Last week, CEI's Christopher Horner, writing at Pajamas Media claimed that Gabriel Calzada (author of a dodgy study claiming that Spain's green energy program had cost many jobs) had been mailed a dismantled bomb by a solar energy company. As Ed Darrell observes, the story is preposterous (even without considering the source), but a whole lot of self-styled global warming skeptics uncritically accepted it. And even after the story was completely retracted, folks like Anthony Watts and Andrew Bolt did not make corrections.
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I think you mean a dismantled bomb Tim??
*[Oops, yes]*
Important noun missing.
That 'ud be right!
You need to understand that words have different meanings in mainstream liberal-biased English and in right-wing patriotic English. In right-wing patriotic English, "skeptical" = "dismisses everything said by non-right-wingers".
So there.
This was the third unskeptical reception in a very short time, after the hoax perpetrated by the libertarian engineer who let his daughter win the NSF science contest, a completely cherrypicked misquote by Mike Hulme (Lawrence Solomon was behind that one). All of these 'news items' were quickly copypasted by many pseudo-skeptic outlets. This last one by Chris Horner is the worst IMO because it indirectly incites violence.
In other news, "Climategate" is still dead.
"Climategate" was stillborn (except in the febrile minds of conspiracy theory junkies and journalists who should have known better).
Shouldn't that be unassembled bomb parts? You'd be nuts to put together a bomb and then take it apart.
Tim,
Your 'dodgy study' link is dodgy - [here's the correct URL](http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-avenue/breaking-down-spain%E2%80%99s-green-…). Also, [the Spanish government debunked the Calzada study after the GOP cited it](http://thephoenixsun.com/archives/4133).
> ...even after the story was completely retracted, folks like Anthony Watts and Andrew Bolt did not make corrections.
You've got to admire their consistency. Or not. How dumb do you need to be to not immediately see the holes in this story? A fake bomb sent by a company that puts a return address on it?! The recipient doesn't call the police, he calls a private bomb expert that he has on stand-by! Said bomb expert opens the package - which he's pretty certain is fake - in front of recipient and a journalist... "Gather round everyone while open this very likely fake bomb!"
Next week Greenpeace decapitate Anthony Watts' horse and leave the head in his bed.
~~~
frank:
> In right-wing patriotic English, "skeptical" = "dismisses everything said by non-right-wingers".
This occurred to me a while ago. Words have distinctly different meanings to our reality-challenged brethren. I think 'sceptical' means 'rejection of anything that does not fit my ideology or worldview' for the wingnuts.
> In other news, "Climategate" is still dead.
I've taken to calling it 'MisinformedIdiotsGate'.
*[fixed the link, Thanks Tim]*
Only a global warming deiner would open a suspect bomb package.
The postage rate is cheaper for an unassembled bomb than for one that is primed and ready to blow. Didn't you know that?
DavidCOG wrote: A fake bomb sent by a company that puts a return address on it?! The recipient doesn't call the police, he calls a private bomb expert that he has on stand-by! Said bomb expert opens the package — which he's pretty certain is fake — in front of recipient and a journalist... "Gather round, everyone, while I open this very likely fake bomb!"
Horner is a piece of work. He's got two books out claiming that AGW is a fabrication (I reviewed the first one) and a third attacking the current administration for, AIUI, trying to take away our liberty.
This bomb claim illustrates his the quality of his thinking. Like any clever criminal would mail the target a bunch of bomb parts he's probably handled, and which would likely yield clues to his identity.
(I'll give Horner this: the return address might have been fake, and postal regulations now require one on any package.)
Well if spammers can easily send emails with false return addresses, it must be many times easier to do the same with snail mail.
"folks like Anthony Watts and Andrew Bolt did not make corrections"
The very idea is preposterous. For instance, I'm still waiting for Bolt to retract his claim that former PM Kevin Rudd "gave aid to Robert Mugabe."
How do these people keep their jobs?
There's an interesting discussion about the image of skepticism going on over at Jack of Kent at the moment. Oddly enough, only one person has mentioned climate...
Jacob asks,
How do these people keep their jobs?
And the answer, of course, is: "folks like Anthony Watts and Andrew Bolt did not make corrections"
If they made a habit of correcting themselves, they'd be out of work!
Most of the people described in the media, particularly the Murdoch media, as âscepticalâ of AGW (eg. Monckton) are in fact climate change deniers and should be treated as such. Then there are those like Lomborg who seem to accept the reality of AGW but deny the severity of its predicted affects or welcome increased CO2 emissions. What do we call them?
Here is a special for Deltoidians ...
Radio Netherlands' EarthBeat on Climate Change Denial & its Drivers
Freudenberg is especially good on this.
Amusingly, some denier troll has written in complaining of abuse of "skeptics", when do skeptics say climate doesn't change, only AGW people say climate is static, when it's proven can you hurl abuse etc ...
Funny and sad
This story will soon be resolved. It will repeated and embellished, journalists will report on the controversy and by Wednesday afternoon, the bomb will be a well-established fact. Once it becomes a fact, only scientists will deny it, once again illustrating their complete incapacity to believe the obvious. I have this on the advice of a Greenland wheat farmer.
It was a metaphorical bomb, and it did explode [metaphorically], in doing so, it destroyed any remaining denialist credability.
"Then there are those like Lomborg who seem to accept the reality of AGW but deny the severity of its predicted affects or welcome increased CO2 emissions. What do we call them?
Posted by: Confused "
Confused?
Mislead?
Misleading?
They aren't skeptics because you have to be skeptical of your own work to be a skeptic, not just that of others.
The Moncktons are straight-up denialists. Lomborg and his ilk don't deny but they advocate doing nothing to mitigate CO2 - so call them inactivists.
This is a joke, right?
from your link...
"Even if the method is adequate, these jobs numbers are projections from outdated assumptions and the state aid number is not narrowly tailored to the renewable energy market and neglects other complications--such as the revenue changes and externalities."
http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=221142
World Bank says the economic situation in Spain is âvery seriousâ
Isn't this your green goal anyway?
http://inthesenewtimes.com/2009/11/29/1975-endangered-atmosphere-confer…
Bet you're all Paul Ehrlich fans.
The joke's on HHF. A "hoax" stretching back 35 years? With thousands of scientists globally happily participating?
Wacky conspiracy time, folks...
Yes, the real estate bubble collapsed, just like here in the US, but much worse.
> Shouldn't that be unassembled bomb parts? You'd be nuts to put together a bomb and then take it apart.
It's like the old maths joke.
A maths student is given a series of practical tests. For the first test he is placed in a kitchen with an empty kettle, sink with cold water tap and stove and asked to demonstrate an algorithm to boil a pot of water. "OK", says the student:
Step 1 - fill kettle with cold water.
Step 2 - place kettle on stove.
Step 3 - turn on stove.
Step 4 - wait until kettle boils.
"Very good" says the tester, who proceeds to set up the second test. The student is placed in the kitchen with a a kettle filled with warm water, sink with cold water tap and a stove, and asked to demonstrate an algorithm for boiling a pot of water.
"That's easy" says the student:
Step 1 - pour all the water out, thereby reducing it to the previous problem!
;-)
I'm sure you had to be there, Lotharsson. :)
"Bet you're all Paul Ehrlich fans" - well, yes, of course.
"Yes, the real estate bubble collapsed"
At least in the US, the reason for the collapse was NOT real estate. It was derivatives trading. What was the AIG bailout to pay for? I'll give you a hint: it wasn't to pay for people's defaulted mortgages...
This is OT but with climategate, leakegate, backdown on the Aust ETS, etc all sorta running out of steam for the deniality could Tim start running a contest where we have to predict the next desperate scandal from the denialsphere. Points would be awarded on originality, whether and when it is taken up by the denilality, where it originates and bonus points would be awareded for how many mainstream or broadsheet media outlets report it without facts checking.
I'd be prepared to run the book on it (sorry non Aust readers)
A Sun bomb? When the packaged is opened it threatens to use the available light to charge a calculator? It has a prism which shoots distracting rainbows into their eyes?
http://inthesenewtimes.com/2009/11/29/1975-endangered-atmosphere-confer…
I see HHF is another one of those "skeptics". This isn't even the most absurd bit of crackpottery at that site.
Not even a bit sceptical?
http://www.probeinternational.org/UPennCross.pdf
Far more sceptical than you are - since when do we trust *lawyers* to assess the scientific merits of an academic science paper?
I also notice that the document you link to purports to criticise the IPCC, but builds its entire case on the strawman of "catastrophic global warming".
As far as I recall, the IPCC AR4 report isn't about this.
In fact, I've just re-read the AR4 "Summary for Policymakers" and this is what I found:
- The word "climate" appears 65 times
- The word "catastrophic" appears 0 times.
Yes, that's right Toby, you've just suffered a massive scepticism FAIL.
Far more sceptical than those who refuse to see what is blatantly before their eyes.....
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727692.900-without-candour-we-c…
Toby, in common with most Deniers, seems to lack any basic science education.
The CRU/Mann inquiries were not interested in the science as science itself is self-correcting. They were about individuals' activities which were found to have been honest and above-board.
If you have a problem with the science, all you have to do is prove it wrong. But you can't, which is why you are smearing individuals in the first place.
Vince if you see no wrong doing in the Hadley climate centre and CRU and you believe all these investigations have been above board without the decisions already reached, then you have become a religous zealot.
There is much doubt about positive feedback effects, cloud and water vapour effects and also the models that are relied on. If you dont acknowledge that, then you have no credibility what so ever.
[toby,](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/ill_start_calling_them_skeptic…) can you specify the peer reviewed papers that give you "much doubt about positive feedback effects, cloud and water vapour effects and also the models that are relied on.?"
Otherwise you'll appear to be the gullible mark of a well-planned PR campaign that you willingly believe with all the fervour of, well as you say, a religious zealot with no credibility whatsoever.
Toby, you're concerned about doubt.
There is no doubt that some topics need more work.
There is no doubt that more work will shed more light.
My concerns about doubt. I want, desperately, for that further work to tell us that we have more time - to deal with problems that are less serious - than our current state of knowledge indicates.
I doubt very much that we will get either of those outcomes, let alone both.
Someone who knows (not you Toby) can correct me but I believe that the CRU doesn't do research in positive feedback effects or cloud and water vapor effects or "the models that are relied on". I believe that it pretty much exclusively does climate reconstruction.
Toby seems to have confused the CRU with all of AGW research.
Toby, I remain sceptical of your conspiracy theories.
5 seperate inquiries have all concluded that Mann/etc.. did nothing unethical or dishonest.
By contrast, the Denial movement is responsible for criminal acts and serial acts of dishonesty.
Your poster-boy Monckton has even awarded himself an imaginary Nobel Prize as well as an imaginary seat in the House of Lords - are you at all sceptical of those?
I also noted your linking to a dishonest document addressing something Denialists call "Catastrophic global warming".
From where I'm standing - in my sceptical shoes - we seem to have:
- on the one hand a large number of honest scientists
- on the other hand a small number of criminals, ignorant amateurs, unqualified liars, and outright kooks.
Chek, I do not hold out much faith in "peer reviewed" and nor should you if you actually do some investigation. I will say no more on that because it should not be needed.
However if you read this link you will find links to many papers and it makes a pretty clear case for why the scientists have been unable to convince society as a whole about the truth of CAGW.
http://www.probeinternational.org/UPennCross.pdf
The significance of the C in CAGW is crucial to the difference in opinion between most "sceptics" ( climate realists!?) and those who believe we should be making rapid adjustments to the way our economies operate. I have no problems with co2 being a greenhouse gas, i have no problems with the science suggesting a doubling of co2 will cause approximately a 1c increase in temperatures.
I do have problems with positive feedback effects because we are still here. There are a number of papers that demonstrate that negative feedback effects dominate the climate system. Here is one to start you on the path to truth... ( joke) http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/30/lindzen-on-negative-climate-feedb…
Vince if you want to start playing the "consensus" game, which is completely contradictory to real science you might like to consider that there are many scientists who are also sceptical...http://www.petitionproject.org/
and relying on suggestions that many of the names are made up is not a very strong defence. You might also be interested to know that the "consensus" is being questioned by a number of "emminent bodies".
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?tid=627
Tresmal, is the data compiled by the CRU used by other scientists to prove the C in AGW?
I have posted a comment to a number of the other points raised and it is "waiting review", i included 3 links. Is there a limit to how long or how much content/ number of links we should put?
1. There is no C in AGW. CAGW is a denialist strawman.
2. The CRU output is used to get an understanding of the past to help to understand natural variability. It is not used for forecasts.
So no.
Toby, there can be. Words like "fra*d" are also blocked.
May I ask where you get your primary AGW information from?
>*Vince if you see no wrong doing in the Hadley climate centre and CRU and you believe all these investigations have been above board without the decisions already reached, then you have become a religous zealot.*
Toby don't religous zealots make baseless claims without reference to sound evidence? Where is your evidence that all the investigations have **not** been above board?
Can you itemise the evidence against each of the inquiries on which you based your claim?
John I began by being very concerned by AGW. A few people I respect highly, suggested I should read outside the box and try and form my own opinion. I have been doing so for close to a decade now. I have to say that the Jennifer Marohasy site is an excellent place to start, even though she has not been posting for nearly a year now.
My opinion for what it is worth is that AGW is real but probably mostly beneficial ( warmer is better than colder!?). CAGW would be terrible but it relies on what history suggests to be unlikely positive feedback effects. The logarthmic effect of co2 without these positive feedbacks makes it a relatively benign issue. There are many more pressing issues facing the world and deserving of our attention ( once again IMHO)...Many of which are being blamed on AGW.
There are terrible exagerations on both sides of the debate and many are blinded by their biases ( me included I am sure.....it is the terrible politics associated with cagw that actually worries me most).
>*My opinion for what it is worth is that AGW is real but probably mostly beneficial (warmer is better than colder!?).*
In what way have you compared your opinion with the breadth of evidence and the assessmetns of those competent to synthesize the evidence?
>*CAGW would be terrible but it relies on what history suggests to be unlikely positive feedback effects.*
What role do you think positive feedback played in the glacial-inter glacial cycles over the past million years?
After "close to a decade" of investigation can you reconcile your notion of low (or even no) positive feedback with warming events such as the PETM?
Toby,
For starters, there is no such thing as CAGW in this debate, only AGW. As I've taught you - the IPCC AR4 report summary doesn't even mention "CAGW".
As far as "warmer is better than colder" goes, my Camelias disagree with you. In late summer as the buds form, the aphids start to multiply to plague proportions and the plants start to fade and drop buds. The first frost of autumn knocks off all the aphids and by mid winter the Camelias' leaves are dark and glossy and the buds fatten nicely ready for flowering in late winter.
Now, if we had no frosts, the Camelias would probably lose the majority of their buds and might never flower at all.
Clearly, warmer would not be better.
If you're not happy to accept my anecdote as evidence that refutes you, you might also want to admit that - even worse - your opinion is not built on any data whatsoever.
Toby,
Can I ask what your level of science trainig is? You seem, from your posts so far, to have limited understanding of the issues concerned. I have to say, blog reading is no substitute for proper training in science and critical thinking.
Most importantly, knowing when something is out of one's comprehension ability, and thus when to defer to those who are the experts in the field.
Your comment:
Is an interesting insight into your thinking. Since every enquiry has cleared those involved of wrongdoing, and you offer no proof that any of the investigations have been compromised, your statement is illogical.
I might as well say: "If you do not think like me you are wrong"
48 Toby,
Read this [interview with Stephen Schneider](http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/index.php/csw/details/schneider-inte…) about the credibility of experts.
Marohasy? You can *not* be serious! That blog contains some of the most insane pseudoscience to be found anywhere. (Jennifer went walkabout but many of the regulars moved to Jo Nova, which I'm sure you'll also enjoy.)
Why do you think AGW is real, though? Which information led you to that belief?
Jakerman, you are quite correct to point out the PETM event as being an example of methane creating a positive feedback effect. If you believe in tipping points then at current rates of co2 emissions we will probably have something to worry about in a few hundred years or more.
By then humans will have created an alternative viable source of energy....dont you think?
Currently we do not have the available technology ( unless we consider nuclear that few seem to be prepared to do and it is clearly unsuitable for many economies and environments as well as being a finite resource) and unless we want to make radical changes to our lifestyles.
The fact remains however that negative feedback effects dominate the climate system which is why we live in a relatively stable climate.
Toby, more unsubstantiated assertion and opinion apparently based on poor analysis:
"...something to worry about in a few hundred years or more.."
- a likely 1m rise in sea levels by the end of the Century is something to worry about *now*.
"...By then humans will have created an alternative viable source of energy..."
- Do you mean the Deniers will cease their campaign for inaction? Do you have a timeline for this?
"...unless we want to make radical changes to our lifestyles..."
- alarmism, and non-factual at that. The Swedish government disagrees with you:
"The government said it now aims by 2020 for renewable energy to comprise 50 percent of all energy produced, for the Swedish car fleet to be independent of fossil fuels 10 years later and for the country to be carbon neutral by 2050."
toby writes:
>*then at current rates of co2 emissions we will probably have something to worry about in a few hundred years or more.*
Which is at odds with [the IPCC](http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch6s6-3-3.html):
>*The estimated magnitude of carbon release for this time period is of the order of 1 to 2 Ã 1018 g of carbon (Dickens et al., 1997), a similar magnitude to that associated with greenhouse gas releases during the coming century.*
So toby, how are you going to take the CO2e out of the atmosphere to set things right by the end of this century? To achieve such a goal we need to start now and need to dramatically reverse our current release.
Your plan to plough on and hope for a magic fix is not a responsible approach.
Toby care to address the [other question](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/ill_start_calling_them_skeptic…) above relating to your claims?
So Toby, you're the new wave then?
The denial machine can no longer argue hopeless fallacies like global cooling, so now it's AGW as usual, but just not of the catastrophic variety.
And to wit you're hanging your hat on left fielders like Lindzen and [Roe & Baker](http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/2007/10/roe-and-baker.html)?
The tactic had to change sometime soon I suppose, especially with morons like "Goddard" still fighting a losing rearguard action so I guess this is it.
>*Currently we do not have the available technology*
Currently we do not a market price signal to bring the technology to bare.
>*unless we want to make radical changes to our lifestyles*
Unless we want to reduce our choices we need to realign our economy with sustainable practice sooner, or it will be nastily enforced by scarcity and tragedy later.
>*The fact remains however that negative feedback effects dominate the climate system*
[The evidence](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:240/…) does not sustain your claim Toby. BTW you've not addressed this relevant question:
>*What role do you think positive feedback played in the glacial-[inter glacial cycles](http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/abrupt/data2.html) over the past million years?*
toby "My opinion for what it is worth is that AGW is real but probably mostly beneficial ( warmer is better than colder!?)."
Are you Australian? Not too many of us want more droughts, floods or fires.
As for technology. Just have a look at the subsidies paid by governments around the world to current commercial activities. Then have a think about how many of the people involved would leap at the same money offered to do something a bit different. Maybe they wouldn't, but others might.
There are heaps of patents around the world that expired for want of interest or of profit under the prevailing system. Put those together with some new and clever thinking and, hey presto! new technology.
Truesceptic I read your shneider link and I have some sympathy with his view about expert and non expert. However there is still so much that is unknown and also so many future unknowns that I am sceptical that we really understand what creates our climate and whilst the experts are indeed experts, this does not make them right. There are many economic guru's out there but I do not believe they are reliable in predicting future events. And I suspect economies and markets are much easier to predict!?
I do not agree that the marohasy site is full of pseudoscience. Some undoubtedly but I would suggest that the presentation given to Fielding by Wong and her group of scientists was very full of pseudoscience because it is all so unprovable and relies so heavily on models that we know have not been able to predict current events let alone historical events without introducing fudge factors.
I do not trust models period, but I do recognise that they serve a purpose so long as we recognise how fallible they are.
I do not trust the IPCC or anything associated with the United Nations ( I know too many people within the organisation or who have worked with it to have any faith in the UN). Many of you will therefore call me a conspiracy theorist or even just a nutter.
Why do I believe in AGW? Well the planet is habitable and that is thx to greenhouse gases. Co2 is a greenhouse gas. However it lags temperature change not leads it. I believe that temperatures are likely warmer now than than they were 100 years ago and certainly warmer than they were during the LIA.
I do however believe that the MWP,RWP and MWP were as warm or warmer than today and the evidence for this is abundant. I am aware many recent studies have tried to minimize these events but the empirical and anecdotal evidence seems pretty strong to me. Many argue they were localised events predominantly influencing the northern hemisphere. There have not been so many studies done in the southern hemisphere but there is still evidence. http://pages.science-skeptical.de/MWP/MedievalWarmPeriod.html is just one brief example.
>And I suspect economies and markets are much easier to predict!?
The predictions of the climate getting warmer have been dead on so far. Do you dispute that the climate is getting warmer? What is driving this, if not Co2?
>Some undoubtedly but I would suggest that the presentation given to Fielding by Wong and her group of scientists was very full of pseudoscience because it is all so unprovable and relies so heavily on models that we know have not been able to predict current events let alone historical events without introducing fudge factors.
Wrong.
>I do not trust the IPCC or anything associated with the United Nations ( I know too many people within the organisation or who have worked with it to have any faith in the UN). Many of you will therefore call me a conspiracy theorist or even just a nutter.
In fact, I would call you both! I instantly see that what we have here is another middle aged man with a concrete ideology travel down the merry road of denialism because global warming doesn't conform to his political viewpoints.
>However it lags temperature change not leads it.
Right but so very wrong.
>I believe that temperatures are likely warmer now than than they were 100 years ago...
Likely, eh?
>I do however believe that the MWP,RWP and MWP were as warm or warmer than today and the evidence for this is abundant.
Wrong.
>I am aware many recent studies have tried to minimize these events but the empirical and anecdotal evidence seems pretty strong to me.
What evidence? The evidence of blog commenters saying "Ooh! Grapes! Look at that painting! He's wearing sandals!"
>http://pages.science-skeptical.de/MWP/MedievalWarmPeriod.html is just one brief example.
You couldn't have chosen a worse example than a small group of cherry picked graphs from a denial website.
>*There are many economic guru's out there but I do not believe they are reliable in predicting future events.*
Falaciaous analogy, to compare current prediction to only false predictions while neglecting correct predictions. Science is based on testing predictions, such as the investigation by James Hansen in the 1980s to test if a temperature signal would be detectable as a result of observable increasing CO2e.
The weight of evidence means that the past climates of warmer periods during times of lower solar insolation cannot be explained without CO2e.
>*I would suggest that the presentation given to Fielding by Wong and her group of scientists was very full of pseudoscience*
Empty opinion with no reference to evidence.
>*Why do I believe in AGW? Well the planet is habitable and that is thx to greenhouse gases. Co2 is a greenhouse gas. However it lags temperature change not leads it.*
Its not lagging temperature this time toby. So your point becomes meaningless.
>*I do not trust the IPCC or anything associated with the United Nations ( I know too many people within the organisation or who have worked with it to have any faith in the UN).*
A fundamentalist statment with no citation of evidence.
>*I do however believe that the MWP,RWP and MWP were as warm or warmer than today and the evidence for this is abundant.*
Not as abundent as the evidence that current temperatures are as warm or warmer than the MWP and that we will continue to warm as CO2e rises.
[Toby, temperature reconstructions are not done by cherry picking findings that support your predetermined position. They are done by integrating the temperature proxies in a meaningful [spacial](http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/mann2009b/mann2009b.html) and [temporal](http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2008/09/02/0805721105.full.pdf+html) way. BTW there is no convincing evidence that the RWP was as warm as current tmeperatures, only a patchy selection of cherry picked claims can support this, looked at in totallity reconstructions do not support this claim of your].
sorry my last post was sent in error but i am assuming it will turn up. Vince you say in response to my "...By then humans will have created an alternative viable source of energy..." - 'Do you mean the Deniers will cease their campaign for inaction? Do you have a timeline for this?'
120 years ago we relied on horses and steam engines, since then we have seen rapid change and a huge increase in peoples quality of life ( some nuts will disagree with that but I hope nobody here?!). The worlds population has risen from 1 to 6 billion. Causing obvious environmental damage and local and regional climate change. You only need to look at the middle east and central and south america to see what human activity can do....this is not CAGW however.
You may class me as a denier. I am a denier that any of the current technologies being pushed- wind, solar, geo thermal, ethanol, carbon capture etc are a viable alternative on a global scale, even given their obvious price constraints. How do you store the energy of the wind or sun with our current technology? ( offer a billion dollar prize..that would help!).
If you raise teh price of fossil fuels by enough to actually cut consumption you will create an environment in which alternatives will be found. But at what cost to our lifestyles both here and importantly in teh developing world? Without population control of some form co2 emissions will not be reduced without new technology and even with it, it will only occur slowly I would think. If you are looking for a conspiracy theory then here is the obvious one. Blame co2 for the problems of the world, rather than over population and unsustainable activities. And then use this as a way to gain control over peoples lives. Everybody should go back and read 1984 because it is happening all around us everyday and we are allowing more controls to impact on our lives. This is my underlying fear of "AGW" and why I am so anti the gross exagerations that many profess as truths......for example; http://pgosselin.wordpress.com/2010/07/19/die-welt-earth-could-become-l…
Good luck to the swedes in becoming carbon neutral by 2050. They have the good fortune to use nuclear. Lets hope they do not run into the same problems that spain and california have done since decicing to go down the "green" route. Platitudes are easy to say and we all know our politicians are full of them...but I honestly hope they are able to achieve their goal.
Hi Toby, are you the "Toby" at Marohesy's who left incisive comments such as this:
>Itâs not right wing funding that is bringing their gravy train to a halt, itâs publicly funded people like Dr Roy Spencer, Prof Richard Lindzen of MIT, retired professors like Syun-Ichi Akasofu, and people with a beef about accuracy like Steve McIntyre and Anthony Watts.
>And who funds RealClimate eh mate? RealClimate who attempt to scare the f**k out of our children â who deceive my friends into believing the polar bears are heading for extinction and the planet is doomed.
>They are the âIlluminatiâ that history will archive under global hoaxes.
Yes, RealClimate was created to scare children, because children always enjoy reading dense scientific blogs.
Oh wait, that was (of course) Janama. My apologies.
You're the one who said:
>Spangles, Everytime I visit the NSW coast ( I spend at least 6 weeks each year) I ask locals what they think of climate change and have they noticed any change in sea level, tides, storm surge etc. They invariably laugh and scoff. I have been visiting the same part of the coast for the last 35 years and I can also see nothing except changes to beaches due to movement of the sand. The rock platforms i dive from look identical to me.
"Its not lagging temperature this time toby. So your point becomes meaningless" This is debatable and blatantly so.I am sure you do not need me to point you in the direction of a chart showing temp change and co2 change but we saw an obvious cooling from around 1940-1975 despite rapid increases in co2. We have seen little real increase in temp over the last decade or so despite further rapid growth in emissions.....so are co2 emissions leading? You will of course tell me about aerosols natural variability etc in your defence? Convenient, yes, true, maybe.
My lack of faith in the UN may well be fundamentalist.But it is based on observation and experience. By all means be doubtful, sceptical or even cross with my thoughts ( not my intention to make you upset though). How many people do you know that have been associated with them?
Jakerman if the other question you want me to respond to is about the whitewashing of the enquiries I am not trying to be rude or ignore you. I have read too many articles to be able to put together a quick response. I also think the emails themselves speak for themselves and the fact the enquiries have found nothing at all wrong says more than enough. Its just one of the reasons people are apparently becoming more sceptical not less. But even this http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=6028 should make you wonder?
toby writes:
>*Good luck to the swedes in becoming carbon neutral by 2050. They have the good fortune to use nuclear. Lets hope they do not run into the same problems that spain and california have done since decicing to go down the "green" route.*
Toby, here is another question that you can run away from, how much did california and spain spend on green-tech above and beyond dirty tech? And how much revenue did california loses with the GFC? How much Spain with the GFC and housuing bubble collapse? Then tell us in percentage terms the relative cost of green tech vs housing bubble bursting to each of these economies?
Do you actually know why California governemtn cannot pay their bills?
Toby, you seem to have a bent for swallowing bulldust storys and shoehorning them into a bogus narative. Now that your here I'm getting used to reading so much opinion based on so little substance. Its not very convincing.
"120 years ago we relied on horses and steam engines, since then we have seen rapid change and a huge increase in peoples quality of life"
And at the turn of the last century there were people working on steam instead of petrol for cars, and on solar as well as wind for power generation. If the solar / wind technologies had prevailed, would our modern lives in suburbia be much different? Maybe the same powerlines uglifying the landscape or maybe a more distributed system with households / regional communities doing it for themselves
Rewind history and put the investment, effort and 100+ years into those alternatives and we'd likely have a very similar standard of living with air conditioning and trains and trams running on clean power. Our living standards would have been the same or imperceptibly different, and we'd still have lots of lovely fossil fuel in the ground available for us or for our great-grandchildren to use.
Being accustomed to power being clean and the source being nearly free, I expect our descendants would be a lot more frugal with resources, avoiding smokestacks and other brutalist technology.
John, when you asked me where i get my information and i suggested the marohasy site i was well aware you would probably have a quick look at some of my comments. You have cherry picked as i expected.
Yes sea level rise is slow and hence difficult to see. BUT my comment was in teh context of others who have actually been recording their own data.
I did not say realclimate was set up to scare children. Realclimate was set up to convince people like you. I tried visiting there a year or two ago and found my posts were cut or vitriol was used. So far that has not happened here, please do not let it start by snide comments?
It's hardly surprising that your comments would be cut, Toby, when they consist entirely of substanceless beliefs.
If you have powers of analysis, you can read source documents and integrate them into your worldview.
On the other hand, we see you regurgitating random cherries from Denialist blogs to support your inexpert pre-conceived notions.
There really isn't much point having discussions with people who reject science in the way you do - you refuse to learn and spend your entire time backpedalling and changing the subject when offered clear evidence for the wrongness of each of your inexpert views.
toby: Realclimate is a moderated blog with a heavy science focus. You really do need to know what the hell you're talking about before posting there. One thing they do to maintain a high signal to noise ratio is to remove comments that repeat tired, old and refuted arguments against AGW (which is pretty much all you've got.) I'm pretty sure I know more about AGW than you do and I wouldn't even consider commenting there.
>Spangles, Everytime I visit the NSW coast ( I spend at least 6 weeks each year) I ask locals what they think of climate change and have they noticed any change in sea level, tides, storm surge etc. They invariably laugh and scoff. I have been visiting the same part of the coast for the last 35 years and I can also see nothing except changes to beaches due to movement of the sand. The rock platforms i dive from look identical to me.
'Spangles' being Spangled Drongo, right?
Tony, if you encouraged him in his delusions* about sea level rise, you owe several people here many hours of their lives back. They took it upon themselves to correct him time and time again, poor bastards.
* He used the same argument as you in that quote above. It is delusional. Among other things, just how perceptable do you think the rise in that 35 years, which is on the order of centimetres, will be to a guy at the beach? This is an accelerating medium/long term problem.
Adelady you make an interesting and valid ( but purely hypothetical) point .Last century there were people working on steam instead of petrol for cars, and on solar as well as wind for power generation. If the solar / wind technologies had prevailed, would our modern lives in suburbia be much different? Maybe the same powerlines uglifying the landscape or maybe a more distributed system with households / regional communities doing it for themselves."
I wonder what would have happened, an interesting paradigm indeed and well worth a ponder. ( somehow i donât think we would have the same technology around us do you?) Un (fortunately) however we already have an existing power grid and an economy that relies on conventional energy sources and to change this will come at great cost. Do you have 50k to become self sufficient in solar energy? ( including the cost of a back up diesel for when the sun isnt shining..that is what it cost family members of mine in the outback and this included about 30k in government subsidies..so real cost much higher).
If we do put in place a carbon price we have to be very careful about fraud, you only have to look at the european experience to recognise this. A carbon market? Oh yes pls says goldman sachs etc ...more easy money. Will it cut global emissions? NO, will it slow growth in emissions ? maybe. Is there any point in going it alone? Only on a âmoral basisâ and I donât like a lot of peoples morals so i donât like this as an argument at all. More scope for big brother in our lives....and CAGW is opening an enormous can of worms on this front.
Toby cites me, "Its not lagging temperature this time toby. So your point becomes meaningless", then toby responds:
>*This is debatable and blatantly so.*
Toby this claim is blatantly absurd, warming will bring on more CO2e release, but there is no doubt which leads in this case. Although you claim is âdebatable and blatantly soâ, you provide no debate to back this absurd claim that CO2 is not leading temperature.
Instead you offer an example of the known aerosol induced balancing of climate forcing that existed until we capped the release of SO2. This is not an argument for temperature causing the release of millions of tons of fossilized carbon.
>*We have seen little real increase in temp over the last decade or so despite further rapid growth in emissions.....so are co2 emissions leading?*
Except that it was the warmest decade on record and weâve just had the warmest sequence of 12 months on record, and this occurred incredibly despite a deep solar minima.
>*My lack of faith in the UN may well be fundamentalist. But it is based on observation and experience. [â¦] How many people do you know that have been associated with them?* No observation that you have been willing to share. I donât need to know anyone from the UN to know your absolutist claims came with no supporting evidence.
>*Jakerman if the other question you want me to respond to is about the whitewashing of the enquiries I am not trying to be rude or ignore you. I have read too many articles to be able to put together a quick response. I also think the emails themselves speak for themselves and the fact the enquiries have found nothing at all wrong says more than enough.*
Another evasion rather than a credible response to [my question which was]( http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/ill_start_calling_them_skeptic…):
>>* Vince if you see no wrong doing in the Hadley climate centre and CRU and you believe all these investigations have been above board without the decisions already reached, then you have become a religous zealot.*
>Toby don't religous zealots make baseless claims without reference to sound evidence? Where is your evidence that all the investigations have not been above board?
>Can you itemize the evidence against each of the inquiries on which you based your claim?
BTW toby:
>*What role do you think positive feedback played in the glacial-inter glacial cycles over the past million years?*
>*Jakerman if the other question you want me to respond to is about the whitewashing of the enquiries I am not trying to be rude or ignore you. I have read too many articles to be able to put together a quick response. I also think the emails themselves speak for themselves and the fact the enquiries have found nothing at all wrong says more than enough.*
So you decided on the guilt based on your biased interpreation of the meaning of some emails. Then when people competant in the field looked at the allegations and a broader array of evidence than you looked at, you determined that they are wrong because their conclusions were different to your biased, ill-informed and premature interpretation.
You have shown yourself up in your response to my question which was:
>>*[Toby writes]: Vince if you see no wrong doing in the Hadley climate centre and CRU and you believe all these investigations have been above board without the decisions already reached, then you have become a religous zealot.*
>Toby don't religous zealots make baseless claims without reference to sound evidence? Where is your evidence that all the investigations have not been above board? Can you itemize the evidence against each of the inquiries on which you based your claim?
selecting their own papers to be reviewed?http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2010/7/18/more-on-oxburghs-eleve…
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?tid=111&linkbox=true
removing inconvenient data?
using tricks?
deleting email trails?
refusing access to data? ( reasonable in some instances I ackowledge)
losing data?
all of these are comments off the top of my head that i recall reading about...including the emails themselves. no doubt you have been over these numerous times and been able to find excuses for them all..the investigations certainly did!
The fact that people are so openly defending their actions is very sad indeed. Monbiot did initially at least voice his concern, but now they have all come out so squeeky clean he can get back on the band wagon with his conscience at peace.....
Do you really believe there has been a genuine independent investigation?
Without bringing up another sore topic you also probably believe that Mann did ntg wrong in creating his hockey stick and removing the MWP, he didnt cherry pick his tree samples and other proxy data and his work is reliable and not an embarrassment to the scientific community.
jackerman the planet has been warming since we came out of the LIA. during which time temp has risen and fallen. There is a lagged effect from the solar minima and heat retention in the oceans etc that can explain the lack of cooling so far. We would expect temp to be hotter because the sun has been warming us up since the end of the LIA, being teh hottest decade on record is therefore not unexpected is it?
I am sceptical however about just how hot it has really been during this period and when you look at how cold the northern hemisphere winter was ( you do believe they had a cold winter dont you?)and how late their summer was in arriving it should be sending alarm bells about how we are measuring temperature versus the past.
You keep repeating your question about PETM and feedback, i have twice acknowledged your point but it does not mean that positive feedback effects are even remotely common and certainly does not imply any degree of likelihood that positive feedback effects are in any way likely or imminent.
I regret using the term religious zealot, it was wrong of me. But i remain perplexed that people can excuse their actions so readily. I have provided several links to show examples of the whitewash but they keep saying something along thelines of will be reviewed. They will show up some time I am sure.
I suspect its time I withdraw from the blog for now at least( because so far people have been generally polite and reasonable and I salute you for that.....it does however amaze me that so many of you find nothing wrong with the actions of teh CRU/Hadley) but I leave you with this site that I have mentioned before but received only a "you wouldnt trust a lawyer".
http://www.probeinternational.org/UPennCross.pdf
perhaps when you can convince a court of law you will be able to convince the masses?
when i say above "I am sceptical however about just how hot it has really been during this period" I refer to the last 12 months that are claimed to be the hottest sequence on record.
>*jackerman the planet has been warming since we came out of the LIA. during which time temp has risen [heaps] and fallen [hardly].*
Fixed that for you.
>*There is a lagged effect from the solar minima and heat retention in the oceans etc that can explain the lack of cooling so far*
Inertia can't explain why its still getting hotter! It can't explain why we just had the hottest 12 months on record! If your claim was true we could expect a flywheel to accelerate after we stop spinning it!
>*We would expect temp to be hotter because the sun has been warming us up since the end of the LIA, being teh hottest decade on record is therefore not unexpected is it?*
No you would not expect a sudden [divergence between solar variance and temperature](http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2009/04/the_solar_cycle_and_glo…) (after being lockstep) in 1970 with every decade warmer than the last, then after 40 years of divergence a further solar minima followed by the warmest 12 months on record.
Flywheels slow down from the point you stop spinning them. Something else is increasing the spinning to this system.
>*I am sceptical however about just how hot it has really been during this period and when you look at how cold the northern hemisphere winter was*
Roy Spencer showed it to be the hottest NH Winter on record! It was the opposite of cold!
>*You keep repeating your question about PETM and feedback, i have twice acknowledged your point but it does not mean that positive feedback effects are even remotely common and certainly does not imply any degree of likelihood that positive feedback effects are in any way likely or imminent*
No after you addressed the PETM, I asked you about the unanswered question relating feedback required to produce the interglacial/ glacial cycles. You have not answered that yet so I'll ask it again:
>What role do you think positive feedback played in the glacial-inter glacial cycles over the past million years?
And what is the basis for your "scepticism"?
*how cold the northern hemisphere winter was*
Wrong. Only parts of the NH had a cold winter. Other areas were very mild. Canada, for instance, had its warmest winter on record, with parts of northern Quebec a full 7 C warmer than average. The tundra and Arctic regions of the NWT and the Yukon, as well as the prairie provinces, were also way above normal, and much of the country has never had such little snow. Given that Canada constitutes the second largest country on Earth, this is hardly insignificant.
TRs arguments are straight for the denialists handbook. That is to rely on 'gut feelings' (in reality their inherent idealogical bias) and not on empirical data. Nothing new there.
Why am I sceptical of record warming in Canada and the northern hemisphere?
Is the Canadian warming genuine? Only one weather station is used for monitoring weather above latitude 65...and its described as the âgarden of edenâ of the arctic. âFor example, Canadaâs reporting stations dropped from 496 in 1989 to 44 in 1991, with the percentage of stations at lower elevations tripling while the numbers of those at higher elevations dropped to one. Thatâs right: As Smith wrote in his blog, they left âone thermometer for everything north of LAT 65.â And that one resides in a place called Eureka, which has been described as âThe Garden Spot of the Arcticâ due to its unusually moderate summers......so doubt? I would think so but given the ENSO effect and the fact the world has been warming since the end of LIA record heat effects are not surprising..however i grant you a 4.4c average anomaly if genuine is cause for concern if this keeps occuring!!
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/22/american-thinker-on-cru-giss-and-…
But if "The Northern hemisphereâs snow cover is a record since 1978 âAccording to Rutgers University Global Snow Lab, last weekâs Northern Hemisphere winter snow extent was the second highest on record, at 52,166,840 km2. This was only topped by the second week in February, 1978 at 53,647,305 km2. Rutgers has kept records continuously for the last 2,227 weeks, so being #2 is quite an accomplishmentâ... so with record snow is it surprising to also have record warmth?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/17/northern-hemisphere-snow-extent-s…
And is the data actually reliable? http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/17/noaas-jan-jun-2010-warmest-ever-m…
For Jakerman who wants my explanation and all who are not at least a little concerned by the CRU emails....these put it much better than I ever will....in particular the "new scientist" which has been a big advocate for CAGW
No manipulation of the peer review process and no bias in the actions of these expert climate scientists? http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727692.900-without-candour-we-c…
âBut what happened to intellectual candour â especially in conceding the shortcomings of these inquiries and discussing the way that science is done. Without candour, public trust in climate science cannot be restored, nor should it be.
andâ¦
Russellâs team left other stones unturned. They decided against detailed analysis of all the emails in the public domain. They examined just three instances of possible abuse of peer review, and just two cases when CRU researchers may have abused their roles as authors of IPCC reports. There were others. They have not studied hundreds of thousands more unpublished emails from the CRU. Surely openness would require their release.
All this, plus the failure to investigate whether emails were deleted to prevent their release under freedom of information laws, makes it harder to accept Russellâs conclusion that the ârigour and honestyâ of the scientists concerned âare not in doubtâ.â
also http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=295&filename=1047388489…
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/MWP_Globality.htm
>*Is the Canadian warming genuine? Only one weather station is used for monitoring weather above latitude 65...*
Roy Spencer uses satellite data not station data. Even he found the warmest NH winter on record!
For those of you unsceptical of the real world effect of co2, rather than the theoretical...is this a better explanation?http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/SeekingWarming.htm
Temperature change has occurred in 3 âstepsâ over the last 70 years
This sets out 3 very distinct steps in climate over the last 70 years, can you really be sure co2 is the culprit?
>*so with record snow is it surprising to also have record warmth?*
Not where record warmth includes vast areas at or below freezing point.
Jakerman, surely 'you' understand that 'warmer' *does not mean* still below freezing, just as 'less alkaline' *does not mean* more acidic? /snark
>*Temperature change has occurred in 3 âstepsâ over the last 70 years This sets out 3 very distinct steps in climate over the last 70 years*
Actually warming occurred with [five periods of cooling over the past 30 years](http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1970/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:…).
Or maybe it occurred in a variable system with lots of noise but an [underlying trend](http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/plot/hadcrut3gl/mean:240/plot/h…)?
Ether way there weight of evidence points to a clear culprit as the key forcing.
For Toby:
http://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/2010/canada_winter2010.gif
Moreover, FYI, there was very little snow in central Canada over the past winter. In mid-March, one had to travel north of Cochrane in Ontario to find any of the white stuff, a point not lost on winter sport enthusiasts. A friend of mine living in eastern Ontario said he had never seen a winter like it. After mid January there was virtually no fresh snowfall at all in the southern half of the province. Temperatures in northern Ontario near Hudson Bay were 15-20 C (!!!) above normal through much of March. Records fell like bowling pins.
Certainly we are talking about weather here, and not climate, but of course this fits into a broader pattern. And watch the denialists squirm by the end of the year when 2010 turns out the be the warmest (by far) since records were kept. I wait with baited breath to see what crap they will dredge up to vanquish the science that they hate. The 'it stopped warming in 1998' mantra will be replaced by cries of fraud, and then when 2011 and 2012 are not quite as warm as 2010, expect the denialati to claim that 'it stopped warming in 2010'. These people are shameless and are not interested in science, only in promoting deregulatory political agendas.
Again, Toby (let me guess: you are a right wing/libertarian? Correct?) who IMHO goes by his 'gut' feelings which, as I said earlier, are almost certainly clouded by an inherent political ideology. As I have said many times before, there is most certainly a correlation between climate change denial and political belief.
By the way, Toby, how many peer-reviewed studies have you published in climate or any other scientific field? I was just wondering. My guess is that you are another of the D-K armchair expert crowd. How you ended up in Deltoid is anyone's guess.
>*They have not studied hundreds of thousands more unpublished emails from the CRU. Surely openness would require their release.*
Who ever wrote that is tripping! This nutter's definition of openness would require everyone's email to be released. And why stop a emails, for openness lets have their post, telephone records and webcam tracking.
What a half-wit moron! I demand the release of the last 10 years of his email account before I take his claim seriously! I'm sure I could concocted an mud staining allegation with access to that material.
Toby, hopefully tomorrow you wake up and become a real sceptic.
This is all.
Toby @81
My brother-in-law built a small greenhouse on the side of the weather station there in the early 1970s, then put 'Garden Spot of the Arctic' on the postmark as a JOKE. It is complete and utter twaddle to think that it is anything but a negative reference to the climate there.
Eureka the Garden Spot of the Arctic? at a [balmy -20C](http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=4037191…), it's a veritable tropical paradise!
seriously, just look at it? isn't it just a horticultural heaven?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/29605922@N03/3232070301
all i can say is that if the Garden of Eden resembled that in any way, God must have really fucking hated Adam.
toby robertson:
> "You keep repeating your question about PETM and feedback, i have twice acknowledged your point but it does not mean that positive feedback effects are even remotely common and certainly does not imply any degree of likelihood that positive feedback effects are in any way likely or imminent."
you seem remarkably confident of this. what evidence do you have that the physical processes that caused events such as the PETM and interglacials are no longer applicable?
81 Toby,
Let's accept that this is true.
So it's always been warm there. Doesn't matter. Has it become warmer still or not? It's the *change* that matters.
If it were an unusually cold station, would we complain in the way you have? Of course not! Would you even have mentioned it? Of course not! Why is that?
I just checked the station list of GISTEMP and compared that to the claim that only one data station above 65N was used. Unsurprisingly, the facts contradict the claim. Places like Coppermine, Cambridge Bay, Norman Wells, Inuvik, Hall Beach, Resolute, and Clyde are all above 65N, and they all have at least 50 years of data. So, what's the Eureka-stuff all about? Well, it is the only station on the list that has a fully continuous data record. The others have had a change in 2004 or 2005 and are thus listed twice in GISTEMP. Still, they provide temperature records above 65N up until 2010, and thus we have another case of Watts spreading falsehoods, and Toby Robertson repeating them here.
Toby, I'd be interested to know how you react to a simple scientist whose research field is not climate change (that'll be me) so easily exposing this falsehood on WUWT, where Anthony Watts is at the very least suggesting he has some expertise in the field.
I was slightly shocked to see the words Anthony Watts and expertise in the same sentence.
As far as can be seen, the only expertise he has is in publicising abject nonsense and being a censor and a bullyboy on his own blog.
Everything else he touches (surface stations project anybody? Butte Republican candidate?) turns to shit in his sweaty little mitts.
Hey Ligne,as far as I know the cause of the PETM is still unknown,and the increase in ch4 could be a result,not a cause.
To Jeff Harvey,
You can also re-write your statement,"a correlation between climate change denial and political belief"
thus,"a correlation between climate change belief and political ideology".Not so?
And can you please spare us your continual attempts to invalidate people by referring to their lack of "qualifications" or "published articles" and all such like.You do this for every new blogger here and it is just sanctimonious posturing.
[Warren said:](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/ill_start_calling_them_skeptic…) "You can also re-write your statement,"a correlation between climate change denial and political belief" thus,"a correlation between climate change belief and political ideology".
You could say that Warren, if you were playing pointless semantic games of no consequence.
However empirical evidence strongly suggests the world is warming at an unprecedented rate, and the only mechanism that consistently explains that phenomenon is AGW, independent of whatever ideology.
So your point is that political belief makes problems disappear?
If only things were that simple.
Chek,the world is not warming at an unprecedented rate,and the cause of the current warming is still unknown.It may be due to co2,but the only problem is,we cant demonstrate the case for co2 connvincingly.We still dont know how the entire climate system works.
Ignore Warren. I don't think he's real, just some kind of denier-programmed spambot.