesting that the abuse appears to be primarily from his supporters!

Posted by: Paul UK | October 25, 2009 7:37 AM

Here's something bizarre:

Successful renewables investor to be deported from Australia

Stewart Taggart, founder and chief researcher of DESERTEC-Australia, has been ordered to leave Australia by the nation's Immigration authorities. [...]Acquasol's flagship project is "Acquasol 1," a 180MW MW hybrid parabolic trough concentrating solar power plant to be built outside Port Augusta, South Australia, a regional area with high unemployment and serious water problems. The plant will use multi-effects desalination to satisfy internal water needs, with any surplus sold to industrial customers. The plant will then use land-based solar salt-harvesting to turn byproduct brine into commercial grade salt and keep it out of the marine environment. When built, "Acquasol 1" will be the world's first hybrid solar-gas plant to incorporate desalination and land-based brine harvesting. In 2007, Acquasol applied to sponsor Mr. Taggart, a 41% owner of the company, to reside in Australia. The application was rejected by Australian Immigration and upheld by Australia's Migration Review Tribunal. Both based their rejections on the fact that Mr. Taggart was not being paid a salary by Acquasol. To date, none of Acquasol's directors have received a salary in order to enable Acquasol to conserve cash. To date, this has worked well for Mr. Taggart. Late last year, Acquasol was valued at A$5 million, making Mr. Taggart's investment $141,000 in the company worth $2.1 million. Both the Immigration Department and the Migration Review Tribunal ignored this. Both focussed exclusively on the lack of paid salary. Taggart was given 28 days to leave the country, an order now suspended pending his ministerial appeal. "Incredibly, a poorly-skilled, non-English speaking laborer with a median wage paycheck can remain in Australia, but a self-funded, risk-tolerant 'business angel' creating millions of dollars of value in the economy is deported," Mr. Taggart said. "That, in a nutshell, is Australian Immigration."

How you can help:

Posted by: Fran Barlow | October 25, 2009 7:59 AM

I'll ignore the abuse...

Yes, you should. I've been making 100% of my living on Open Source (GNU licensed, actually) software for 11 years now. Before that I had a software company selling proprietary compiler technology I'd developed in the late 70s.

When it comes to making a living, it's just a different revenue model.

And you can sell free (not as in beer, GNU-licensed) software as long as you make it available alternatively for free, what you're selling is a more convenient packaging, support, customization, etc. Not the software itself, essentially services.

And plenty of Open Source projects (PostgreSQL, for instance, on which I've done some development work in the past) aren't GNU-licensed anyway. PostgreSQL is BSD, so you can take it, customize it, and sell it as proprietary commercial software if you want (and, indeed, there are a couple of successful PostgreSQL companies doing just that).

You can do the same with GNU-licensed software as long as you put the sources online somewhere or include it in your distribution.

The free software movement has never been about "not making money".

Of course there are also plenty of people who work on Open Source software as a hobby. Then again, that's how I got my start, contributing code, unpaid, at 16 to a proprietary system the source of which had been given to me by Digital Equipment Corporation (now defunct).

Posted by: dhogaza | October 25, 2009 11:23 AM

PS, the only abuse you got was "don't be an arse". ONE.

Sheesh. You're thin skinned when you've started talking tosh and get told on it.

The abuse is going to double to TWO abusive statements now: Don't be such a frickin drama queen.

Posted by: Mark | October 25, 2009 12:53 PM

Sod, you beat me to it by four minutes, flat.

Does Spencer have any credibility left with his fellow scientists? In that article, he's essentially calling his colleagues in climate science frauds.

He's been descending further and further into outright denial ... how much further can he sink? Who's worse, RPjr or Spencer?

Posted by: dhogaza | October 25, 2009 2:18 PM

sorry, that "fine exotic food" link went wrong.

and you simply need to take a look at it.

Posted by: sod | October 25, 2009 2:59 PM

literature supporting the crocodile claim.

Posted by: sod

Come on, everyone knows that the alligators ate all the crocodiles...

Posted by: Mark | October 25, 2009 4:10 PM

O/T As the British Parliament debates their climate bill, It's snowing in London.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/29/commonsclimatechange_bill/

I admit this is a blatant 'cherry-pick' and it's weather not climate, but it struck me as amusingly ironic.

Posted by: el gordo | October 26, 2009 3:08 AM

I admit this is a blatant 'cherry-pick' and it's weather not climate, but it struck me as amusingly ironic.

well, looking at Wattsup, those cherry picks and weather reports are all that your side has gotten.

so it is not really ironic.

why don t you help out Spencer, with some links to scientific article about those sewer crocodiles?

you could also give us more information about that "finest danish food" thing.

or is there another weather event that you can report on?

Posted by: sod | October 26, 2009 5:20 AM

The andrew bolt link didn't work, here's a tinyurl:

http://tinyurl.com/ykknh4f

Posted by: Paul UK | October 26, 2009 5:50 AM

Ugh.

This made my head hurt:

C02 has been proven to have an insulating effect in the lab, but this is hugely different to the conditions in an ecosystem where negative feedback mechanisms exist (such as water vapour).

(from http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/2009/10/copenhagen_countdown_45_days.html#P87578133)

Water vapour is a positive feedback.

Even if they meant "clouds", this numpty continually states they are a scientist and genuinely do not see any connection between CO2 and temperatures.

Posted by: Mark | October 26, 2009 8:41 AM

Looks like the sun is slowly starting to crank up again after its Cycle 23 slumber. The solar flux hit 81 today and is at its highest level since March 2008. Sunspot activity is starting to lift and there is a slight chance of an M class flare. We haven't seen one of those for a while.

http://www.solarcycle24.com/

With Cycle 24 looking like it will click into gear, I daresay a half-way decent El Nino is going to knock the socks of 1998 and 2005. And that is no cause for celebration (even though it should shut up the "cooling since 1998 (or insert your favourite year here)" crowd.

Posted by: Jimmy Nightingale | October 26, 2009 11:40 PM

@kidicarus: unlikely they refer to Tim, he was pretty positive about Freakonomics. Perhaps Romm? Anyway, it's quite interesting they say it was "just some activist", considering that Caldeira has said it himself. Maybe HE is the "just some activist" they refer to...

Posted by: Marco | October 27, 2009 1:46 AM

Sod.

Our 'friend' Girma Orssengo might do well to pause and wonder how it is that four independent and "blind" statisticians

... who analyzed the data found a distinct decades-long upward trend in the numbers, but could not find a significant drop in the past 10 years in either data set. The ups and downs during the last decade repeat random variability in data as far back as 1880.

He might like to ask himself why this is so, and whether the questions that have been repeatedly put to him might be a start to garnering some real understanding about this.

Posted by: Bernard J. | October 27, 2009 9:53 AM

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is telling us that Copenhagen is dead in the water. Cap and trade in the U.S. will not pass the senate. Old news for those who look at the big picture. Regarding Ice extent in the Arctic. This years minimum was about 25% higher than 2007. What is occuring now is more about the wind than about the Arctic air temperature. More cooling takes place over open Arctic water than over ice covered water during the fall, winter, and spring. Finally we are seeing a real sun spot which will be out of sight in about a week.

Posted by: Kent | October 27, 2009 2:48 PM

Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of the space research laboratory at Russia's Pulkovo Observatory, said 'we should fear a deep temperature drop - not catastrophic global warming.'

http://solarcycle25.com/index.php?id=109

He puts up a good argument and I'm inclined to believe him.

Posted by: el gordo | October 28, 2009 4:36 AM

He puts up a good argument and I'm inclined to believe him.

you are inclined to believe all sorts of denialist rubbish.

a plot of sunspots vs temperature does not explain recent warming.

a new "maunder minimum" would do little more than stall current warming. even Loehle gives it at just about 0.5 below the long term average. it might bring back temperatures like in the 70s....

Posted by: sod | October 28, 2009 5:33 AM

el gordo meet Girma. Girma, this is el gordo. You two should get along like a house on fire.

Posted by: zoot | October 28, 2009 6:28 AM

So el gordo says such and such is true because Abdussamatov said something, which is true because Latif said something, which is true because "any technical analyst" will say something.

Therefore, the Free Software movement is a Marxist conspiracy.

Posted by: bi -- IJI | October 28, 2009 9:11 AM

Latif then says temperatures will start rising again, but this doesn't seem likely.

What do we call this? fantasy cherry-picking? First of all, Latif never said the things denialists claim he said. So El Gordo is cherry-picking by accepting one-half of what Latif DIDN'T SAY, while rejecting the other half - global warming is real and there has been and will not be any statistically significant cooling - that he DID say.

Very interesting.

Posted by: dhogaza | October 28, 2009 10:57 AM

He was correcting a statement you made. His correction was correct. Just effing admit it.

Posted by: dhogaza

But that is irrelevant.

1) I did accept that the civil case itself couldn't from his knowledge of UK law

2) It didn't say that contempt charges could not be levied

and then YOU come pissing in the fountain with "he said that it couldn't" then when I ask where, you say "he was just correcting your statement" but that isn't saying that contempt charges couldn't happen, it's saying that the civil offence itself couldn't result in criminal charges.

If you'd stop buggering about with one statement then when asked to clarify change your statement, maybe you'd get somewhere.

Posted by: Mark | October 28, 2009 12:26 PM

I expect this figure will change the trend since January 1998 from negative to positive and give the science denialists something to think about.

Nah, I reckon they'll pick up something about more sunspots being the cause.

Or pick one single station.

Or look at the tropical tropopause.

Posted by: Mark | October 28, 2009 12:40 PM

No, you weren't dog.

Pick one complaint, stick to it and see it through is how you resolve issues.

Jumping all over the place is what el gordo and Ducky Dave does.

Don't Do What Ducky Dave Does.

Posted by: Mark | October 28, 2009 1:03 PM

Bruce, my dear friend,

Luminous Beauty, regarding After the Cataclysm, the quote you cite is precisely what I had in mind when I wrote that Chomsky's defenders "limit their collections of quotes to Chomsky's disclaimers and qualifiers, conveniently ignoring the overall theme of his articles."

That quote is 'the overall theme of his articles'. Stated precisely, concisely and accurately. It's called a précis. A rhetorical tool you'd be well served to acquire.

I do wish you could state what it is about Chomsky's writing on Cambodia that you find 'misleading' with such precision. I've read your long, long essay twice, now, and I can't find any there there. I could be missing the forest for the trees, though. I'm trying. Really, I am. Is it that he dares to cite scholarly sources that indicate some ambiguity in the Cambodian situation not reflected in the popular press and media accounts? It is that he finds such ambiguous information scarcely relegated to the back pages and dismissed off-hand, if addressed at all, by editorial discussion in the so called newspapers of record?

You claim that the book does not question the reality of what happened in Cambodia; I find that claim absurd...

Chomsky isn't questioning the 'reality' of what happened in Cambodia. He explicitly states he doesn't know the 'reality of what happened in Cambodia. He's questioning the way information about Cambodia has been distorted in the popular US press, reinforcing the dubious notion of US Exceptionalism .

Is it your belief that the brutality of the Khmer Rouge is the perfect, complete and true expression of the 'reality' of Cambodia?

I find that absurd.

On the question of propaganda in general, you say that "Propaganda is merely the propagation of ideas." No, it isn't. [wikipedia; blah, blah, blah...]

Let us not devolve into semantic squabbling. You're a bright guy. Consider: There's white propaganda, grey propaganda and black propaganda. There could well be propaganda in all the colors of the rainbow. Think about it. Does anyone ever present their ideas, regardless of their seeming impartiality in substance or style, without the desire to be convincing and thus influence the perceived listener(s)? Not even on Olympus, if Homer is any guide.

Originally, you described my argument as a "red herring." A "red herring," again referring to Wikipedia, is "a deliberate attempt to divert a process of enquiry by changing the subject." (Emphasis in original.)

You are deliberately attempting to divert attention from the central theme of Chomsky's writing to imply that one element of that theme, the press coverage of Cambodia, is misleading concerning the 'reality' of Cambodia. A subject that is not the subject of Chomsky's inquiry, a subject he explicitly says he cannot pretend to know.

Ergo, a red herring. ipsit facto.

Rage? Relentless hatred? I didn't realize I was such a hothead.

Repressing one's feelings beneath the guise of objectivity does not make them go away. They will come back to bite us. It is good that you care so much for historical Cambodian suffering. Not so much that you commit that generous concern to the dubious exercise of laying singular blame for that suffering on a particular subset of that suffering population who are thus reduced to objects deserving of hatred and condemnation. I would wish you direct that noble feeling instead to apply the lessons of that suffering to understanding present global suffering and, indeed, the potential release and liberation from such future suffering. Such, if I may dare an opinion, is the sub-text, over-all theme and subject of inquiry of Chomsky's entire opus. I would refer you again to the Dhammapada, verses I - VI, which Cambodian school children are again free to study after an unfortunate hiatus where they were instead forced to fight in a war of which the origins were beyond their control, but the conditions of which led to their inevitable brutalization, and thence brutal consequence.

I do realize, however, that I can be stubborn. I try to channel this into positive outlets. In this context, that means I'll stubbornly refuse to let misleading arguments stand unchallenged.

Persistence is a virtue. Intransigence, not so much. You haven't demonstrated exactly what is misleading about Chomsky's argument, much less challenged it. In fact, to all appearances, you have a profoundly misleading opinion of exactly what Chomsky's argument is.

Namasté.

Posted by: luminous beauty | October 28, 2009 2:03 PM

Oh dear, I only just now saw Kent's ramblings about Arctic ice. Well, Kent, in 2007 the deep minimum was caused by special atmospheric conditions, so you're wrong about this year being special in terms of wind.

Oh, and watch this graph and look at the current ice area: http://nsidc.org/data/seaiceindex/images/dailyimages/N_timeseries.png Notice something?

Posted by: Marco | October 28, 2009 4:39 PM

The temperature level in the Arctic during the 1990's was still lower than it was during the 1930's.

http://acsys.npolar.no/meetings/final/metadata_pabstracts.php?s=0&table=Abstracts&id=20&parid=&tag=&country=&letter=&sorder=&stype=&limit=&q=

Posted by: el gordo | October 28, 2009 8:31 PM

"don't provide" of course.

Posted by: dhogaza | October 28, 2009 8:38 PM

Luminous Beauty,

You've identified one thing that is indeed a poor choice of words on my part: "the overall theme of his articles." The idea that Khmer Rouge Cambodia was really not as bad as the press made it appear is not the overall theme of the articles I am discussing: it is an underlying theme.

The idea that the press was "distorting" what was happening in Cambodia presupposes that the reality is different than the picture being presented. It wasn't. Maybe this is why you are "missing the forest for the trees."

That there were a handful of accounts that conflicted with the overall picture of the Khmer Rouge regime is irrelevant, because there is no question as to which accounts were accurate.

Maybe you're genuinely confused about what Khmer Rouge Cambodia was really like. You certainly seem confused about the nature of the reporting when the regime was in power; remember, I only waded into this discussion when you made the plainly false claim that reports of genocide had come from a "sole reporter of which had proven to be less than reliable in the past."

Accepting the Khmer Rouge claim that the evacuation of Phnom Penh was done in order to prevent starvation was nonsense. Repeating the assertion that the evacuation of Phnom Penh may have saved lives was positively absurd. Brushing off child labor with Francois Regaux's claim that this was "not unlike that of Western European villages before the industrial revolution" was patently ridiculous. (Incidentally, on the subject of the regime's European supporters, you might want to look at The Power of an Apology: Gunnar Bergstrom or Bosse Lindquist's The Silence of Phnom Penh).

Those aren't trivial little errors. Those are either really stupid mistakes, or really dishonest arguments.

Of course, you've read my essay twice, so these items (and all the other misrepresentations detailed in that article) are, in your view, unimportant.

But let's set these things aside for a moment. Forget about starvation, and how many people were murdered. Think for a moment about the extent of control exercised over the population.

If an American client regime had evacuated every one of its major cities... if it uprooted families from their homes, and took children away from their parents and put them to work in the fields... if it abolished all currency and trade... would you be confused as to whether or not this was a good regime? Would you be entertaining the notion that negative portrayals of these actions were distorting an innocuous reality? Would you consider critical reporting to be "propaganda?"

Let's look at what Chomsky and Herman say about this propaganda. "Three features of the propaganda campaign with regard to Cambodia deserve special notice. The first is its vast and unprecedented scope." (The Washington connection and Third World fascism).

"By September 1977," Chomsky and Herman write, "condemnation of Cambodian atrocities, covering the full political spectrum with the exception of some Maoist groups, had reached a level and scale that has rarely been matched..."

Now, think about that: vast and unprecedented. They are saying: There is no precedent for our explanation, but everyone should accept our explanation, just the same. Everyone except some Maoists are condemning Cambodian atrocities, but still, it's just a vast propaganda campaign.

Even after the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge, Chomsky and Herman continued to insist that no one really knew what had happened. That's a like being the one person in the class who fails the test... and who then insists that no one knew what the answers were, and gosh, if everyone else passed, it was just blind luck.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, you made a few other remarks:

Is it your belief that the brutality of the Khmer Rouge is the perfect, complete and true expression of the 'reality' of Cambodia?

I find that absurd.

It is my belief that brutality was indeed the reality of the Khmer Rouge regime. If you fail to understand that this is so, then we've identified one of the root causes of our disagreement.

Regarding our disagreement on what constitutes propaganda:

Let us not delve into semantic squabbling.

If you don't wish to use the generally accepted definition of "propaganda," that's fine, as long as we both understand what you do mean.

You are deliberately attempting to divert attention from the central theme of Chomsky's writing to imply that one element of that theme, the press coverage of Cambodia, is misleading concerning the 'reality' of Cambodia.

So in your opinion... if I write something that discusses Chomsky, the theme should be whatever Chomsky thinks it should be?

Or should it be something that is important to me?

You've perhaps noticed that my email address is "chomsky@aol.com." Oh, wait... no, it isn't. It's "cambodia@aol.com."

You've perhaps noticed that my site has several photo galleries, including about 900 photos of Noam Chomsky. Oh, wait... no, it's about 900 photos of Cambodia and Cambodians.

You've perhaps noticed that the site includes reviews of about 50 books about Chomsky. Oops, wait... my bad... they're books about Cambodia.

You've perhaps noticed that it includes journals from my trips to Chomsky's house. Hmmm, wait... my mistake. Those were trips to Cambodia.

You've perhaps noticed that I chose, as my domain, the name of the Charles River, since it runs through Noam Chomsky's home state. D'oh! Wait, I got it wrong again... it's the Mekong, which runs through Cambodia.

Ah, but still, you've seen through my ruse. I've spent more than 20 years teaching Cambodians, studying Cambodian history and culture, and living among (and with) Cambodians, all so that I could divert attention from Chomsky's propaganda model, in order that I might better serve my corporate overlords. Alas, the red herring that I've been constructing for two decades has been thoroughly and completely boned.

OK, enough sarcasm. :-)

You want me to focus on Chomsky's main theme. But his main theme isn't important to me. His underlying theme, however, matters to me quite a bit.

Repressing one's feelings beneath the guise of objectivity does not make them go away.

Hmmm... that remark is just kinda weird. All I can say is, your ability to discern strangers' emotions looks to be on a par with Girma's ability to discern climate trends.

It is good that you care so much for historical Cambodian suffering. Not so much that you commit that generous concern to the dubious exercise of laying singular blame for that suffering on a particular subset of that suffering population who are thus reduced to objects deserving of hatred and condemnation.

I'm not sure I understand where you think I am laying singular blame, but it scarcely matters, because I most definitely do not think there is any person, group, or nation who can be exclusively blamed for the tragedy in Cambodia. The Americans, the Vietnamese, the Chinese, the French, the Cambodians themselves... there's plenty of blame to go around. Regarding the American role, I have commented on this very blog that American actions in Cambodia were criminal, and stated my agreement with the remark that "if we (America) set up the conditions in Cambodia under which death and destruction became commonplace, we are responsible for their deaths, even if not directly."

And finally:

Persistence is a virtue. Intransigence, not so much.

I'm going to hazard a guess and say that you think you are persistent, but I am intransigent.

I'm not sure which one we are, LB, but the trait is one we both share.

cheers, Bruce

Posted by: Bruce Sharp | October 28, 2009 8:58 PM

The temperature level in the Arctic during the 1990's was still lower than it was during the 1930's.

Of course, since the 1990s, the Arctic has warmed up bloody fast.

Posted by: Chris O'Neill | October 28, 2009 9:52 PM

el Gordo..... CO2 does actually cause global warming. Depending on who you belive and the % of H2O in the atmosphere, CO2 contributes between 3 and 8 degrees C of warming. As for other global drivers, there are many. I have watched the sea ice area and extent for years and have come to the conclusion that they are not a valid proxy of temperature.It is about the wind and about the beaufort gyre and about the trans polar drift. Remember open sea water in the Arctic cools faster than ice covered water. It is a myth that the open water contributes more to warming than ice covered water

Posted by: Kent | October 28, 2009 10:17 PM

Excuse my mantra, CO2 does not cause global warming.

Excuse my mantra, but you have less than two neurons rubbing together in your brain.

And I have more evidence for my claim than you do.

Neener-neener!

And, yes, El Gordo, this is exactly how science works! Neener-neener, fingers-in-ears-lalalalala.

(not)

Posted by: dhogaza | October 29, 2009 12:14 AM

The idea that the press was "distorting" what was happening in Cambodia presupposes that the reality is different than the picture being presented. It wasn't. Maybe this is why you are "missing the forest for the trees."

Primarily what was being distorted was the historical context of the conflict in Cambodia. Whether the objective reality inside Cambodia was being portrayed accurately, even if it was in general factually correct, which nobody could actually know and the precise objective facts of which are still a matter of some contention, the normative characterization of those facts was a gross exaggeration and misrepresentation. The picture presented had little to do with objective reality objective reality, but a narrative of inhuman ideological monsters, consuming their own in a cannibalistic frenzy for no other reason than they were evil inhuman monsters because that's what happens to Communists. Their godless ideology turns them into evil inhuman monsters.

Accepting the Khmer Rouge claim that the evacuation of Phnom Penh was done in order to prevent starvation was nonsense.

Horseshit. By any accounts there wasn't enough food in Phnom Pehn to feed the population for more than a few months. The illiterate teenage cadres of the Khmer Rouge in Phnom Penh understood that perfectly. Their understanding and experience of international aid and diplomacy was entirely lacking, however, as was the presence of any minimally competent leadership on the ground. These were kids, kids who knew nothing of life but the grief, horror and brutality of warfare, the majority of whom had never seen flush toilets. They were certainly wrong if they believed that herding the urban population into the countryside would prevent starvation, but it is entirely credible that they believed it. It is cynical nonsense to believe that Phnom Penh was evacuated as part of some intentionally evil plan to commit mass murder.

Brushing off child labor with Francois Regaux's claim that this was "not unlike that of Western European villages before the industrial revolution" was patently ridiculous.

Not so ridiculous when one considers the Khmer Rouge were themselves mostly children whose life experience was shaped entirely by a hard won reconstruction of pre-industrial rural subsistence in the face of industrial scale destruction of what limited modern infrastructure had existed before. It isn't really pertinent to C&H's thesis whether you are of the opinion that Regaux's 'claim' is ridiculous, but that it was contrary to the narrative of the horrifically evil motivations of the Khmer Rouge.

So in your opinion... if I write something that discusses Chomsky, the theme should be whatever Chomsky thinks it should be?

Or should it be something that is important to me?

If you are going to accuse Chomsky of being misleading, you should make an honest effort to understand what Chomsky thinks, not presuppose some fantastical notion of what you think he thinks. If what is important to you is peripheral to what Chomsky is saying, and has no bearing on what he means, you are misrepresenting Chomsky.

I'm not sure I understand where you think I am laying singular blame...

It certainly seems by attacking Chomsky you are defending the black propaganda that assigns the clear conscious intent and motive of pure, unmitigated evil to the Khmer Rouge, while the fault of the US being the unfortunate but forgivable unforeseen consequences of perhaps mistaken but entirely benevolent intentions.

The Americans, the Vietnamese, the Chinese, the French, the Cambodians themselves... there's plenty of blame to go around.

This is precisely Chomsky's position. So, why are you misrepresenting Chomsky? For what possible purpose? Do you believe that dumping on Chomsky does some good for the Cambodian people?

Do you believe that dumping on Chomsky does some good for the Cambodian people?

Do you believe that dumping on Chomsky does some good for the Cambodian people?

For anyone?

Posted by: luminous beauty | October 29, 2009 10:22 AM

If an American client regime had evacuated every one of its major cities... if it uprooted families from their homes, and took children away from their parents and put them to work in the fields... if it abolished all currency and trade... would you be confused as to whether or not this was a good regime? Would you be entertaining the notion that negative portrayals of these actions were distorting an innocuous reality?

This isn't so much different from what I witnessed in Guatemala.

What I have learned from working with Mayan activists is the condemnation and punishment of genuinely genocidal maniacs like Efraín Ríos Montt is vastly less important than reconciliation of the entire country and stopping the killing and the hatred.

Posted by: luminous beauty | October 29, 2009 12:37 PM

Re 124: Luminous Beauty, yes, it was vastly different than Guatemala.

I don't say that to minimize the suffering in Guatemala. I think you and I would be in agreement on the nature of the Guatemalan regimes, and for that matter, when it comes to Central America in general, I don't even think I would have too many disagreements with Chomsky.

I don't have any great depth of knowledge on Guatemala, but I have been there a couple times, and I'm well aware of the extent of the repression. I've posted some of the photos from those trips online, and I hope that they capture at least a little of hardship that the people there have endured.

But LB, the scale and extent of abuses in Guatemala was nothing like Khmer Rouge Cambodia.

Posted by: Bruce Sharp | October 29, 2009 1:11 PM

Kent...the Pacific gyre appears to have some impact. Is there a relationship between a weak magnetic field and a warm earth? Up until the 1970's the magnetic field was slowly decreasing at 1% per decade.

Attention all Deltoid larrikins, take a cold shower.

Posted by: el gordo | October 29, 2009 4:22 PM

Bruce,

The policy had nothing to do with preventing starvation.

And honestly... do you really think that the evacuation was ordered by "the illiterate teenage cadres of the Khmer Rouge"??? Mother of Zeus!

As to your remark about the evacuation being "part of some intentionally evil plan to commit mass murder," I cannot recall ever having heard anyone make that argument. The evacuation was, however, part of a deliberate plan aimed at exerting complete control over the population

It was a policy of national self-sufficiency and revolutionary transformation. Enslaving the population wasn't their aim. They believed they were liberating the people from foreign slavery and bourgeois dependency. It might have been a foolish belief, but it is what they believed. It's a fact there wasn't enough rice to maintain the population. It is credible they believed it was the only way to feed the population given the dire condition of the country's infrastructure. I'm glad you agree it wasn't a policy of genocide. Popular accounts at the time weren't so generous.

Now on to the matter of Rigaux's dumb comments, faithfully parroted by Chomsky and Herman. You say:

It isn't really pertinent to C&H's thesis whether you are of the opinion that Regaux's 'claim' is ridiculous, but that it was contrary to the narrative of the horrifically evil motivations of the Khmer Rouge.

So in other words: it doesn't matter that he was saying something stupid. The media should have been repeating it, because it ran counter to the widely accepted belief that the regime was horrendous. I'm sure you will apply this standard consistently, and will write to your local paper to complain about their inadequate coverage of Ian Plimer's Heaven and Earth

You apparently didn't read this part:

Not so ridiculous when one considers the Khmer Rouge were themselves mostly children whose life experience was shaped entirely by a hard won reconstruction of pre-industrial rural subsistence in the face of industrial scale destruction of what limited modern infrastructure had existed before.

It is only stupid if one's only experience is within a pampered urban middle class culture where one has never had to work as a child. If one has had to not only work, but fight as a warrior to survive, then expecting other children to have to work to survive when survival is dependent on everybody working isn't all that stupid. It isn't all that stupid to middle class farmkids who, like myself, were expected to work as soon as we were old enough to feed the chickens, driving a tractor, pitching hay and swamping fruit crates by age ten. Certainly not stupid to Okie and Mexican farm-worker kids I grew up with, whose family's survival depended on everyone pitching-in full-time as soon as they could walk. I'm all for anti-exploitative child labor laws restricting greedy employers, but in dire straits, everyone has to lend a hand. and there is no question Cambodia was in dire straits after the war. That said, we know now the extent of Khmer Rouge atrocities against all their population, but it wasn't so clear at the time.

What about Ian Plimer? Is the press saying he's being cruelly exploited by his publishers?

"Dumping on Chomsky"? If comparing someone's rhetoric to known facts looks like "dumping" on them, it can only be because their rhetoric isn't accurate. If you want to learn from history, you need to have an accurate understanding of what actually happened. People whose only knowledge of Cambodia comes from Chomsky and Herman will not have that an accurate picture of Khmer Rouge Cambodia.

Once again, Chomsky and Herman weren't pretending to give an accurate picture of Cambodian history as we understand it today, but criticizing an inaccurate portrayal of the ambiguous and uncertain knowledge available at the time they wrote, not for the purpose of gaining insight and understanding of Cambodian reality, but for the purpose of understanding the press's role in obscuring US responsibility, which service the press also performed in the case of Guatemala. Nicaragua, Argentina, Chile, Indonesia, East Timor, etc. A role independent of whether the Khmer Rouge were or were not a terrible bunch of ogres.

You didn't answer the question.

Posted by: luminous beauty | October 29, 2009 6:10 PM

Bruce,

The question is what good does it do?

You haven't answered that.

Posted by: luminous beauty | October 29, 2009 9:12 PM

Luminous Beauty,

As I explained previously: "If you want to learn from history, you need to have an accurate understanding of what actually happened."

If someone's presentation of events -- either current events, or historical events -- is fundamentally inaccurate, then I think it's important to attempt to correct that.

Regards, Bruce

Posted by: Bruce Sharp | October 29, 2009 9:51 PM

It's OK if this one gets nuked, but a slashdot story had someone put up a couple of points on copyright and criminality:

US

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NET_Act

UK

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement#Criminal_offences

Posted by: Mark | October 30, 2009 6:52 AM

If someone's presentation of events -- either current events, or historical events -- is fundamentally inaccurate, then I think it's important to attempt to correct that.

Your presentation of what C&H were saying in 1977 is fundamentally inaccurate. I think it is important that you correct that.

Posted by: luminous beauty | October 30, 2009 9:04 AM

Luminous Beauty, I've amended the fourth paragraph of the essay to reflect your criticism regarding the "overall theme" of Chomsky and Herman's work, and have inserted a note indicating the change.

Regarding the age of the Khmer Rouge: you said that they were mostly teenagers. It's accurate to say that many were teenagers, but not most. (You can browse through photos to get some sense of the demographic.) And they were not the ones making decisions on matters such as whether or not to evacuate the cities.

Posted by: Bruce Sharp | October 30, 2009 11:25 AM

And they were not the ones making decisions on matters such as whether or not to evacuate the cities.

I don't think anyone knowledgable argues that they were the decision makers.

Posted by: dhogaza | October 31, 2009 12:21 AM

The Heartland Institute's James Lakely, in his continuing jihad against net neutrality and Free Software, reveals his own notion of software freedom.

Posted by: bi -- IJI | October 31, 2009 3:03 PM

Fran

I don't want to give anyone the wrong impression. As a denialist I do not throw rocks at AGW supporters, nor do I hang out with sceptics if I can help it. Far too wishy washy for my taste.

Posted by: el gordo | October 31, 2009 6:03 PM

Anyone care to comment about the recent result that Richard Lindzen has come up with?It seems to show that with change in temperature more radiation escapes to space.This result flies in the face of models which predict less radiation to space.If he is right,it suggests future warming for a doubling will be about 1 degree F.

Posted by: frank | October 31, 2009 6:52 PM

Well the Stephan Boltzman predicts 1 degree Celsius for a doubling.The IPCC then uses feedback assumptions to take the range to 1.5 to 4.5 Celcius.Apparently Lindzen's measured result restricts the sensitivity to less than 1 degree celcius.I am trying to find where his paper is or whether it is in peer review at the moment,but I cant track it down. As far as the models are concerned,I thought that the IPCC used about a dozen and they all predicted less radiation to space.Correct me if I am wrong,but I have not heard of any models predicting more radiation to space.Is it on the IPCC website?

Posted by: frank | October 31, 2009 9:02 PM

Bernard,

to be perfectly clear I am not saying anything like that. You are first off assuming a two degree increase in temp then asking your question... sort of like IF pigs had wings would they fly? As for albedo? That only relates to when the sun is shining on the Arctic. When the sun don't shine we have a differnt situation.

Posted by: kent | November 2, 2009 11:58 AM

frank:

It seems to show that with change in temperature more radiation escapes to space.

Well the Stephan Boltzman predicts 1 degree Celsius for a doubling.The IPCC then uses feedback assumptions to take the range to 1.5 to 4.5 Celcius... As far as the models are concerned,I thought that the IPCC used about a dozen and they all predicted less radiation to space.

Oh so what you really meant was that with change in ATMOSPHERE, the radiation decreases, not with change in temperature.

I can't help you out with Lindzen but don't worry too much. A lot of his work is pretty mediocre.

By the way, it's good punctuation to put a space between periods and the beginning of the next sentence.

Posted by: Chris O'Neill | November 2, 2009 6:03 PM

Kent:

.1 degree C would be about right,

Then how do you explain the PETM? The CO2e required to make the change goes asymptotically towards infinity much below 1.5C.

I don't make baseless assertions.

You did just above. Where do you get the idea that it should be 0.1C per doubling?

NASSA finally admitted that the minimum Arctic sea ice level in 2007 was a result of WIND pushing ice into the North Atlantic

Yup, and there's

a) no "finally" about it.

b) a difference between that statement and what you said earlier.

As for open water contributing to global warming? Read the sites I provided

I did and they don't support your assertion that it's a myth that open water contributes more to warming than ice sheet.

Research shows that open water radiates 10-100 times the energy that radiates from ice covered water.

And this is how the air above the surface gets warmer and contributes to global warming.

It also requires that open water absorbs heat more than ice does.

How else can it manage to maintain 10-100 times the release of energy? Either it will cool below ambient (which DOES break the laws of thermodynamics) or it will cool until it doesn't release so much energy.

The truth is in your own statements: your hypothesis is not even self consistent.

If you look at ice area/ice extent you will notice variations in area that change over very short time periods. I don't believe this is because of rapid freezing thawing, but because of wind, waves and currents moving ice in and out of the 15% or 30% catchment areas

And in this I believe you are correct and that Bernard, if this is what he disagrees with, is wrong. NOTE you would have seen this if you'd read my post properly. Note too that although Bernard supports the science of AGW like I do, I am still disagreeing with him and though your theories are elsewhere completely hatstand, where it isn't hatstand, I'm agreeing.

But this doesn't prove your hypothesis about the difference between ice sheet and open water.

it could be said that the wind is keeping the extent contained, or that the transpolar drift is moving more ice out of the catchment area into the North Atlantic.

Could be? That and 50p will buy you a Mars bar...

It could also be because it's warming. Occam's razor would apply and tell you not to multiply the requirements to support a conclusion unnecessarily.

So show that the wind is doing it.

Note too that it doesn't have to be none of the change is due to winds, some can.

Not also that G Karst's continuous cutnpaste job over at RC could also be no proof of no AGW because the increase in extent could be winds blowing 30% coverage into more 15% coverage pixels.

Another possible cause is the movement of water from the north pacific causing a reduction of sea ice off Alaska.That would cause a reduction in extent.

It would.

This would me measurable though. Did you measure it, or are you casting up "could be"'s to avoid what is more likely?

And could it not also be that the movement of water from the N Pacific is breaking up sea ice off alaska and creating a greater spread of the same value of ice which is making the warming seem less if you use the crude and unreliable sea ice extent as your proxy?

Given your alternatives can work either way, you have to suppose not only that they are happening (which also requires you to show proof they are happening) but that they are happening in a way that makes the conclusion you want (whilst they have the freedom to manage more results than bolster your hypothesis).

You therefore have three requirements:

1) AGW isn't happening (and CO2 is not having the effect science says it must)

2) Ice extent changes are more a result of wind than anything else

3) Ice extend has with great consistency been such as to ape what would result if CO2 WERE responsible for warming

The last is like a creationist trying to refuse the bones of the dinosaurs: God put them there to test us.

And he put them there in JUST such a way as several well tested results all come to a remarkably close agreement with each other?

I mean, if we found dinosaur bones all mixed up any old how, we'd at least know that there's no rhyme or reason to their location and so therefore it COULD be they just got dropped there. But it takes a lot of unwarranted effort to fake all the other clues and make them agree.

Posted by: Mark | November 3, 2009 1:14 PM

(a) If open water radiates 10-100 times the thermal energy of ice covered sea water

(b) and open sea water (arctic) absorbs 2-3 times the sunlight that ice covered sea water does,

OK. Got them (though open sea water isn't arctic, it's open ocean)

it makes sense that open sea water contributing more to global warming than sea ice, is a myth.

Nope. You took a 90 degree turn in a new dimension and lost it there.

In (a) you're talking about IR reradiation.

In (b) you're talking about VIS absorption.

They are different.

You need to work out the commonality: energy.

Try again.

F-

Posted by: Mark | November 3, 2009 6:25 PM