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Dan Casey has just posted the first installment in a story about the day Pat Robertson's bodyguard pulled a gun on him, which is so far an interesting perspective on the obscenely wealthy life of a televangelist. I wish I could afford to build a mighty mansion on an isolated hilltop that I would…
It's official - I am on board the Hi'ialakai and we are underway, headed to our first stop Nihoa.
Want to know where I'm at? Follow me around using NOAA's Ship Tracker. The Hi'ialakai is "HA", and you can click the link on the left sidebar to get it pointed out. Click "show latest track" to zoom…
I'm on the road for the weekend, and Internet access will likely be spotty until sometime Monday afternoon. Does that mean Orac has abandoned his readers? O ye of little faith! Of course not! There are scheduled posts in the meantime; that is, assuming that ScienceBlog's post scheduling feature…
Well, the book has been out for some five months now...but it was just recently reviewed in a top Canadian newspaper, the Toronto Globe & Mail. A quote:
...perhaps the most lasting legacy of Storm World is not its descriptions of hurricane science or politics. Instead, it's Mooney's…
Sorry to come back again but I just wondered if anyone had seen my Nobel Peace prize? Perhaps I left it here after my last visit. . . . oh, you didn't know I was a Nobel laureate? Oh yes, you see the 'EUSSR' has just been awarded the prize and I'm a member, in fact not just a member, I actually help pay for the bloody thing, so, using Prof. Mann's impeccable and highly intellectual and scientific logic, I, too, won it. But, dammit, and more to the point, I have yet to receive my share of the prize money. I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked!
Duff,
Why not go whole hog and claim that as a citizen of a country that is signatory of the UN you are due recognition for the 2007 prize as well?
Idiot.
Typical Duffer, a week late and a sandwich short to the picnic. Let's try to put it in terms that you, and the British chapter of the slime-for-brains that inhabit Wuttworld can understand. Are you sitting comfortably? Catheter secure? So to continue...
FIFA do not list him in their roll call of World Cup national team winners but only a Duffer of the first order (dufferis wattapuss stupidus) would similarly challenge the phrase "1966 World Cup winner Geoff Hurst ".
Now to be fair FIFA, 40+years after the event, changed their policy and awarded medals to all members of the winning team. The Nobel committee don't issue individual medals in the same way, but the IPCC sought and obtained approval to award their own certificates to their own 'winning team' including Dr. Mann without whom the IPCC (being only an admin body) would have nothing to offer the world.
"In December 2007 the permanent secretary of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Geir Lundestad, clarified these questions in an email to one of our authors, copied to Dr Pachauri. Chairman of the IPCC. He wrote that the committee would issue no medal or diploma to individual contributors to IPCC reports and it was up to the IPCC to decide what it would do to recognize the various contributors.
On this basis, the IPCC Chair, the Secretary of the IPCC and IPCC Co-chairs decided in 2007 to present personalized certificates “for contributing to the award of the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007 to the IPCC” to experts that had contributed substantially to the preparation of IPCC Reports, namely coordinating lead authors, lead authors, review editors, Bureau members, staff of the technical support units and staff of the secretariat from the IPCC’s inception in 1988 until the award of the prize in 2007."
What you've got hold of Duffer, is an irrelevant if poorly worded outtake from a legal document and - as usual - manufactured something which isn't there. Which pretty much encapsulates the entire denier premise and existence you've dedicated yourself to.
OK, so why did the italics tag close just fine in para 3, but not at the end of para 5?
Duffer, I know you don't really care for the truth but I'll help anyway.
As it happens The Rabett has been watching the watchers on this one and engaged in return fire see here and here . No quit this pretend ignorance Duff one.
Michael Mann describes exactly what the deniers strategy is when it comes to trying to smear a huge community of scientists. The deniers are well aware that the vast majority of the scientific community is not on their side. But they cannot hope to take on this huge body of researchers. So instead their strategy is what Mann refers colloquially to as the 'Serengeti Strategy', whereby the deniers focus their wrath on one or a few scientists, much like a hunting lioness focuses her attention on one gazelle or wildebeest in the herd.
He has been singled out along with a few other prominent climate scientists with esteemed scientific credentials (i.e. Trenberth, Hansen, Briffa) in the hope that, if they throw enough mud against a few scientists, then this will contaminate all of those (many thousands) who support their work and arguments. The deniers are not only a bunch of ignorant idiots and intentional deceivers, but they use the same strategy on the science, as well. The science of climate change is extremely multi-faceted, but what they do is attack only one of two small areas, such as the 'hockey stick', believing that if they can muddy the waters in these areas, then by default all of the other evidence must be flawed as well. It does not matter that AGW was on the scientific radar, so to speak, for 10 years before MBH/Nature was published. The same strategy has been used to try and give the impression that conclusions reached by national scientific organizations and academies are not based on rank and file members (note how, when challenged on this, Jonas was forced to scrape together some pithy excuse to give the impression that these huge bodies may have reached their consensus on the basis of a few members; indeed, given he was cornered on this point , what else could he do but try and work his way out of it? He failed, miserably).
These people have no shame or scruples. They are not skeptics, because most of them will never, ever change their views no matter how much datas come in. They are anti-environmental global change deniers. Pure and simple.
Has anyone seen a fellow called Kai hereabouts?
Bernard....
No, and let's hope to keep it that way. I read his comments and its clear hes an imbicile...
What's with all this bollocks about "Hurricane Sandy cannot be attributed to climate change"?
You don't get hurricanes off the coast of the UK BECAUSE IT IS THE WRONG CLIMATE FOR IT.
We have a clear causal relationship by the mechanism by which a hurricane forms. High SSTs are a requirement.
And the climate HAS WARMED.
If you want to go on about how this hurricane or drought or whatever wasn't caused by climate change:
a) You're making a stupid english sentence construction mistake: The event was caused BY THE CLIMATE. Therefore THE CHANGE OF THE EVENT IS THE CHANGE IN THE CLIMATE.
and
b) Prove that if the climate hadn't changed, there had been no AGW and no increase in CO2 that this storm WOULD STILL HAVE OCCURRED. THEN we can say it wasn't caused by climate change.
Thanks, Chek, so he's not a 'Knobel Prize laureate' he's an 'IPCC laureate'.
So why, in a legal document, does he claim to be a Nobel Prize winner? This is from his own Facebook quoting his own lawsuit document :
"Dr. Mann is a climate scientist whose research has focused on global warming. In 2007, along with Vice President Al Gore and his colleagues of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize".
Tell me, Chek, what is it about the words "Dr. Mann" and "he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize" that you don't understand?
Tell me, Duff, what is it about the words, "along with Vice President Al Gore and his colleagues of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change" that you don't understand?
Duffer LB answers your question with customary efficiency.
It only remains for me to point out that this trumped up episode doesn't even amount to making a mouse dropping into a molehill, but then that is about your intellectual altitude and all that you jokers have got. Neither is it a position any of your benighted crew will ever have to worry about, ever.
Duffhasnosense:
Duff, you're quote-mining, a transparent logical fallacy. You're clinging to a rhetorical straw. What do you hope to gain? Do you think that if you can just score a point with this, all the evidence for AGW can be ignored?
chek
You dropped a slash perhaps. Whatever all the normal text down the right sidebar is now italicised too. At least with Firefox.
Time to let duff slip back under his rock.
Go easy on Duff and Dumber. With a front cover like this addressed specifically to him, it is hardly surprising that he would want to talk about anything else but the event that has made the news this week.
Yep, this 'Mann's Nobel Prize' thing is about the clearest statement of 'we've got nothing' the Denialati have made to date. Sure; if U2 win a Grammy Bono couldn't say he had...
The spectacle of the creeps at WUWT indulging in Hurricane Denial is also an indicator that there's nothing but a wounded, bitter and angry rabble left...
It's Global Warming, Stupid. - an interview with the business Week author on DN!
There's a bit of a slant here.
chek:
Para 4 ends with <i />
Lionel A:
Chromium too.
And if you add an extra end tag it doesn't post it. :(
Indeed - it's clear to see that a few of us have tried if one scans the page source. I think that only Tim can straighten out this hiccup.
what if?
yes/no?
OK, my turn
nup!
OK, fixed the italics,
Thanks Tim!
We can read clearer, the italics gone.
We can read all info in our way.
Gone are the slanted words that held us blind
Gonna be a bright, bright sunshiny blog.
Look, will you all please STOP sending me this global warming! I pulled back the curtains this morning and there was a blizzard outside - in the south west of Britain - and it's only the fourth of bloody, sodding November!
Oh, and by the way, this from 'on High':
"The other day the International Panel on Climate Change in Geneva issued the following statement:
The prize was awarded to the IPCC as an organization, and not to any individual associated with the IPCC. Thus it is incorrect to refer to any IPCC official, or scientist who worked on IPCC reports, as a Nobel laureate or Nobel Prize winner."
Hevens to Betsy, Dr. Mann telling little porkies - who'da thunkit?
Duffster, you do understand that climate change will not change all areas equally?
You are benefitting what what has been termed "WACC'y weather" - Warm Arctic, Cold Continents. Your blizzard is directly linked to record minimum sea ice earlier in the year. Get used to it. Its the new "normal".
Duffer the Puffer is ignorant of what climate scientists are saying. Who would have though it:
Of course he is oooooooozing sarcasm here. If he had actually read what scientists are saying he would know that colder, wetter and snowier weather is exactly what global warming means for NW Europe. Something to do with a warming Arctic if he had read the papers.
So you ignorant Duffus, if you do not like cold and wet weather you should have been doing your utmost to support the climate scientists rather than smearing and insulting them. You are bringing this on to yourself but you are too stupid to understand.
I think Mann can nicely use this example as to how incorrect information is handled differently by honest people and by ideologues. Mann can show the certificate he received from the IPCC as an example of how it could be read as saying he shared the Nobel Prize. As soon as that was clarified, he issued a correction. Now, dear judge, compare that to the failure of those attacking Mann to issue any corrections.
Oops, own goal by the ideologues!
"colder, wetter and snowier weather is exactly what global warming means for NW Europe."
Oh, stop it, Ian, I almost fell off my chair at that one! And you must be very careful taking the you-know-what out of HAFs (Hot Air Fanatics) they can get really stroppy and rude if you make fun of them!
If Duffer the Puffer keeps falling out of his chair when confronted with the truth perhaps he should get one of the attendants at his institution to tie him in. I believe that is standard procedure where people like Duffer the Puffer are confined.
Duff, whilst you are still on your chair watch this:
Climate Change Is Simple - David Roberts Remix
and this
Discovery Channel - Global Warming, What You Need To Know, with Tom Brokaw
I could follow that up with a reading list so that you do not continue to embarrass yourself with these displays of wilful ignorance, aka stupidity.
I find El Duffo's totally unselfconscious displays of abject, pitiable ignorance very informative, especially when he imagines he's being 'clever with it' .It clearly shows what Watts et al are all about.
Duffski is wrong. There is no blizzard outside.
I'm in the UK too.
"...this global warming! I pulled back the curtains this morning and there was a blizzard outside"
Your arse may be huge, duffski, but it isn't the size of the planet.
Checking up, it does seem that two or three inches of snow fell in the south west of the UK over this weekend. There was absoltely no sign of it here in the northern part of the UK, but I know this because we usually have a kickback on this side of the Atllantic in the aftermath of US hurricanes and I happened to be checking up on the upcoming week's weather..
Of course, being an alarmist fruitcake, Le Duffer's claim to it being a "blizzard" will no doubt have our American, Canadian, European, Scandinavian and Russian visitor's chuckling their socks off, but it must be remembered what a delicate wallflower Duff is at heart. Nor does he seem to have the capacity to understand the consequences of record arctic melt this year or where all that displaced latent heat may go.
Or, to be brutally honest, even what 'latent heat' is. Buit that's Dufferworld, as edubecated by the likes of Watts and Montford for you.
As reported elsewhere "Bloomberg Business Week Discovers Global Warming".
Cue our usual denialist suspects...
"Duffski is wrong"
Er, no, 'Duffski' was right and 'Wow' was wrong! Not for the first and certainly not for the last time.
No, Duffski, you're actually factually wrong.
Looked outside, no blizzard. Not one this week even.
Living in the south west too.
Chek, I looked out the window and NO BLIZZARD.
Ergo Duffski is wrong. Global warming hasn't stopped according to the view out of my window.
Yes that was my point too, Wow. A light snowfall - but not a "blizzard" by any stretch of the imagination.
"The National Weather Services defines blizzards as large amounts of falling or blowing snow with winds in excess of 35 mph and visibilities of less than ¼ of a mile for a period of more than 3 hours.
Blizzards and severe snowstorms have a number of dangers including blowing snow that can cause whiteout conditions that make driving and walking nearly impossible".
It's just Duffer being alarmist and stupid and denying winter - again.
I very much doubt Duff knows what blizzard conditions are. I have experienced such a number of times in the Scottish highlands, Glen Coe (buachaille etive mor - I took a tumble down the north saddle of that whilst glissading - my companion later disappeared into a crevice on Greenland ), the Cairngormes, in the Braemar-Balmoral area and Muckle Cairn (between Glen Clova and Glen Esk) whilst looking over a crashed WW2 Wellington bomber.
It's far more than that.
I LITERALLY did not see even a mm of snow. In the South West.
But I reckon Duffski doesn't live in the South West and never saw any snow either, but rather had his attention pushed by his masters to the news report and then pretended he'd seen it himself, personally.
But my view did not see a mm of snow fall.
If Duffski wants to make "what was seen out of one guy's window" "the global weather", then use my view.
Wow, are you calling me a liar? I don't much care because it is par for the course on this, er, religious site. Check the newspapers, for example, there was 3" of snow in Bath. As it happens I had a meeting in West London that evening but cancelled because of the weather *in my garden*!
Anyway, be a sweetie and send me some of that global warming, I never produced a drop of sweat all summer and I don't want another winter like that one two years ago where we all nearly froze to death.
Perhaps if you have word with the fossil fuel magnates that finance your preferred disinformation sources and tell them to stop melting the arctic, your pleas might actually fall on ears that can directly do something about it, Duffer.
Or hadn't that occurred to you?
@ Duff
Here you are then:
Global Temperature anomalies aka Warming for you
@ Duff
Evidence for warming.
and take the time to watch those cited in my November 4, 2012 above.
Rectify your ignorance Duff. But it isn't ignorance really is it?
If you don't like being called a liar then you know what to stop doing. Up to you.
"Wow, are you calling me a liar?"
Yup.
"Check the newspapers, for example, there was 3″ of snow in Bath"
And what I accuse you of lying about was you seeing a blizzard.
Not only did NOBODY see a blizzard in the UK, you don't have to have seen it to read about it in the newspaper, so I call your claim of "I looked out the window" as a lie.
But you turned up as if your looking out the window was proof AGW was false.
But if one person's view outside the window is all the evidence needed, then my looking out the window and NOT SEEING ANY SNOW, never mind a blizzard, is proof that AGW continues unabated.
Of course, you are also a hypocrite and what is acceptable proof for your denial of reality is not acceptable as proof of reality.
I'm calling you a fuckwit too.
"but cancelled because of the weather *in my garden*!"
Yeah, yeah.
And I also bet you whine and bitch and moan about British Rail cancelling stuff because of "snow on the line".
You're not only a liar, but even more incompetent than British Rail if WEATHER IN YOUR GARDEN stops you from getting to London...
Calm down, dear, the end of the world is not yet nigh. Honestly, I wonder how you lot ever sleep at nights.
Have another vat of wine, David.
Warning: Preemptive Gloat
Just checking in to remind everyone that back in Nov 2008 I stated that Obama would win two terms. mainly due to the voters wanting someone to stick around long enough to clean up the colossal Bush mess, a task I described as "janitorial" rather than "messianic".
I followed up in Apr 2010 when I predicted that the Tea Party would "burn out" and Obama would win the 2012 election "comfortably". I also argued that Obama needed to focus on winning a bigger share of the "white working class" vote. It looks like the auto bailout has swung working class white Ohio into the DEM column.
Everyone goes on about Ray Fair, Doug Hibbs and Nate Silver in the US and Possum Polytics, Poll Bludger and Mumbles in AUS. They are all great quants but I am now sitting on a 6 on 6 winning streak picking US/AUS federal elections through the naughties. With a good chance of making it 7 on 7 with Obama.
Its still possible for an upset Romney victory to spoil my winning streak. Especially if base turnout favours the REPs. If the poll goes as I predicted then I would be interested to see if any other psephs can top that.
Either I am very lucky or as Jack Nicklaus once remarked, "the more I practice the luckier I get".
Cheers, Bill, that's the most civilised thing I've ever read on this blog!
Jack, as you are brave enough to go out on a limb, allow me to step out equally bravely onto the one opposite - Romney will romp home! My forecasting record is, er, the exact opposite of yours so thank God I don't have enough money to bet on it!
Leo Hickman has an excellent story revealing how one UK denier (Ben Pile) is funded by the EU via the anti-EU and AGW denying UK Independence Party:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2012/nov/06/ukip-climate-env…
"Calm down, dear, the end of the world is not yet nigh"
HA! From an alarmist like you? So I guess there was no blizzard now, right?
No, you have two faces, both arses, and you talk out of both of them.
Hi Jack,
So what? Who cares who wins the US election? As Chris Hedges recently said, its a case of 'drink your poison' either way. The only promise Obama has kept since to 2008 is that he got his daughter a dog. Every other promise was broken. Romney is a mannekin who wants to lower regulations on banking activity even more - pure insanity. The one thing they both have in common is that they are both totally beholden to the corporate lobby.
Let's face it - the US hasn't been a healthy, functioning democracy for over 60 years. Its a plutocracy. A corporatocracy. The corporate establishment wins either way.
Heck, Duff keeps claiming he lives in the South West UK (or Bristol or anywhere else the newspapers claim that there's cold weather), but he's intensely interested in Romney winning the USA presidential election.
God knows why.
If he likes it so much, maybe he ought to go there and get away from all this "communist" welfare state...
I guess Duff would be very comfortable in the US if Romney (Hives & Dim-Church) won, after all the US will then officially be run by such as a href=" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturmabteilung">these. All US climate scientists will be welcome this side of the Atlantic as our incumbents are only pretending to make policy that works. Cameron being a mere cipher ruled by polls.
Argh! Soditagain!
these
Argh! NowWhat?
these
Groan!
I guess Duff would be very comfortable in the US if Romney (Hives & Dim-Church) won, after all the US will then officially be run by such as these .
Speaking of such things, it would appear that the usual suspects are attempting to systematically disenfrachise those guilty of Voting While Black again...
As in 2008, if Obama wins today it's a safe bet his margin will actually have been substantially higher than that actually recorded, after allowing for what is now routine GOP vote-fiddling.
And allow me to be the first to point out that the same denialists who simply won't recognise science if it conflicts with their ideological beliefs were also calling 'bias' 'scam' and 'fraud' with regard to the polling and forecasts that predicted a comfortable victory for Obama - like the one that just happened - and living in a parallel universe where Mitt sweeps the field, riding in on a (very-definitely) white charger (or, more appropriately, a Magic Pony) to save the world for 'freem' and The Stupid. (They're synonyms these days, anyway.)
Well, that just fell in a giant puddle of ooze, and it's worth noting that the Idiot candidate's hilarious 'jokes' about rising seas did both his election chances and your toxic cause no good whatsoever...
David Duff on November 6, 2012
So, Obama wipes the floor with Romney. It seems that Duff's forecasting abilities are the same for political events as they are for human-caused planetary climate change.
Which is to say, entirely absent.
Yep, the least toxic candidate has absolutely creamed the Koch's mendacious muppet!
The only issue now is where all the BS 'close race' reporting came from; it sure wasn't from the actual polling experts - this is a big one for Nate Silver, statistics and rationality generally.
Never mind, Duffer, I wish you all thje miserable weather you could hope for by way of consolation.
Fool/s.
Bill - that's not fair. I now live in Bristol and will be getting the same weather as Duff (and I will be able to keep a close eye on his weather updates).
And last weekend, I went to Reading/Basingstoke by train and had no issues whatsoever with the "snow" problems. Must have been local weather for local people.
joni, the other alternative is duffski is full of crap and is, as usual, hysterical.
There was apparently a choice moment overnight on the Faux Election coverage where Rove couldn't actually comprehend that Romney had lost Ohio, and sent the anchor interviewing him, cameras trailing, across the studio to the off-screen number crunchers to recheck.
Almost like he suddenly realised that far from certainty, he'd actually acquired a pig-in-a-poke. I can only hope that whatever he thought he'd paid for was hugely, ruinously expensive, both in reputation and financially.
joni - sorry; but, don't worry, as you say it appears that much of the weather he 'complains' of really is selectively hyper-localised to the (surprisingly mobile) le hovel du Duffer; can anyone be surprised that someone up there doesn't like him?
In keeping with the 'local' theme: This is a science blog for science people, Duffer - there's nothing for you here...
I suspect Rove may end up having to sleep over on Duff's couch. Never before in politics has quite so much money been pissed-up against a wall - and that's money that belonged to very rich people who not only expect a return on their investment as a God-given right (and if that fails the state can fork out!), they may be inclined to send people round to have words with the guy who burned their cash...
Here's hoping!
"It seems that Duff’s forecasting abilities are the same for political events as they are for human-caused planetary climate change.
Which is to say, entirely absent."
That's because "human-caused planetary climate change" is entirely absent - and has been since about 1998!
Duffus old chap, the way this site works is NOT that some random yahoo (that's you, that is) logs in and makes an unsupported statement of complete fantasy.
If you want anything apart from derision, you should provide your evidence that supports the assertion you make. Unfortunately, that's "entirely absent" because you haven't got any.
Your history talks must be complete shit if you conduct research into them in the same manner as your appearances here strongly suggest.
Big step forward though - Duff admits that until 1998, human-caused climate change was real. At least now he only needs to be convinced about the last 14 to get with the program...
Entirely absent?
So why all the freak weather?
Duff, you're definitely demented: you're exhibiting severe short-term memory loss. This oft-repeated error of yours has been corrected on numerous occasions.
Indeed, Tim Lambert's latest post includes a graph showing the mean global temperature record from 1980, with a trend line fitted for the interval to 1996 (i.e., the first half of the period - you know, the portion that you acknowledge was warming), and extrapolated to present. And guess what? The second half of the period shows a temperature trend largely falling above the extrapolated trendline for the period that you agree was warming.
Now what on Earth could that mean? Oh, don't worry, I don't expect you to explain it - you've shown previously that basic physics and mathematics are beyond your ken, and even if you could figure it out, you'll have forgotten it by the next time that you post.
That should read "the second half of the period shows a temperature trajectory..."
Duff,
That’s because “human-caused planetary climate change” is entirely absent – and has been since about 1998!
Pay attention at the back there!
I have given you plenty of pointers up-thread and Tim Lambert has provided more where Bernard J has just indicated.
Do you want to be sent around the parade ground again holding a .303 above your head 'till told to stop?
Bernard J
Indeed, and Greg Palast has been on the case for some time now with earlier Bush era voting shenanigans described in 'The Best Democracy Money Can Buy'.
'Vulture's Picnic' passes the microscope over the dirty and unethical antics of the fossil fuel industry, and others. 'Armed Madhouse' is also an eye-opener for those who cannot grasp that a true Democracy does not exist.
Link to Palast's books, sorry forgot to include in previous.
To those who still think 'Its the Economy, Stupid' here is one reply:
Sandy: Republican Mitt Romney Lies ROMNESIA 3rd Debate Why President Obama Should Win Election.
Palast's latest, 'Billionaires and Ballot Bandits', is now available as donationware here.
Roy Spencer has updated the UAH curve and has finally removed his "amusing", inaccurate polynomial curve 'fit'.
Is that because the same order polynomial fit would have it turning up again now?
Or is it just that it isn't fitting any more and he'll just wait until it goes up again and say "In another 7 years it'll go down again! My model says so!"?
The polynomial he had was turning down. Perhaps he removed it because the amusement was going to be at his expense, just like John MacLean's hilarious cooling prediction last year.
Likely GOP presidential ticket for 2016 has already emerged.
bill, I have played the pecant segment many times and I just cannot make out what that dame is referring to, she needs to slow down and speak English and not USenglish or curl the mouth down at one side.
Gentlemen (I use the term loosely, of course), the words I recoil from in the phrase “human-caused planetary climate change” is "human-caused". Global temperatures, of course, go up and then they go down, they always have done, irrespective of whether humans even exist or not. The effect we humans have is the equivalent of pissing in an ocean!
But what the sun does - or does not do - well, that's another story and one about which we know very little - so far. Suffice to say, that I *suspect* quite a lot is an understatement.
I should add that we will all find out the hard - and very cold - way over the next few years unless the sun's acne returns!
In the meantime, you can keep pumping out Co2 as hard as you like for all the difference it makes.
"the words I recoil from in the phrase “human-caused planetary climate change” is “human-caused”."
Yup, you're afraid of a word.
Even though it's accurate.
Scaredey-cat.
Duffer, four words that may help liberate you from your quaint if dangerously ill-informed and smug 16th Century mindset:
IPCC
Just because you and rest of The Stupids, don't know, means nothing beyond your own admission.
Uncanny. Duff picks the current top 2 from Skeptical Science's hit parade of the most popular climate change myths:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php
A dedicated follower of science denier fashion.
Duff on Duff:
Of course you do, everything you write is loose, why is that? Well verbal diarrhoea is your thing.
On human effects on CO2, and Methane, levels and temperatures see William Ruddiman.
Duffer's just trying to ease the pain of Obama's re-election, contrary to all the hopelessly-wrong - and, I mean, seriously, what a flagrant give-away! - bullshit promulgated by the likes of the American Spectator.
He's incapable of learning, of course, that like that risible extremist publication all his views are based on a right-wing fantasy world; a genuine epistemic bubble where a hyper-coiffed fringe-sect nutjob in long white underwear rides in on a Magic Pony, saving the world from The Socialist Menace and The Global Conspiracy of Evil Scientists...
Didn't happen, Duff.
Whatever sloshes around in your skull cavity might just as well be sago pudding - well soaked in brandy, no doubt - for all the information it's affording you about reality. Same goes for your dittohead cyborg Libuuurtarian mates.
And I'm not the only one who thinks the link between the Denialist fantasist's reaction (literally!) to inconvenient US election forecasting and AGW is strongly revealing...
I usually avoid WWWT like the plague, but this effort was pointed out to me and I just had to share the fact of Willis Eschenbach's extraordinary ignorance of chemistry</b>:
I've commented so often on this matter that I'm not even going to try to find all of those posts, but Eschenbach would benefit from understanding some of the points made here.
Damn National Geographic's FUBARing of the html.
My comment is about two thirds of the way down the page, between Carrot Eater's and Phila's.
Yes, Bernard, but complete morons is all they have left!
That Eschenbach article is astonishingly ignorant - and I say that as someone who can barely remember chemistry classes.
Quite frankly I'm surprised that the Denialati haven't gone for the "it's not warming, it's less-cooling" gambit.
After all, there must be years-worth of dissemblance there
Or declaring the 'natural' temperature of the earth to be pre-industrial + 2C, and then announcing that the climate is merely 'normalising' towards its 'neutral' optimum. Oh, wait...
On ocean acidification, Eschenbach (plus Monckton and Curtin - he of proven lack of scientific understanding) should consider what would happen if their bloodstreams became less alkaline.
Oceanic critters 'know' only to well the consequences of this trend and in turn we can understand what this will mean to the food chain, not only in the oceans. This is where a good course in Oceanography would benefit these 'ignoratti', as would a study of William Ruddiman's 'Earth's Climate: Past and Future as I figure that 'Principles of Planetary Climate by Raymond T. Pierrehumbert would be beyond their comprehension skills.
Remember Curtain thinks that adding carbon dioxide to water makes it safe to drink.
I doubt whether he'll think that a less alkaline bloodstream was bad for him, and he certainly won't bother to find out.
Which reeks of post-modernism to me, that is a trend of pseudo-culturism which is so well rebutted in Postmodernism Disrobed which can also be found as a chapter in Dawkins book 'A Devil's Chaplain: Selected Writings.
Interestingly this point by Bill McKibben, '1. Ocean acidification which will kill corals and endanger a wide variety of shellfish' was no one in a list of hazards from the continued mass use of fossil fuels that he presented in a recent debate between Bill and Alex Epstein (founder of Centre for Industrial Progress) which was reported on here .
Wow:
For the benefit of new readers, that was sea water that Curtin thought could be rendered potable by acidification with CO2.
For the unaware - Curtin is completely, utterly, and abjectly wrong.
Should that have been a safety warning there, Bernard? You know, like "Warning: Choking hazzard" or "Do not try this at home, kids!"?
For those who haven't seen the WWWT pH thread, it can be read here:
http://www.webcitation.org/6C2vVe8PB
There are so many egregious errors, misapprehensions and outright lies, including some from people who claim to have aquarium experience, that it's impossible to know where to start deconstructing it all.
Suffice to say that it's quite obvious that none of the armchair experts there have darkened the doorway of a chemistry lab - at least not with the outcome of a superior or even an average grade in the end of semester exams.
And it's not as if they haven't previously been told on WWWT about acid chemistry. Check out the comments posted by the people I mention in the following link - I even posted a link there to a graph that shows what CO2 does to seawater:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/14/the-heartbreak-of-emiliania-huxle…
Truly, if one seeks examples of criminal stupidity and ignorance, one need go no further that the dross a tWatts Wrong With That.
Oops, the link to the graph was in a comment following:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/14/the-heartbreak-of-emiliania-huxle…
For those who do not wish to increase the traffic to WWWT, the direct link is:
http://i40.tinypic.com/2aeuj60.jpg
Last I checked, Willis E. is a bloody male massuer.
By the same token, I expect a quailified gym teacher would be Watts' go-to-guy on nuclear physics or brain surgery. Or even an unqualified TV weather poppet blogger to climate science.
Watts is to science as tabloid rag is to literature - or even the literate. Hence his appeal to proud and preening fuckwits such as El Duffo.
The only promise Obama has kept since to 2008
I usually think well of you, Jeff, but in this case you're being an intellectually dishonest fool:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/
Obama is far from perfect, but he's not the immense disaster that Romney/Ryan would have been.
Ianam, I don't disagree with you with respect to Romney. But Obama's presidency has been punctuated by broken promises. And he's overseen the continuation of wealth erosion from the poor to the rich - its larger now than it was under Bush. He has received billions of dollars from corporate America for his election and re-election campaigns. Goldman-Sachs (you should know all about them) along with other banks were his biggest contributors in 2008. Here's a list of his other achievements:
1. Ue has suspended habeus corpus, meaning 'terrorist' suspects can be held indefinitely without charge until alleged hostilities end. Even the appalling Bush presidency never went that far.
2. He's refused to shut down the torture/gulag/penal colony at Guantanemo Bay, despite pledging to do so.
3. He's continued to go after Wikileaks and the treatment of whistleblower Bradley Manning under his watch has been an abomination.
4. He hired several Bush appointees to serve under his presidency - including right winger Robert Gates as defense secretary. The list includes Larry Summers, former World Bank supremo who once argued about the 'impeccable' logic of dumping toxic wastes in third world countries;
5. He did absolutely nothing about climate change. Said a lot, but no actions at all.
6. He'\s expanded the US war theater abroad, and has also increased the use of drones in targeting alleged militants. These drones have killed and blown to smithereens large numbers of civilians, including women and children, and are terrifying residents of the Af-Pak region. Imagine for a second if Iran was flying drones over the United States. There would be hell to pay. Being an imperial empire means essentially that you see the world through a one-way moral/legal screen; what you do is normalized, what your officially designated enemies do is treated as if the world will end.
7. In expanding US wars, he's also been involved in resolution 1973 which authorized a no-fly zone over Libya but which in effect authorized regime change there. As a result, 50,000 died, entire villages were wiped off the map and the country is now effectively in the control of armed militias, many with strong links to Al Queda.
8. Has continued the policy of using CIA 'torture taxis' to ship suspected militants around the world to be tortured in secret locations.
9. Has used literally trillions of dollars of taxpayers money to bail out the banking fraudsters, coming down on them like a pile of feathers. But this is hardly surprising since, as I said, he's largely beholden to them as a result of their financial support.
10. H'e expanded the empire of US military bases around the world, including those in Korea, Australia (aimed at monitoring China), and Colombia (aimed at possible regime change in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador). He's also overseen the building of new bases in Africa, which is part of his campaign to continue plundering the continent for its wealth of raw materials and resources. Economist Patrick Bond has interesting insight into this in a recent commentary.
11. Obamacare, his much hyped health care package, was largely underwritten by the Heritage Foundation, an old right wing think tank, along with the Pharmaceutical and Insurance Industries.
Essentially, Obama has continued to oversee the slow corporate coup de tat in the United States that has been underway since the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Both major parties differ, but in the words of journalist Chris Hedges, not enough to matter.
Ianam, I also tend to respect many of your posts. But take some advice: before your start throwing mud around, be prepared that a lot of it will come back and hit you in the face. In my opinion your views on this are superficial - as deep as a puddle of water.
One final point: on that ridiculous 'truth-o-meter' Ianam referred to in his link, many of the so-called promises kept were based on foreign military/expansionist agendas. I am sure that if the US decided to wage an immoral, illegal war against Iran, a country with a military budget smaller than Sweden's, that would be viewed as a 'promise kept' because Obama and his sidekick, the wicked witch of the west (Hilary Clinton) have always said that, with respect to Iran, "All options are on the table" (meaning war and the deaths of tens of thousands if necessary). It doesn't matter if its legal or not. It was still a promise!
The chart is therefore a joke. All it shows is that many of Obama's criminal policies were promises kept on behalf of the corporate sector. I am sure that his profligate use of drones is also one of the promises he made.
Before the recent farce known as the US election, Chris Hedges gave his views on the Real News Network. They are worth a listen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omiKV_6WnFg
Judith Curry's new paper has been acepted by "CAB Reviews" (?) a publication of www.cabi.org.
http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/28/climate-change-no-consensus-on-consen…
I'm posting it here as it addresses the "consensus" that you all trumpet as evidential fact, and we've discussed at length on the "Jonas Thread".
Enjoy!
;)
To be fair, and unless I'm badly off base here, the Bush administration (aided and abetted by lawmakers) did pretty much exactly that - repeatedly as they kept losing in the courts, including the Military Commissions Act of 2006 - right up until June 2008 when they lost on that point in Boumediene vs Bush. One suspects that the proposed Habeus Corpus Restoration Act of 2007 would not have been necessary otherwise.
Promises kept for the commercial sector and the previous government.
Iraq was invaded because they called Shrub's dad the winp president.
Mind you, if Obama had made ANY move toward peace and reconciliation with Iraq and wound down the military, he'd have been shot dead within a year by a nutcase prodded on by Hannity or similar.
"2. He’s refused to shut down the torture/gulag/penal colony at Guantanemo Bay, despite pledging to do so."
Be fair, he tried.
EVERYONE refused to take them back since though they may not have been merkin-hatin terrists before, they damn sure are now.
And look at how badly Obama was slagged off for suggesting a CIVIL trial for 11/9 terrorists? Several of his own party demanded he go star chambered court or they would LEAVE. And Fox news? Practically aneurism city over the idea that somehow you can put someone on trial rather than just execute them first.
To be fair that is a little hyperbolic (but only a little). The EPA now has the ability to regulate CO2 emissions, new automotive fleet mileage standards have been set via executive order, and IIRC a few other minor measures.
Nowhere near enough though. Not even close.
Then again, any realistic assessment of his chances of getting strong legislative action passed by both the House and Senate any time during his first term would have to include the term "bugger all", or the local idiomatic equivalent.
And just to be clear, on many points I think the Obama administration has been somewhere between mediocre all the way through to atrocious (with his civil rights record, aggressively going after whistleblowers, his complete abdication of any attempt to prosecute egregious violations by those in the previous administration, bailing out - and in effect condoning wrongdoing by - Wall Street whilst stranding Main Street, and his administration's alarmingly expanded rationale for indulgence in extra-legal assassination all being at the latter end of the scale).
I'd place Obamacare more at the mediocre end of the scale - but I don't think a significantly more progressive option had any chance of getting past the tantrum-throwing children who serve as Senators in the Republican Party these days.
It isn't just the Republican brats.
Obama has ratty little oiks in his party.
Obama DID come out with a strong "DO THIS OR YOU'RE FIRED" message which was followed, but this was IIRC for the bailout of the banks. Never even bothered on the progressive issues.
As far as the Democratic progressive base are concerned, Obama was indistinguishable from Mittens or Bush.
As far as the USA as a whole, there's a difference. Just a very much smaller one than there needs to be.
curryja: "This paper is not a science article, but a paper on the sociology and philosophy of climate science".
So, not the 'hard science' the deniers are forever cranking on about in their continual crankfests, but essentially an opinion piece from the ever more irrelevant Judith. Quelle surprise.
That too. That's why claims he had both Senate and House for two years aren't entirely realistic. Some of the Blue Dogs there are arguably closer to Republicans than Democrats.
This is based on the fact that the President has no necessary political relationship with the HoR or Senate. In most democracies the HoR chooses the chief executive of government but not the USA. Having two houses of parliament (HoR and Senate) as a lot of countries do is problematic enough but adding a third (President) is a recipe for disfunctionality. Just the thing for the most powerful and dangerous country in the world.
WRT Curry's "contribution" to sociology or philosophy or whatever non-hard-science discipline its intended for, I learned from the Discount Viscount long ago to press the mental "ignore" button when I came across the first misspelled Latin tag. So I got no further than the start of para four of the Introduction before I Zzzzzzz....
*blink*
Was it as dull as it was shaping to be? What I read seemed like just more uncertainty-monster pseudo-honest-broker piffle shes been vomiting out for years. Curry thinks if she keeps saying it it will magically become right. Good luck with that...
She's still awfully certain there's nothing needs doing...
And now for something completely different.
Butts out!
The reading of Robert Proctor's expose on the tobacco industry, 'Golden Holocaust: Origins of the Cigarette Catastrophe and the Case for Abolition' focused my mind again on a problem I had considered during my years as a smoker (partly enticed by Duty Frees in the RN) which is what happens to all those tipped cigarette butts. My contribution to this plague was minimal as I never did take to cigarettes with these tricksey things fitted and habitually smoked non-filtered having also figured out that I smoked fewer than my buddies who smoked those with spats (tips) on.
Proctor's book tells of how dangerous some of these filters were, some even using asbestos in their make up. When this is added to the significant amounts of radio active polonium (I kid you not) one suddenly realises that there is more danger in a fag (UK idiom for a cigarette but will confuse Yanks) than from the nicotine and tar alone.
Now those mostly plastic filters cling on to not only the humicants and sweeteners added to smooth the smoke but also concentrate the other toxins over and above those in the filter materials.
Proctor relates how toxic to small organisms one cigarette filter in a litre of water can be and these things have increased ramification as the toxins are concentrated as they mount the food chain.
Now I could repeat a few segments from Proctor's book, which, if you have any smokers amongst immediate family or friends, would be worth pointing them too, however I'll simply link to just one of many sites where there is more:
Cigarette Butts: One Huge Problem, Two Solutions.
But to be realistic the best solution is abolition of filters in the first instance - for they do nothing except increase cigarette manufacturers revenue stream and abolition of cigarettes (as reading Proctor's book reveals and something I suspected from early on as a smoker) in the second place. That latter should also save many deaths from accidental fires, fires made more likely by the burn propagating chemicals also added to the weed or the paper.
The environmental cost of cigarettes, and tobacco in general, does not stop with the butts there are many others from the denuding of hill slopes of timber for curing tobacco in developing countries to the increased use of pesticides and herbicides on an often GM enhanced crop.
Oh how we have screwed the world and most of us don't know it yet.
In the early 1960s most of the non-tipped cigarettes I smoked used tobacco not forced by artificial means from such as Rhodesia. Now this tobacco did produce a superior smoke, something which became clear within a few years. This was when the supply of this tobacco became problematic when Ian Smith declared UDI (Unilateral Declaration of Independence) and the UK government imposed sanctions including a blockade.
Ironically as our 'smokes' (another example of idiom for cigarettes) became less efficacious we were bobbing around on aircraft carriers in the Indian Ocean enforcing said blockade.
Another irony, as I learned later, came via my future wife who was in South Africa at the time and who related how she saw long, long trains of oil tankers steaming up from the Cape to Rhodesia and thus circumventing one objective of that blockade.
One of Obama's enduring legacies as president: the indiscriminate use of drones.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/11/09/is-this-child-dead-enough-for-yo…
I am not saying that Romney would not have been worse as president. He most certainly would have been. But this is not a ringing endorsement of a wretchedly sick political system that historian and philosopher Sheldon Wolin refers to as "inverted totalitarianism". The United States has a heavily stage-managed democracy. Managed from the top down, that is; a plutocracy. And those liberals who defend Obama need to have a serious rethink.
liberals and progressives don't support obama.
And obama doesn't support the progressives or liberals. Just look at how they get told off for not being 100% behind the president? They official line is ALWAYS slagging off the progressives for wanting some progressive thing or other.
It's why obama only won by a couple of precent: his power base in the left are abandoning him.
But the rightwing who AREN'T nuts are thinking "At least this black dude isn't as nuts as Beck..." and the non-WASPS would vote for a republican except that they're being told flat out that they're going to be shat on by that party.
Obama is winning because for many, there's nowhere else to go.
They aren't actually supporting him in droves.
Which is why despite all the advantages of not being a republican, he's only got by on a couple of percentage points.
Indeed. On practically every issue where Obama fails to uphold (or actively subverts) liberal principles, Romney was at least as enthusiastic as Obama - including the use of drones.
That's the huge flaw in a system which can only support two viable parties. The system throws up two presidential candidates and them's your choices.
And that means that whilst "those liberals who defend Obama need to have a serious rethink", it's not at all clear what they can do about it (once the nomination is made, at least - there's more chance to affect things before that time, but not necessarily a huge chance. As you point out there's an awful lot of stage management going on).
Climate Change Will Blow Up The Deficit
Go read the whole thing.
Speaking of Obama breaking campaign promises...
Interesting paper on Climate Change and National Security.
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=14682&page=1
Try the link again.
I'm wasting my time debating with cherry picking ideologues, of any stripe.
And as so often, Wow just makes up claims to support his beliefs. While progressives are of course critical of Obama on the issues mentioned, progressives and progressive organizations overwhelmingly supported him because of recognition of how much better off they are with him than with Romney, and because they understand the U.S. political system, in which progressives in Congress must have a Democrat in the White House in order to achieve anything. MoveOn.org, which at one point led the criticism of Obama and threatened to provide no support for his candidacy, became a major supporter when their poll of their members said that 94% favored supporting him. This didn't happen until after Romney won the Republican primary and became a concrete threat. Feminist and other civil rights organizations, environmental organizations, unions, people like Michael Moore and Tom Hayden, all supported Obama ... despite past and ongoing criticisms. I live here, I belong to these organizations (I'm a local officer of the Sierra Club), I get their literature, I read their websites, I sign their petitions ... Wow's a wanker without a clue. But hey, believe you want, even when the facts don't support it.
On the whose votes Obama got and where progressives where in this see http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/progressive-movement/news/2012/1…
The reason that Romney did as well as he did is because 2/3 of white Christian males voted for him ... Obama won in every other demographic. Jill Stein got a pittance of votes ... that's because most progressives in the U.S. don't buy into the stupid and dishonest argument that a vote for Obama is a vote for drones.
before your start throwing mud around, be prepared that a lot of it will come back and hit you in the face. In my opinion your views on this are superficial – as deep as a puddle of water.
Sheer projection. You've learned to cherry pick and move goalposts as well as any denier troll. You said Obama kept no promises -- that's false. Did he keep all the promises we wish he had? No. Did he keep promises we wish he hadn't? Yes. But your position is that he didn't keep any promise we wish he had, and that he only keep promises we wish he hadn't. That's false, it's dishonest, it's stupid, and it's superficial ... superficial most of all, because a) There are no policy line items on the ballot, only candidates -- you get all of their policies or none of them: I would have voted to keep Romney from selecting Supreme Court Justices alone, but I had many other reasons to prefer Obama b) the Executive is only one branch, and the Progressive Caucus in Congress -- the majority of which, for the first time in history, is not white males -- is reduced to blocking disastrous legislation when a Republican is in the White House and c) there's a lot more to progressive politics than voting once every four years. Progressives and liberals -- 86% of whom voted for Obama, down from 89% in 2008 -- do what they can to push policy in progressive directions on the other 1460 days of those four years, but they have a much worse starting position when there is a Republican in the White House ... and this time it would have been a Republican with a Tea Party-dominated HofR, a Tea Party base, and massive corporate backing -- corporate SuperPACs under Citizens United spent $430 million to try to get Romney/Ryan elected, as opposed to the $86 million of SuperPAC money that went toward Obama.
So it is you who is extremely superficial in your talk of liberals "supporting" "Obama" ... they supported his election over the election of Romney and Ryan, who would have been a disaster for the environment, for the American and world economy with their disastrous austerity and deregulation policies, a disaster for civil rights, for reproduction rights, for people with health issues, for poor Americans, minority Americans, American teachers and other government workers, and on and on. Does that mean that we support drone attacks, indefinite detention, and the rest? No, that is stupid, superficial, and extremely intellectually dishonest.
Ianam, I'm an outsider - attentive, though, having followed this election more closely than most recent ones. I'd be interested on an "insider's" perspective:
Both candidates ran pretty strong "get out to vote" campaigns but 9,000,000 fewer people voted. Do you think that shows a lowering of interest across the political spectrum? My thought was that it might be a lot of independents/swing voters switching from R to D to avoid the disaster of a Romney-Ryan win, while a similar number of obama voters from 2008 gave it a miss due to disappointment with his inability to achieve as much as promised, largely (but not solely) due to Republican intransigence in Congress.
"Jill Stein got a pittance of votes … that’s because most progressives in the U.S. don’t buy into the stupid and dishonest argument that a vote for Obama is a vote for drones."
We (Australia) saw eff-all coverage of the minor parties platforms, so I don't know about the "vote for drones" meme, But surely Stein's low vote was in large part due to your first-past-the-post system. If the US had preferential voting, you could vote for a minor party knowing that if your first preference is eliminated, your vote will ultimately be directed to the major party you prefer.
Just on environmental issues (without regard to other planks), a progressive voter might have wanted to vote Green, but since Stein had no real chance, such a vote would have effectively favoured the Republicans. I can see a lot of people voting Democrat to avoid that disastrous outcome, rather than that being their actual first preference. (Clunky - hope that makes sense).
As long as first-past-the-post voting exists, minor parties will always struggle to get a vote that reflects their actual support, except for abberations like Wallace in '68
Ianam,
Your problem is that when a position you take isn challenged, you go on the extreme offensive and appear incapable of debating in a civil tone. Calling me 'intellectually dishonest' was way below the belt.
My argument is that both candidates are faces of corporate power; that the electoral system in the United States is a farce; I agree with Wolin who has described the system as 'inverted totalitarianism' or as a 'managed' democracy. See how many of Chris Hedges arguments you can challenge in his interview on the link I supplied above.
Obama's presidency has overseen the continued transfer of wealth from the poor to the monied classes. His response to the banking crisis and fraud was pathetic - but predictable. His foreign policy has been a continuation or even an expansion of the policies carried out under his warmongering predecessor. While school are falling part, roads and bridges are crumbling, cities and municipalities are on the brink of bankruptcy, Obama has overseen a massive surge in military spending - over 750 billion dollars next year. ATo protect against what? Essentially, Obama is as corporate a president as any of the others who preceded him. He's beholden tot he military-industiral state, and he seems content to act as a steward for corporate America: the banks and Wall Street. The political system in the US stinks; there's no two ways about it.
Chris Hedges is one of many pundits on the left who expose the system for what it is. I am reading his book, 'Death of the Liberal Class'. One of the most prescient passages is this, a point he alludes to made by Noam Chomsky:
"Chomsky reserves his fiercest venom for members of the liberal class who serve as a smoke screen for the cruelty of unchecked capitalism and imperial war. He has consistently exposed their moral and intellectual posturing as a fraud. And this is why Chomsky is hated, and perhaps feared, more among liberals than among the right wing he also excoriates. When Christopher Hitchens decided to become a windup doll for the Bush administration after the attacks of 9/11, one of the first things he did was write a vicious article attacking Chomsky. Hitchens, unlike most of those he served, knew which intellectual in America mattered.
“I don’t bother writing about Fox News,” Chomsky said. “It is too easy. What I talk about are the liberal intellectuals, the ones who portray themselves and perceive themselves as challenging power, as courageous, as standing up for truth and justice. They are basically the guardians of the faith. They set the limits. They tell us how far we can go. They say, ‘Look how courageous I am.’ But do not go one millimeter beyond that. At least for the educated sectors, they are the most dangerous in supporting power.”
pp.35-36 of 'Death of the Liberal Class' by Chris Hedges
It seems to me Ianam, that based on your vitriol as a response to my posts, you fall very much into the category described by Chomsky and Hedges. I don't. I think its time to expose the so-called liberal defenders of corporate power for what they are. In my opinion Obama has been both a disaster as president but also nothing other than predicted, if one looks at his history. Chicago-based writer Paul Street wrote about this several years ago. He described how corporate lobbyists had vetted Obama for several years before he came within a light year of the Oval office. Obama was wined and dined at corporate functions, and in the end the corporate lobby saw that he was no threat to their interests. On the contrary, as Street say, the Emperor needed new clothes and Obama was the perfect one to wear them. If so-called progressives and liberals think that Obama is working for them, then they are seriously deluded - as are you.
"Your problem is that when a position you take isn challenged, you go on the extreme offensive and appear incapable of debating in a civil tone."
That's inane's M.O. all right.
Funnily enough, nobody seems to think that its worth telling him not to do it.
Another one for the 'ignoratti' or 'ideologically perverted' WRT Antarctic Ice, and another pointer to the lunacy of considering that there has been no warming for the last 15, 16 or whatever years (redirected from SkS which has a dead link at present):
Dramatic Impacts of Rapid Climate Change on the Antarctic Peninsula .
My last leads on to sea level rise which despite legislation in Canute country is real enough to be worried about: Why sea levels are rising ahead of predictions
Note the first comment there by a member of that 'ignoratti'.
Rachel Maddow dishes it out to the GOP Fantasists, Reality Deniers and other residents of the Far-Right Epistemic Bubble: that's you, Duff, the KMS collective, Scandilloons, God what a Striking Wanker, etc..
I confidently assert that all of you have also chosen to believe the majority of the other absurd misinformation litany she refutes.
This is because you are idiots. Living in a febrile, onanistic dream world. Where Magic Ponies hold sway, not Maths...
Hi Bill,
I listened to Rachel Maddow's commentary. Sadly, in my view, she might as well be speaking about another planet. Everything she said would be correct - if Obama was truly a liberal. But he isn't neither is the Democratic Party. Maddow is saying what she wants the Party to be, not what it really is - a right wing party beholden to Corporate America. In that context, the right wing won regardless of the outcome.
Chris Hedges sums it up elegantly as always here:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Once-Again--Death-of-the-by-Chris-Hedg…
Loads and loads of machinations amongst UK deniers about the BBC. Grand conspiracy proven is the line, I think. These people are certifiable.
The BBC didn't name the man and the victim named them (just like the victims of Jimmy named HIM).
Really, for this case, the BBC were buggered whichever way they went.
Lord Sidcup: not surprising. Climate change and the BBC are two topics of particular obsession for right wing cranks in the UK.
Wow - he is referring to a "secret list" of people who attended a BBC climate change seminar in 2006. If you really care, look here: http://omnologos.com/full-list-of-participants-to-the-bbc-cmep-seminar-…
Fairy snuff, Bob.
Ah - omnologos, the crank's crank.
Can't remember for the life of me where or who it was who recently took him and his brand of pompous pseudo-science apart, but it was well done. Perhaps someone else remembers and/or has a link to it? ( I can't access even reputable blogs on this stoopid network).
@Chek - probably Greenfyre you are thinking of:
http://greenfyre.wordpress.com/2011/01/10/climate-change-deniers-dark-m…
Actually, that Greenfyre post is dated January 2011, nevertheless it is entirely pertinent to the BBC 'climate conspiracy':
Ah Yes. Omnologos aka Maurizio Morabito, seems to have gone quiet at Climate Crocks since the Mittney Wipeout, that manic cackle at the start is spot on.
Here is the Ventures' version , watch that drummer go, when he grows up he could be as good as Gene Krupa.
The "secret" BBC meeting was convened under Chatham House rules:
http://www.chathamhouse.org/about-us/chathamhouserule
Isn't this the perfectly simple explanation for the reluctance to release the names (to known cranks)?
Not good enough for the deniers: anonymous=secret=CONSPIRACY! Like I said, certifiable.
Jeff Harvey writes:
"He did absolutely nothing about climate change. Said a lot, but no actions at all. "
None?
Strong start...
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2010/01/11/205327/obama-energy-climate…
There's also been significant action with the EPA and fuel economy.
The first cap and trade bill passed the House but stalled in the filibuster-ridden Senate. Not really his fault. The President is not a dictator.
Coal is way down. Renewable energy is up. The country has become more energy efficient. To assert nothing at all has been done is silly.
The Democratic and Republican parties in the U.S. are not polar opposites, nor are they indistinguishable. Both arguments are extreme and incorrect. Examine the Citizens United ruling for example, which SCOTUS appointees voted for it, which ones voted against it.
Likewise, Democrats are not one homogenuous group that vote in lockstep. There have been enough "blue dogs" to block progress in some areas, and along with Republicans, often drown out the liberal wing.
Finally, with #11 (ObamaCare) , your presentations is selective here. Yes - the core of allowing private insurers the benefit of expansion was implemented, and that, along with the mandate, are conservative ideas (although they were within a few Senate votes of getting the public option), but in most other ways, the legislation is highly-progressive.
1. Hundreds of bilions in tax increases on households with income over $250K.
2. Taxes on private insurers and pharma - the industries that stand to benefit from the expansion.
3. Big tax credits to low income families
4. Rolling back the Bush-expansion of Medicare Advantage, which diverted money from Medicare to private insurers.
The insurance industry's support has been rather tepid, at best.
MarkB, Obamacare is Romneycare with even more taken out if it helped the sick.
It's better than nothing in the same way as being shot in the head is better than being shot in the chest.
Delingpole crowns the outbreak of UK denier insanity with this:
Got that. A 'scandal' bigger than child abuse - and they wonder why they aren't invited to seminars.
Is 'cock ups' some sick attempt at a joke? Jesus what a creep...
this one is definitely a cynical and deliberate conspiracy
That's ol' Delingpole (the Heartland 'rock star' darling), projecting like a lighthouse without the self-awareness to realise it.
Ha. With perfect timing Delingpole has been caught conspiring with a Tory MP and the Energy minister:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/nov/13/tory-mp-corby-anti-windf…
Video and audio recordings:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/video/2012/nov/13/chris-heaton-ha…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/video/2012/nov/13/chris-heaton-ha…
I predict that JD will attempt to shrug it off with his usual mixture of forced sarcasm and sad little insults like "leftard", "watermelon", etc.
Jeff, you might find a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/13/obama-ground-floor-…">this interesting.
'Delingpole': Noun - a scrawny implement used to poke around in cloacal recesses.
D'oh! Proper link.
"Got that. A ‘scandal’ bigger than child abuse"
A bit alarmist, isn't it?
MarkB,
The problem is based on perception management. I am certainly a left wing liberal by any standards. In the US I would be seen as a radical. Here in Europe I am simply on the left. The problem is that the political system in the United States has been hijacked by the corporate lobby - what Hedges refers to a a coup in slow motion. There's no way that Obama is going to slow this inexorable shift of power down when his campaign depended on it. As writer Paul Street showed, Obama was vetted by Wall Street, the bankers and corporate lobbyists several years before he came within a sniff of the White House. For him and the Democrats to turn on their paymasters now would be tantamount to political suicide for the party.
As Wow said, Romneycare is Obamacare. Both were hatched in the Heritage Foundation. Obama's foreign policcies have aimed to maintain or expand US hegemony in resource-ricih regions of the planet. Hence the continued expansion of military bases, costly wars and proxy wars, and the upgrading of offensive military technology while roads, bridges and schools are falling apart at home. Obama has just authorized the largest military budget in US history - 750 billion dollars for 2013 - against this tapestry. In the presidential debates neither he nor Romney mentioned climate change, perhaps the gravest environmental threat humanity has ever faced, not poverty. The measures you mention above taken by the last Obama administration are akin to putting a tiny bandage on a huge, festering wound. They are pedantic.
The problem with liberal voices, as Hedges say, is that they want to believe that Obama is one of them. They want to believe his presidency will create a more just society, will tackle environmental problems head on, will stop killing people in industrial numbers abroad, will stop the madness of militarization, will cease creating a security state at home and will address profoundly important social issues. But the truth is far different from the projection. Last week i had friends in the US writing posts about how happy they were at the outcome of the US election, that it was historic, blah, blah, blah. They may have truly believed this nonsense, and it hurt me to spoil the party. But as I said to them, what you want and what is reality are polar opposites. Watch the next four years unfold, and we will see where we stand in 2016. But I think its a very good bet to suggest that at that time corporate power will further have eroded the public sphere, wealth inequality and poverty will be even larger and more deeply entrenched than it is now, climate change will have been dealt with by token measures or not at all, and other devastating and illegal expansionist wars will have been waged in the name of profit.
It's sillier than even Obamacare is Romneycare.
The republicans refused to accept their own previous proposal when it was proposed by a black democrat.
Depending on whether you're a racist or maniac republican decides which was the deciding factor: race or party.
Above, for clarification, I meant to say 'OR poverty'...
I meant that climate change and poverty which are both profoudly serious issues weren't discussed during the debates. Why is this? It should be patently obvious. Both issues aren't on the agenda of the corporate elites, so they are non-issues. The bottom lines are profit margins and deregulation. Obama has continued the inexorable slide to the right. Its time the progressives and liberals woke up to this reality and realized that the 'lesser of two evils' argument is a non-starter.
A dose of reality?.
Shit!
the lesser of two evils is still evil.
And choosing it is only tenable if you do so whilst enacting a change so that there is no such similar bad choice again.
I.e. a known temporary extent of the lesser evil.
"Not possible!" you say? then don't vote for either evil.
The Joe Romm Climate Progress article cited early on in the Ecoshock Radio audio linked to in my above.
"then don’t vote for either evil."
There's a large dose of pragmatism which is also required which suggests to me that yes, the Empire continues but better an Obama running things than a Ryan being a heartbeat away from the office.
To GSW, "Judith Curry’s new paper has been acepted by “CAB Reviews” (?) a publication of http://www.cabi.org.", posted on 10 Nov: CABI isn't listd on the ISI master list; ergo, who cares? Only Judith..
...except that that is also a moral decision, but it promotes the opposite outcome to your intentions. In a democracy with non-compulsory voting not voting for either evil provides a boost to the greater of the two evils.
A.k.a. what chek said.
Earnest piece in the Guardian,
"It is time for the judiciary to step in and avert climate catastrophe"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/nov/14/judiciary-climate-cha…
"averting dangerous climate change has become all but impossible, putting Western countries at serious risk of committing human right violations on a scale nobody had thought to ever see again after world war two.
This leaves the judiciary with the task of stepping in and averting catastrophe. In a democracy, issues certainly stop being only political when they give rise to domestic human rights violations and endangerment. Together with the precautionary principle these infringements may serve as legal grounds for the judiciary to take over from politics, protecting citizens from violations by their own government and summoning government to actively protect citizens' fundamental rights."
Should resonate here I would imagine. It would be quite sinister if it didn't have a "Pythonesque" tone. The author claims be a lawyer as well!
Dennis The Constitutional Peasant
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOOTKA0aGI0
GSW, when did you first start labouring under the illusion that your ignorant, blog-formed opinions about anything are of interest to anyone, anywhere?
Or, as the rabett puts it more eloquently ,"In keeping with Eli’s new policy, let the bunny point out that he and just about everyone else here takes umbrage of being told such a load of crap from a bullshit shill like you. We have no interest in talking to you or giving the appearance that anything you say or write has worth because it does not. Trying to talk with you is guaranteed to take ten points off the IQ of whomsoever tries it."
chek, chek, it's a CAGW/Climate Change blog! It used to discuss the CAGW issues of the day. Admittedly it's a bit quiet of late, more Obama bashing (fair enough) than anything else.
Don't get all shirty because someone brings it back on topic!
;)
I can only repeat good advice: "We have no interest in talking to you or giving the appearance that anything you say or write has worth because it does not. Trying to talk with you is guaranteed to take ten points off the IQ of whomsoever tries it.”
I quote this because experience proves it to be true, and I'd advocate others to copy'n'paste the same quote to anything you post until you get the message through your thick, denier head.
Don't shoot the messenger chek, reality will find you eventually. Just trying to "ease" you into it.
Looking forward to the Gorathon? Let's hope it's better than last years showing. The Gore-Reality gap was frankly embarrassing ;)
Hey, Grotty Servile Wally - how did your boy go in the US election? What, nothing to say?
'Bullshit shill' describes you exactly.
(Incidentally, as if the US election hadn't already hammered home the point enough, it turns out nowhere near as many people think like you as you'd like to think.)
You are a card-carrying member of The Most Stupid People in History. The contempt you experience here now is as nothing to how all you prats will be regarded in a few years time, so I suggest you get used to it.
GSW: "CAGW issues"(sic)
Eli Rabett: "Trying to talk with you is guaranteed to take ten points off the IQ of whomsoever tries it.”
Just to really hammer the point home for the ideological dirty-raincoat brigade that insist on loitering here:
Justin case you have missed this one, so much to read in the wake of that election, here is a well put together take on the GOP road to in-electability paved with the broken bricks of regression:
Clusterfuck Nation - A Look in the Mirror.
"…except that that is also a moral decision, but it promotes the opposite outcome to your intentions"
No, it doesn't promote the opposite outcome to your intentions.
It promotes your intention not to vote in evil.
Yours is just a load of crap and it is predicated that everyone else would vote for the greater evil.
WHY THE FUCK DO YOU THINK THAT????
Huh? Are you maintaining that you are the ONLY righteous person and that everyone else wants the bigger evil in charge?
"but better an Obama running things than a Ryan being a heartbeat away from the office."
There are people who say the same thing when they voted for Romney: better that than another four years of socialist evil from obama, beholden to the monied powers.
So they vote "the lesser of two evils": Romney.
Meanwhile, both sides of evil running see that they're still getting most of the voters voting for evil, so why bother being good? The upsides for selling your soul are manifold and the costs of doing the right thing evident. So as long as you are still getting the votes, why risk it? Be evil. Nobody else cares, so you're not *actually* evil, are you? You're just reflecting the will of the electorate!
And any good people who cannot bring themselves to sell out see no votes for it and don't bother.
Voting for the lesser evil shows that evil will still get its way.
On losing 10 iQ points talking to denier morons: You lose more than that just reading their crap, let alone trying to argue with them, something which can make you lose your sanity as well.
I'll admit that I only have a superficial understanding of the AGW issue and my education level is very basic, but that's why for me, and the 99.99% of people out there, the only position that makes sense is to listen to those who have the expertise. But when you're a D.K. with a big ego, like the Greasy Slimy Wanker and his boyfriend O'louse, it makes more sense to believe that those who produce the research know nothing and don't understand the "scientific method", and those who produce low quality rubbish which gets debunked week after week are the keepers of the knowledge and the real experts. That's some serious brainwashing and disconnection from reality.
In the two years or so that I've been lurking, I haven't come across a single intelligent, informative or even witty post from the Greasy Wanker or his boyfriend the Louse _ and yet they keep coming back. I wonder what psychologists and psychiatrists would make of that sort of behaviour. Is it purely attention-seeking? Or is the troll behaviour a juvenile compulsion to annoy and disrupt because of their intellectual impotence and inability to debate the science?
Wow, you're a conflict entrepreneur.
Four - and perhaps eight - years of Romney would have been a disaster, particularly for those who want to see something actually done about AGW. - a distinct, conscious and truly radical Reaction at a critical juncture, deliberately aimed at ensuring that not only is nothing done, but poisoning the well to ensure that nothing meaningful will ever be done.
That's not even to mention the environment more generally - and as for foreign policy...
We also face a choice between the piss-poor and The Stupid here in Australia next year. It's merely foolish to declaim that they're 'all the same' and hold out for some magical purity; as if that's going to save anyone - or anything - from the terrible consequences of Stupidity.
Democracies really are the worst systems we have - apart from all the others. And politics really is the realm of the possible. It's worth remembering that the reason why Labor is now psychologically torturing and physically abusing asylum-seekers just as Howard - the key reactionary who poisoned the well for evermore - did is because it's genuinely what most Australians want to see happen. (77% IIRC.)
'The people' aren't good, and maintaining that they would be if they were properly-informed is the greatest illusion of all. In this life, if you want to get anything done - or, crucially, if you want to stop Stupid things being done - you'll need to get your hands dirty. And that means always supporting the least-awful outcome, if that's the only choice on offer...
Wow, I may be wrong, but I suspect we both agree that a Romney victory - part fuelled, let's not forget, by a Tea Party powered Ryan Republican surge, would've been a worse disaster (from 'our' perspective) for a rational policy on climate than otherwise. Let alone what their chosen Wattsworld-style advisors would have been cooking up for the next four or more years.
Of course Obama isn't ideal, but the devil's style isn't to offer a choice of good or evil, but invariably bad or worse. The world is nothing if not predictable that way.
This should be quite obvious but apparently it is not: your assessment is the load of crap here. You have presumed a "predicate" that does not exist.
My point is predicated on the demonstrated fact that large numbers of people will and do vote for what you consider the greater evil.
And the logic further proceeds that, should you or me not vote for the lesser evil then, all other things being equal, the greater evil has a higher chance of being elected.
And the logic proceeds still further by noting that if many people decide to follow that "logic" and decline to vote for even the lesser evil, then all other things being equal the greater evil has a much higher chance of being elected.
This is not difficult to understand.
True.
But your implied corollary does not hold, because:
Wait a minute - wasn't not voting supposed to help eliminate the electability of evilness?
But it's worse than that.
And in that case politicians of all stripes might be tempted to conclude that being more evil appears to be a poll winner over less evil. (Or merely that being less evil than the other guy suppresses your turnout.)
It is very difficult to reliably communicate "no evil please" by a candidate A / candidate B / abstain vote - if only because candidates' individual attributes (such as "level of evilness") are not on the ballot.
Fellas, what shall we do about this?
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.se/2012/11/little-change-in-drought-over-…
Just for you, Olaus: My guess is that you are stuck between 4 and 5...
http://www.friendsof2rivers.org/dr-steve-running-5-stages-of-climate-gr…
I meant 1 and 2; denial and anger. Olaus cloaks his anger with vacuous quips....
Oh, the great climate scare geezer turn the focus onto me! ;-) Bofore your arm candy shows up, why is it that you never can be happy about possible good news?
"what shall we do about this?
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.se/"
We shall not bother with an idiot.
PS where is your slug horde?
""NOT voting for the lesser evil ALSO shows that evil will still get its way."
Wait a minute – wasn’t not voting supposed to help eliminate the electability of evilness?"
Yeah, wrong way round.
Voting for the lesser evil shows evil will still get its way.
NOT voting for it shows that only evil begets evil.
"This should be quite obvious but apparently it is not: your assessment is the load of crap here. You have presumed a “predicate” that does not exist."
You don't admit its existence.
Explain how NOT VOTING votes in the greater evil without that predicate?
You can't.
You just want to feel better for selling out.
"Wow, I may be wrong, but I suspect we both agree that a Romney victory – part fuelled, let’s not forget, by a Tea Party powered Ryan Republican surge, would’ve been a worse disaster "
However where we agree is that if you didn't all go "Vote for the lesser evil" that Romney/Ryan would have won.
People aren't voting for them because they want the GREATER evil to win.
"Four – and perhaps eight – years of Romney would have been a disaster,"
Bill, you're an ignorant fuckwit.
YOU ARE BEGGING THE QUESTION.
You might as well have said "Beelzebub coming to earth to unleash horrors would be far worse".
It's true, isn't it?
You have to actually take for granted this would happen, though.
Which is why you and the other beggers for evil are desperately trying to avoid acknowledging.
You have to take for granted not voting for the lesser evil means the greater one gets in.
YOU
ARE
NOT
ALLOWED
to make that assertion.
Because there are people out there just like yourself being told "You mut vote for our candidate Romney because otherwise Obama gets in".
They have EXACTLY as much reason to vote for Romney as you.
But you're "the good guys" right?
WRONG.
You're just a weaksauce evil.
"But you’re “the good guys” right?"
Before we go too far in implying moral values, can we mutually define 'good guys' in this context as those wishing to see at least a move toward serious concerted action to deal with carbon emissions?
Because it seems to me that in the event of a Romney victory, the EPA would by now be putting its office furniture into storage and its staffers would be out busking on the streets of Washington in or out of Santa Claus costumes, rather than working to regulate CO2 emissions.
ROFL! Classic denialism in action, complete with a beautiful projection pirouette!
Of course I don't admit its existence (i.e. as a predicate for my argument, which is the context here). That's because it doesn't exist as a predicate for my argument, a fact that I previously demonstrated by providing a logical argument that does not rely on the predicate you claim I relied upon.
Asserting that I relied upon the predicate in question is clearly not your best work. This ought to be a teaching moment, but sadly I fear it will not prove so.
You are such a sweetie Wow. :-)
The agony of possible good news.
Er...I already did.
You haven't rebutted it. You merely argue that it is invalid because you assert that it relies on a predicate that it clearly does not rely upon. Doesn't that remind you of a classic denialist maneuver?
But here's a thought that may help you get unstuck.
It seem likely to me that your argument is predicated on getting no-one to vote for a candidate that you assert is "evil". Hey presto, evil candidates never get elected and the problem is solved, right?!
If that is accurate, I will leave the problems with that argument - in terms of real world facts, real world implementation issues including locus of concern exceeding locus of control, and logical coherency based on facts you yourself have already asserted - as an exercise for the reader at the moment.
I claim the mindreader gambit on my denialist bingo card!
FWIW, apart from your epic mind-reading fail here (which one suspects has some interesting predicates of its own), I am not eligible to vote in the US Presidential election so your assertion is counter-factual on at least two counts.
You ought to be taking a step back at this point and assessing why my denialist bingo card is rapidly filling up as I read your comments. The smart money says you'll double down instead, but I'd love to lose that bet.
I don't recall anyone here arguing or implying that people chose to vote for what they perceive is the greater evil because it was the greater evil.
I don't even recall anyone here arguing that people chose to vote for what they perceive is the greater evil for other reasons either.
Binary thinking - BINGO!!!!
FWIW, both my and bill's argument does NOT "have to take [that] for granted". It's a probabilistic argument - as can be clearly seen if you carefully revisit the earlier comments. And the probabilities in question strengthen the more people who assess evil the way you do decide to follow your purity principle and refrain from voting for the lesser evil.
And it's worse than that - as far as I can tell your proposed remedy requires much wider participation in order to have any chance of being effective. If you recruit large numbers of people who perceive evil as you do then you increase the chances of more evil being elected - that was my original point.
Furthermore arguing that other people perceive the levels of evil differently than you does not seem to rescue your argument or your proposed remedy. That merely whittles down the electorate to those that are unable to perceive evil in at least one candidate - and by definition that candidate is evil in your eyes. Therefore a candidate you see as evil still gets elected.
And all of that is without getting into the multi-variate nature of the situation which seems to be ignored in your analysis - politicians are generally more or less evil/good/useful/crap on multiple different criteria. If people tried to apply your principle in the real world they would generally find no candidate who did wasn't "unacceptable" on at least one criterion.
@bill
"‘The people’ aren’t good, and maintaining that they would be if they were properly-informed is the greatest illusion of all."
I disagree. It is not a question of good and evil. People ultimately act in their own best interest. The fact that people often vote or hold opinions against what an objective observer would see as their self-interest is precisely because they are not as you put it "properly-informed".
It does not matter what society you live in - the USA, Australia or Iran - people are bombarded daily from birth - from parents, teachers, friends, the media etc - with the prevailing orthodoxy as defined the ruling elites. Most people are politically passive, busy getting on with their lives no matter how difficult. It is no coincidence for example that the introduction of university fees in Oz requiring most students to work part-time has seen a dramatic reduction in student radicalism. It is very difficult and time-consuming to swim against the tide.
A few years ago I was following an ABC thread on advertising. One clever young thing proudly announced that he was never influenced by ads. An ex-advertising guy responded with much hilarity that he had heard the myth that such people existed.
The question really is how do people become "properly-informed". Marxists call it becoming "class-conscious" - ie. becoming aware of your self-interest.
Major social change has always occurred as a result of community based activism. I have been involved in a few campaigns and it is amazing to see how quickly ordinarily passive but discontented people from the suburbs become opinion leaders rather than opinion consumers.
The Work Choices campaign was the latest example here - Howard had a lock on his so-called battlers - but the aggressive campaign by the unions and the mobilisation of their membership transformed that in a very short space of time resulting in the toe-rag losing his own seat.
Despite its limitations the Occupy movement transformed the political debate almost overnight. Suddenly commentators who were terrified of being accused of class warfare were talking about the 1% or more accurately the 0.1%.
So in respect of the US elections - I agree with Jeff's characterisation of Obama but disagree with any analysis that suggests it was a victory for the right. It would only be so if the activists who supported Obama were under the illusion that his victory meant that they could retire to the couch for the next 4 years. I just do not get that sense from reading the US climate blogs - the disappointment with his first term seems almost universal.
In Australia I am a bit more circumspect. A victory for Gillard in next year's election would be a huge kick in the teeth for the flat earthers. But I would not be all that concerned if Abbott won. It seems to me the lack of activism around climate change here - 2 poorly organised demos by the clicktivist group GetUp in the last 4 years - is in part because all the environment groups are too focused on Canberra and not focused enough on community organising.
Dave Spratt at Climate Code Red had a good series of articles on the "BrightSiding" of climate change.
"The change we need is not going to happen without mass civic participation and a people power’s movement for transformation. We must all help to build these. It is here that the big advocacy groups are already facing a stark choice: to stay inside the Canberra beltway, do make-a-video-tick-a-box-send-an-email-give-us-money but fail to empower their membership and supporters or, on the other hand, put serious resources into supporting community organising, spend less time competing as brands in the climate advocacy supermarket, and share resources to help build mass civic participation."
http://www.climatecodered.org/p/brightsiding.html
WRT OPining's latest:
Well first you tell us what YOU think is the message therein.
Hint, some answers at RealClimate, if you can raise your head that far.
Can't remember whether Judith Curry got a mention here recently, this comment about Curry's opinions re: Arctic sea ice - and the moderator's response to it - at the new ClimateDialogue site is pretty telling.
@Lionel A
Do you have a link to the RealClimate discussion.
The fuckwittery have read the headline on this article, exercised their much vaunted skepticism and concluded that humanity will never ever face a drought again. If you google the title, Graeme Lloyd in The Oz, Bolt in the Hun plus every denier with a 2-bit blog has passed their eye over the abstract and concluded that this is the greatest piece of science since man discovered fire.
JoNova actually reproduces the abstract and the associated diagrams - she is obviously too tight to pay for the article , something to do with the price of gold.
@ MikeH "something to do with the price of gold."
...or tungsten!
Dear MikeH, fortunately I have access to the article through my job. And after reading it I didn't conclude "that that humanity will never ever face a drought again."
Perhaps you have the same reading disability as Jeff? ;-)
Lionel A already asked you what you did conclude, dimwit, not what you didn't conclude.
Dear Olaus
I read the article and did not come to that conclusion either.
Good the hear Mike! :-)
"The question really is how do people become “properly-informed”."
And it doesn't come from "Vote for the lesser of two evils".
Because that's used by normal ordinary people voting for what you see as the greater evil.
How is that?
Because the perceptions of what is important are different.
And promotion of "The worse one might get in!" is not informing, it's scaremongering.
And it DEFINITELY is wrong to claim "Not voting for the lesser evil is doing the opposite of what you want".
Dear chek, lovely as ever. :-)
My conclusion is that it might not be "worse than we thought" and that science might not be settled.
If you weren't som disturbed by the fact that there is a black man in the white house, you could reach that conclusion too.
"I agree with Jeff’s characterisation of Obama but disagree with any analysis that suggests it was a victory for the right."
Well, given that in any sane social structure, Obama is right of centre and Romney far right, Obama winning IS a victory of the right. :-P
" "You have to take for granted not voting for the lesser evil means the greater one gets in."
Binary thinking – BINGO!!!!"
Yup, you're guilty of binary thinking.
"FWIW, both my and bill’s argument does NOT “have to take [that] for granted”."
It does, otherwise your claims of, variously, how bad a Romney/Ryan government would be is orthogonal. It has as much validity in the contention of not voting for the lesser evil as claiming that a Beelzebub/Saville government would be bad.
Or the claim that it would be the opposite of the intent? Requires
a) that Romney/Ryan actually be the greater evil (a matter of perspective, even if I agree with it)
b) that not voting for either evil means that everyone is going to be voting for the greater evil anyway.
If you vote the lesser evil, then all they need to do is be *just slightly less evil* than the other guy.
And as they shift more evil, you match step with them.
Oh, isn't that this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
"You merely argue that it is invalid because you assert that it relies on a predicate that it clearly does not rely upon."
And you merely argue that no such predicate exists ergo it is valid.
Not proven.
If "Vote for the lesser evil" stops, then neither evil gets votes.
"can we mutually define ‘good guys’ in this context as those wishing to see at least a move toward serious concerted action to deal with carbon emissions?"
I'm not tying it to anything other than personal definition.
EVERY SINGLE rank-and-file voter thinks they are voting for the better guy.
They are "the good guys".
Heck, Hitler thought he was the good guy.
Because he was a nutter doesn't stop him thinking that.
Olapdogs's (lack of) comprehension and inferential skills applied to what he reads are a wonder to behold. And probably very typical of his ilk.
"I’m not tying it to anything other than personal definition."
Which is why I believe that the context is important to what otherwise becomes a philosophical debate, and action on climate is the relevant topic pertaining to this forum.
However, even a normal person who had never been confronted with someone willing to point out all the information there can still retain the idea that AGW isn't really proven to be a problem.
And that leads to "Why does the Left (TM) want it? Must be to install a social order worldwide!". Ergo the LESSER evil is Romney.
Yes, there's Ryan there too, but Romney isn't going to die anyway and Romney is not going to sell out to the UN, is he. Not like Obama (remember: they're told Obama is bowing down to the UN. They don't know any different).
But, like those listening to Lionel saying "Vote for the lesser evil", these people think they are voting the lesser evil. They would MUCH prefer a non evil option.
But there's no need for a less evil option whilst "But you HAVE to vote for $Lesser_evil or $Great_big_evil gets in!" is in charge.
The overton window moves because of the lesser evil.
Obama's weaksauce presidency is because of the lesser evil . He's told that it just won't fly with a public option on healthcare. He's not shown the polls about how many want it. He's shown that if he tries for a public option, it will NEVER get passed, so if he's going to pass anything, it can't have the public option. And so it does. For the "Greater Good".
But that good is no longer so great.
And after being made lesser, it then goes and gets more chopped off because the republicans know that they can just demand 200% of what they want and whine when they get less than 120% of what they want about how Obama is a big bully.
So our Greater Good is now a Bugger All.
All starting from "Well, the lesser of two evils...".
The USA would have survived 4 years of Romney/Ryan. The survived Shrub's 8. But some think it would have been a wake-up call and maybe weaksauce democrat would rethink their abasement to the thugligans.
A greater harm can be said to be Obama winning on weaksauce.
"Which is why I believe that the context is important"
It is.
But you have to remember your context belongs to you alone.
Even hitler thought he was doing god's work and therefore the good guy.
Look how concentration camps went from permanent internment (like Gitmo) to torture (like Gitmo) to death camps (not [yet] like Gitmo).
Because each step was a lesser evil than what HE perceived as the greater evil.
@MikeH
November 16, 2012
@Lionel A
Do you have a link to the RealClimate discussion.
The reference to Hoerling et. al (2012) JOC is what Pilke Jr is slavering over and is discussed in:
Extreme metrics starting here,
Although I am having a little trouble with the response time at this embedded URL to a PDF
Hoerling et al,not sure what the hang up is, maybe Pielke has caused a rush of visits.
ROFLworthy bullshit.
That the worse one might get in is a distinct possibility, especially in the context of the US where (a) voting is not compulsory and (b) the popular vote is consistently split fairly evenly and it doesn't take a large shift to change the election outcome.
Are you operating from a personal definition of "scaremongering"? Or are you denying that the worse one might actually get in?
ROFL!
You do another primary school level "says you", fail to demonstrate that I am actually engaged in said binary thinking and ... then proceeds to double down on your binary thinking:
ROFL!
Try reading the argument again. You clearly haven't grokked it. Come back when you do.
Hint #1: your (b) is not necessary to my argument, no matter how many times you assert that it is.
Hint #2: your assertion that my claim says "it would be the opposite of the intent" is inaccurate and embodies your binary thinking. There's a key difference between asserting an outcome will occur and asserting that its probability will be increased. The latter is clearly not binary thinking - no matter how much snark you put into your claim that it is.
Sigh. I need a new denialist bingo card.
Try reading it again.
Hint: I did not argue the "ergo" you claim I did, for starters.
Repeating rebutted claims - see above - does not unrebut them.
I am eagerly awaiting the videos of the 24-hour WUWT anti-Gore marathon of BS to appear on youtube. Guaranteed hours of (mostly unintentional) lulz.
According to John Platt at Mother Nature Network
"As the 24-hour events concluded, [Al Gore's] the Climate Reality Project broadcast had exceeded 15.7 million views. The Watts Up with That broadcast totaled just over 16,000."
" "If “Vote for the lesser evil” stops, then neither evil gets votes."
Repeating rebutted claims "
They haven't been rebutted, just refused.
"Lalalalala! Not listening!" is not a rebuttal.
Neither are we in a Monty Python sketch, so "no it's not" isn't good either.
"That the worse one might get in is a distinct possibility, "
Since that is only really true if you believe those voting for Romney know they are voting for the greater evil, that's bollocks:
either completely content free (i.e. "Well, the vote changes pretty much 50:50 split each time") or insisting malice without proof.
"There’s a key difference between asserting an outcome will occur and asserting that its probability will be increased."
Well you need to state your mechanisms by which the probability would be increased.
After all the chance of having rolled a tails is 100% or 0% depending on what you rolled. So AFTER the event, you can of course claim that doing it again slightly differently would change THOSE chances.
But would that change the chances PRIOR to testing?
Assertions you make time and time again but are, still, calling out complete scarmongering bullshit.
Because you don't want to feel that you're voting evil in.
Well, guess what, dickhead, YOU ARE.
Think of the kittens, Wow.
Well, I certainly agree you have refused denied they are valid, but you haven't given a coherent reason why.
Agreed. But then again, it is not even vaguely descriptive of my rebuttal - and is a pretty good description of your own "refusals". You don't seem to realise that you're projecting like crazy.
And in addition you still insist you know my mind better than I do in Epic Fail #N+1:
Look, sometimes you make very incisive and perceptive comments. This isn't one of them. And since "the obvious" apparently isn't obvious to you here, let me make it very clear.
A) I know I'm voting for someone who I think is at least somewhat "evil" in any election where I assess all candidates to be at least somewhat "evil".
B) I also know that means someone who is at least somewhat "evil" will be elected.
C) I'm quite happy to characterise the result of (A)+(B) as "I feel that I'm voting evil in". (Just as I'm also quite happy to characterise the result of me choosing not to vote as "I feel that I'm allowing evil to be voted in - and increasing the chances of 'more evil' prevailing over 'less evil'.)
D) Furthermore I acknowledge all of those things! The only one in this discussion who doesn't is the fantasy Lotharsson living in your head - and that person isn't real, and isn't actually writing comments. So please don't write any more comments on their behalf and pretend they are from me, OK? (And while we're at it, ponder why you keep returning to your fantasies about how I feel when voting...)
So, given that yet another of your assumptions is proven false, NOW will you go back and re-evaluate my actual argument instead of tilting madly at the strawman you've constructed in your head?
I suspect not, far better to "refuse" with prejudice:
Ever wondered why you have an online reputation as someone better ignored than engaged with? This whole exchange illustrates it perfectly.
I thought my previous description was sufficiently obvious for people of reasonable intelligence, but as this indicates, you probably didn't understand:
WTF?! I have previously pointed out this is not necessary to my claim. I guess you "refused" that point.
You keep floating betweeen referencing your own judgement of which candidate is worse and how other voters answer the same question, depending on what claim you're currently trying to support. Perhaps that explains your confusion.
So let me take it really slowly and with much more precision. Remember, this is ultimately an argument about the differential outcome of one or more voters replacing their existing voting strategy with a new one, so first we have to set up the initial scenario.
1. Imagine an election P for an official position.
2. Let V(P) be the set of voters v eligible to vote in election P.
3. Let C be the set of candidates c. To simplify things let C be {c1, c2, c0} where c1 and c2 representing actual candidates and c0 represents a non-vote.
4. Let s(v,P) be the voting strategy used by individual voter v in election P to select a member of C (i.e. to select a candidate to vote for, or choose not to vote). Similarly let S(V,P) denote the collection of strategies across all voters in election P.
5. Let c(v,P) be the member of C selected by applying s(v,P). Note that s(v,P) might be (and is often) known only to v, but c(v,P) must ultimately be revealed during voting if not elsewhere.
6. Let e(v,c) represent voter v's assessment of candidate c's level of "evil", ranging from 0 (not evil) to 1 (supremely evil). Furthermore let w(v,C) be the real candidate (i.e. excluding c0) which has the maximum value of e(v,c), and similarly b(v,c) the real candidate with the minimum value of e(v,c). These are (from v's perspective) the 'greater evil' and 'lesser evil' respectively.
7. Define W(v,S,P) as the pre-election assessment by voter v of the probability that w(v,C) will be elected, which translated loosely into English is "v's assessment of the chance that the 'greater evil' as defined by v will be elected". Note that:
a) This uses v's own definition of 'greater evil'.
b) This is v's own assessment of the probability in question.
c) This is probabilistic because v will generally need to assess it before the election results are revealed (i.e. particularly when v decides which s(v,P) to use).
d) This is necessarily probabilistic because v is not privy to definitive values of s(v',P) or c(v',P) for large numbers of other voters v'.
e) Extending the same probability calculations to the other candidate allows v to calculate the expectation EE(v,P) of the amount of evil (as assessed by v) in the candidate that will be selected in election P.
Now we start the differential analysis. Let's first begin with a single advocate choosing to change their own strategy in order to promote their goals.
8. Let v_A be a specific voter who advocates replacing an existing voting strategy with a new one in order to aim for a specific election outcome G(v_A,P). In particular let v_A argue that changing from s(v_A,P) to new strategy s_G(v_A,P) will help achieve that. (Further generalisations will be made later.) Note that thus far both G() and s_G() are functions of v_A. In other words, they are goals and judgements from v_A's perspective to be promoted by actions taken by v_A.
9. Specifically, define G(v_A,P) as the goal of electing a candidate that v_A assesses as having 'less evil', with the ideal amount of evil being zero.
10. Specifically, let s(v_A,P) be "select the candidate from {c1,c2} which has the minimum value of e(v_A,c)" and let s_G(v_A,P) be "Select the candidate from {c1,c2} for which e(v_A,c) is zero, and failing that select c0". In English the advocated change in strategy is "When both candidates are at least somewhat evil, rather than voting for the 'lesser evil' don't vote at all". Note that:
a) IIRC this seems to match your original advocacy on this thread which was directed to people who appear to currently "vote the perceived lesser evil"
b) IIRC this seems to match your original advocacy on this thread which, from the context, was directed at those who presumably shared your view of which candidate was the lesser evil.
c) Later on the thread you brought up the concept of voters who don't share your perspective of evil. This will be addressed below.
11. Now let S'(V,P) equal S(V,P) with s(v_A,P) replaced by s_G(v_A,P). In other words, replace whatever strategy v_A may have used in the previous analysis with "don't vote for any evil" but leave everything else the same.
12. Prepare to compare W(v_A,S',P) and with W(v_A,S,P), which requires the following analysis:
a) We can rule out cases where s(v_A,P) already led to a non-vote, because v_A advocates a change in voting strategy as an improvement.
b) Given that v_A is demonstrably concerned with the amount of elected evil we can presumably rule out cases where s(v_A,P) selected w(v_A,C) (the 'greater evil' from v_A's perspective) - and you appear to be insisting that voters pretty much never do this.
c) Given those considerations, s(v_A,P) must have been to vote for b(v_A,C) (the 'lesser evil' as seen by v_A).
13. Given that s(v_A,P) was for b(v_A,C) and s'(v_A,P) is 'no vote', then under S'(V,P) w(v_A,C) receives exactly the same number of votes as under S(V,P) and b(v_A,C) receives one less. (The 'lesser evil' receives one less vote than before, but the 'greater evil' receives the same number.) Thus W(v_A,S',P) > W(v_A,S,P). In other words, from v_A's pre-election perspective changing from "vote for the lesser evil" to "don't vote for any evil" enhances the chances of the "greater evil" being elected in the upcoming election, because the chances are higher that the new 'greater evil' vote count exceeds that of the new 'lesser evil' vote count.
Which was my initial point way back up the thread.
Now you may firstly object "I wasn't advocating a change to my own strategy because I already do this. I wanted others who (a) share my assessment of which candidate is worse and (b) currently vote 'lesser evil' to adopt my strategy."
OK, but that means the same analysis applies, except that (10) now does not apply to v_A but does apply to larger numbers of voters. That change to the analysis flows through (11)-(13) where the differential analysis finds a larger loss of votes to the 'lesser evil' without changing the vote count of the 'greater evil', and hence the probability of the 'greater evil' being elected is even higher. As my original point pointed out...
Now you may secondly object "No, I wasn't advocating towards only those who share my assessment of candidate evilness, I wanted ALL voters to adopt my strategy", and (as you appear to have done up thread) argue that if that were the case then ultimately no-one who is even somewhat evil would be elected. However "no-one evil" is a viewpoint-specific judgement. Presumably since you are making this statement, you are presuming your own viewpoint so let us proceed on that assumption. Your argument might be that if both candidates are evil then no-one will be elected. However as you already pointed out, in any real world set of voters V of reasonable size, different assessments of evilness will exist - and therefore in large enough voter sets it is almost certain that at least one voter will perceive no evil in at least one candidate. Therefore one of the candidates will be elected. In other words, from your point of view an evil candidate was elected, so your advocated strategy fails to achieve your goals as assessed from your viewpoint. As I have earlier pointed out...
Now you may thirdly object "I am prepared to risk a 'greater evil' being elected in order to eliminate evil candidates altogether", and you might argue that could be achieved by invoking the possibility that no evil candidate gets a vote from any voter, thus no-one gets elected, and next time around non-evil candidates magically appear on the ballot. The previous paragraph already indicates the folly of that argument, as I have earlier pointed out...
Or you may fourthly object "I am prepared to risk a 'greater evil' being elected in order to eliminate evil candidates altogether", and you might argue that could be achieved by invoking the possibility that evil candidates get less votes and those putting candidates forth somehow figure this out and accordingly select non-evil candidates. Apart from the obvious problems - those putting candidates forth have a clear and distinguished record of post-hoc rationalisation for disappointing - there are more. Firstly, if you imagine this only applied to voters who share your assessment of 'less evil', as demonstrated above the strategy results in the 'greater evil' getting relatively more votes. It would not be surprising if party officials inferred from this that "more evil wins more votes". Ooops! (As I already pointed out).
So perhaps you want all voters to apply this strategy, even if they perceive evil in candidates differently to you. Now pretty much all bets are off - you don't know how many voters ALREADY thought 'their guy' was 'not evil' rather than the 'lesser evil' so you can't predict which candidate will lose the most votes from your strategy, and as shown above you certainly cannot argue that no candidate gets any votes. Furthermore it's not at all clear how you persuade people who don't share your assessment to follow your strategy when most of them are disinclined to see things from your worldview, let alone trust you - and many of them are smart enough to figure out that if their 'side' changes to no-vote their candidate more widely than yours does, that they disadvantage 'their side'. And you've still got that nasty post-hoc rationalisation problem to contend with...
Or you could be arguing something different that you still haven't managed to clearly express, in which case feel free take a stab at expressing it in terms of the 13 point framework above.
Changing the subject entirely, and mostly aimed at the Australians here, has anyone caught an earful of Amanda Vanstone interviewing herself on Radio National's Counterpoint, with the occasional assistance of the weekly guests?
She's dangerously anti-intellectual, hair-trigger on the right-wing generalisations, and cemented in the 1905s paradigm of family, religion, and capitalism.
I'm vomiting a little bit in my mouth just listening to her.
Erm, ...1950s...
Although 1905 might be a closer to the mark given her dinosaur right wing views.
Bernard - Counterpoint bring pain. Must avoid Counterpoint.
"WTF?! I have previously pointed out this is not necessary to my claim. I guess you “refused” that point"
WTFF? I have previously pointed out that your assertion was merely stated not proved.
"1. Imagine an election P for an official position. ..."
Followed by a load of hopeful bollocks.
Obviously you're not smart enough to have read this and internalised it (probably because your sense of self-worth is dependent on not understanding it: the source of projection on to others).
Not voring for one person is not voting for one person.
NOTHING MORE.
And not voting because "the other guy may get in: vote for the lesser of two evils" is bollocks, BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT ROMNEY SUPPORTERS ARE BEING TOLD.
Do you get it now?
In short your complete bollocks maths leaves out the very thing you assert: "Vote for the lesser of two evils".
You neglect to remove that from ALL VOTER preferences.
You're like those idiot deniers who go "You can't prove that this weather was made by AGW!" when the fact is that it DEFINITELY affected it and those effects are ones that make that sort of event more likely and more extreme.
You're PRECISELY like they are
And for the same reasons: you have invested your sense of self worth into the fact that if you didn't vote "the other guy" gets in.
Bollocks to this "lesser evil" shite. Because voters for that other guy ARE NOT voting for the greater evil. They're DOING THE SAME DAMN THING.
And so not only can they both move closer and closer to extreme evil (since they'll get votes anyway and as a bonus all those benefits of abusing power), it entrenches the two-party state that is now really just one party with two faces.
YOU are the reason why america has two options:
Shite
and
Even Shiter
And you hate the realisation that that was your fault.
So you deny.
You keep insisting that you are correct without showing why anyone should believe. Isn't it funny how unsupported assertions are not persuasive to other people?
ROFL!
What a lovely goalpost shift. Did you actually think anyone had forgotten you wrote shortly after the appearance in this thread of 'lesser evil':
Earlier-Wow is clearly talking about more than "Not voting for one person. NOTHING MORE." In fact most of the whole "lesser evil" vs "not voting" discussion has been about "not voting for anyone" in preference to "voting for the lesser evil" in order to achieve certain outcomes (sometimes expressed implicitly as a "tenability" requirement).
But wait, there's more. In response to my observation that not voting for anyone instead of voting for the lesser evil (you know, what you suggested in that quote) is also a moral choice that unfortunately has the effect of promoting the chances of the greater evil being elected, Earlier-Wow also wrote:
How can that be? Current-Wow just said "not voting for one person is nothing more than not voting for one person". But here Earlier-Wow says there can indeed be an explicit intention behind it!
And wait, there's more. Even Current-Wow is saying - in the very same comment - that there's more going on in real life than just "not voting for one person. NOTHING MORE.":
Who wins when Wow disputes Wow?
And can either of the Wow's clarify what they mean in that last quote by "is bollocks"? Because "bollocks" in this context is more than a little bit ambiguous.
"What a lovely goalpost shift."
Nope, not a goalpost shift.
Do I have you refer the right dishonourable gentleman to this earlier comment:
"November 14, 2012
…then don’t vote for either evil.
…except that that is also a moral decision, but it promotes the opposite outcome to your intentions"
The intent is NOT TO VOTE FOR EITHER EVIL.
Dipshit.
World Bank warns of four-degree temperature rise
Hardly a hotbed of lefty treehugging hippies...
I had thought you were somewhat smarter than average, but the amount of evidence that points the other way continues to mount.
Firstly, "Vote for the lesser of two evils" was something you asserted as a strategy, not me. I merely analysed the effects of what I understood you to be advocating, whether that understanding was correct or not, and then you rapidly turned shitty in response.
Secondly point (12c) explicitly includes "Vote for the lesser of two evils" for voter v_A. To be precise, it demonstrates that this strategy was included (for voter v_A) in the initial scenario of the differential analysis, and then changed by v_A for the first differential scenario.
It's hard to see how you can deny this, although previous comments suggest you find it eminently feasible. However giving you the benefit of the doubt leads to presuming that your objection was really this one:
So ... the aforementioned evidence mounts further...
Let me take this slowly.
In the first instance of differential analysis, I did not remove that from ALL VOTER preferences - by design. That is because:
a) It is simpler to first establish the analysis for one single voter abandoning that voting strategy, and then move on to cases where more voters do so - as I did.
b) Your initial prescription for action did not include prohibiting all voters from voting for 'the lesser evil as they perceive it' (although you seem to vaguely imply it much later in the thread - but if that was your intention you haven't communicated it very clearly).
c) But more importantly even if it did, there is no viable enforcement mechanism and not even any agreement about what the aims of the strategy are because "evil" is subjective. Whilst it may be an interesting thought exercise, anyone seriously proposing a strategy that requires this to be adopted by ALL VOTERs in any real world election needs their head examined. (Especially since the subsequent analysis showed that in cases - such as you raise - where both parties think the other party's candidate is the 'greater evil', then the party whose voters adopt it more than the other party's voters do loses out.)
Now turning to your full claim, it is clearly counter-factual. My paragraph beginning "Now you may secondly object..." analyses precisely what you claim I did not analyse. A huge clue was probably the part that said (speaking on your behalf) "...I wanted ALL voters to adopt my strategy" and then goes on to analyse what happens in that case, on the presumption that you had a specific goal to achieve via that strategy. It does so via the standard technique of by referencing that first analysis that I have just discussed, and modifying it somewhat. (One hopes you are not juvenile enough to be obliquely objecting to the lack of mathematical terminology in that paragraph and the rest. I had thought the translation into the mathematical framework I specified would prove straightforward for reasonably intelligent readers. If this was too difficult for you then mea culpa and I will translate if you wish.)
It is a fairly plain objective fact that your claim is counterfactual. I'm impressed - in the negative sense - that you're denying it, and I'll be even more impressed if you continue to deny it after your denial has been pointed out.
And then there's the paragraph that begins "So perhaps you want all voters to apply this strategy,..." and proceeds to analyse the consequences of ALL VOTERs applying the strategy in the light of some objectives you might hold. Furthermore, since it appeared to me that this paragraph was the most likely one to embody your position, it and the following paragraph were clearly (and explicitly) intended to leave it open to you to clarify (a) if this is how you saw things (or not - so that you could clarify the differences), and (b) argue from there why this would be a good thing or what positive outcome you expected.
Finally, I'm not sure if anyone has told you this in the past but responding to people clarifying their positions and asking you to clarify yours by dubbing those comments "complete bollocks" and resorting to name-calling makes you look like a ten year old throwing a tantrum. (And this might be why other people regularly find your online presence obnoxious. You may imagine it's because you're always right - but you're not, and it's not.)
Now the ten year old tantrum might be the vibe you're going for - if so, keep working on it because you've just about nailed it, but in that case it's time for me to go play with some grown-ups.
But if you're really going for a grown-up intelligent discussion vibe, you need to grow up fast. You might want to begin by noting that when they express puzzlement with or misunderstand your communication or put a fair amount of evident work into attempting to clarify the situation, the problem often lies with your own communication and the adult thing to do is to clarify what you meant - without the signature ten year old flourishes.
You are reiterating your denial of what I previously pointed out? That I'm not eligible to vote in America, and therefore this claim is false?
And you're doing so with a claim that is not solved by the widespread adoption of the voting strategy that you've been advocating?
Your screen name is indeed well chosen. I find myself routinely uttering it in response to your assertions.
Really? Now you claim that's your only intent, and you're advocating this for no other reason?
Pull the other one.
See, I could have sworn you produced a whole bunch of comments where (a) you responded to people talking about their intents and the merits (or otherwise) of voting for the lesser evil so other intents were already part of the conversation, (b) you didn't make it plain that your only intent was to not vote for either evil, even though two straightforward clarifying sentences would have done it - one if you edited it well, and (c) at least one of your own earlier comments suggested it was "tenable" to break this limited intent for some other reason which suggests that you consider other intents valid.
Look, if that were truly your only intent (and you don't care about any other outcomes, short or long term, detrimental in your sight or not) I would have no objection with you doing that. I might call it naively idealistic, but a valid choice - but I would still point out that it increases the chances of whatever you consider the greater evil.
But that's clearly not how you positioned it. Feel free to clarify if that's your position now and you disavow any earlier comments to the contrary.
Wow, you wrote:
Do you concede that a reasonable interpretation by someone else reading that statement is that one of your intents when 'not even voting for the lesser evil' is to thwart 'evil getting its way', and success for that intent might reasonably be interpreted as "no-one who is evil gets elected" (perhaps with the caveat: if not now, in all future elections starting not too many elections hence)?
And is that in fact one of the intents you apply your voting strategy for? Or do you disavow that as an intent?
(And if you disavow it you could have simply clarified it way back then...)
Bernard, unless I'm very much mistaken the World Bank is almost as economically unhippy as one gets...
One more question for Wow.
Presuming for the sake of argument there I were actually eligible to vote in US elections, then if this were indeed accurate:
...how does that comport with your assertion that (at least from your own point of view):
See, I would think most readers would see you making those two statements and say to themselves "It seems highly likely that Wow ALSO intends by not voting for anyone evil to not be responsible for 'America having two choices: shite and even shiter'. If he was only concerned about not personally voting for evil, then that intent is satisfied regardless of how shite the candidates are."
(I'm not going to go into the fairly obvious analysis that suggests that in any 2 party political system the choices are almost always going to devolve to "shite and even shiter", regardless of how people vote. The previous analysis that shows that even if everyone does not vote for what they consider evil it does not eliminate what you consider evil from candidates is already sufficient.)
Crap. Sorry - messed up a closing tag.
" " You neglect to remove that from ALL VOTER preferences."
So … the aforementioned evidence mounts further…"
Evidence of what? Your insanity?
Voters voting for republicans are voting even when they don't like the republican leader because the meme "you have to vote for the lesser evil".
That changes your probabilities.
UNLESS you insist that those voting for republicans are knowingly voting for the greater evil.
And NOT voting for either evil is ONLY not voting for either evil. The intended consequence is ONLY that there is no vote for those evils from you and the intended final result that evil doesn't get votes from otherwise rational and normal people.
Indeed NOT voting for either people has happened en masse.
Guess what, idiot boy?
Romney/Ryan didn't win.
Evidence against you, however, is ignored like the good little denier you are.
Well, well, you ARE operating at the level of a ten year old! And casting aspersions on my age instead of my intellect. Not a very smart move, that.
ROFL! After all that careful explanation from me, do you really think that proves something you are claiming or disproves something I claimed?! I must remember in future that your powers of comprehension are surprisingly limited.
My analysis did not require Romney/Ryan to win. It wasn't even tied to this US election - nor even any US election. It was a generic analysis. Do you grok what "generic" means in this context?
No, it does not. Not even if you repeat the claim.
Firstly, note (as above) that my analysis was for a non-specified generic election, not this particular one.
Secondly, my probability calculations are differential - and they don't even compute the absolute probabilities for either component scenario (initial and differential)! That kinda sorta really truly does mean you have to be able to point to a potential difference between two scenarios (whether either scenario was instantiated in the real world or not) in order to run the calculations. You have not done so with this claim.
Thirdly, should you care to attempt to apply my analysis to this most recent election then you have two choices (remember, it's a differential analysis):
1) Work "forwards" from the election: take the actual votes as defining the initial scenario, and analyse the effect of some specified set of voters incrementally applying your strategy as the differential scenario. Then analyse the difference.
2) Work "backwards" from the election: specify the votes that were compliant with your strategy as (part of) the definition of the differential scenario. Presume that some subset of those voters followed your strategy but would otherwise have voted differently, and use those presumptions to specify the initial scenario. Then analyse the difference.
If you choose (1) then those Republican votes you mention are already embedded in (4) by definition of s(v,P). You will note - if you read carefully - that s(v,P) is not defined in the starting scenario for the set V_R consisting of Republican voters (nor indeed for any voter).
If you choose (2) then those Republican votes you mention are already embedded in the appropriate definition of s'(v,P) for those voters in the differential scenario. As indicated above you can work backwards by defining the "initial scenario" as a "backwards difference" from this differential scenario (i.e. positing voting strategies that would otherwise have been used by whatever subset of voters you care to specify) ... but once you've defined both an initial and differential scenario you'll end up with the same logic once you do the differential probability calculation. (Unless of course you confuse yourself with an inappropriate a posteriori viewpoint. The analysis does not require the outcome of the analysed election to currently be unknown, but only to have been unknown to voters when they chose their voting strategies.)
This is not necessary to my analysis, nor do I insist on it - or insist on its opposite - and even if I did neither case would "change my probabilities" because it's a differential analysis. That is, it analyses the change in probabilities brought about by a change in voting strategy for some set of voters. More specifically S(v,P) may happily remain entirely undefined over the set of all voters who do not change their strategy between the initial scenario and the differential scenario in question.
What movie are you currently powering at your local theatre? You must save them a lot in electricity expenses.
So...you admit there are at least two intended outcomes. (That great big "ONLY" is looking bit out of place there.)
However, as I have pointed out repeatedly in slightly different terms, your strategy may prove disappointing (depending on how you define "otherwise rational and normal people"). If any of them view a candidate as 'not evil' in elections where you view both as 'evil', then (from your point of view - which is implicit in your use of 'evil' here) the strategy does not succeed in achieving the second intended outcome.
"So…you admit there are at least two intended outcomes"
I admit that there could be a secondary one, but that cannot be anything other than a wish.
Just like going and working in a soup kitchin is intended primarily to feed the people.
That person may also intend that this be a good deed and rewarded in heaven.
However, even the most idiotic xtian would acknowledge that god would be the arbiter in that and therefore, though it is a HOPED FOR consequence, it is outside their control.
Likewise how OTHER PEOPLE vote is nothing I can or should be able to affect.
Or are you considering that you should have a recorded public vote?
"your strategy may prove disappointing"
The strategy is nothing I can force.
I CAN ensure I'm not part of the problem by not engaging in EITHER EVIL.
Unlike you, I don't consider the half of the people in my country evil idiots.
What will happen you billious toad if someone doesn't buy your scaremongering and DOESN'T vote for either evil BUT ***YOU*** continue to spout the "Vote for the lesser evil, lest the greater one win!!!" is that other idiots will continue to vote for an option THEY DO NOT WANT.
However, that would only be because you enable that sort of thinking.
You not only move that overton window, not only enable evil to reign, not only ensure that good doesn't get a look-in, but are continuing the very thing you're blabbling chicken-little all about: "The greater evil winning".
If you stop pissing about with this, even if a Romney/Ryan win happens next time, you'd not be perpetuating the caustic environment that ensures your only two options are two demons.
Well, it's great that you feel all happy and self-righteous about your personal purity in that respect, but it's a shame that your method of achieving it tends to shift the 'evil' cost onto society instead. To put it another way I think we have adequately established that you're happy to let the perfect be the enemy of the better-than-otherwise-might-be as long as it means you don't have to get your own hands dirty.
But you sure have worked up a high moral dudgeon about the people who don't share your view of what the moral choice is.
ROFL!
I must thank you for proving that my capacity for astonished amusement is much higher than I had thought, although it saddens me that it comes through a series of assertions about me that are so detached from reality that I wonder whether you are suffering from deeper issues. I had suggested you stop attributing words and beliefs from your fantasy Lotharsson to the real world Lotharsson, but apparently that didn't sink in.
Let me first make some things clear seeing you're still quite confused about me.
1) I don't think that "half of the people in my country are evil idiots".
Not even if you say I do.
2) I don't think that voting for the lesser evil makes one evil.
Not even if you say I do.
3) I don't think that voting for what I think is the greater evil makes one evil either, unless the intent is to increase the amount of evil. And given that I cannot reliably discern intent, let alone whether other voters even possess the necessary perception of evil, and given that there are a host of other valid reasons for voting for one candidate over another, I can not and do not consider those who vote for what I think is the greater evil to be evil themselves.
Not even if you say I do.
4) As I have explained - from within a moral framework that you presumably simply don't grok, which I suspect is the root cause of our different views here - choosing to not vote for anyone with any level of evil in the name of personal purity, rather than fully weighing the available choices, is a moral choice. And under my moral framework such an abdication increases the chances that more evil will gain power than otherwise - and accordingly is the less moral choice in the moral framework I am operating under. I would say that I either have a wider definition of what I am responsible for than you do, or I have a different evaluation function for short term costs that may (or may not) bring long term benefits.
5) I fully accept that you're operating under a different moral framework which produces different moral assessments. I don't think that makes you evil.
Not even if you say I do.
Given your repeated statements after being invited to clarify your position, then it is difficult to conclude anything other than you think that I and zillions of other voters are evil. You keep asserting that I am "part of the problem" and "responsible" for the situation where the choices are between "shite and even shiter" - because I would choose to vote for the lesser evil. So perhaps this statement is ironically accurate:
Perhaps instead you consider all of the voters in your country evil for choosing to vote for candidates you reject.
Projection much?
Ironically, and surely you are conscious by now that you are pretty much clown trolling, the only one spewing bile here is yourself.
But if you're going to interact at a ten year old level and affect a twelve year old vocabulary, perhaps you should engage in a little spell checking. I hear that it is integrated right into browser software these days.
Given that I haven't scaremongered, it's hard to see how anyone can "buy it" from me.
Heck, we've already established that the concern in the last US election was valid from at least one of the two major viewpoints and that arguably that viewpoint was strongly congruent with reality - therefore it's not scaremongering to take that concern into account in that instance.
Well, those of us in the reality based community have established that, at least. Perhaps you're labouring under a misapprehension about the definition of the word?
But more directly than that, I'm pretty confident that I haven't advocated that anyone vote according to any particular strategy in the recent US election, which is the one you seem to be most exercised about. Feel free to quote me refuting myself on that point. I have, however, analysed in generic terms the effect of changing from certain voting strategies to certain others.
Aren't you concerned about your online reputation suffering because you keep making false claims about me?
You should probably begin to factor into your thinking the fact that (a) candidates are singular indivisible entities and (b) voters have preferences on multiple grounds. That leads inexorably to the conclusion that in almost every election almost every voter cannot purely vote for ONLY what they want.
Or to put it in your terms, and using your style of emphasis - practically EVERY VOTE CAST is a vote for an option that the voter DOES NOT WANT. EVERY TIME! Even the "other idiots" - and that is your blanket assessment which I do not share - understand that. If no-one votes for WHAT THEY DO NOT WANT, democracy ceases to function because no election can fill the position at hand.
Er, no, I don't move it.
Moving the Overton Window brings hitherto unacceptably extreme policies into the public discourse. This is typically achieved by discussing even more extreme policies that are not expected to garner acceptance at the time, but whose discussion is intended to legitimise the hitherto unacceptable policies by comparison.
It's difficult to see how you think that applies to me - especially since my whole freakin' analysis is generic, and it is about a strategy for voting rather than advocating any specific policies - but I'm sure you have a way to pin this on the fantasy Lotharsson currently residing in your head.
I've established and you have denied that voting or not-voting both "enable evil to reign" in the sense that you mean. I'm quite confident now you're not going to support your denial with an actual argument, so I merely expect reiterated denial from now on.
(And if you really want to stop evil reigning, abstaining from voting is a blunt and very soft instrument and you'd be better off focusing your energies elsewhere - in particular, seeking to influence the candidates who will be put forward during the candidate selection process and perhaps even beforehand.)
It's clear by now that there's little point in reiterating that I find your reasoning on that front entirely unconvincing.
ROFLMAO! Now this is truly Sunspot-worthy - up is down, black is white.
I have demonstrated that your abstention strategy improves the chances of this outcome in any specific election. And it is blindingly obvious that actually voting for the lesser evil reduces the chances of "the greater evil winning" in any given election. You don't demonstrate that the analysis is wrong. Instead you handwave assertions that not voting will lead to non-evil candidates on the ballot via some mechanism that you can't quite elucidate, especially since (on average) voters for both major parties differ about who/what is evil in the first place.
There's no point discussing this with someone this loosely attached to reality. Thanks for playing.
This may also help:
Voting for a candidate is NOT and never has been an expression of pure WANT for that candidate or their entire set of policies.
Voting is an expression of PREFERENCE for that candidate (and set of policies) OVER the others offered.
Wow has lost the plot. I usually have to go to a denier site to read such a load of illogical crap.
If you haven't already caught David Attenborough's 'Death of the Oceans?' documentary, which features Ove Hoegh-Guldberg's acidification research undertaken on the Great Barrier Reef, you've got 4 more days to catch it on SBS On Demand.
Given what's now happening in Gaza, with Obama's unstinting support for the regime carrying out the atrocities, one should wonder how much of a lesser evil his administration is than a possible Romney-Paul administration. My view remains: the system is broken, and both parties are beholden to Wall Street and the corporate sector. Either way the general populace is screwed.
Chris Hedges is correct in my opinion when he says the thrust of the debate - that a lesser evil is a better option than a greater evil - shows how utterly bankrupt the liberal class in America has become. Instead of fighting at the grassroots level for real change from being shackled by a corporate system, the so-called liberals have continued their recent history of back-peddling to support the administrations of Clinton and Obama whose policies it should be clear are a continuation of those first implemented under Reagan. On the foreign front they are committed to expansionist wars and the suppression of real democracy that threatens the interests of 'empire'.
Yes, the liberal class in America is dead, or at least in its death throes. And you can be sure that the elites are laughing all the way to the bank.
Jeff, I agree with most of your last comment - although I'd add that both candidates are also significantly beholden to the US military-industrial complex, and if we're pointing out continuation of previous administration's policies then Obama has extended several of the significant George W. administration policies in additionally detrimental fashion.
I'd also like to point out that I've not been discussing less vs greater evil because that's "the thrust of the debate" that Chris Hedges is discussing, but because once it comes to elections those are the choices presented to voters.
"one should wonder how much of a lesser evil his administration is than a possible Romney-Paul administration"
Only just as much "less" as is needed to remain less.
99 kilonazis compared with 100 kilonazis is enough.
But those whining about letting the "greater evil" in, merely let this happen.
40 years ago (heck, 20 years ago) Obama WOULD be the greater evil doing what he is doing today.
But these whining little shites going "Oh, a Romney/Ryan would be worse" are in deep denial about how their spinelessness and fear have caused a Romney/Ryan ticket to get nearly 50% of the votes.
They're enabling evil in the same way as allowing racist or sexist jokes in the workplace enables sexism or racism at work.
They're enabling as much as the shock jocks Beck and Hannity enable those nutters to go out and shoot doctors and police officers.
And just like those people who "don't see the harm", they refuse to look at what they've done.
Jeff, there's no need to lay the blam at "liberals". They're cowed by the establishment who maintain the mantra "better we get in than the others" (in an almost identical way to what "the others" are doing to their base).
Those on here continuing to paint disaster if "you don't vote for us" browbeat and shame and ostracise those who do not do as demanded.
They bear the brunt of the blame.
Yep, 'whining little shites' who voted for Obama are identical to 'the shock jocks Beck and Hannity [who] enable those nutters to go out and shoot doctors and police officers.'
There's a hell of a lot of them about, then.
Over-wrought, much?
As Gore Vidal (amongst others) pointed out many years ago, the U.S. is governed by the Property Party, of which there are two wings. Either way, the policies of its global empire are not up for or open to debate. So while I see what Wow is getting at, I can't see any practical means of enacting it short of the hard slog of establishing a political base and working up from there. But then again, ask the Green Party or Ralph Nader how that's working out for them.
The lack of a proportional representation system also skews the likely outcomes. So I have to agree with Lotharsson when he points out that the best is the enemy of the good, and that in practice a least worst outcome is the best that can be hoped for.
On a somewhat related point for those who remember a flustered Rove's incomprehension on election night that Ohio had been called for Obama, this amongst other surfacings of the story may provide a clue to his consternation.
Yea, verily.
Digging into that link from chek here is the nub of the Ohio election question:
Did Anonymous stop Karl Rove from Stealing Ohio again?
Oh come on Watermelons, if you're done with the Obama bashing, any chance we can get back on the CAGW/"End of the World is nigh"/regulate & tax comedy rants that you are better known for.
I'd suggest you step it up a notch, it's all getting a tad boring here and you're being out done by the efforts of others.
Armstrong & Miller - Climate Change
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQlHaGhYoF0
TIA,
;)
Australia is governed by the two wings of The Property Party, as is Britain, but both of these states still have a (nominally) left faction that, for historical reasons, at least pays lip-service to its Social Democratic inheritance - and occasionally actually does something halfway sensible, for a complex nest of reasons, not the least of which is its actually hard to be stupid forever.
So hooray for us, and long may we celebrate the piss-weak faction in its unholy alliance with the wicked proportional-representation-enabled Greens continuing to stumble along in power as long as that's the best we can realistically hope to achieve.
All else is sulking.
Had Romney won, the EPA would have been clearing its desks as we speak. So hooray that he bloody didn't, and when are the Yanks going to do something about the institutionalised corruption and routinised disenfranchisement of their electoral system? As long as they keep rabbiting on sententiously about being the World's Greatest Democracy, probably never...
So, in the meantime, thank your Deity of Choice - or none, for small mercies, eh? Actually, large mercies, when you think about it...
I look forward to Rove's long-overdue Treason trial, but the sound you're not hearing is me holding my breath. The GOP has been routinely fiddling the electoral system across the 21st Century, particularly after their nascent efforts in 2000 met with such resounding success and were of such little interest to a 'balance' obsessed media (pointing out that one side is actively, um, cheating is gauche, don'tchaknow?) Romney was actually so soundly thrashed that even their cyber-goons and caging-list cadre couldn't put the fix in for him. Colour me relieved.
And clearly, the troglodyte wing of The Property Party, far from smugly assuming that it can relax as it owns the game anyway, thinks this is all a very big deal indeed, which should be a warning to all of us.
More on the anonymous story (Salon). If they really do have any evidence, I sincerely hope they will present it to the relevant authorities. However, it's hard to believe anything that beautiful could actually happen!
GSW,
It is better to be known for comedy rants than the rank ignorance you expound here. Your vacuous arguments - e.g. Polar bear demographics, amphibian declines etc. - have been comprehensively debunked on a regular basis so all you are left with is some rather shallow quips.
Get lost. Take your lunacy elsewhere.
Also, Mitchell and Webb are funny;
"Watermelons" (and how I'd love to see Monckton & Co.go down Brixton market and start an anti-watermelon rant) would include such lefty hippy organisations as the World Bank warning against the consequences of a 4C rise, and the IEA, worrying about a 6C rise this century.
But you know things are really going pear-shaped in bobbleheadland when even the GWPF (inadvertantly?) has an article advocating decarbonising the economy.
Hmmph - further to above post, World Bank report
and GWPF article.
The Daily Kos has the Anonymous story too , with a long, long tail of comments.
I too am waiting for any evidence to see the light of day, but I am not holding my breath.
I've also been pondering the question of evidence re. the Anonymous claim, but given my total ignorance of hacking, not getting very far.
It would seem to me that at that level, what evidence could there be? Hacking server time stamps and activity logs would not be impossible, and even screenshots could be faked, so we're left with the circumstantial evidence such as Rove's incomprehension captured on-air , Romney's not even having prepared a concession speech, the 'fortuitous Ohio setrv er crash at 11.13, and the 'apparent' ineptness of even a simple IT application such as ORCA.
It may be that waterboarding Rove would be the only way to get to the bottom of it. I'd give the fatf*ck an endurance of <20 seconds.
@bill
In your last post, I think there is some endorsement of Mitchell and Webb. Mitchell is one of you lot after all, driven by an unshakable belief in the precautionary principle as fundamental tenet in his journey thru life.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/video/2011/sep/15/david-mitchel…
As far as I am aware there was no follow up video on "Fire proof underpants" based on the same reasoning.
But I do object to Armstrong and Miller being referred to as "banal philistines". Exploring the issues/attitudes of the day thru humour can often be quite revealing, as well as entertaining. The Climate Change link above for example, more political than sceptical I would have thought. Many here have expressed/acted upon opinions as to who is, or is not, allowed to speak in an attempt to constrain the views of others and influence "policy". Simply a case of art shining a light on the absurdities of the real world surely.
Armstrong & Miller do this very well. Another example that predates the BBC's current difficulties.
Art (Blue Peter)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtF5L9bKfO8&feature=related
Real world (Blue Peter)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/specials/drugs/351602.stm
Real world CBBC Apology (Shown on childrens TV)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blrj2JpuWMs
Both sets of "Double acts" entertain, I enjoy both, you can't pick one over the other because of a belief in CAGW or whether they might appeal to Daily Mail readers.
tl;dr
...and there's a very good reason for that, but one that you will not allow yourself to grok (if only because it would undermine other parts of the very same comment).
"Mitchell is one of you lot after all"
Yes, he is; our 'lot' consists of every Academy of Science in every nation on Earth, the vast majority of statured scientists (of which I am one) as well as the empirical evidence.
Your 'lot' consists of very few statured scientists, the right wing blogosphere, an army of Dunning-Kruger acolytes and of course the fossil fuel lobby and other industries that are pathologically concerned only about short-term profits. And oh, of course, let me also add that your side is not supported by the vast amount of empirical evidence.
In other words, the two sides are very uneven when it comes to the science and to the intellectual level of those involved. That is exactly why people like you, GSW, are best ignored.
And, unlike the denialist side, "our lot" are quite open when we disagree with each other, but "the cause" for the denialists is far far FAR more important than any possible disagreement on anything else, so they ignore the disagreements, lest their "message" become diluted.
Rather morally repugnant, isn't it. And rather like the stalinist system where you conformed or were ostracised.
bill the constant refrain of "But Romney would be worse!!!" is a whine. And those continuing are whining little shites.
Either get a new tagline or live with the aphorism "if the shoe fits, wear it".
Thanks Jeff, I'll take issue with,
"your side is not supported by the vast amount of empirical evidence"
I'll assume by "empirical evidence" you mean real world observations rather than dubious model outputs (i.e. the correct meaning). looking at a couple of metrics, SLR and Global temp anom.
SLR from satellite data is ticking over at ~3mm/yr, tide guages a little less, If this continues, by 2100, sea level should be about 10-12 inches higher than now, i.e only a couple of inches more than we saw during the previous century. Whether this would be a problem or not is a value judgement - I'd say no.
Global temp anom increase, from the turn of the century is indistinguishable from bugger all. Gavin's yearly observations vs models should be interesting next year with the real world data "bibbling" around the lower bound of the model forecasts. The 6C and 4C figures (by 2100), mentioned by someone above, from the ever more questionable models are just fanciful, certainly compared with what we are observing now. We saw ~0.7C increase over the last century, that plus a few extra tenths of degree would'nt appear to be that much of a problem.
So as for your "let me also add that your side is not supported by the vast amount of empirical evidence", that's just plain wrong. Bad models are not a basis for "alarm" and poor policy decisions- I'm sure you would agree, let's keep it empirical.
GSW,
Out of more than a thousand peer-reviewed articles published in the empircal literature no more than a few contradict the hypothesis of AGW. This explains why the vast majority of the scientific community is in agreement that humans are forcing climate. If you were correct, which of course you aren't, then there must be some huge left-wing global conspiracy explaining why every Academy of Science on Earth is in agreement on this issue.
You clearly reveal your scientific illiteracy and ignorance when you say that the warming since the turn of the century is 'bugger all'. As I and many others have explained numerous times, 12 years is insufficient for a largely deterministic system where short term fluctuations can mask longer term trends. I wouldn't expect to find changes in most ecosystem properties in response to abitoc and biotic shifts in that time, let alone in biomes, covering vastly larger scales, and certainly not in processes occurring at the global scale. What is clear to scientists who study processes at variable scales is to better understand when stochastic processes can become deterministic. You aren't trained in this at all (this became clear to me early on) and, in combination with your political ideology, this bastardizes your view of climate science. I might as well apply this to the other bunch of deniers who have written in here from time to time. None - NONE - have any training in a scientific field where scale is involved. To be honest, I would cringe when reading your comments if they weren't spewed out ad nauseum by people on blogs who also camoufalge their political affiliations in scientific mumbo-jumbo but who, like you, don't know a thing about scale.
As a final point: GSW tried to give the impression of a scientific community that is split more-or-less down the middle on the issue of AGW. Of course it isn't: not even close. Then he tries to take the scientific high ground and give the impression that, despite the views of the vast majority of scientists, that somehow a loose band of skeptics, most of whom are on the academic fringe, have somehow got the science right in this case.
The only reason that these pseudos are making such an impression has nothing to do with science. That battle was lost years ago .lt is based on money and power. Who controls the global economy and in what direction they wish to take it. This is where the discussion of Obama et al. is profoundly important. But the scientific discussionn is nothing but a smokescreen. The deniers will never win the debate on that score: as I said, that was lost some years ago. But they certainly can win the economic war (at least in the short term until our global ecological life-support systems respond quite dramtcially as they already are). Given the power of the transnational elite, and their control over many of the so-called 'democracies' in the west, this is their main strategy. At the same time, they are terrified of public opinion, and must placate the masses through the media and through various other forms of mendacious propaganda. This is where the think-tanks, blogs, PR groups and lobbying groups become important. Hence the war is not about science and never has been: its an economic battle being fought through various channels in order to ensure that capital flows remain largely uni-directional.
This explains why its a waste of time engaging people like GSW. He and his ilk want to drag the discussion down to the lowest common denominator. At the same time he is just one of many in the army of the ignoranti who have been suckered in by a veritable tsunami of propagandathat would make Orwell proud.
Here's a scenario that illustrates GSW's head in the sand.
My car is doing 60 km/h and accelerating at 2kmh/min. If this continues, even though it is headed over the edge of a very very high cliff, it should be nothing to worry about.
And my car's engine bay is on fire and large amounts of heat energy is accumulating there - and the physics and chemistry all tell me that the accumulation MUST continue whilst the process continues - but really, that's no problem because the temperature in the cabin has increased bugger all over the last few minutes, and besides, that physics and chemistry you talk about is just "bad models".
Are you really this illogical or are you merely mendacious?
Speaking of "Of course it isn’t: not even close.", someone posted this brief indicative analysis somewhere the other day. Someone else (Mashey?) posted this summary and said it wasn't worth spending time on denialists any more other than pointing them at it.
And then on GSW's argument that surface temperatures haven't warmed enough lately to indicate a problem, apart from the well-known large accumulation of heat in the oceans during the period in question that GSW either doesn't know about or denies, there's this analysis.
I'd bet that none of this will make any difference to GSW, because it seems clear that s/he did not form an opinion based on the best inference from all the evidence - if only because cherry-picking seems to be necessary for GSW's "arguments" - and presumably GSW isn't about to start now.
I vote for 'merely mendacious'.
GSW is a fool with the climate science knowledge of a two year old, well that is how he comes across. Heck those grandchildren of mine under ten can grasp more than s/he shows.
Cherry pick your way out of this GSW:
CO2 Hits New High; World Could Warm 7°F by 2060, I do wish Americans would get used to temperature in degrees C at least as this dichotomy has been used by the delayers and deniers to obfuscate.
What you need to grok here GSW is the inertia in various components of the Earth's systems which causes a delay between a given increase of GHGs and the resultant warming.
The climate changes (read up on climate types and how they occur if bothered by the plural there) we are already experiencing [1] is happening because of the elevated CO2 levels as of about fifteen years ago (and because of how water stores up heat energy - look up heat capacity and latent heat). So the big thing to know is that even if we reduce emissions to zero from tomorrow then warming will continue until the Earth's total energy balance reaches equilibrium. It is facts such as this that the likes of Richard Lindzen try to keep from their unsophisticated audiences. The strange thing is that Lindzen et. al. (Michaels, Christy, Spencer, Plimer) never go head to head with those that can undermine their arguments. This is no surprise considering how Pat Michaels came off against Ben Santer in 2010. Think about that GSW.
The other big idea is understanding the difference between sensible and insensible heat and why this matters. Rising Temperature alone does not quantify the heat energy of a system. Consider ice and water at the same temperature - there is a big difference in calorific value between the two. Do you know how to quantify this? Come on do you?
[1] And yes this is extreme weather, one event of which looks set to be quickly followed by some more on an already well soaked land, but more frequent bouts of extreme weather are a symptom of climate change and in this case is the result of a much activated hydrological cycle combined with polar influenced meteorological conditions ensuring the extra water in the atmosphere dumps on Britain. As you should be aware (short of having your head up 'seventh rock from the sun') Britain is not alone in experiencing such weather.
The other extreme is being more commonly experienced elsewhere on the globe.
And despite all the warnings about the effects of heightened CO2 levels it seems that many don't care . And no Gina we don't want any of your dirty s*** here but I am sure GOsborne is thinking about it, its all about the money with him and his ilk, who may have been trying to undermine wind behind the scenes.
@Lionel
I thought we were keeping it empirical! your first link
"CO2 Hits New High; World Could Warm 7°F by 2060"
The obvious fail here is the word "could", there's nothing empirical about that. What the world may or may be in 2060 is not an observation.
Thanks also for your second link to some pictures of what the UK looks like when it rains. We've had flooding here to, I don't know where you hail from Lionel, but if you've ever spent any time over here and not seen flooded out roads before, then you've spent too much time hiding under the stairs.
Also this amused me " look up heat capacity and latent heat", we did it at school when I was about 12, but thanks for the pointer to what passes for "Leading edge Physics" in your part of the world.
;)
And...right on cue:
The Epic Fail in your objection is illustrated by my analogy about the car about to drive off a cliff.
What speed the car may or may not be going 30 seconds from now (and in which direction) is not an observation either. But only an idiot would chant "that's not an observation" in response to someone pointing out the likely range of future trajectories as if that would make them go away.
Griselda can't comprehend that use of the verb 'will' (the future tense of the verb 'to be') is available only to clairvoyants and to megalomaniacs. Scientists, being human, deal in empirically based prediction, hence the use of 'could' and 'may', not absolute certainties. Only charlatans deal in those.
Ah, so here we have GSWs strategy: the "wait until it happens and only respond then" strategy. I assume GSW also opposes US-UKisNATO wars and proxy wars fought on grounds of being 'preventive' or 'pre-emptive'. Using this analogy countries no longer need to invest billions of dollars in military hardware for so-called defense; only after they are attacked is this feasible. So how to exaplin the trillions of dollars spent arounbd the globe every year on 'defense'? Glad to know you aren't a hawk, GSW. I assume you also don't have car insurance or home insurance either. Why do so if the chances of being burgled or in an accident are tiny? They could happen but probably won't.
What a risible clown you are, GSW. I assume you think we should keep cutting down tropical forests until all of the data are in on the effects; keep dumping toxic wastes into rivers until we really know how they will affect human populations downstream; keep pumping out that C02 until a causal link with recent warming and its effects - such as the all time record low in Arctic sea ice - is 100% established.
But of course by the time we arrive at this level it is always far too late. Science is rarely absolute. What you are suggesting is that the precautionary principle has no place in science. Then it should not have any other basis in our lives, either, using your twisted logic. Why insure our homes and businbesses if the risk of them being robbed or damaged by fire is < 1%? If there was only a 10% chance that GW was primarily due to human actions, and that inaction could be serious, then I think we ought to take that seriously. We are talking about a process which could have profoundly serious consequences on the health and vitality of natural systems that underpin human civilization. And the prevailing view amongst scientists - meaning people who actually do the research, GSW - is that the human fingerprint is a lot bigger than that.
Talk about powder puff arguments. Its hard to understand how anyone can take people like GSW seriously. But those only thinking about short-term proftis apparently do.
@Lotharsson
Your assertion that you have a "handle" on future climates because it is in some way like a car, is a revellation! Rather than me go thru it with you personally, perhaps you could contact the climate modellers at NASA directly with this newly discovered wisdom, they could do with some alternative insights by all accounts.
;)
Its hard to understand how anyone can take people like GSW seriously. But those only thinking about short-term proftis apparently do.
Nah Jeff , they just pay a few gangmasters who then get a few hundred global morons like Griselda to squawk loudly about that which they know less than zero, on their behalf.
GSW throeing his toys outa da pram ranted thusly:
So why did you avoid answering my question repeated below?
As for 'could' not being empirical, so you can go into the future and see what happened eh but cannot answer questions.
As for the extent of that could, it could warm to less than 7F but then it could, and very probably will if we burn all the fossil fuel especially a large proportion being coal as implied in my next reply, it could get a whole lot warmer and those projections have been made.
Now I know not if you have children and grandchildren, if you have then perhaps they should be informed that this example of the ignoratti, you, is happy to consign them to a future of danger, misery and even squalor.
Of course you could be one of those pinning your hopes on a place in that ecologically preserved lifeboat (the one being partly underpinned by the Svalbard collective) and artificially preserved 'normality'. But, even if you are lucky, after all I suspect ducky Delingpole is ahead of you in that queue, how long will that last?
Not long, if we burn all that fossil fuel, apart from most of ecology being toast, what are James, and you, going to use for make-up and shower gel?
@chek
;)
@Jeff,
You were the one who brought up "empirical evidence", not me. Although I get the impression you say it because it sounds good, rather than knowing what it actually means. It's observations.
When we start going thru it together, and the claims of it being "alarming" drop away, you then high tail it to; conspiracys by "Transnational elites"(?) controlling "many of the so-called[your words] ‘democracies’ in the west", placating "the masses through the media"(?) [BBC slow to catch on here also]
,assumptions that I don't "have car insurance or home insurance"(?),I'm in favour of "cutting down tropical forests"(?), "dumping toxic wastes into rivers"(?). That's all just empty ideological posturing when you ran out of arguments, i.e at the beginning - anything to avoid addressing the real world as it is.
Also, your other "imaginings", my education/background is in the sciences (not Zoology), and a darn sight more rigorous than the day trips to Formby point to visit the squirrels, siting round the camp fire singing kumbaya with prizes for the best "imploding foodweb" story that you seem to have undergone.
;)
@Lionel
Your question,
"there is a big difference in calorific value between the two. Do you know how to quantify this? Come on do you?"
Yes I do.
NASA get back to you yet on your insight that the Earth's climate is like a car?
;)
GSW, The proof of the pudding ius in the eating. Where are your scientific bonafides? The publications? the lectures? The university stature? Your background hardly makes you a scientist. If you were, you wouldn't spout so much of the piffle you do on Deltoid. And the clincher is your utter reliance of web sitges like Bishop's Hill, WUWT, CA and other comedy venues for many of your opinions. All this illustrates is that you can't think for yourself. You couldn;t stand in a room with me or any of my colleagues and expect to be taken seriously with much of the garbage you spew out. F'rinstance, your take on polar bear population demographics and global amphibian declines. Or suggesting that it hasn't warmed since 2000. This is grade-school level histrionics coming from you, GSW. What seems clear to me is that you think a lot off the top of your head. You clearly don't read much of the scientific literature, that is certainly obvious to me and should be to most others who contibute here. As I said earlier, you clearly don't have a clue about the difference between stochastic and deterministic processes. You are certainly in good company there with most of the intellectually challenged deniers.
And while you, in your scientific diapers, claim that ecology is puff-pastry science, the reality is quite different. Ecology is the study of non-linear dynamics. In other words, cause-and-effect relationships are often impossible to predict or elucidate. Physics is a day at the beach by comparison, and since you are hardly an academic in the first place, then that makes you look even worse than you are. If you did real science you'd crawl out from behind your monicker and tell u what contributions to science that you have made. But you on't because you are anonymous whatever you tell us.
What I say about transnational corporations I am happy to be quoted on. Of course they have a huge influence on democracy, especially in the US. You are more of a fool than I originally thought if you are suggesting otherwise. And the media has been shown time and time again to be hardly 'independent', given its ownership or dependence on corporate advertising for much of its revenue. Just because you are plainly ignorant of this doesn't make it wrong.
As for predictions,you stepped in it again by arguing that projections aren't science and therefore can be ignored. This is wilfull ignorance on your part, but hardly a suprise coming from you. Its par for the course.
Usually The Rabett is spot on, but I think in this case he's wrong. You'd have to knock at least thirty or forty points, not ten, off your IQ to even begin to get down to Griselda's level.
@Jeff,
It's the lack of rigor in you Jeff that's the tell. I think I've posted this link for before, I'll do so again, you didn't get it the first time, but
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJFsnyvprKc
It's Feynman, talking about those who push "facts" without actually knowing- because it's hard to know, some rigor is required. Maybe you'll get it this time. From your showing today, it's hard to imagine he wasn't talking specifically about you.
Enjoy!
;)
GSW
Feynman has a description of the kinda science that is going to be increasingly coming from the likes of this GOP example of ignorant and proud to be who will be increasingly confounded by the workings of the every day things that they rely on. Can you tell me what that name is? Can you tell me the title of a book in which Feynman describes this brand of science.
So don't start throwing Feynman into the ring on your side, he wasn't and never would have been. He would, I am certain, had strong words to describe the antics of such as Lindzen, Michaels, Christy, Spencer and Plimer although in public he may just have ignored them as so much fluff. But given the gravity of the developments here, to which they have given the PTB ground cover, I think Feynman would have been very outspoken.
Bringing up Feynman in this way is a disgrace and shows in stark relief the poverty of your intellect and bankruptcy of your decency.
Have you read and understood Chapters 35 and 36 of 'Lectures on Physics' Vol. 1'? I suggest you do and then go read 'Unweaving the Rainbow' by Richard Dawkins.
On pseudo-science then Dawkins 'The Devil's Chaplin' has some good chapters and Ben Goldacre has much more to say especially on 'Double Blind testing'. Do you even know what this is and where it is used?
@Lionel
I'm perfectly happy throwing Feynman into the ring, especially when he's perfectly clear on what constitutes science and what does not. Assertions as fact of theorys without empirical evidence is not, and neither is "expert" opinion.
The bad news for your side is that the CAGW orthodoxy relies heavily on "endorsements" and "unsupported" extrapolations.
So staggered that a) you would presume to speak on the behalf of the man and b) you think that Fenyman would throw aside a lifetimes worth of scientific principle just to endorse CAGW.
He was never an institutional/establishment figure, questioning the orthodoxy was more his style, statements to the effect that the "Science was settled" would not go down well.
You could have spent a little more time getting the know the man, or put some thought into the principles of what he was actually saying, it's worth the effort.
Apologies to Feynman, (I can do it too)
"CAGW theory doesn't make predictions, just excuses"
(doesn't mean it's not true, just that it doesn't pass the test, you'll either get the joke or you won't)
;)
GSW trapped by faulty logic again.
I didn't, I was surmising what his reactions might have been. That you didn't comprehend this is once again an indicator of your simplistic parsing and thinking.
Still avoiding questions too.
You are a waste of space.
@Lionel,
Got it Lionel, you give in. (I'd do the same, your on a hiding to nothing on this one)
;)
"Assertions as fact of theorys without empirical evidence is not,"
Which is why you don't get to call him on your side: THAT IS ALL YOU EVER DO.
"and neither is “expert” opinion."
ROFLMAO.
You're using Feynman as expert opinion to pretend more weight to your idiocies than it has.
And expert opinion of a scientist who has investigated the subject IS SCIENCE.
What a frigging moron.
"CAGW orthodoxy relies heavily on “endorsements” and “unsupported” extrapolations. "
Hrm.
Isn't that an example of "Assertions as fact of theorys without empirical evidence is not,”?
Yes, it is.
What a frigging moron.
"statements to the effect that the “Science was settled” would not go down well."
If some fruitcake nut like yourself were to ask "CO2, a greenhouse gas: Settled science or not?" he'd say "settled" because you have 150 years of investigation into it.
I am sure, were Feynman alive today, he'd know to distance himself from quacks like the climate change denier army of intellectual wannabes. Besides, GSW, you have yet to explain why pretty well every prestigious scientific body on the planet has supported the findings of the IPCC. Seems pretty weird if the science is hardly settled. This is a real thorn in your side, innit? Trying to fob off such consensus by distorting the views of a man who is dead.
Furthermore, you've already shot yourself in the foot enough times with your vacuous musings about ecology. Today at work we discussed a recent Science paper which shows that predator-mediated stress responses in insect herbivores can affect their internal stoichiometry (C:N ratios) via changes in feeding and physiological stress-induced physiology and that these effects can concomitantly have a profound effect on nutrient cycling via soil microbial activity (which is very sensitive to inputs of biotic matter from above-ground biota). This in turn affects plant responses and ultimately on plant community hierarchies and assembly rules during various successional stages. Essentially, the Science paper pointed to the importance of context-dependency and indirect trophic cascades that work their way through entire ecosystems. Know anything about trait-remixing, context- and trait-dependent processes and of the importance of bottom-up and top-down forces in regulating the function of communities and ecosystems GSW? How about metabolomic responses of plants to herbivore-induced damage? But of course you don't. Yet you think all population ecologists do is look at birds through binoculars and count bunnies in fields.
As I said, physics is a picnic compared with ecology. Take some advice: don't start throwing stones whilst living in a glass house with very thin walls.
Ah Jeff, transnational elites[your words] not hunted you down yet and turned off your internet connection yet? Slipped up there then didn't they.
Let's see what drivel your espousing now;
"predator-mediated stress responses in insect herbivores can affect their internal stoichiometry (C:N ratios) via changes in feeding and physiological stress-induced physiology and that these effects can concomitantly have a profound effect on nutrient cycling via soil microbial activity"
Sounds interesting.
" Know anything about trait-remixing, context- and trait-dependent processes and of the importance of bottom-up and top-down forces in regulating the function of communities and ecosystems GSW?"
Absolutely nothing and, at guess, based on past performances neither do you. You might feel it, but you don't actually understand the difference between knowing and not knowing do you?:
Cheers,
;)
It never takes long for Griselda to settle into his favouirite role - fluffing for Jonarse, no matter what level of idiocy must be stooped to.
@chek
Wondered where the puppy had wandered off to.
No "Jonarse", as you call him, has been banned. Apparently an understanding of High School physics, coupled with a desire to see the "empirical data" in support of irrational claims, makes you "persona no grata" on deltoid (by that I mean you get your own thread;) )
If only he were allowed to post here now. You lot would be forced to rejoin reality that much sooner.
;)
Ah! More from the twerp:
Those are your words and do not reflect my intentions - another example of poor thought processes from you.
Please provide your analysis of one paper that unequivocally refutes the actuality of global warming, else it is you with a hiding to nothing.
Griselda, a waiter has not successfully refuted Relativity Theory by failing to comperhend it - or not being able to see its poster claim, as he so cutesie-wootsey-pie puts it (presumably for your own dumbed-down idiot benefit). But your devotion to your guru is comically noted, as is your desperation to believe any clown such as Jonarse and the other sources of unscientific drivel you prefer.
p.s. a denier quoting Feynman is like wearing an I'm with stupid' hat, that's pointing down at yourself.
@Lionel
Abuse Lionel? Whatever your "intentions", surely you can do better than that.
;)
@chek,
No idea what "waiter" you're talking about. But Michelson–Morley made Einstein's work almost "derivative" (joking). It's not obvious though whether the "I’m with stupid’ hat" was worn by you or Jeff? the smart money is on on the " I'm with stupidest" for you both though.
Aren't you the "bod" that asserts that Einstein wasn't a patent clerk because he didn't fill in forms or hand out invoices? Priceless!
;)
I don't understand why GSW wants to call other people "stupid", or suggests they might want to "rejoin reality", when GSW is clearly living in a fantasy-world of denial, which can only be made possible if he were both stupid and in avoidance of reality.
Or, he doesn't believe the crap he writes and is just trolling you.
Either way, he's a waste of space.
It’s not obvious though whether the “I’m with stupid’ hat” was worn by you or Jeff?
Once you've had the chance to get a few more basic comprehension lessons under your belt,the first two words ("a denier" - that's you, that is) will clarify the meaning no end. Or likely not, as it's clear you have merely an inkling of what form a pithy riposte would take, but don't have the wit or wits to carry it off.
And yes, as I recall pointing out to your fellow traveller Brent, (complete with reference) the meaning of the post of 'clerk' has changed over the past century from an Einstein to a bored, biro-chewing teenager.
But then you and he probably also labour under the similar illusion that a Secretary of State does the and typing and makes the tea also.
This Epic Comprehension And Logic Fail from the poster who - Curtinesque and apparently completely unaware of it - suggested that a graphical extrapolation of current sea level rise sans any understanding of underlying mechanisms, was sufficient to ward off concern arising from understanding those underlying mechanisms.
Note, of course, that the underlying point of my very simple analogy was not grokked, perhaps for reasons already suggested.
Damn, there goes another irony meter.
I seem to recall s/he once claimed to be a science teacher, which if true would explain the evasive dance about her/his "background" rather than his/her research record.
And what Wow and Vince said, while we're at it.
GSW.
Jonah showed no tested and verified science that I recall. Heck, he even refused to detail which papers he had (apparently) read in order to make the claim that the IPCC had fabricated the confidences of the attribution to human activity of planetary warming.
He and his Scandinavian Troll Collective even scarpered away from demonstrating their conviction in the denialism of climatology when they were too afraid to take my money from me in a wager about the future trajectory of the Arctic sea ice.
Still, on that last I remain ever hopeful. I have an offer open with Kai at A Few Things Ill Considered, valid until the end of this month.
Perhaps you'll be brave enough to prove that you actually believe in the crap that you spout, and take me up on the offer.
GooSeyWuh ain't interesting. Or relevant. This, on the other hand...
Vince, Bernard, Bill, Chek, etc.
Agreed. GSW is a major waste of space. Now he's employing his hero worship again, in a desperate attempt to defend his pithy views.
He certainly ain't interesting or relevant.
@Jeff
Of course you don't find it interesting Jeff. You weren't interested enough to learn the basic principles of the Scientifc method you were an undergrad, so you're hardly likely to have had a change of heart now.
There's a bit more to it than peppering bits of text with the odd scientifc name for things, pushing your "imaginings" to those who know no better and waving your CV as defence against almost anything.
In short, you're about as "sciencey" as my daughters pet Cricetinae.
Take care!
;)
Griselda still trying to give Jonarse a hard-on, I see.
Pathetic really.
Hurr Hurr. You people are like stoopid 'n' everything hurr hurr because we know, like, we know, right, that real science is done by real proper scientists 'n' everything like Lord Monckton and Andrew Montford who is, are, the bomb, right, 'n' not shit watermelons like the AGU, NOAA and NASA, and the BoM and CSIRO 'n' the Met and NIWA, and all those phoney phoney made-up science guys in, like, The Academies, who are all like, you know, Communists, along with their red-Socialist buddies the IEA and the World Bank. Oh, and The Economist. Hurr hurr. Stupid Science Socialists.
GSW:
It's no surprise that denialists like GSW try to make a big deal out of something statistically insignificant like the temperature record just since 2001. Denialists' position is that the "red Marxist socioeconomic" action required to deal with global warming will NEVER be worth whatever benefit it will bring because electing a government that performs any sort of "red Marxist socioeconomic" action is the beginning of the end and carries the risk that we will succumb to "red Marxist socioeconomic doctrine". To them, that is worse than any climate catastrophe.
So denialists like GSW don't care that their arguments are dishonest and wrong. It's just a smokescreen for what they really think. That's why they will never change their minds regardless of the facts.
Has there ever been a greater plague of mouthbreathing dreck than this lot?
Alright, since my other bit has apparently gone west, I'll point out directly to Git Sez'Wha-?' that all we have on our side is NASA, NOAA, the NRC, the CSIRO, the BoM, the Met Office, NIWA, the AGU, and all the worlds' Academies of Science. Not to mention such well-known neo-Marxist institutions as the IEA, the World Bank, the US Military, and even The Economist.
But, hell, you have Lord Monckton, James Delingpole and Andrew Montford... And your beloved Kochs, of course. Oh, and the BNP. And lots and lots and lots of... money.
I repeat, has there ever been a more pathetic rabble that's managed to cause so much harm?
@bill
Ah bill, you're back! Made the mistake of clicking on the link you gave, got as far as the first slide. A claim of 3.5C increase in Global temps by 2040, by no less an authority than the IEA! (I know how this figure is derived, the context is missing, but ignoring that for now )
The simple fact is, we are just not observing anything like the near 1C/decade increase in temp anomaly that would be required for this even to be plausible. Past decade performance is around the "bugger all" mark ;)
Irrespective of who else is "on my side", real world data trumps everything, right? (See Feynman)
;)
Irrespective
Luckily for us though Griselda the people who matter wrt these things, understand trends a lot better than the cherry-picking, blinkered, short term cretins you rely on to quack your drivel.
God's Sorrowful W***** spewed forth:
You clearly missed my reference to system inertia in an earlier post. Not a surprise for I guess that more than one sentence in a para' causes you to go blind. That is what you are suffering from 'big picture' blindness.
Once again you have wasted space and it is to that I was referring earlier but it seems to have hit one of your sore spots. Shame. Mummy make it better and send big brother round to kick hell...! I think now that I'll leave your toys on the floor, continuing to abuse Feynman as you have.
Bill
Don't forget Munich Re.
@Lionel,
The data is the data Lionel. You can't talk it up by being abusive or asserting that the earths climate is "like a car".
;)
You have to be able to understand data, Griselda. You clearly do not.
GSW,
Yawn. At least I have a reasonable scientific CV to wave. You don't. Put up or shut up.
And of course I find climate science and other areas of science interesting. I am a scientist after all. It is you and your tiring musings that I find tedious and boring.
"The data is the data Lionel."
Yup, that's about all you're capable of saying.
Pity you don't seem capable of understanding.
Data is this:
http://www.elmhurst.edu/~chm/vchembook/globalwarmA5.html
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.A2.gif
"A claim of 3.5C increase in Global temps by 2040, by no less an authority than the IEA!"
Since it isn't 2040, there's no DATA to claim this incorrect.
And they have predictions that support their assertion. All it takes is us going to 650ppm CO2 by 2035.
Do you have any DATA that says that 650 isn't possible? Or that there's less than 3C per doubling of CO2?
"(I know how this figure is derived"
Apparently not.
You know how you're going to CLAIM you know how. But you evidently do not.
"we are just not observing anything like the near 1C/decade increase in temp anomaly"
We ARE observing a 3.2C per doubling of CO2 and are observing a trend in CO2 production that will lead to 650ppm by 2035.
We ARE observing a 2.2C per century trend in the past. But the reason for that increase is increasing, therefore the trend will increase too.
GSW
I didn't raise that analogy you twerp. Once again you display your lack of comprehension and critical thinking skills. As for abuse, you are the one who continually abuses Feynman.
Whatever, there are more important things than arguing with a fool like you. That isn't abuse but a statement of fact and we have had numerous data points to support that fact.
Colorado Bob is a frequent poster at Climate Progress and gets a mention in the comments thread here:
Climate Denial Crock of the Week
That link to Colorado Bob's site is worth a visit and the video embedded in that thread post Pickaxe - The Cascadia Free State Story is worth a watch and harks back to that discussion of 'old growth forests' early on in an earlier topic thread here.
I have to say at this point , would any of the Jonarse Collective (of whom GSW is but a minor carbuncle), if they were asked to swallow a pill with a >95% confidence in the probability that it would kill them, do so?
I strongly suspect, if they were rational ( a major assumption) they would not. Yet Curry says hey, it's maybe not 95% and they swallow that willingly. Problem is, she's never produced the work to back up her assertions so they can only be relying on their blind faith in her and wishful thinking.
Unlike informed folk.
I did.
And GSW couldn't even manage the relatively simple task of relating it correctly.
It almost goes without saying that he missed the point entirely - his whole position critically depends on doing that day in, day out...
Aye chek, and then there is Lindzen ever searching for that 'Crock at the end of the rainbow' that would support low climate sensitivity. Of course apart from the other SFUDs (spreaders of fear, uncertainty and doubt) mentioned up thread, who at present are organising their escape from public scrutiny or worse, there are always the Pielkes to entertain us with their comic tragedy acts. Comic arguments but with tragic consequences. It read that Snr has withdrawn his blog seemingly to prevent others upturning his apples and spoiling his pie.
"asserting that the earths climate is “like a car”"
So you're saying that there is no such thing as an analogy, git-boy?
To be fair, Griselda has told us they're a ten-a-penny denier "science" specialist, whereas understanding analogies could be said to stray into the fields of philosophy and literature, and I've never, ever mistaken them for a polymath.
They don't seem to manage monomath...
What would "negative dozens"-math be?
Imaginary?
On the topic of analogies, how drunk would you be with a blood alcohol content of 0.0391%? How could a trace chemical could never have an appreciable effect on a human.
Good one Anthony I found this description, which could go far to explain GSW's attitude and behaviour:
here which value range is close to your 0.0391 BAC with the explanation of BAC
here .
And now for something completely different, cue a Python .
Yesterday evening on Virgin Media Channel 230 National Geographic was screened an hour on the origins and effects of Hurricane Sandy. Unfortunately I was sidetracked whilst on and only managed the first five minuets and the last five. But then much of the story has become familiar in the time since.
The point is that the narrator narrated near the end these memorable words, 'Not all scientists agree on what causes climate change.'
Sheeesh! I have never heard that line before, I don't think.
It seems that the media cannot help themselves. This could be the National Geographic's War on Science.
And another thing.
Well it looks like 'the fix' is in as announcements are made that consumers are to foot the bill for a move to renewable power sources, thus making an essential technology move unpopular with the public at large. I wonder what all those NIMBYs who fought against the modern wind pylons feel about their views now hat it is under water?
It is high time people joined the dots and realised that more warming and 'climate weirding' (Ugh!) is in the pipeline even if we stabilise atmospheric GHG levels at today's values. This is the part of reality that the likes of Lindzen has tried to wave away with his low-climate sensitivity malarky. It is notable that Peter Lilley was in Lindzen's audience earlier this year he and Lawson's GWPF are pushing this ball along I am sure.
Here, according to Roger Harrabin at the side of this article Energy Bill: Households to fund £7.6bn green investment:
If Osborne thinks that gas prices in the future are going to be cheaper in the future, how is this going to happen? If he is considering fracking then he is fracking deluded and has missed the studies revealing the problems surfacing, literally in some cases with methane seeping from the ground in sizeable amounts around workings, in North America.
Of course he could be considering reviving the ancient processes of getting 'town gas' from cheap coal from e.g. Australia (thanks Gina 'no-heart' Rinehart). I am old enough to remember 'gas-works' in every conurbation indeed followers of cricket still have a memento from that period with that famous 'Gas-works end' at The Oval.
Fracking, Town-gas or both it will be good bye to Britain reaching mandatory GHG targets - what then oh George 'Wizard-of-Oz/Machiavelli' Osborne.
PS. It looks like Gina Rinehart has launched a book.
Just to add emphasis to my post above Climate Denial Crock of the Week has a must watch video up:
Climate Change: Do the Math .
And your answer to all that GSW & Co. is...?
And another underline for the points in the two posts above, another bill falls due as Gulf oil platform West Delta Echo explodes and is captured on video .
And your answer to all that GSW & Co. is…?
With an inconsistency and contradictory logic that doesn't so much as ripple their cognitive dissonance, their argument will be that the warming is not anthropogenic. When they're not swearing blind it's cooling globally.
They're entirely consistent in evading admission of responsibility.
GSW: "...real world data trumps everything, right?"
I'm thinking he isn't referring to ALL the real-world data, but instead to carefully cherry-picked snippets of it.
GSW: "...The simple fact is, we are just not observing anything like the near 1C/decade increase in temp anomaly that would be required for this even to be plausible. Past decade performance is around the “bugger all” mark"
Yes, indeedy. Let's base our projection on a decade's data that is convenient to our contention.
I could get the hang of this "real world data" thing.
If I were a liar, that is.
You can see that in GSW's implied position that "past sea level hasn't risen fast enough to be a concern, because the only prediction I will countenance is the future extrapolation of past trends - and the fact that taking into account all the other data leads to a very different prediction shall not be spoken of to me".
Hence my analogy about the folly of the car driver ignoring all the other data and only extrapolating from past trends...
Story on The Atlantic:
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/11/5-charts-about-cl…
As I sit here awaiting the next onslaught from the energised weather systems that have been battering and flooding large parts of the UK (I wonder how Duff is fairing in Bath, Somerset UK IIRC from a comment of his recently) I came across this post at Climate Central As Sea Ice Declines, Winter Shifts in Northern Alaska. Weather it may be but most certainly not the sustained weather we are used to and considering the record over the last decade this IS Climate Change.
Anybody who is still refusing to see this is either deluded or mendacious and Arthur C Smith III in the first comment at the above makes the point clear.
Marine scientist warns we're living on borrowed time
Findings reveal world's major river systems remain under pressure
lExtensive dissolution of live pteropods in the Southern Ocean
Crikey reports that the Carbon Tax is more popular than Tony Abbott.
Just got round to reading the links in your posts Bernard.
I can't help wondering how deniers explain this as a 'natural variation' in acidification, or what possible mitigation strategy there can be to even attempt to decelerate let alone prevent ecological damage on such an unprecedented scale.
Ignore and pretend it isn't happening would be my guess.
An increasingly worrying trend is that the ecological web of the oceans is breaking down as evidenced by the increasing numbers of jelly fish and micro-organism blooms producing expanses of 'slime' where once healthy reef systems supported the nurseries of those larger oceanic organisms on which much of the diet of the world relies.
If you are into sushi then I hope you won't mind the substitute of the box jelly or three.
I recall reading some time ago (Naomi Klein perhaps, or Colin Tudge) of the unsustainable harvesting practices for prawn. With bottom dredging literally ripping the heart out of other spawning and breeding grounds and prawn farming that is ever on the move along Indian Ocean coastlines as each area in turn becomes too toxic through the farming methodologies used on grounds of maximising short term profits. Rather like the way that slash and burn farming in tropical forests destroys the fabric of the ecologies there.
Humanity surely has developed the Midas touch with a vengeance gold tomorrow no food thereafter.
And yet the troll collective don't see this.
But we should be pleased as this clearly means that sea water will become more potable as it reduces its salinity.
BTW That is Curtin raiser sarcasm if you didn't grok that GSW & Co.
Maybe Curtains thinks it goes like seaside chips from the chippy: they taste much better if you put *vinegar* on them as well as salt.
Coral degradation, crown-of-thorns is a big problem on the GBR which should be controlled but The 27–year decline of coral cover on the
Great Barrier Reef and its causes PDF
Emissions from thawing permafrost - this feedback effect is not included in the IPCC AR4 modelling (or they say even AR5) but probably already happening on a larger scale and faster than anticipated and the feedback is "irreversible on human timescales".
Uh oh...
It's been mentioned many, many times before, but now it seems that this particular elephant is starting to take up more space in the room than previously acknowledged.
Ha! Beaten by Lotharsson.
Refresh, refresh, refresh.
Is it just me, or is the flow of climate science news the last few months almost entirely on the downside? I can't recall too many "good news" surprises, but there have been a number of "that's not good" revelations.
It's because there is no good news.
Whilst the media have painted several ecological disasters in places their readership doesn't live or care about (coral reefs, russia, asia) as nothing indicative of a problem, they're not able to do the same when it comes to tribulations of places their readership lives.
11/9 bombers? In the scheme of things (cf Israel, Spain, Germany and UK/EIRE), nothing unusual. But hyped up to galactic catastrophe.
Now that the same place is being battered with storms and the businesses are now finding that they are now facing a huge bill of clean-up, the weather is NOW a catastrophe.
"Good news" takes the form of this sort of thing:
http://www.smh.com.au/national/state-launches-island-wind-farm-plan-201…
Only about 20 years too late, but at least we're finally making a start.
Just more evidence that the dimwits on the denial thread have their heads well and truly stuck up their ar***:
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/11/26/1219981/new-scientist-7-rea…
Its also been revealed that autumn temperatures along the Alaskan Arctic coastline are 8-15 C above the long-term average; hardly surprising given the record minimum ice recorded in the Arctic this year. And for the first time in recorded history, the entire Arctic coastline of Alaska was ice-free at the beginning of November. This is incredible. Shocking. And its even more shocking that the denier dregs write their prurient nonsense about the 'science being settled' (in their favor). Actually they are correct: in reverse.
"prurient"?
They're weird, but not that weird, surely?
I dunno, they're pretty weird! 'Onanistic', perhaps? ;-)
Speaking of which, GSW hasn't given us any output yet today.
Be thankful for small mercies ;-)
I think they're beyond weird personally... given that's transpired across the planet this year we have these goofs writing, "The science is settled [in their favor]". Talk about denial; these clowns give the word a whole new meaning.
Lotharsson
And then there is this On the Edge of Permafrost Crash .
They are going to have to factor this in RSN (real soon now) (Ap' Jerry Pournelle in BYTE) before it is game over.
What a sink-hole 'That Thread' is, they need a dose of this Whitby landslip houses to be demolished happening to them. Probably will RSN.
In some ways if it collapsed today it would be a better thing than if it collapsed in 30.
30 years is too short to change enough to undo the damage and at least we'd be able to take these denialist arseholes and shove them in a boat to Pakistan to house-swap with the refugees from flooding there.
I agree with Wow. Norman Myers argued several years ago that, given the reticence of our species to act until there are massive systemic disruptions (by which time it will be late to do anything), perhaps all we can hope for are regional effects that become so frequent that they can't be ignored, but leave a sliver of time for some hope that we can avert the worst repercussions.
More for the deniers to chew on:
http://www.channel4.com/news/shrinking-ice-rapid-rate-of-polar-melt-rev…
These dolts are being vanquished by the empirical evidence, yet for some strange reason their heads are still firmly stuck you-know-where...
David Duff.
Please do share - what's the climate doing right now in your corner of the world?
If this were a just world he'd be too busy sand-bagging to answer your query, Bernard.
In this letter to the editor Monckton claims:
http://www.dailyadvertiser.com.au/story/1138635/letter-allegations-or-i…
I know he has misled about being APPOINTED (in reality registering) as an IPCC expert reviewer, but a "review editor" is a quite different thing I believe, and is a genuine appointment is it not?
Claiming to be a "review editor" is a bare-faced lie isn't it?
"If this were a just world he’d be too busy sand-bagging to answer your query, Bernard."
As opposed to Jonas tea-bagging GSW?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/nov/29/greenland-antarctica-…
Just looked at the list of AR5 review editors and Monckton is definitely not there.
Not sure why I'm surprised at Monckton lying, I suppose I'm surprised that having been caught out lying about being 'appointed' as an expert reviewer, he goes and tells an even bigger whopper about being a review editor.
Monckton is clearly following the Hitler-Goebbels dictum (attribution?) '...people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one...'.
It's tragicomedic that people like GSW don't get that this sort of thing is like a scroll of permanent credibility removal ... only sophist anuses make such an argument, which is chock full of fallacy and intellectual dishonesty. And laziness ... attacking the title of a link is bottom-of-the-barrel intellectual sloth. It wouldn't take all that much more work to say something equally stupid and uncomprehending of the nature of empirical science about the statement from the actual report:
Sometimes someone finally encounters the evidence that will cause them to leave the bubble.
Of course the troll collective around here won't want to understand this Science Stunner: Greenland Ice Melt Up Nearly Five-Fold Since Mid-1990s, Antartica’s Ice Loss Up 50% In Past Decade, but keep trying you guys for every post you make highlights the increasing idiocy of your logic and allows us to reply and thus helping to educate any lurkers.
The only beef I have with that headline is with the word 'Stunner' for considering what I have been learning about the cryosphere breakdown is no surprise to me and I doubt it is to many here. One source is of course that James Balog Extreme Ice Survey, which for the intellectually challenged around here (GSW & Co.) is the source of the film that shocked one women out of her belief in that tin god O'Reilly - as reported by Lotharsson above.
O'Reilly is a clown, one of a troupe on Fox and beyond. Google on his name and look at some of the images that pop up. There is one, probably ph'shopped (dunno), which makes him look, what he is, ridiculous in a lime green gonad halter, do not have any food or drink in your mouth if looking and have a bucket handy.
Californians are being reminded of Atmospheric Rivers like those seen in the past and which the UK has experienced recently.
In the best traditions of David Duff here you trolls is one for you to slaver over OPEN CLIMATE LETTER TO UN SECRETARY-GENERAL: Current scientific knowledge does not substantiate Ban Ki-Moon assertions on weather and climate, say 125-plus scientists., don't say I don't think of you for you will fit right in with the commentators there.
But heck. Who needs the rest of the text with a headline like that!
Visit SkS for the pre-debunk.
Heh - the usual suspects must think they're more impresdsive as a gang. A quick perusal of the troll collective's thread here might have disabused them of that notion.
Duh - that should be 'impressive'. I may've been distracted while chortling over the Watt-a-moron level of 'scientic points' that they expect to be taken seriously.
Lionel:
They don't want to, but they do.
It's why they won't put their money where their mouths are.
I'm amazed that Duff has not been around telling everyone how cold it is in Bath (I'm in Bristol) - because I'm sure he's say how the cold means that AGW is bumpkin. sigh.
The 125 'scientists' are mostly culled from the usual band of deniers, amongst them many retired researchers. And amongst these so-called scientists are many who aren't scientists at all. Weathermen? And the scientific pedigree (publications, citations) of many of these people is pretty low, as well.
Essentially, the fact that they have to scrape the bottom of the barrel for names reveals how thin on the ground the ranks of real scientists they have on their side is.
They are desparate. 125+ including serial liar Monckton, on which topic I note the Richard Courtney appears in that list and is described as a PhD rather than a DipPhil:
http://www.desmogblog.com/richard-s-courtney
joni pondered:
There may be a clue here . Maybe duff is no longer so bullish, or boorish for that matter. On that latter we will have to wait and see.
Lionel A
Luckily where we are it is OK, but around the SW it is pretty bad at the moment and more heavy rain (and floods) are forecast for tonight.
Watch this and weep atmospheric metric tons of GHGs.
Well perhaps weeping won't help that much for Sea Level Rise Accelerating Faster than Initial Projections.
Clang!
Watch this and weep atmospheric metric tons of GHGs.
Well perhaps weeping won't help that much for Sea Level Rise Accelerating Faster than Initial Projections.
Here's where Jonas, GSW, Olaus and the other deniers break into a tantrum: it ain't so! It ain't so! There's no hugely well funded denial industry! How do we know that? Because! Because! And mostly because we refuse to read anything about it! Therefore it doesn't exist!
But of course, if one bothers to look beyond the end of their nose, particularly at the public relations industry (massive) and at the sheer number of right wing think tanks (huge and still growing), both of which receive huge amounts of money from industry, then the extent of the denial industry takes on a whole new dimension:
http://www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/index.php?ref=MjBfMTFfMzBfMTJfMV8…